Jon Roberts Page 112

By Ed Barnett

Psalm 119 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. Over and over, as you go through this chapter, you can see the importance of God’s Word. Early Adventists were known as the people of the Word. These days I get nervous because I don’t believe that statement would hold true any longer.

Notice some of the truths we can find in Psalm 119:

Verse 9: “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”
Verse 42: “For I trust in Your word.”
Verse 50: “For Your word has given me life.”
Verse 67: “But now I keep Your word.”
Verse 105: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Verse 130: “The entrance of Your words gives light.”
Verse 133: “Direct my steps by Your word.”
Verse 160: “The entirety of Your word is truth.”

Reading through Psalm 119, you can’t help but see the value the psalmist places on God’s Word. Our theology, our way of life should all come out of what the Word of the Lord says. It should be our lifeline. Could it be that when we get away from God’s Word, as God’s people study the Scriptures less and less, we get ourselves into all kinds of trouble?

It’s quite amazing that people all too often like to study what people say about the Word instead of actually studying the Word. I find all kinds of fanciful statements and ideas thrown around today by numerous pseudo-scholars who are taking and sharing statements from the numerous pages of the Internet and trying to make a theology out of them. Brothers and sisters, may I simply state that it is time for God’s people to get serious about God’s Word. All too often the church people—leaders and members—add their own limitations to the power and primacy of the Word of God. Our Christian beliefs must be built only on what the Word says, and not what we think it says.

Similarly, when we are sharing God’s Word, we must not be tempted to make people wrong when they share their views that differ from ours. We must refrain from bashing others with the Word, but open it, read it, and talk about what it says to us. As I studied Adventist church history, one particular image became apparent—a table, an open Bible, and a respectful exchange of views as to what the Scriptures said. These early Adventists discovered how Scripture explains itself as they compared what the Old and New Testaments presented. Adventist beliefs were solidified as the biblical text was prayerfully read and shared with an openness of views that was also open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. It was the discovery of Jesus and His teaching that became the foundation of our faith as believers in the “shortness of time.”

The church becomes strong as the Word of God is read and studied, rather than reading and studying what human views and opinions make it out to be.

We are living in the end of time and, if ever, now is the time we should become diligent students of the Word. In recent weeks, it was my privilege to help present an evangelistic series in Sterling, Colorado. Night after night, as we went through the simple biblical truths that our church is known for, I was encouraged to see how the presented messages took effect on the attendees. It became obvious to me that a biblical message doesn’t need to be so complicated that you have to have a Ph.D. to understand it. Among the participants was a family of four sitting at the front table. I watched as their two teenagers grasped the great truths in God’s Word. When that family came up for a call to commit their lives to God’s Church, I couldn’t have been more excited.

We all know that Satan is doing everything he can to distract from God’s Word. In my experience as a pastor, I have discovered again and again that God’s Word is the only place to go for the truth and the light that will lead you to Jesus and to life eternal.

In the the first chapter of the Gospel of John, we’re told:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (verses 1-3 and 14). Jesus is the Word and His Word will lead you to Him! RMC

–Ed Barnett is RMC president. Email him at: [email protected].

By Samantha Nelson

Recently, I broke my little toe. I can’t tell you how my little toe happened to slam into the leg of the nightstand so hard that it broke, but I can tell you that it was unmistakable —and painful! I instantly dropped to the floor in agony. Before my eyes, my toe swelled and turned various shades of blue and purple.

I reckon many of you who have had similar experiences are feeling my pain right now, and those of you who haven’t are wincing at the thought of it.

For weeks, I could not wear shoes or even walk normally because certain movements made my toe hurt intensely. I didn’t always know what type of movement would bring on the “drop-to-my-knees” pain, but I figured it out as the days passed. Who knew that a tiny, seemingly insignificant part of the body could make the entire body fully aware of its needs like that? Ah, the things we take for granted!

Amidst the pain, the Holy Spirit nudged me and brought an image to my mind. The experience I was having with my little toe is like the experience of the Church. When one part of our physical body hurts, the whole body suffers in some way. That is true in the Church as well. This Body of Believers is made up of many individual parts—little toes, if you will—and when one of them is hurt, sick, or injured, the entire Body is affected.

The Apostle Paul writes: “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. . . . And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).

As Christians, it is our responsibility, as parts that make up the whole Body, to make sure that the sick, hurt, or injured parts of our Body are receiving the care, nurture, and healing they need. After all, how can the Body as a whole be well and be all Christ intended if there is pain and sickness among its members? We have a responsibility to “bind up the brokenhearted” (Isaiah 61:1), to reach out a helping hand to those in need, to speaks words of comfort and hope in due season (Isaiah 50:4).

Will you join me in making sure the Body is as healthy and happy as possible before our Lord returns to take us Home?

–Samantha Nelson is a pastor’s wife and co-founder/CEO of The Hope of Survivors, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting victims of clergy sexual abuse and providing educational seminars to clergy and congregations of all faiths. Email her at: [email protected].

By Reinder Bruinsma

If you have not yet heard about Last Generation Theology, I predict that before too long you will. Perhaps you are not familiar with the term, but you are aware of some of the ideas that form the basis of this theological current that is rapidly gaining ground among Adventists throughout the world. Once you are aware of these ideas, you will notice them in lots of places. So, what is it all about?

The key premise of this “theology” is that before Christ’s return, there will be a “final generation” of true believers that has reached perfection and will thereby vindicate God’s character. The men and women of this final generation will show to the universe that, after all, God’s law can be kept and that Satan is wrong in claiming that God’s demands for mankind were unreasonable. Behind this assertion is the dubious argument that, since Christ was able to live without sin, it must also be possible for His followers, since the kind of humanity that Christ took upon Himself, when He came to this earth, was the same as the sinful nature of Adam after the Fall. Other ideas that are connected with these basic premises are that there will be a “shaking” to separate the true remnant, who will constitute the “last generation,” from those whose loyalty to their Lord proved inadequate. This final generation will have to survive the “time of trouble” without a Mediator, since “probation” has “closed.” More- over, by boldly proclaiming the unadulterated Advent message we can “hasten” the Second Coming.

Bible passages are cited to prove this theory, but its cornerstone is a quote from Ellen G. White’s book Christ’s Object Lessons: “Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own”

Last Generation Theology has its roots among such early Adventist leaders as A.R. Jones, E. J. Waggoner and W.W. Prescott, but found its clearest expression in the last chapter of the book Sanctuary Service2 by Milian Lauritz Andreasen (1876-1962). His ideas are forcefully promoted today by several prominent Adventist speakers and a range of independent ministries.

In this relatively short article we cannot begin to fully describe and critique all elements of Last Generation Theology. We will focus on just two aspects: (1) the concept of sin and perfection, and (2) the human nature of Jesus Christ.

What is sin? And what is perfection?

One of the fundamental flaws in the ideas of M.L. Andreasen, and of his precursors and those who currently follow in his steps, is their concept of sin and perfection. If sin were limited to a list of sinful deeds, it might just be possible to reach the point when one no longer commits these acts. But sin is more than a catalogue of misdemeanors. The Bible is indeed clear that sin is the breaking of God’s law and rebellion against the Creator (1 John 3:4). But sin also includes sinful thoughts (Matthew 5:21, 22, 27, 28). And besides the things we do, sin also has to do with things we left undone: our sins of omission (James 4:17). One of the important Hebrew words that refer to sin has the meaning of “missing the mark,” i.e. of not reaching our potential. Sin is described in no uncertain terms by Ellen G. White: “Sin not only shuts us away from God. . . . Through sin, the whole human organism is deranged, the mind is perverted, the imagination corrupted; the faculties of the soul degraded. There is an absence of pure religion, of heart and holiness.”3

Sinless perfection remains out of human reach while we are on this earth. The apostle John is adamant: Anyone who says that he does not sin is a liar. Only God is perfect (1 John 1:5, 6). Through the centuries, there has been a constant stream of perfectionists among Christians. Adventism has had more than its fair share of them. The record clearly shows that perfectionism always develops into a dry legalism that tends to be devoid of the joy of a close relationship with Christ. Experience proves the idea that sinless perfection is possible as untenable. After all, who can show us some convincing examples of fully perfect men or women?

But did not Christ tell us that we should be perfect “like our heavenly Father is perfect”? (Matthew 5:48). Biblical scholars have pointed out that the Greek word that is trans- lated as “perfect” has the meaning of “being goal-oriented” or “mature,” rather than being sinless. The parallel text in the Gospel of Luke reads: “Be merciful as your Father is merciful” (vs. 36, RSV), which suggest that true compassion is the essence of a Christian life. This explains why several people who were far from morally perfect are nonetheless referred to in the Bible as “perfect” or “blameless,” such as Noah (Genesis 6:9). Ellen White wrote to a pastor, designated as “Brother B,” about the topic of perfection:

“[Christ] is our pattern. Have you, Brother A, imitated the Pattern? I answer: No. He is a perfect and holy example, given for us to imitate. We cannot equal the pattern; but we shall not be approved of God if we do not copy it and, according to the ability which God has given, resemble it.”4 She wrote at another time: “Even the most perfect Christian may increase continually in the knowledge and love of God (2 Peter 3:14,18).” And how much clearer could she have been than in this statement: “Let not God be dishonored by the proclamation from human lips, declaring, ‘I am sinless. I am holy.’ Sanctified lips will never give utterance to such presumptuous words.”5 We must conclude that Last Generation Theology suffers from an inadequate under- standing of the nature of sin and the biblical concept of perfection.

How human was Jesus?

The view of the human nature of Christ that is vigorously defended by the supporters of Last Generation Theology also deserves intense scrutiny. The official belief of Adventists on this subject is found in Fundamental Belief No. 4:

“God the eternal Son became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Through Him all things were created, the character of God is revealed, the salvation of humanity is accomplished, and the world is judged. Forever truly God, He became also truly human, Jesus the Christ. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.” This Fundamental Belief remains silent on whether the “truly human” nature of Christ was equal to Adam’s nature before or after the Fall. For the defenders of Last Generation Theology there is, however, no uncertainty: Christ assumed the kind of humanity that Adam and Eve had after they had fallen into sin. In spite of that fallen nature, with all its sinful inclinations, Christ remained sinless. Ergo, human beings can also reach that state. This assertion requires a careful study of what the Bible says, and also a meticulous analysis of what Ellen G. White has stated.

Different Bible texts emphasize particular aspects of the nature that Christ took upon Himself. I found the best summary of the biblical evidence in an article by one of Adventism’s most esteemed theologians, in an authoritative book on Adventist theology:

“[Christ] came ‘in the likeness of human flesh’ (Romans 8:3). He took human nature in its fallen condition with its infirmities and liabilities and bearing the consequences of sin; but not its sinfulness, he was truly human, one with the human race, except for sin. He could truly say, ‘He [Satan] has no power over me’ (John 14:30) . . . Jesus took human nature, weakened and deteriorated by thousands of years of sin, yet undefiled and spotless.

‘In him,’ writes John, ‘there is no sin’” (1 John 3:5).6 When looking at the many statements of Ellen G. White on the human nature of Christ, one must inevitably conclude that they are not always totally consistent, and that some of the terms she used are open to different interpretations. Most of what she has said seems to imply a pre-fall human nature, but, admittedly, some of her statements appear to point to a post-fall human nature.7 However, a careful study will show that Ellen White saw Christ’s human nature as totally unique: “In contemplating the incarnation of Christ in humanity, we stand baffled before an unfathomable mystery, that the human mind cannot comprehend.”8

In a letter to a co-worker in Australia, Mrs. White wrote: “The incarnation of Christ has ever been, and will ever remain, a mystery. That which is revealed is for us and for our children, but let every human being be warned from the ground of making Christ altogether human, such a one as ourselves; for it cannot be.”9

Living at the end of time

There is no support for the basic ideas of a perfect “last generation,” but this does not mean there will not be people living at the end of time who are fervently expecting Jesus’ return. Even when things around them are becoming more challenging than ever before, they can rely on God’s care and protection. It is great comfort to read in Scripture that the Holy Spirit will be with us, not until the end of “probation”, but until the end of the world (John 14:16-18; Matthew 28:20).

When all is said and done, we must remember that all our knowing is always “in part” (1 Corinthians 13:9). It seems this is something many proponents of Last Generation Theology tend to forget. When it comes to divine truth “we see only a reflection as in a mirror,” and many of our questions will remain unanswered until we see the Lord face to face. We must, in all humility, echo the words of Paul: “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

–Reinder Bruinsma has served the Adventist Church in publishing, education, and church administration on three continents. He still maintains a busy schedule of preaching, teaching, and writing. He writes from the Netherlands where he lives with his wife Aafje. His two latest books are Facing Doubt: A Book for Adventist Believers “on the Margins” and In All Humility: Saying “No” to Last Generation Theology. Email him at: [email protected]

1. p. 69.
2. Publisher: Review and Herald Publ. Ass., 1947.
3. Prophets and Kings, p. 233.
4. Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 2, p. 549; italics supplied.
5. The Signs of the Times, May 23, 1895.
6. Raoul Dederen, “Christ: His Person and Work,” in Handbook of Seventh-day Adventist Theology, (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publ. Ass., 2000), pp. 164-165.
7. See Woodrow Whidden II, Ellen White on the Humanity of Christ (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1997.
8. The Signs of the Times, July 30, 1896;
9. Baker letter, see https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/6474.2000001, italics supplied.

By Zdravko (Zack) Plantak, PhD

Two recent events have made me think anew about the significance of The Present Truth as a great Seventh-day Adventist concept to reckon with in this post-truth era. The first took place at a book club where, with a dozen church theologians, I discussed a book on Last Generation Theology written by another dozen Adventist theologians. The sentiment came out clearly that we are spinning our wheels discussing the very same issues that our fore-bearers discussed before on so many occasions. Have we moved on from the very same discussions our faith fathers and grandfathers discussed? The obvious answer is “No.”

The sentiment at the end of the book club was that we need a new language and new ways to express our Adventist faith if we are to be even remotely relevant to the present day generation of believers, let alone to the non-believers and the young adults who have been leaving our midst month after month, year after year.

The second event took place over the weekend in my local church as we continued to wrestle with “compliance committees” (as per recommendation of the top leadership of the General Conference) and the issues of women in ministry. And again, the striking comments by several participants indicated that our young adults cannot fathom that we are (or why we are) still discussing issues that have been so clearly worked through by the church, and certainly by the society at large, decades ago.

Again, the feeling of spinning wheels in muddy terrain seemed the best photo-metaphor that crossed my mind as I thought about the utter irrelevance of what we do as a community. There seems to be so much “yesterday” in doing church, missing the ever-changing world, its contemporary changes and needs, and our understanding of the Gospel in today’s language and culture.

Our pioneers realized, as one church historian put it, that “the changing times had led to changing emphases. Present truth, as the early Adventists saw it, was progressive.”1 As a very dynamic concept, the present truth was not defined once and for all but had, even through the pen of early church leaders, continued to change in emphasis and in understanding. So, for example, Joseph Bates seems to have been the first to use the phrase “present truth” (as early as 1846), applied in relation to the Sabbath as well as the entire message of Revelation14:6-12.2 Several years later, James White, after noting the apostle Peter’s use of the phrase “present truth” in 2 Peter 1:12, wrote that “in Peter’s time there was present truth, or truth applicable to that present time. The Church have [sic] ever had a present truth. The present truth now,” White continued, “is that which shows present duty, and the right position for us who are about to witness the time of trouble.”3

Ellen White in later parts of her ministry claimed that “there will be a development of the understanding, for the truth is capable of constant expansion. . . . Our exploration of truth is yet incomplete. We have gathered up only a few rays of light.” And earlier she also noted that what is present truth for one generation might not be present truth, or even a “test,” for later generations.4

In a world that is so desperately ignoring the issues of truth overall, a world in which we have been bombarded with all kinds of fake-truths, dishonest claims, and a world in which “post-truth” was labeled a new “word of the year”’ by the Oxford Dictionaries, should we not stand up for a much more rigorous desire for truth to be again an important aspect of our faith and our influence in the world? Should truth still matter? And to what extent can we indeed be the faithful “prophetic community raised to bring the present truth to the contemporary world”?5

If we, as a community of faithful believers, have termed the present truth a “belief in the progressive revelation by which different biblical emphases are seen as essential at different times of human history,”6 we must wrestle with what may indeed be topics of “present,” or immediate and most essential issues of our 21st century human history and then address them in the most honest and relevant ways. In other words, what is desperately needed, as my dear friend and for many years a colleague in teaching ministry, Roy Branson, concluded, is people who speak distinctively and movingly from within Adventism to the larger community; voices who, from the core of Adventist particularity, express a universal message for our time; people who allow the power of the gospel to challenge those who oppress the vulnerable.7

However, when I look at our own conversation in the church today, it seems that we have forgotten our high call- ing to deliver the present truth to the world, or even to each other. It seems that we continue turning the wheels in the same muddy holes and ignore the needs of the society around us which is desperately heading in the direction of lies, manipulations, innuendos, and violence against women, foreigners, refugees, the LGBTQ+ community, and so many other marginalized and vulnerable people, wounded on our contemporary “roads to Jericho” and in dire need of hope and encouragement.

Might there not be a need to discover the present truth on those issues as well as issues of environmental responsibility and economic fairness? This would surely be in line with the pioneers’ idea of the present truth—that truth that is “peculiarly appropriate” in the present conditions in which the church lives and works. James White urged an earlier generation of Adventists in 1857 that “it has been impossible to make some see that present truth is present truth and not future truth, and that the Word as a lamp shines brightly where we stand, and not so plainly on the path in the distance.”8

An analogy comparing the Seventh-day Adventist Church with a new model of car, proposed by one Adventist ethicist, is useful in this context. It was suggested that a new body has been fitted to an old chassis without much having been done to redesign the engineering of the vehicle. The question is whether the car will function efficiently under modern road conditions. Some believe that the future of the car is in the export market, others think that it will become a collector’s item.9

If the church desires to stay effective on the road and does not want to become a collector’s item, or even worse, an item that gathers rust and dirt and eventually falls apart, it must find contemporary relevance. And the only way to get its engineering adjusted to the use of unleaded petrol and other modern essentials to make it fit for the road is to address issues of life and death, and therefore issues of social ethics. “In this way,” as I argued before, “it is in line with the pioneers’ idea of “present truth”—that truth that is “peculiarly appropriate” in the present conditions in which the church lives and works.”10

If we honestly express our deep desire for the present truth for our age, we may not be perfectly correct and we may still need to modify our perspectives in the future in order to realize and accept the leadership of the Holy Spirit to continue to lead us into the clearer truth. But our responsibility is not to bury our heads in the sand as ostriches and ignore the issues that surround us in our day and age.

Worse, it may even be irresponsible of us to continue wheel-spinning on the issues that seem to have considerable relevance to the present and keep on arguing “yesterday’s” issues (such as sinlessness of the last generation, standing before God without a mediator, or whether women should be kept from exercising leadership positions in mission and ministry of the church) with the church’s energy, time, and money as if the Lord’s coming depends on those, while ignoring what may truly be putting back the “present” into The Present Truth.

If we do so, we may be following the desires of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide author (May 2018) who expressed it in the following way: “As Seventh-day Adventist Christians, we believe in the biblical concept of ‘present truth’ (2 Pet. 1:12). It’s basically the idea that God unfolds truth to humanity at the time it is needed, with more and more light being given by the Lord over the ages.”11

May we ask, what is God planning to unfold through us to the world in times such as these?

–Zdravko (Zack) Plantak, PhD, is professor of religion and ethics at the School of Religion at Loma Linda University. Email him at: [email protected].

References

1. George R. Knight, “Adventists and Change” Ministry, (October 1993): 11. [https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1993/10/adventists-and-change].
2. Joseph Bates, The Seventh Day Sabbath a Perpetual Sign (New Bedford, Mass.: Press of Benjamin Lindsey, 1846), p. 2; A Seal of the Living God (New Bedford, Mass.: Press of Benjamin Lindsey, 1849), 17.
3. James White, in The Present Truth, (July 1849): 1. Reprinted in “The Present Truth & The Spirit of Prophecy,” The Sabbath Sentinel 45: 8 (August 1993): 4-7.
4. Ellen G. White Manuscript Releases, vol. 5, p. 201; vol. 3, 258-259; see Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 2, 693.
5. Zdravko Plantak, The Silent Church: Human Rights and Adventist Social Ethics, (Macmillan Press, 1998), 206.
6. Ibid., 154.
7. Cited by Charles Scriven, “Radical Discipleship and the Renewal of Adventist Mission,” Spectrum 14:3 (December 1983): 11.
8. James White, “A Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Present Truth,” Review and Herald, (December 31, 1857): 61.
9. Michael Pearson, Millennial Dreams and Moral Dilemmas, (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 277-278.
10. Plantak, 137.
11. Sabbath School Lesson, Lesson 8, May 19-25, 2018. [https://absg.adventist.org/assets/public/files/lessons/2018/2Q/ SE/PDFs/EAQ218_08.pdf].

By Loren Seibold

I have a pastor friend who urged his congregation to join formally as partners with a local ecumenical helping agency. You know the sort of thing: used clothing, household goods, food closet, all run by an alliance of local congregations working together. My friend, like me, had grown up in a church with an active Dorcas society, but his observation now was that the world had changed, the congregation was doing fairly little for those in need, and so much more could be accomplished by working in league with others than the congregation could accomplish on its own.

Some objected to the idea of a working relationship with other Christian churches. One concern was about who got the credit. “We should have our name on everything we do,” they said. Showing our brand is more important, they seemed to say, than what we get done.

Another objection was related, but somewhat more critical. It had to do not with us, but with them. “We’re not sup- posed to be yoked with unbelievers,” they said. The pastor argued that the other churches they were working with were hardly unbelievers: even the Roman Catholics who were part of the ministry worshipped Jesus. “OK, pastor, now about that,” a few said, “that’s our main objection, right there. Maybe we can work with Baptists, maybe with Methodists. But Roman Catholics?” In any case, they said, there was nothing to be gained, and perhaps a great deal to be lost, by rubbing shoulders with these people.

Alliances

Although we Seventh-day Adventists have a fairly orthodox Protestant theology—note the number of hymns and gospel songs by other Christians that we sing without any alteration—we have always been a bit off to the side from the rest of Christians. Beyond the matters of schedule (our day of worship is a day before theirs, and we keep it with a devotion that few Sunday-keepers do) and food (our dietary restrictions have made us reluctant to partake of others’ hospitality), there is another factor that lies behind this: we are a little afraid of other Christians. Ellen White’s condemnation of Roman Catholicism and apostate Protestantism has always made us feel it’s dangerous to be part of the wider Christian community. This has left us feeling we are not in alliance, but in competition, which leaves little room for cooperation.

Some of us (though I think this view is fading) go so far as to assert that other Christians are so in error that their profession of faith in Christ is worthless—and that we alone will be saved. Others dislike the word “ecumenical,” assuming that anything it describes is inevitably compromising. Why would we, then, be willing to work in this context? The question has come up with reference to ecumenical community church services, welfare agencies, missions, and medical work. When other Christians do things together, we’re off to the side doing our own thing. (We have even been known to take resources that other Christians have developed and recreate them under our own name.)

A working principle

I think we’d all agree that there are certain things we must do for ourselves if we are to be true to our faith. We wouldn’t ask a dispensationalist Bible scholar to teach our students eschatology nor a Roman Catholic to teach them ecclesiology. Most all of us would, appropriately, balk if doctrines that are opposed to our well-founded Fundamental Beliefs were preached from our pulpits.

But our question here is whether working with other Christians is always wrong. I don’t think it is.

Suppose you have an accident along the road, and the car has rolled on its side. You manage to crawl out, but there are still people trapped in the car, and you need to push it back down so people can get out before leaking gasoline starts a fire.

A crowd of motorists stops to help you. Are you going to ask them their religious pedigree before you let them help you rescue the people in the car? Unlikely. You’re going to say, “OK, everyone, gather at this part of the car, and help me roll it back onto its wheels.”

That’s an extreme example, of course, but it is instructive. There are certain kinds of tasks that so desperately need to be done, with such urgency, that we would work with anyone to see them finished.

So perhaps our need to work in alliance with other Christians should be measured by the urgency of the tasks God wants us to do.

More questions

This principle doesn’t answer all of the questions, of course; it may even raise a few more. But it’s worth thinking about. Is helping the poor, for example, something that can wait? I don’t think the poor would think so. I wonder how Jesus would see the argument that helping people to survive is less important than not having to share the credit with those from another Christian tribe?

As for being frightened of other Christians, I’d argue that we’ve done wrong by discounting the genuineness of other Christians’ spirituality. I’m remembering the disciples telling Jesus that someone outside of their group was healing mental illness (casting out demons) in His name. They surely expected Jesus to march over and rebuke the man. Instead, Jesus rebuked the message-bearers. “He’s not working against us, he’s working with us,” Jesus said (Luke 9:49-50).

Perhaps the worst disservice we’ve done by keeping so much to ourselves is to ourselves. First, it conveys either conceit or insecurity on our part, neither of which is an attractive quality. Is our faith not strong enough to stand up to that of others? Second, it puts us out of reach of them, but it also puts them evangelistically out of reach of us. Isolation is rarely a strategy for spiritual or organizational growth.

We human beings are by nature tribal: we join ourselves into groups where we establish and confirm our identity, and sometimes separate ourselves from other groups. My question is whether our tribe should be Seventh-day Adventism or Christianity. Given the powerful influence of the world “out there,” I’d suggest that we and other Christians have more common enemies than we have differences between ourselves—which means to me that we needn’t agree with everything other Christians believe in order to work with them on shared concerns.

–Loren Seibold is a pastor in Ohio and executive editor of Adventist Today magazine and website. Email him at: [email protected]

By Andy Nash

From the Adventist Church’s earliest days, we’ve always said our only creed is Scripture.

One reason early Adventists felt nervous about creeds was because they’d been kicked out of other churches for breaking them. “The first step of apostasy,” said John Loughborough, “is to get up a creed, telling us what we shall believe. The second is to make that creed a test of fellowship. The third is to try members by that creed. The fourth is to denounce as heretics those who do not believe that creed. And, the fifth, to commence persecution against such” (“Doings of the Battle Creek Conference,” Review and Herald, October 5 and 6, 1861).

But it wasn’t just “living up” to a creed that had early Adventists concerned. They were also concerned about “living down” to a creed. What if new light became avail- able? Would a creed prevent us from walking in the fullness of God’s blessings? “Making a creed,” added James White, “is setting the stakes, and barring up the way to all future advancement. . . . The Bible is our creed. We reject every- thing in the form of a human creed.”

Over time, Adventists felt increasing pressure to define a list of beliefs—to clear up misunderstandings about who exactly we were. But each list of beliefs pointed back to Scripture itself as final authority and creed.

“Seventh-day Adventists,” reads the current preamble to our 28 fundamental beliefs, “accept the Bible as their only creed and hold certain fundamental beliefs to be the teach- ing of the Holy Scriptures. These beliefs, as set forth here, constitute the church’s understanding and expression of the teaching of Scripture. Revision of these statements may be expected at a General Conference Session when the church is led by the Holy Spirit to a fuller understanding of Bible truth or finds better language in which to express the teachings of God’s Holy Word.”

Having a list of fundamental beliefs is fine in itself . . . unless we forget the source of that list. When our children grow up studying a list of beliefs about the Bible rather than the Bible itself—when they learn how to do Bible studies rather than Bible study—then we’ve departed from the spirit of our pioneers.

The earliest Adventists didn’t grow up with multiple choice questions and fill in the blanks about Adventist beliefs. They just had Scripture, and deep into the night they studied, verse by verse.

Studying Scripture for ourselves

In the spirit of our Adventist pioneers, here are three recommended ways to study Scripture for ourselves—verse by verse.

Walk through Scripture

God’s Word is meant to be savored, step by step. To begin (or renew) your walk in Scripture, here’s a pathway:

1. Select a book of Scripture, a short book such as Ephesians, Titus, or Jonah—or a longer book such as the Gospel of John.
2. Select one or two good biblical commentaries from your local Adventist or Christian bookstore—for example, a commentary specifically on the book of Ephesians. The “Exploring” commentary series by George Knight is excellent, as is the new SDA International Bible Commentary.
3. Study one chapter at a time: Ephesians 1, Ephesians 2, etc. Don’t be afraid to underline and write notes in your Bible and commentaries, interacting with God’s Word. Even better, have a weekly “meet at the text” small group; you’ll be refreshed by each other’s insights.
4. When you’ve finished your book, move on to another book, then another. You’ll begin noticing beautiful connections within God’s Word.

Run through Scripture

The prophet Daniel wrote that end time believers “shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” (Daniel 12:4, NKJV). This beautiful imagery is of believers literally running back and forth in the scrolls of Scripture. When we’ve learned how to walk in Scripture, we’re ready to run. For example, when you’ve carefully studied the book of Daniel verse by verse, you’ll be ready to study the book of Revelation verse by verse. Studying 1-2 Kings and 1-2 Chronicles, verse by verse, prepares you to study the prophets from this same time period: Isaiah and Jeremiah, Hosea and Micah.

Studying Scripture in context also helps guard against misunderstandings. For example, one of the most well-loved verses in Scripture, Jeremiah 29:11, is widely misunderstood. When God said, “I know the plans I have for you . . .,” God’s exiled people in Babylon responded not with celebration but with stunned silence. Unlike the false prophets (of Jeremiah 28), God was telling His people that they wouldn’t be going back home to Jerusalem. Instead, most of them would die in Babylon. The good news? God’s plans for His people were much greater than they ever dreamed. (See Daniel 9.)

Fly through Scripture

Along with walking and running through Scripture, there’s also a time to take flight. Instead of reading through the Bible in a year . . . how about reading through your Bible in a month?

You can do it. Reading your Bible in a month is a spiritual system shock that will change your life. The key is to read without stopping—approach the Bible like one grand story. As you fly over the windswept peaks of the Old Testament, you’ll feel yourself longing for a Messiah. The day you reach Matthew, you’ll never forget.

Reading through the Bible in a month isn’t as hard as it sounds: about 40 pages a day (divide the total pages of your Bible by 30).

When you wake up and go to bed with Scripture, when you have it for breakfast, lunch, and supper . . . God’s Word will become your daily bread. And like the earliest Adventists, you’ll never be the same.

–Andy Nash is the author of The Book of Matthew: Save Us Now, Son of David. He leads biblical study tours to the Holy Land. Email him at: [email protected]

By Nathan Brown

At the beginning of the year, I happened to be visiting a nearby church on the Sabbath a researcher was collecting local responses to the General Conference’s worldwide survey of members’ beliefs and attitudes. Interested in seeing what was being asked and happy to take the opportunity to “have a say,” I sat with a group of friends as we each worked through the near hour-long process of completing the survey.

As Sabbath lunch beckoned, our enthusiasm for the task waned with each tedious page. The questions we ask say a lot about our focus and priorities—and these questions spoke loudly, albeit monotonously. The question that most stands out in memory was a list of distinctive “Adventist” topics and how often each had been addressed in local church preach- ing in the previous year. Conspicuously absent from this list was Jesus.

We commented and grumbled to each other as we stubbornly completed the last few pages of questions. Then we returned the surveys to the researcher with some feedback on how uninspiring—even dispiriting—the process and the questions were. And then we were freed to enjoy a sunny Sabbath afternoon.

Complicating Adventism

It used to be that the Fundamental Beliefs were a useful shorthand for describing what it meant to be Adventist. With their broad engagement with the truths of the Bible and their wholistic implications for mission and for living well, most of us identified with most of them—and that seemed to work for most of the relatively short portion of our church’s history for which they have been used. The preamble to the Statement of Fundamental Beliefs functioned as a vital reminder that we may expect these statements to change from time to time, and that we should continue to seek better ways to understand and explain what we might know about God.

But it seems it is becoming increasingly complicated to be “Adventist.” This has been a trend across the history of Adventism. The earliest doctrinal statement was a few sentences, then a few key points, then a few pages, then 27, then 28, then . . .

A couple more recent examples:

In April this year, General Conference leadership issued “An Invitation to Uplift Jesus,” a 13-point guide to assessing whether a group or ministry is “authentically Adventist” in their portrayal of Jesus. Most of these 13 points had little to do with the life, teaching, or ministry of Jesus, and most of them were add-ons to the church’s official statements of doctrine.

More recently,* the worldwide headquarters of the church has established five committees to investigate questions of unity and compliance with church beliefs, policies, and practices. One or two of these committees are focused on the distinctive beliefs of the church, the remainder are tasked with investigating compliance with policy and practices among church entities and constituencies.

The forest of Adventist doctrine, policy, and practice is growing increasingly dense. Where once a stand of fresh young trees of the forest sang for joy before the Lord (see Psalm 96:12, 13), pointing always to the central tree on which He died and the tree of life He calls us to, the forest is now something we can become lost in. It seems it is harder to see the tree for the forest.

Why this trend is disturbing

Such attempts to define Adventism more tightly are distinctly anti-Adventist. Many early Adventists were rightly cautious about setting out a statement of doctrines for fear that they would become a creed that might be used to enforce uniformity, restrict freedom of thought and con- science, and stifle theological exploration and discovery.

Second, we are tempted to focus on building the walls higher. But the longer the list of doctrine, policies, and practices—especially when they are increasingly complex—used to define “Adventist,” the harder it is to get “in” and the easier it is to be defined “out.” By contrast, the Jerusalem council recorded in Acts 15 concluded that their growing understanding of the kingdom of God meant that, with the leading of the Holy Spirit, some of the peripheral and symbolic rules and practices could be discarded, that “we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (Acts 15:19).

Third, our focus must be on the center, not on the edges, which is what eccentric means—focused on something other than what’s central. Holding to a strong center is more important than building walls where we think the edge should be. Theologically, we are tempted to consider the distinctive doctrines most important, as evidenced by the survey we completed earlier in the year. It was a temptation that Jesus diagnosed in the religious leaders of His day: “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life” (John 5:39, 40). Adventism’s distinctive doctrines have biblical and historical underpinnings—but Jesus must ever be our doctrinal, devotional and practical center.

Out of the forest

He is the tree that must tower over the forests we have allowed to grow ever thicker. The complications on our path to Him are usually of our own making—or those who would conspire against us ever getting to Him. When we find Him and hear the doctrine He preached, we realize that His is a much simpler way. In many ways, more difficult—we are called to be righteous, not merely right—but so much simpler.

At the end of this long and tortuous journey, through forests, thickets, and swamps, we emerge into a clearing—or perhaps it’s a mountaintop—and find Jesus there waiting for us, shaking His head but with a smile on His face. “So you finally got here,” He says. “Not that I haven’t been with you in the forest, but I’ve been waiting quite a while. Now you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen God. So, go. Love God and love your neighbor—even love your enemies. In fact, to sum it all up, do for others what you would like done for you.”

And, in Him, we will find rest. (See Matthew 11:28–30.).

–Nathan Brown is a writer and editor at Signs Publishing in Warburton, Victoria, Australia. His recent book is Engage: Faith that Matters. Email him at: [email protected]

Bible quotations are from the New Living Translation.

*This article was written in September, before aspects of this process were to be considered at the Annual Council meetings of the General Conference Executive Committee. Whatever the outcome of these meetings, these processes and proposals are evidence of a trend being championed by some within the church toward greater complexity and the imposition of uniformity in the name of unity.