| Author | Message | ||
| Patti |
Well put, Chyna! You have a very refreshing way of expressing things. I enjoy your posts muchly! :) You said, "sometimes veggie, sometimes not." That pretty much expresses my personal life. In fact my sister-in-law (whose husband, my brother, is an SDA minister) thinks it is funny that I, 20+ years removed from SDA influence, still at times, make my own gluten steaks and follow other eating habits that I was raised with. If the truth were known, the amount of meat that I eat is probably miniscule when compared with "normal" diets; I will sometimes go days and days on veggies and breads alone. I just don't give it a second thought. I eat and am grateful; there have been times in my less affluent days that I felt lucky that we had rice and beans. In my childhood, I sat, puzzled, when some of my SDA peers would say that they would starve to death before taking a bite of pork. Do I need to point out the conflict here? If it is merely a health issue, as many SDAs claim, then it is any more healthy to be DEAD than to eat some unclean meat, for heavens' sake? I am with Paul on this one: The kingdom of heaven is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of peace and righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit. Thanks again, Chyna! Grace and peace, Patti | ||
| Chyna |
thanks patti, i've enjoyed how your posts stay close to the word of God. in acts they solely used scripture to preach the gospel of God and it was sufficient, likewise :) in these matters. everything should be put under the lens of the gospel message because it is what the entire Bible is focused on. the gospel says we are saved by grace, the greatest commandment says we are to love God and love our neighbor. the bible says by loving our neighbor we love God. there is no room in there for discipline of the diet, exercise, or observing days. in fact the Bible says that physical exercise is useless compared to getting fit spiritually :). is God glorified by eating vegetables and fake meat? yes, one sad note. i read about an SDA who starved to death because he was so confused about what was clean and unclean to eat. sorry i don't remember the source, but it seems like the ultimate tragedy for the 'health msg' of adventism. in Him, Chyna | ||
| Patti |
Chyna wrote: everything should be put under the lens of the gospel message because it is what the entire Bible is focused on. Patti: Amen, Amen, and AMEN!!!! The Gospel is THE standard. Chyna: the gospel says we are saved by grace, the greatest commandment says we are to love God and love our neighbor. the bible says by loving our neighbor we love God. there is no room in there for discipline of the diet, exercise, or observing days. Patti: As I told my SDA minister brother: When I have learned to truly love my neighbor as myself (this is quite tough, because I have some REALLY ORNERY neighbors! :) THEN, and only then, will I worry about what I eat, etc. Chyna: in fact the Bible says that physical exercise is useless compared to getting fit spiritually :). Patti: So true. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us! Grace and peace always, Patti PS I may have missed it, but did you tell us your personal denominational background? | ||
| Susan |
My computer has been down for a bit. This seems to be a heated discussion, so I would just love to jump in! I am a meat lover! I also love a good glass of wine! But my mind is clearer now then it ever was as an SDA!!! My husband often jokes to me that some of my uptight SDA relatives, could really use a great big steak and a couple of drinks! I not only believe EGW was a false prophet, but that her messages were from Satan. I also believe adventism to be a cult. I believe Satan can use even good messages (health reform) to take the focus off of Christ. And boy, that's what vegetarianism can do!!! It wouldn't surprise me if hundreds of people, that my family alone has come in contact with, were turned off from adventism by this one issue alone. We always looked like the weird ones (not special or set apart) for having to bring our own food to different functions. It's kind-of like being JW kids who can't celebrate holidays. People always feel sorry for you and you stand out as geeky. Christians are to stand out because the love of Christ lives in us. We're suppossed to stand up for what's morally right (like the sanctity of life!!!) not stand out for preaching a "special gospel" (like health reform or the sabbath). We are to preach Jesus Christ and Him alone. Yes, the same Jesus who ate the passover lamb and seafood. Please don't give me any lame SDA excuses for these! Believe me, I've heard them all. I can respect those who chose to be veggies for some reasons. Perhaps they don't like certain things, or they are protesting the treatment of animals. But I'm sorry. I can't even comprehend that meat eating could be tied to one's spiritual growth. This is appauling to me. It is an absolute diversion from the true gospel. Enjoying all of the blessings of this life, Susan | ||
| Chyna |
patti and susan :) it cheers my heart to know you guys are online the same time as me. incidentally, my real name is joy. patti: i am a member of a southern baptist church, have been in the church since i was a babe and praise God b/c of it. when i was five i decided to go and pray the salvation prayer by myself. in jr. high i was convicted to rededicate myself to God. it was the story of the prodigal son, and the image of God, the Creator of the Universe, running to me? Him? that inspired that. i left for college, and for the past four years and got introduced to so many other denominations. i recently graduated with my B.A. in English ;) can you tell? my concentration was Writing Poetry, but on the other hand I am applying to medical school now. receiving many blessings, I attended a nondenominational church and i was convicted that nondenominational is the way to go :), as well as racial reconciliation within the church. returning this summer to the church i grew up in, I thank God that it is a church that is FIRMLY rooted in the word. especially after my experience with my SDA b/f and reading the internet seeing how there is so much perverted doctrine going on, it makes my heart sick. on one hand i understand that when one is taught something from they are young they can become easily blinded to the truth, on the other hand i get very outraged that false doctrine is preached! i get so mad that in Adventism there can be some Adventists believe that they will be judged by their deeds in the end, and other Adventists don't believe that all, but there is no accountability in the church for the doctrine being spread! God is going to hold those responsible for espousing false doctrine. I forgot what verse it was, but it said that TEACHERS are more accountable than other Christians because of the effect of what they teach. anyway, i am here because of my breakup with my SDA b/f. i was so hurt and confused, unable to understand that Christian does not mean Christian in the Adventist church, that some Christians cling to the title of their denomination as if that meant salvation instead of the work of Christ. anyway, enough about that. i love dumplings (chinese kind, korean kind, and japanese kind) and the best ones, i have to say are pork and cabbage with homemade wrappers. ;), everything that is good is from God. so hurray for yummy food. content in Christ, Chyna | ||
| Chyna |
dear susan :), again you are such a blessing, it's wonderful to hear your personality jump out from your posts. love, Chyna | ||
| Chyna |
there is going to be a banquet in heaven. i'm wondering what the apostles will wanna eat, after all they were fishermen ;) heehee | ||
| Patti |
You know, Jesus ate fish in His resurrected body... But then, I suppose, He didn't have Ellen to tell Him it was bad for Him. :0 | ||
| Breezy |
He also didn't have toxic waste and other garbage being dumped into the water. Ellen must have seen SOMETHING coming. I still don't believe that fish or any other meat will be at the banquet because there will no be anymore death or suffering. Don't tell me that little fish didn't suffer. Chyna: I love chinese egg rolls. In case you didn't read above, I still struggle with the meat issue. Eat a little, eat it not, usually when presented with a chicken and cabbage egg roll( not to mention General Tso's chicken and orange chicken) I cave completely.:) This is what I mean by my posts being misunderstood. Pork isn't bad, just the worms.:) :) :) | ||
| Larimobley |
Dear Wendy, As someone who also appreciates good worm humor, I hope you and I can be friends even though I don't agree with you about EGWhite. (And since I occasionally eat the worms, too, the joke's not only on me, it's in me!) I'm sure this is covered in better detail under another discussion, but the some of prophecies of EGWhite you refer to (one-world government, buying/selling issues) are also in the Bible, so of course they will come to pass. Many Christians look to these things and see signs of the times. The Bible tells us that the test of a true prophet is that he/she is correct 100% of the time (not even 99% will do). So I'll dispense with Ellen and stick w/the Bible. Maybe we can have veggie egg rolls at the marriage supper of the Lamb--I love them, too. Hey, we'll be with Jesus--how bad could the food possibly be? In His grace, Lari | ||
| Breezy |
Lari, Ha, Even funnier worm humor! I love it! I can't wait till the supper because I bet Jesus is going to have such fantastic food we can't even imagine it! All this talk of egg rolls is killing me. I'm stavin'. Definitely love to be your friend, Wendy | ||
| Larimobley |
Dear Chyna, Congratulations on your B.A. in English and good luck in med school. I, too, was an English major--B.A and M.A. from an Adventist university--but my poetry absolutely stinks. (Hopefully, I will do an adequate job with my prose here on this forum.) I really appreciate your posts and insights as someone with close contact to Adventism, but not a part of it. I, too, attend a nondenominational church now and have learned how much false doctrine there is out there. SDAs certainly do not have a corner on that market. As an Adventist I remember how confused I was about so many doctrines and religion in general. Things just didn't make sense to me, but I never thought to look outside the SDA church at that time because I had been taught that the SDA church had the most truth. I was suspicious at that time of any church that didn't have the Sabbath truth. It's a long, long story how I finally got where I am, but I praise God that religion and the gospel now make sense to me. I can read the Bible and the Bible alone--just me and the Holy Spirit and no EGWhite or commentaries--and get a blessing. I no longer feel like I'm banging my head against a wall trying to understand things. And I have a great, Bible-teaching nondenominational pastor to thank for that. Isn't the Holy Spirit amazing? It's great to have you as part of this forum. In His grace, Lari | ||
| Larimobley |
Okay, Wendy, now you're making me hungry, too. I think my favorite thing about the food is Heaven is that it's not going to make us fat, right? I hope you're with me on that one. Can't say as I've had any worms today, but I did have a Big Frank for lunch. Yes, I still do the veggie meat thing too--love those Big Franks. Hope that doesn't make me schizophrenic. At least we know that those little glutens didn't feel a thing... Off to bed now; it's past my curfew. In His grace, Lari | ||
| Breezy |
Lari, Boy me and my extra 10 pounds with each of three children are definitely with you on that one. I love Big Franks. I bought a whole case of them a month ago. Thank goodness we can be assured that noone will be picketing outside our offices with "Save the Gluten" signs. :) God be with you and have a good rest, Wendy | ||
| Loneviking |
Egads!! Big Franks? (shuddering all over!) Give me the worms with a Polish sausage with lots of grilled onions and bell peppers included and keep that Big Frank far away!!! | ||
| Ken |
Hi Chyna: I have a friend that is also raised Baptist, we've been talking alot about the Bible and it's interpretation. I wonder if you diden't know, like he diden't know, that we received the Sabbath truth from studies with Seventh-Day Baptists! We thank the Seventh-Day Baptists greatly for this truth. Ken | ||
| Chyna |
hi ken, that is true, SDA became SDA from the influence of SDB's :), but as you see now there are very few if any at all SDB's anymore. in Him, Chyna | ||
| Chyna |
interesting thoughts on heaven: i went to a church conference where they spoke on heaven and the speaker talked about a conversation with a little girl. she asked "can we fly in heaven?" he said yes! he said if someone asks them if there is ice cream in heaven he would say yes! that not only we would have ice cream in heaven but take the best ice cream we've ever had in our life experience and try to imagine something ten million times better than that :). it gave me such a wonderful picture of heaven as opposed the the dreary ones where we just sit around all day and play harps. i'll bet that the boring image of heaven is spread as a subtle way to be like "hell isn't that bad, think how boring heaven is." i'm excited about flying in heaven, c'mon you know you want to, too anyway, my point is if someone's idea of the most delicious meal in the world is steak, they're going to have the best steak in eternity in heaven. it is true there will be no suffering/death, but couldn't you imagine meat from God that didn't come from suffering or death? God is the Creator of the Universe, He isn't bound by any of our human limitations. He created fish and bread by His power (i know some adventists think he didn't distribute fish) but the point is God didn't sit around and mix the flour and make dough and then gave it out, He willed it into being. the funny thing to me is that it doesn't matter :) whether heaven is veggie or carnivorous, what matters is our CELEBRATION. likewise we should celebrate we have each other rather than being concerned about what we eat and what others eat. citizen of Heaven, Chyna | ||
| Chyna |
lari! i want to hear your story :), when you have time, please post it! love, Chyna | ||
| Patti |
Chyna, I have a question for you. (And this is totally off the subject, but I do not feel it is worthy of a new thread.) What is the difference in the many different Baptist organizations? You must belong to a different Baptist group than I have come into contact with (or maybe it is just the South!), but, (please no personal offense, this is just a personal observation of someone who is very squeamish about anything that even approaches sounding legalistic) the Baptists I have been involved with in this area of the country have been very legalistic--no dancing, gambling, smoking, drinking, etc. etc. As an insider, can you enlighten us? Because I hear nothing of this in what you are saying... Thanks in advance. Patti |
