| Author | Message | ||
| Jude the Obscure |
Dear Dr. Tazz, I'm going to quote the same passage from Paul for you -- Colossians 2:13-19, NIV -- for a third time and then ask you more questions. Are you still out there reading this site? "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. HE forgave us all our sins, having CANCELED THE WRITTEN CODE, WITH ITS REGULATIONS, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; HE TOOK IT AWAY, NAILING IT TO THE CROSS. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. THEREFORE DO NOT LET ANYONE JUDGE YOU BY WHAT YOU EAT OR DRINK, OR WITH REGARD TO a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a SABBATH DAY. THESE ARE A SHADOW of the things that were to come; THE REALITY, however, IS FOUND IN CHRIST. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the THE WORSHIP OF ANGELS disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the hole body, supported and held togethert by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow." ******* Q U E S T I O N S ******* I believe that the term "Sabbath day" refers to the weekly seventh-day Sabbath. The SDA Bible Commentary (SDABC) says it refers to a Jewish annual Sabbath, anologous to our Christian annual day of Christmas or Easter. You may or may not know that your own scholar Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi in his book, FROM SABBATH TO SUNDAY (pp. 6, 339, 358-360), AGREES with me and DISAGREES with your own SDABC. On page 359, for example, Bacchiocchi writes, "It is therefore linguistically impossible to interpret the latter ["Sabbath day"] as a reference to the Day of Atonement or to any other ceremonial sabbaths." Now how do YOU interpret that term? Annual or weekly? Waiting for your answer, Jude | ||
| Jude the Obscure |
Dear Dr. Tazz, I'm going to quote the same passage from Paul for you -- Colossians 2:13-19, NIV -- for a fourth time and then ask you still more questions. Ready? "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. HE forgave us all our sins, having CANCELED THE WRITTEN CODE, WITH ITS REGULATIONS, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; HE TOOK IT AWAY, NAILING IT TO THE CROSS. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. THEREFORE DO NOT LET ANYONE JUDGE YOU BY WHAT YOU EAT OR DRINK, OR WITH REGARD TO a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a SABBATH DAY. THESE ARE A SHADOW of the things that were to come; THE REALITY, however, IS FOUND IN CHRIST. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the THE WORSHIP OF ANGELS disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the hole body, supported and held togethert by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow." ******* Q U E S T I O N S ******* The footnote in the NIV Study Bible has this to say about the shadow v. the reality: "The ceremonial laws of the OT are here referred to as shadows (cf. Heb 8:5; 10:1) because they symbolically depicted the coming of Christ; so any insistence on the observance of such ceremonies is a failure to recognize that their fulfillment has already taken place. This element of the colossian heresy was combined with a rigid asceticism, as vv. 20-21 reveal." Don't you agree that your personal insistence, as well as the insistence of the Seventh-day Adventist church and its people generally, on the observance of the Seventh-day Sabbath constitutes "a failure to recognize that their fulfillment has already taken place"? In other words, don't you agree that you personally, and your church generally, deny the complete fulfillment of the law by Jesus Christ? Remember, Dr. Tazz, this is no minor point. This is the precise heart of the gospel. The world of Christian biblical scholarship has never taken SDAs to task for keeping the Sabbath. They have only taken SDAs to task for insisting that all Christians must observance of the seventh-day Sabbath on the ground that the shadow has NOT met its fulfillment in Christ. Where do you stand? And why? Waiting patiently, Jude | ||
| Plain Patti |
Dear Jude, Remind me never to be on the side opposite you. You are formidable! :) Grace and peace, Patti | ||
| Colleentinker |
Wow--I miss a lot when I'm teaching Romeo and Juliet (in Elizabethan English) to ninth graders who have trouble understanding a simple short story from Guidposts magazine! Patti, Jude, Lynn, Susan--you are so articulate! I have to say that I find myself repeatedly astonished when I hear Adventists respond to our declarations of our own experiences and research. I have heard the same types of reactions in person, on this forum, and in Adventist publications. Sometimes when I read or hear the defensiveness in Adventists' responses I find myself thinking; do people not realize that defensiveness almost always indicates an emotional reaction to something that threatens a dearly held but thinly supported belief? The Pharisees were defensive; Jesus, however, cut through their arguments and past their attitudes and addressed the bottom line: they were unwilling to "see" truth. His "Woe to you, PhariseesÖ" speech in Matthew was timeless. The agony of pain, rejection, and despair Jesus must have felt when he delivered that speech from the steps of the temple was incomprehensible. Truth is divisive. And Truth is not something we have. Truth Is. The Light of Truth penentrates the darkness of defensiveness and the refusal to "know". And during the times of our lives when we were (or are) hesitant to know, we were (are) defensive, too. I pray God to protect me from deception and pride. I know I'm continually confronted by them. As Patti said, this is a forum for former Adventists. Adventists are welcome, but this is not the venue to argue or to attempt coercion by the old clever intellectual tactics we all knew and used so well! Doctortazz, your questions stimulated some wonderful thinking among us! And we're not trying to shut you out! But I'd like to challenge you to try reading only the Bible for two months with absolutely no outside commentary, either EGW nor any other author. Just read the New Testament and pray for the Holy Spirit to help you to see the truth in the Word. Ask God to help you read with no preset notions. Just read with the help of the Holy Spirit. God always honors the request of an honest heart to know Himóthe Word, the Life that is the Light of humanity! It's more painful than it's possible to express to give up what has been a comfortable, womb-like existence for the sake of being loyal to Truth. But the rewards are absolutely impossible to describe to someone who has not experienced them. As Adventists we always said that Truth can bear up under investigation. If we believe that to be true, then we are duty-bound to examine everything we profess in the light of the Truth expressed in the Bible. And if we feel defensive about our beliefs, or if we feel irritated at the challenge to set everything we understand aside for a time in order to read the Bible from a clean slate, we need to see those defensive feelings as warnings that we might be holding onto tenuous beliefs. I praise God for this site and for the nurturing and support that's here. I praise God for Truth and Light and patience and love. He is Good! | ||
| Plain Patti |
Hi, Colleen, Speaking of articulate...you are pretty formidable yourself! I did not know you were a teacher. I was. I "retired"--that is QUIT--2 months ago. I love teaching, but I cannot stand the politics. Have you experienced any of this? That we are encouraged to strive for mediocrity? That excellence is neither applauded or wanted--because it might make your neighbor or your administrator insecure? Maybe it is just me. I am very happy to be at home now. A first for me. But my finger is still in the educational pie. I guess it always will be. I try to provide choral music teachers with materials to make their jobs easier. At any rate, God bless you and the work that you are doing, not only here, but with the leaders of tomorrow. (Kinda scary, isn't it :0 ) Love in Christ, Patti | ||
| Jude the Obscure |
Dear Dr. Tazz, The same passage from Paul for you -- Colossians 2:13-19, NIV -- and then more questions. I hope you haven't given up on us. "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. HE forgave us all our sins, having CANCELED THE WRITTEN CODE, WITH ITS REGULATIONS, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; HE TOOK IT AWAY, NAILING IT TO THE CROSS. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. THEREFORE DO NOT LET ANYONE JUDGE YOU BY WHAT YOU EAT OR DRINK, OR WITH REGARD TO a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a SABBATH DAY. THESE ARE A SHADOW of the things that were to come; THE REALITY, however, IS FOUND IN CHRIST. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the THE WORSHIP OF ANGELS disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the hole body, supported and held togethert by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow." ******* Q U E S T I O N S ******* Notice that the seventh-day Sabbath is not the only shadow the Jewish Christians (behaving exactly like SDA Christians behave today) were attempting impose upon the Gentile Christians at Colosse. Another shadow was food and drink. I will just arbitrarily choose one of the forbidden foods of the Torah, swine. What was more abhorrent to the Jew? What is more abhorrent to the Seventh-day Adventist? Yet Paul tells the Colossians not to let these SDA-like Jewish Christian from Jerusalem judge them for eating it. Because, forbidden foods too were only shadows pointing to Christ Jesus. In fact, let's hear Jesus for ourselves, brought to us by Mark 7:17-19, NIV: "After he [Jesus] had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 'Are you so dull?' he asked. 'Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him "unclean"? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.' (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods 'clean.')'" Question: Doesn't Ellen G. White contradict both Jesus and Paul? And in so doing declare herself to be a false prophet? If not, can you explain clearly why not? The point is not that Christians should eat honey baked ham. The point is that Christians are not to let Seventh-day Adventists tell them something contrary to what Jesus and Paul tell them. An even stronger point is the one that says, EVERYTHING in the Old Testament was a shadow pointing to Christ in some way, including forbidden foods. Do you deny that this is so? And if you do, can you explain your position? Still waiting, Jude | ||
| Jude the Obscure |
Dear Dr. Tazz, More Paul -- Colossians 2:13-19, NIV -- and then more questions. This may be the last post on this passage, but there are many more passages from which to pose more qustions for you. "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. HE forgave us all our sins, having CANCELED THE WRITTEN CODE, WITH ITS REGULATIONS, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; HE TOOK IT AWAY, NAILING IT TO THE CROSS. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. THEREFORE DO NOT LET ANYONE JUDGE YOU BY WHAT YOU EAT OR DRINK, OR WITH REGARD TO a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a SABBATH DAY. THESE ARE A SHADOW of the things that were to come; THE REALITY, however, IS FOUND IN CHRIST. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the THE WORSHIP OF ANGELS disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the hole body, supported and held togethert by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow." ******* Q U E S T I O N S ******* What does Paul mean by "the worship of angels"? Do you think it's possible that when Ellen G. White identified Jesus Christ with the archangel Michael that she was worshiping an angel? If not, then why not? But if so, then is she not violating Scripture and thus making herself into a false prophet? And even worse, expecially when claimed as a message from God, does such an assertion "disqualify" her from "the prize"? Which is eternal life in Christ Jesus? These are serious questions demanding serious answers. What do you say? Still waiting, Jude |
