Sabbath School Commentary: "Sanctuary Sleight of Hand" (May 18–24, 2024, Q2L8)

Adventist Using Psalm to Promote Sabbath (Mar 23–29, 2024)

Commentary of "Lessons of the Past" (Mar 2–8, 2024)

FAFP SABBATH SCHOOL COMMENTARY OF "I WILL ARISE" (FEB 3–9, 2024)

COMMENTARY OF "SINGING THE LORD'S SONG IN A STRANGE LAND" (Jan 27–Feb 2, 2024)

Commentary of "The Lord Reigns" (Jan 13–19, 2024)

Sabbath School Commentary of "Mission to the Unreached: Part 2" (Dec 9–15, 2023)

LESSON 10: “MISSION TO THE UNREACHED: PART1” - DECEMBER 2–8, 2023

This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.

Problems with this lesson:

• The author presents Paul as an evangelistic innovator and culturally sensitive contextualized as he preached to the Athenians.
  
  
• The author suggests that Paul expected that God would use his native gifts to preach, but it was his on the street experience that God was able to use even more.
  
  
• The lesson uses Paul in Athens to present a modern idea of evangelism—but, in fact, this story isn’t about methods or strategies.

In this lesson the agenda of Adventist evangelism reveals itself even further. The artificial divisions of demographics and how to proselytize them simply is artificial. While cultural mores are real, the bottom line that people are either dead in sins or alive in Christ is consistent everywhere. Paul was’t strategizing and trying to get people to make decisions for God.

Paul, on the contrary, knew that God is sovereign and that belief is a miracle that God does; it is not a consequence of personal decisions.

Of course, a personal decision to believe is necessary, but even this decision is given by God. He is the One who gives faith to believe.

For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God; not of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8, 9).

Paul wasn’t selling the gospel. Furthermore, the Adventists who write this Sabbath School Quarterly do not know what the simple gospel is. Adventism is always looking for new methods and programs to more effectively reach people and retain members. Like much of today’s evangelicalism, they glean ideas from conferences and current ideological educational theories, but these ideas and practices do not yield believers. They may entertain or interest people at first, but true belief comes only from facing the reality of who they are and who Jesus is.

Paul wasn’t being clever or attempting to share admiration for some of the Athenian’s beliefs and practices. Rather, he was aware that their altar to the unknown god reflected a real emptiness, an intuitive understanding that they had “missed” something and didn’t want to be guilty of ignoring a God they couldn’t identify. He wasn’t appreciating their thoroughness but was responding to their unnamed but intuitive need.

Moreover, he turned to telling the Athenians about God the Creator because this is the biblical place to begin revealing truth to unbelievers. The Bible itself begins with creation and reveals the nature of fallen man before it reveals God’s promise of a Redeemer who would crush the serpent.

The passage the lesson mentions, Romans 1:18–25, reveals that God makes Himself known to “all” through what has been made so that all are without excuse.

The reality of Jesus’ salvation accomplished by His human death for human sin and His breaking the curse of death because His sacrifice was sufficient to pay for ALL our sin—this fact is almost irrelevant apart from the founding truth that God created.

The reality of Jesus’ salvation accomplished by His human death for human sin and His breaking the curse of death because His sacrifice was sufficient to pay for ALL our sin—this fact is almost irrelevant apart from the founding truth that God created.

If God had not created us, His redemption of us in the person of His Son would not have meaning. He created all things, including us—including the angels and the rulers and authorities and the angels-turned-demons. His creation of us is what gives Him the authority to redeem us. It is what gives Him the relationship that validates His redemption of us.

The Bible itself begins with the story of creation. Paul’s teaching about the Creator was not a culturally relevant move; it was the biblical mandate following the biblical model set forth from Genesis to Revelation. Even the famous first angel’s message that Adventists say is a call to keep Sabbath is actually a reminder that the God who created us is sovereign, and He is the only One to whom valid worship can be given.

The lesson says this about Paul:

In Athens, Paul had expected that the Holy Spirit could use his knowledge and oratorical skills, which he had gained in his education under Gamaliel. But in reality it was Paul’s education on the streets of Athens that the Holy Spirit was able to use even more. “The wisest of his hearers were astonished as they listened to his reasoning. He showed himself familiar with their works of art, their literature, and their religion.”—Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 237.

This quotation reveals how significantly the author (and EGW) missed the point of Acts 17. To be sure, Paul emphasized his points by quoting the Athenians’ own poet, but the purpose was not to impress them with his knowledge and appreciate of their culture; rather, Paul’s purpose was to emphasize the “knowable-ness” of the one true God who is the creator of all things. Paul was preaching about the Creator who had the purpose and the right to judge the earth because He was sovereign over it, and he emphasized that even their own poets admitted their own impression of a sovereign god—a significant reference because their own poets admitted that they were dependent on God for existence:

“for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His offspring.’ “Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to suppose that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the craft and thought of man” (Act 17:28-29).

Even the Athenian poets understood, as Romans 1:18–25 says, that God is the Source and Creator of all things, including human life.

Once again the lesson has an inside-out view of reality. Paul was not accommodating Athenian culture or attempting not to irritate them, as the lesson said. Rather, he was using the biblical model for telling them the truth about their own origins and condition. He saw that they were very religious and eager not to offend any god, and he used that opportunity to tell them about the God they sensed was there (and whom their own poets revealed was there) but whom they did not know or understand.

Paul simply told them the truth; he was not couching his gospel-call with cultural platitudes and only going as far as they would let him; he was telling them the truth. If anything were to stop his truth-telling, he would move on; he didn’t adjust his message to fit the cultural climate.

The bottom line is that the Bible does not tell us how to contextualize the gospel. Rather, it tells us the whole truth, and we are to place ourselves under the words of Scripture, not over them. All people need to hear the real gospel of the completed atonement of Jesus and of our spiritual death which must be reversed by belief in the Lord Jesus’ finished work.

There is only one way to salvation: belief and trust in the Lord Jesus and His finished work of atonement through His death for our sin, His burial, and His resurrection on the third day according to Scripture (1 Cor. 15:3, 4).

FAFP Sabbath School Commentary Lesson 9: “Mission To the Powerful” | November 25–December 1, 2023

Problems with this lesson: 

• This lesson betrays Adventism’s infatuation with proselytizing rich and famous people and their specific attempts to make converts among them.
• The author again manipulates the readers by misinterpreting Scripture and pressuring readers to beguile powerful people into Adventism.
• The lesson portrays Jesus as our example of good evangelism instead of as God the Son revealing Himself as the Messiah.

The fact that the Sabbath School department felt the need to devote an entire week to evangelizing the rich and famous reveals that, just as they have devoted separate weeks to evangelizing the poor, the needy, and every category of people they see as distinct, they see the powerful people of society as being one strata of the culture that needs special attention.

This division of cultural categories as the lessons attempt to energize members and to teach them to hone in on demographically-specific proselytizing shows us that Adventism does not know the true gospel or understand Christian evangelism. Rather Adventism is selling a product: its worldview and loyalty to its culture. Of course, marketing a product requires strategies that appeal to target audiences, and Adventism sees itself as offering the right approach to life to all categories of people.

It’s hard to market the same product across the demographic boundaries of world cultures—but Adventism is trying to do just that. They are not only a religion that grooms prospective members by meeting their felt needs for good health and belonging, but they are a religion that secretly desires the financial support of the wealthy and the publicity of having well-known, important members.

Christianity, in contrast, is not a product. It is not a worldview that must be sold. Christianity is entirely the message that the guilt and spiritual desperation that is the common lot of all humanity has an answer: the blood of Jesus shed on the cross.

Significantly, these lessons never focus on the cross. Instead, they focus on being attractive and “caring”, on getting the public to like and trust them, and then giving them the offering of becoming part of the Sabbath-keeping remnant, the religion that prides itself on having the truth (as overtly stated on page 114 in the thought question at the end of the day’s lesson).

This lesson even uses the story of Nicodemus to demonstrate how Jesus “witness[ed] to the learned”. Tuesday’s lesson includes this paragraph:

When Nicodemus came to Jesus, he tried to maintain the façade, the status quo. But God knew his heart. Similarly, God knows the hearts and needs of all the rich and powerful, whatever their background. Nicodemus came to Jesus because Jesus’ teachings had convicted him. His pride kept him from openly confessing Jesus Christ as Lord, but that night changed him forever. Even after his conviction that Jesus was sent by God, he still did not openly acknowledge that he was a follower of Jesus Christ.

Importantly, the author reveals his Adventist misunderstanding of this story. He states that “Jesus’ teachings had convicted him.” John 3:2, however, reveals that it was not Jesus’ teachings that convicted Nicodemus. He said,

“Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him” (John 3:2).

Notice that it was Jesus’ SIGNS, not His teachings, that were compelling. In John’s gospel we learn that Jesus’ signs were the miracles He did in order to demonstrate that He was, indeed, the Messiah. The Old Testament prophecies foretold the signs that the Messiah would do when He came; He would make the lame walk, make the dumb to speak and the deaf to hear; He would open blind eyes and raise the dead to life. He would do what only God could do: bring about the reversal of nature for the glory of God!

Nicodemus knew the Old Testament; he was in no doubt about the Source of Jesus’ power. He even said that he and his colleagues knew that no one could do the signs He did “unless God is with him”.

In the Old Testament God’s prophets did miracles, and Moses had told Israel that a prophet like him was coming to whom they would need to listen. That Prophet was the Lord Jesus. In fact, three chapters after the story of Nicodemus, we find Jesus feeding the 5,000 and see the Jews’ reaction to His “bread from heaven”. They recognized that he was the Prophet Moses had foretold, but most of them did not want to believe Him.

In John 3, as Jesus speaks to Nicodemus, we learn that a great many of Israel’s scholars and religious leaders understood that Jesus’ miracles were signs of who He was, but they were unwilling to believe the implications of His signs. Nicodemus sneaked under cover of night to talk to Jesus because he was convinced that Jesus had to be the One the prophecies foretold—and he had to learn a hard lesson.

Jesus proceeded to tell him what he should have already known on the basis of Ezekiel 36: even Israelites have to be born again, being given new hearts, new spirits, and the Spirit of God in them. The law and their Jewish heritage was not all that were required of them. They couldn’t receive God’s unconditional, eternal promises until they trusted God’s own provision for their redemption.

The lesson, however, uses the story of Nicodemus to impel Adventists to deliberately seek to influence the rich and famous to embrace Adventism.

It was not Jesus’ teachings that compelled Nicodemus, and it is not Adventist teachings that fulfill the needs of either the rich or the poor. It is the finished work of Jesus on the cross, where He took the sins of the world and suffered the wrath of God to pay the price for human sin, that people need. It is literally the blood of Jesus that people need, not medical advice, lifestyle change, and the Sabbath!

Predestined to Adoption

There are many more twisted details in this lesson that could be addressed, but one demands a comment.

In Sunday’s lesson, the author writes this:

As Seventh-day Adventists, we believe in what is known as “unlimited atonement.” This means that, in contrast to some Christians, we believe that Christ’s death was for all humanity, not just a special group of those predestined by God for salvation. Because God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4, NKJV), Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice “for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2, NKJV). That’s why everyone was chosen “in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4, NKJV), even if not everyone chooses Him in return. That’s why, too, we find accounts in the Bible of all sorts of people being reached for God.

Yes. The 1 Timothy quote and the 1 John quote in the above paragraph are true. Every single thing the Bible says is true, and where we cannot reconcile seemingly opposing statements, we have to hold those things in tension because, from God’s perspective, they are not opposed. If we try to resolve the tension in Scripture, we alter the gospel.

The Ephesians quote above is out of context, and the author has inserted an application not in the text. Here is the Ephesians 1:4 in context:

Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly [places] in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved (Eph. 1:3-6).

Importantly, this passage is not being written to the world at large; it is addressed specifically to BELIEVERS, to a church in which the members have trusted Jesus and have been born again. Paul is NOT saying “everyone” was chosen in Him before the creation of the world. He is telling these believers that God chose them—“us”, as Paul puts it, including himself among the believers—in Christ before the foundation of the world. Furthermore, He predestined “us” (again believers) to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.

This is only one example of the way the author of these lessons uses Scripture illegitimately, yanking it out of context and assigning it a meaning it does not have.

We cannot explain the mystery (the unrevealed details) of God’s election and predestination of believers in Christ. We also cannot try to resolve the tension of election with the fact that Jesus desires all men to come to a knowledge of the truth. We have to believe both of these statements, knowing that both are true, and one without the other is untrue.

Adventism must support its doctrines by proof-texting out-of-context passages and making them say what they do not say.

In short, this lesson is one more egregious misuse of God’s word. The truth of the gospel, the reality of God’s sovereignty, eternal love, and our responsibility to make decisions that have eternal value are absolutely true.

The new birth changes us when we hear the gospel of our salvation and believe. We literally receive new hearts and new spirits, and we pass from death to life (Jn. 5:24).

Adventism decimates the incredible reality of God’s redemption, and this lesson is just one more reductionist attempt to guilt Adventists into recruiting converts as they try to sell the great controversy worldview.

I urge you, reader, to open God’s word and to read it in context, beginning with Galatians, and ask God to teach you what He wants you to know.

Source: https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/2023/11/23/november-25-december-1-2023/

FAFP SABBATH SCHOOL COMMENTARY LESSON 8: “MISSION TO THE NEEDY”

This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles that address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.

Problems with this lesson: 

• Again, this lesson primarily is stirring up Adventists to make proselytes.
• The author of this lesson is misusing biblical accounts to make a point about Adventist evangelism.
• This lesson misunderstands Jesus’ miracles as trust-building exercise to make believers instead of as demonstrations of His identity as God.

This week’s lesson focusses directly on the issue of finding the needy and meeting their needs to the end that they will learn to trust their benefactor and be willing to learn about their religion. As the lesson for Monday states:

The fourth step is winning their confidence. When we minister to people, when we help them, they will learn to trust us and what we say to them. So, when we talk to them about Jesus, they would be more open to listen. Jesus didn’t want just to heal them physically; He wanted them to have eternal life in Him (see John 10:10). (P. 100).

The point in this fourth of Ellen White’s “five-step process of Jesus’ method in how to minister, especially to those in need,” is that meeting people’s felt needs teaches them to trust those who meet them. This trust, then, becomes the connection that causes them to listen when we teach them about Jesus.

There are at least a couple of problems with this assumption. First, using Jesus as the example of healing people to win their trust and thus be ready to hear how to “be saved” is misreading the biblical accounts. Jesus healed people NOT because he was building bridges for salvation but because He was demonstrating that He Is GOD!

The prophecies had foretold that the Messiah would do miracles over nature, that He would cause the lame to walk, the blind to see, the dumb to speak, and the dead to live. These are things no human can do, and they demonstrated unmistakably that He was God!

Importantly, Jesus did His years of ministry in Israel. He did not come to minister primarily to gentiles but to “the lost sheep of Israel” (Mt. 10:6; 15:24). The Jews knew what the prophecies said the Messiah would do, and Jesus came doing those things publicly before His own kinsmen.

Secondly, Jesus did not heal the people in order to open the way for them to hear “the gospel”. He did not separate the gospel from His self-revelation. In fact, the Jews knew the Messiah would come to save them, and as He revealed Himself to them through His miracles, He called them to repent and believe. It was not a bait-and-switch campaign, nor a loss-leader marketing method that would get people’s attention so they would discover His REAL purpose.

In fact, His healing was inseparable from His own person and power and salvation. His healings were not marketing ploys.

In fact, His healing was inseparable from His own person and power and salvation. His healings were not marketing ploys.

For example, the lesson uses Jesus’ miracle of healing the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda in John 5:1–18 as an example of how to win the confidence and trust in a person, meet his needs, and call him to faith. The author completely misses the point.

The healing at Bethesda was a revelation of Jesus’ identity as God and as His identity as the One to whom the shadow of the Sabbath pointed. I suggest everyone read the account in the Bible. Jesus directed the man to do an unlawful thing: pick up his pallet and walk. He didn’t even do it on a week day; He specifically went ON THE SABATH to do what the law said was unlawful in order to reveal His authority over the day because He was GOD.

The Pharisees new exactly what He was doing. It says in verses 16–18:

For this reason, the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. (John 5:16-18).

Jesus was not giving an example of doing good in order to win over converts! In fact, to suggest such a thing is an insult to the biblical account and a complete diminishment of the Lord Jesus!

Adventism teaches a different Jesus than the Bible reveals. It teaches a Jesus who gave up His “God powers” and took sinful flesh. They teach a Jesus who could have sinned and failed in His mission but who, by dint of prayer and persistence, kept the law and managed to suffer silently through crucifixion.

The Bible reveals God the Son who never gave up any of His God-power but in whom the fulness of deity dwelt bodily (Col 1:19, 2:9).

The real Jesus was never our example—except as an example to those who believe and are already saved to show us how to trust God in suffering. Jesus did not come to show us how to please God and be saved! He came to take our sins onto Himself and save us!

This lesson, like all the others in this quarterly, reads the Bible inside-out and upside-down. It makes the Biblical accounts about the US, about what we can and should do, and about how we can please God and fulfill His expectations.

In contrast, the Bible reveals our sovereign God who sent His Son to be our Substitute. He reveals that all we need to do to be saved is to BELIEVE and trust Jesus and His finished atonement and His resurrection. When we believe, we pass at that moment from death to life (Jn. 5:24), and we are permanently sealed with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13,14).

Because of Ellen White’s explanations of Scripture and her invented “gospel” which includes food, drink, and Sabbath-keeping, Adventism misreads the Bible.

Because of Ellen White’s explanations of Scripture and her invented “gospel” which includes food, drink, and Sabbath-keeping (in opposition to the Bible’s clear statements that salvation is by faith in the Lord Jesus and by the grace of God alone), Adventism misreads the Bible. It has a private interpretation and a private lexicon of meanings, and neither Adventists nor the Christians around them know they are using a different vocabulary from those Christians use.

My challenge is that the reader asks God to show him or her what the Bible says without an Ellen White filter, that God will reveal His will and His reality through His word, and that this revelation will transform the readers’ hearts and minds.

These lessons are nothing more than moral lessons teaching people to serve Adventism. Ask God to reveal through His word how to honor His alone.

Source: https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/2023/11/16/november-18-24-2023/

FAFP SABBATH SCHOOL COMMENTARY LESSON 7: “MISSION TO MY NEIGHBOR” (November 11–17, 2023)

Problems with this lesson: 

• This lesson focuses on proselytizing non-Adventists without dealing with the gospel.
• The lesson describes caring for the poor as revealing “spiritual truths” that people wouldn’t otherwise understand.
• This is one more moral lesson designed to guilt readers into doing good to gain converts.

This quarter’s lessons all seem to have in common the fact that they are attempting to induce the readers to get busy and witness Adventism to their acquaintances. This emphasis on “evangelizing” is superficial, however, because it is founded on an Adventist worldview that does not include the true gospel.

While attempting to sound compassionate, this lesson, echoing Ellen White’s paradigm for Adventist behavior, emphasizes good deeds as the means of making the recipients feel connected and thus inclined to become proselytes. For example, this quote from the teacher's Comments on page 95 illustrates this approach:

The lessons and instructions of the Bible help us to understand the intention of God regarding the needy neighbor. God wants us to be in connection with His Word so that we can be His instruments of mercy and love to those who are suffering and in need of hope. Moreover, “it is God’s purpose that the rich and the poor shall be closely bound together by the ties of sympathy and helpfulness.”—Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing, p. 193. This togetherness will prove to be a blessing to both groups. It will help the poor, as well as the rich, in understanding God’s plan of salvation and will establish the fact that a life of benevolence will reveal spiritual truths that can be understood only amid distress and suffering.

Only by our love and service for our neighbor who needs help can we prove the genuineness of our love for Christ. True mission service comes from our true love for our Savior, a sentiment that reinforces the notion that being is oftentimes more important than giving or just doing good deeds for the needy or the poor. “The message of the Old Testament is a call to an ethical lifestyle modeled in what God has done for us in Christ. It has to do with following God’s principles through living a life of witnessing to, helping, and loving the neighbor and those in need as yourself.” —Jiˇrí Moskala, “The Mission of God’s People in the Old Testament,” Journal of the Adventist Theological Society 19, nos. 1–2 (2008): p. 58.

Notice the highlighted passage. Ellen White’s encouragement for the rich to be bound closely to the poor was primarily a means to the end that they would gain converts. The lesson’s author actually says that “togetherness” between the rich and the poor will help the poor, “as well as the rich”, understand salvation. The plan of salvation, of course, must be understood contextually to mean Adventist doctrines.

I can’t help noticing the barely-hidden arrogance, the superiority of the Adventist assumption that they have what the world needs—that if the “poor” become connected to the more well-to-do Adventists, they, too, will move away from distress as they embrace Adventism!

Furthermore, the quote at the end of the passage above by Ji’ri Moskala is even more puzzling. Perhaps because it is taken out of context, the quote leaves one mystified about how the “message of the Old Testament” models what God has done for us in Christ. The Old Testament foreshadowed Christ and led Israel to be a living metaphor, so to speak, as guided by the law, they applied God’s morality to life in a pagan world.

While the law certainly provided for the poor, the Old Testament was not a model of New Testament life. In short, the quote above is confusing and guilting. The moral lessons it attempts to teach are impossible to actually work because they are not grounded in truth. They are built upon an Adventist worldview that sees the Law, not the Lord God Himself, as the ultimate standard of behavior,

The continual attempts of this quarter’s lessons to induce readers to do more to serve the public and make people feel indebted to their Adventist acquaintances and drawn to Adventism is wearying and ultimately discouraging. Do-gooding may obligate some people to an eager Adventist, but that connection will not yield salvation.

The only way to resolve people’s true needs is to introduce them to the true Jesus and the real gospel. Unless a person understands his true need and repents, trusting the Lord Jesus’ finished work of atonement in dying, being buried, and rising from death, he will not be able to overcome his despair. Only becoming spiritually alive by believing in Jesus will give people salvation.

The Adventist “plan of salvation” is a great controversy fiction. The real way to be saved, however, is based in Scripture alone and does not include community good deeds.

Good deeds are the fruit of belief, not the means of belief. Trusting in Jesus alone is the only way to be saved, and it is the only message of hope that we can give to those who are living in despair.

FAFP SABBATH SCHOOL LESSON COMMENTARY LESSON #6: “MOTIVATION AND PREPARATION FOR MISSION”

Problems with this lesson: 

• This lesson attempts to motivate the reader to actively share Adventism with potential proselytes.
• This lesson betrays its lack of understanding of the new birth and the Holy Spirit.
• This lesson reveals Adventism’s three convictions that motivate Adventist proselytizing.

Once again, the week’s lessons have a repetitive “feeling” and a vague objective. While the author is clear that the reader is to actively try to share Adventism because he or she is so grateful to God, still the bottom line reasons for the urgency and for the contents of the sharing are not clearly stated.

The Teachers' Comments, though, do reveal the doctrinal bottom line. The lesson itself exhorts the readers to pray hard and often while uniting with other Adventists to encourage one another while praying for the Holy Spirit. This paragraph is on page 75 of the lesson quarterly:

While we wait for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to help us complete the great mission of God, we must unite to encourage each other (Heb. 10:24, 25), praying for God’s Holy Spirit. Also, we should be aligning ourselves and our church with God’s priority—the saving of the lost.

This quote expresses the EGW-driven belief that there will be a “latter rain” of Holy Spirit power which true Adventist believers will receive just before the second coming. This power will enable them to boldly share their religion with people so there will be a great inflow of new Adventist members just before Jesus returns.

This belief reveals that Adventism does not teach nor understand the new birth. When a person repents of his or her sin, recognizing that he is by nature dead in trespasses and sins and by nature a child of wrath (Eph. 2:1–3), when he trusts in Jesus’ finished work of atonement, death, and resurrection, that person is born again. He passes from death to life (Jn. 5:24) and is sealed with the indwelling Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13,14). When a person is sealed by the Holy Spirit, God Himself indwells that person, and He never leaves. He doesn’t get just a part of God or a portion of His power. He gets all of God and nothing is withheld from us.

What we must do as we grow in Christ is to learn to trust Him more and more with more and more of ourselves. We learn to give God “access” to our feelings and desires and impulses on an ongoing basis, and we become more and more like Him not because we get more of Him but because we learn to trust Him more.

This lesson, however, reveals that Adventism sees the Holy Spirit as power from God, power that He doles out incrementally. The latter rain is the ultimate outpouring of His power, and that won’t happen until the people pray for it, and they get that power just in time to share their faith before Jesus returns.

Three Adventist Convictions

So, while Adventist members are praying for the Holy Spirit and generating their motivation to serve God better and share their faith, the Teachers Comments reveal the essential points that sharing needs to convey. Pages 82 and 83 of the Quarterly explain these three points: 

Conviction 1: Jesus is coming back a second time—this coming is visible, literal, and imminent (soon). Before Adventism got started, most Christians either did not believe in a literal coming or de-emphasized it.…

Conviction 2: God calls believers to loving obedience and serious disciple­ship. In light of Jesus’ coming, we need to make serious preparations.…

Conviction 3: God restores in believers the wholeness of life in Christ. Christians do not go to heaven as disembodied souls.

These three innocuous-sounding convictions have detailed foundations of meaning and doctrine. For example, the first conviction—that Jesus is coming back a second time—includes a seven-point list of what Adventists believe about the second coming: 

• Seventh-day Adventists accept and proclaim the promises of the Second Coming (John 14:1–3; Rev. 22:7, 12, 20).
• This coming is literal (Acts 1:11).
• The Second Coming is portrayed as visible (Matt. 24:30, Rev. 1:7).
• All signs point to a near, soon, imminent coming. Jesus, again and again, used the word “soon” (Rev. 22:7, 12, 20; Matt. 24:4–28; Luke 21:7–28).
• God’ s people will see Jesus (John 14:3) and will be with Him forever (1 Thess. 4:17).
• The dead will be raised (1 Thess. 4:13–16), and believers will receive immortality (1 Cor. 15:53).
• Tears, mourning, and death will be abolished (Rev. 21:3, 4).

These seven points reveal the underlying great controversy worldview which supports the Adventist view of the second coming which includes a denial of any possibility of a pre-tribulational rapture or an earthly millennium, and it also hints at Adventism’s doctrine of human physicality and “soul sleep” which denies that any part of a person survives the death of the body and goes to be with the Lord.

The second conviction innocuously calling people “to loving obedience and serious discipleship” is built upon three Adventist mandates articulated on page 83:

• Support the whole Ten Commandments, including the neglected Sabbath fourth commandment, believing that Jesus gave it at Creation (Gen. 2:2), reiterated it in the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:8–11), and reinforced it during His ministry (Mark 2:27).
• Believe the Sabbath is a powerful symbol of God’s creating power (Gen. 2:2, Exod. 20:8–11), saving grace (Exod. 20:2, Deut. 5:12–15), and the final rest of redemption in heaven (Heb. 4:1–11, especially verse 9).
• Accept the Lordship of Christ in all areas of life, including marriage and family, dress, recreation, diet, and so on (Eph. 5:21–6:4; Phil. 4:8, 9; 1 Cor. 6:19, 20; 1 Tim. 2:8–10).

Notice that the Christian-sounding call to “loving obedience and Christian discipleship” is actually, in Adventist-speak, the demand that Saturday-Sabbath be kept, that it is the symbol of God’s creating power (an extrapolation never made in Scripture), and that converts must accept Adventism’s definitions of “dress, recreation, diet, and so on” which includes their prohibitions of “unclean meats”, stimulants, and alcohol.

The unbiblical doctrines that define Adventism’s practices are hidden behind the innocent-sounding “Conviction 2”, but make no mistake: these expectations are part of Adventism’s obedience and discipleship.

Finally, their Conviction 3 is built on the foundational Adventist teaching that humans do not have immaterial spirits that separate from the body. In fact, this perversion that is never taught in Scripture is the foundational twisting of all the rest of Scripture’s doctrines in the Adventist worldview.

Their belief that humans are just bodies that breathe changes the biblical definition of “inherited sin” into a physical phenomenon that is transmitted via the gene pool from Adam down to every generation afterward. If sin is physically inherited tendencies to sin and not spiritual death, the natural depravity of which the Bible speaks, then salvation is also not simply being give spiritual life and transferred into the kingdom of the Beloved Son.

Adventist salvation includes IMPARTED, not imputed, righteousness. Adventism teaches that people have to turn to the law and, drawing on the power of the Holy Spirit which they can cajole Jesus into giving them, learn to obey the law more and more perfectly, so that even their unholy thoughts are ended. All of this is literal “work” done by prayer and accessing God’s power through Jesus. It is not imputed righteousness that is alien to them. Their righteousness is developed, not received.

In conclusion, this lesson betrays the Adventist reality that salvation depends upon each member’s personal efforts and commitment to Adventism’s worldview and then to one’s commitment to work hard for Jesus.

In fact, Adventism teaches a false, fallible Jesus and a salvation that requires each person’s keeping themselves in God’s favor by obedience.

Once again the lesson has burdened the reader with impossible requirements: to love the work of making Adventists so that Jesus will come back. In reality, though, this “formula” will only frustrate and deceive the readers.

Only trusting Jesus alone can satisfy the human heart.

Source: https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/2023/11/02/november-4-10-2023/

FAFP SABBATH SCHOOL COMMENTARY LESSON 5: “EXCUSES TO AVOID MISSION” (October 28–November 3, 2023)

This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles that address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.

Problems with this lesson:

• The lesson tries to show that God was trying to make Jonah love people instead of seeing that God is revealing His own love.
• Jonah’s problem was not racism or nationalism but a lack of trust in God and His words.
• The story of Jonah is not a moral instruction for Adventists.

Once again, the real point of the story of Jonah is obscured by the fact that Adventism is not Christian. Because it has a liberal view of the Bible, not considering it to be the inerrant word of God but instead believing it has mistakes that must be interpreted away for today, it can’t see the real message of Jonah.

This book is not an example of Jonah’s worldview and of God’s making him love as He does.

To be sure, Jonah appeared to hate the people of Nineveh. The Assyrians’ reputation preceded them; they were cruel and violent. Yet God sent a Jewish prophet all the way to Assyria, north even of Syria, with a call to repent. Furthermore, they did repent.

God did for this nation what only He could do; He opened their hearts to see who He was and to trust Him.

Even though this miracle happened in the capital of Assyria, still this nation later invaded the northern kingdom of Israel and took them captive.

Contrary to the Teacher's Comments, Jonah’s problem was not “feelings of national pride” or of necessarily feeling “that he was better than others.”

Contrary to the Teacher's Comments, Jonah’s problem was not “feelings of national pride” or of necessarily feeling “that he was better than others.”

Jonah was an Israelite, and part of the Mosaic law said that he was to be separate from the nations. He was not to fraternize with them. This call to preach to Nineveh was asking Jonah to trust God and to do what He asked without understanding the full background story.

Like Eve in the garden, Jonah’s job was to obey what God said even though he didn’t understand the fullness of the outcome.

In obedience comes insight, and Jonah resists understanding what God was revealing to him by refusing to preach.

Furthermore, his being thrown overboard when the sea churned into a storm does not mean he believed the pagan ideas that the sea demons demanded a sacrifice. Rather, he knew that the storm was from God, and he knew that he was the cause of this judgment from God. Jonah knew the God of Israel, and he wasn’t reacting to demons by asking to be thrown overboard. Instead, he was reacting according to the way the Mosaic law functioned. He knew he was guilty, and he knew he deserved the punishment.

The surprise for him was not dying in that fish! He acknowledged his sin as he prayed from the fish’s belly.

The Teachers Comments say this:

The question at the end of the book of Jonah is one for us to ask ourselves and our churches. Do we demonstrate a love for the communities around us, especially for its members who look different from us or come from other parts of the world? All too often, I have heard conversations in church or in Sabbath School that reveal prejudices and harmful ethnocentric attitudes. These attitudes are often accompanied by excuses for why certain groups of people fall outside our mission. Such thinking is no different from the mindset of Jonah.

This paragraph misses the point. Jonah does not end with a moral lesson nor is it teaching ethnocentric sensibilities. This is what the last two verses of Jonah say:

Then Yahweh said, “You had pity on the plant for which you did not work and [which] you did not cause to grow, which came to be overnight and perished overnight. So should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know [the difference] between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?” (Jonah 4:10-11 LSB).

Clearly, God was not asking Jonah to love like Him. While that would be a great goal, the purpose of this book was to demonstrate that God was revealing Himself even to Gentile nations who were hostile to Him and His people, and He was using His people to do the work.

God surprisingly even asked Jonah if He shouldn’t have compassion on not only the 120,000 persons in Nineveh but also on all their animals?

God’s care wasn’t just for people; it extended even to the animals.

God was showing Jonah who He is, and He was showing him that His compassion extends beyond even the boundaries set by the law itself.

God gave Israel the law and intended that the Jews keep themselves separate from the pagan nations. Yet God also loved the cruel pagans as well as their animals. They were all His creatures, and His intention has always been to extend salvation to all people through the Abrahamic covenant promises.

We misread Jonah if we see a moral, shaming command to go and share “the gospel” with everyone, even those we hate. While that message might not be wrong itself, the point is much deeper.

Adventism does not have the gospel. It is a false gospel, a false religion, and its proselytizing brings people into a dark religion that binds their consciences.

Adventism does not have the gospel. It is a false gospel, a false religion, and its proselytizing brings people into a dark religion that binds their consciences.

The call in Jonah is to trust God and to do what He asks even without understanding all the reasons. We have to trust God more than we trust our own heads. His word is our “command”. We have to believe it means what it says.

This book is not a call to do more works of evangelism. It is a call to give up what we believe and love the most for the sake of trusting God and allowing His word to direct us.

If we trust Him and His word, we will find that much of what we thought was the truth isn’t, and we will discover that the Lord Jesus IS the fulfillment of the law and the One who deserves our repentance and all the loyalty of our hearts.

Source: https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/2023/10/26/october-28-november-3-2023/

FAFP SABBATH SCHOOL COMMENTARY LESSON 4: “SHARING GOD'S MISSION” | OCT. 27, 2023

Problems with this lesson: 

• Abraham is represented as an example of great love for his neighbors and as an intercessor for the salvation of Sodom and Gomorrah.
• The lesson says that readers must intercede for their friends, but their free will might decide against salvation no matter what one does.
• The effect of the lesson is to guilt readers into more intense mission-driven prayer and proselytizing.

Abraham seems to be the author’s choice for an archetype of being on God’s mission. This week the lesson focuses on Genesis 18 where Abraham entertains three strangers, one of whom turns out to be the Angel of the Lord, and where God tells Abraham He will destroy Sodom for its wickedness.

Sodom was the city where Abraham’s nephew Lot lived with his family. The city’s evil was widely known, but Abraham, worried about Lot, asked the Lord if He would destroy the city if it had 50 righteous people. When the Lord said no, Abraham continued asking, counting down by fives and tens, until the Lord said He would not destroy the city if it had even ten righteous people.

Abraham realized that the city was desperately wicked, and when he reached ten, he stopped asking.

The lesson compares this questioning of God’s intentions with intercessory prayer—a comparison that the text doesn’t support. In none of his questions about Sodom does Abraham ever plead with God not to destroy the city or beg Him to cause the people to repent. He doesn’t intercede for them!

Instead, what the story reveals, is Abraham questioning God’s decision. He seems unable to believe that there could be so few righteous in Sodom. Here is what Genesis 18:24–26 says:

“Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to put to death the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?”

So Yahweh said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place on their account” (Genesis 18:24-26 LSB).

Here is what the lesson says on page 46:

"Through his love, Abraham hoped to save all the people in these cities, not only the righteous. Certainly, Abraham knew just how evil and wicked the people were who lived there. Who knows what stories he had heard regarding those people and their practices? And from what we know about them, as revealed in the next chapter, with the sordid story of Lot and the mob outside his house (see Gen. 19:1–11), these were very evil people.

Yet Abraham, knowing for himself the love of God, appealed to Him in their behalf. Abraham knew that human beings always can return to God in repentance. To Abraham, saving the inhabitants of these cities would give them a chance to repent.

In the end, Abraham based his request on what he personally knew about God’s love for human beings. He himself had a great love for sinners, and he knew that as long as there is life, there is hope for salvation."

On the contrary, in context, Abraham was struggling with God. God did not change His mind as Abraham questioned Him; in the end, Abraham came to see that God IS just, and He would not unjustly destroy the cities. There were so few righteous people in them that He would rescue one family and destroy all the others.

In the end, Abraham saw and understood. He was not interceding; the lesson’s author simply imposes a “missional” attitude onto Abraham for the sake of having the moral authority to use Scripture to convince the Adventist readers to get busy and pray and proselytize.

The actual account of the Lord and Abraham reveals the opposite of what the lesson’s author attempts to portray. God was patient with Abraham as He revealed to him that His purposes and omniscience were just. He patiently allowed Abraham to talk through the Lord’s criteria, and in the end, Abraham ceased asking and the Lord was finished speaking.

Furthermore, the lesson teaches that we are obligated to pray always for “our mission”. We must pray that people will be converted. Nevertheless, those people can choose to refuse God. It’s a double-bind situation. It is implied that the Adventist is in disobedience if he or she isn’t continually interceding, yet even God is limited by each person’s free will. As it says on page 48:

"The small number of residents of Sodom who were saved has implications for our own mission: not everyone will be saved. We would like everyone to accept Jesus and His plan of salvation, but each person has free will. Our task is to invite as many people as possible to make the choice for Jesus. While we are carrying out our mission, God assists us through the Holy Spirit, but He will never go against the will of anyone. Free will means that, in the end, no matter what we do, no matter how much we pray, salvation comes down to each individual’s choice."

And there is the hopeless reality of Adventism: we have to pray and share Adventism with those who aren’t Adventist, yet God never “goes against the will of anyone”. In the end, each person’s free will has the last word. Salvation all comes down to each individual’s free choice.

The Bible, however, says that salvation is entirely of the Lord. He uses us and asks us to make disciples, and the news of the Lord Jesus and His finished work is our witness. Yet HE takes responsibility for each person’s salvation. He is not limited by “free will”. He makes it possible for each person, born dead in sin, to hear the gospel and to believe. We do not open others’ eyes.

Each person is responsible for the decisions he makes, but salvation is of the Lord. It is a mystery we cannot explain—but salvation is not a product of free will.

Jesus said,

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44 LSB).

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never cast out: (John 6:37 LSB).

This lesson is typical Adventism, “guilting” the reader into doing more to make converts, reinforcing the Adventist view that members are responsible to bring people into membership and reminding them that even God has to wait patiently for the humans to do their work before He can do His.

Once again, this lesson sees reality through a great controversial lens; God is limited by His creatures, and humans are responsible for whatever happens—even for “finishing the work” so Jesus can return.

The Bible, however, reveals a sovereign God and a finished atonement. We are able to trust Him and know that our lives are not dependent upon our flawed decisions; rather, we are in His hands.

Source: https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/2023/10/19/october-21-27-2023/

SABBATH SCHOOL LESSON COMMENTARY | OCTOBER 14-20, 2023

This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.

Lesson 3: “God’s Call to Mission”

COLLEEN TINKER

    Problems with this lesson: The lesson uses Abraham as the central example of being called for “mission”, an appropriation of the patriarch’s story that misses the point of his life.  The lesson states that Peter did not want to take the gospel to Gentiles, ignoring that he was the one who received the “sheet vision” and preached to the first gentile family in Acts 10. The lesson claims that Israel was to be a nation of priests serving all nations; the Bible NEVER says this.

    This lesson is difficult to address fully because it is based on Adventism moralisms instead of on biblical history. In short, the author has appropriated the story of Abraham as well as of the Tower of Babel and even of Adam and Eve to illustrate the Adventist goal of getting every member to feel obligated to share Adventism with his or her acquaintances.

    The lesson refers often to Abraham’s “mission” to carry the news about—what, exactly? Abraham’s “mission” as taught in the lesson is vague but is suggested to be the Adventist view of God and the Adventist “plan of salvation”. The Bible never assigns this mission to Abraham. The Teachers’ Comments say this on page 40:

    This week’s lesson highlights the call of God to Abraham, found in Genesis 12:1–3. The call has several vital elements that need to be understood if we are to fully grasp what the call of God for mission has been, currently is, and will continue to be. First off, the call is rooted in the Genesis 1:26–28 narrative. This connection is most clearly articulated in Isaiah’s reference to the call of Abraham and Sarah to share the joy of Eden with the world (Isa. 51:1–3). When God called Abraham to be a blessing to the nations, the divine call implied that the blessing entailed sharing a way of life, expressed through profound freedom and creativity, intended by God from the beginning. A quick read of Genesis 12:1–3 makes it difficult to fully grasp the blessing, but its meaning becomes clearer when read within the broader corpus of Scripture. Genesis 22 adds additional detail to what Abraham was called to share, namely, the plan of God to provide a Substitute for humanity through death and subsequent resurrection. This plan gave humanity hope that the effects of sin and death could be overcome. It also gave hope that the promises of Genesis 1:26–28 could be fully realized again in the future.

    As we can see in the above quote, the lesson is not clear what Abraham’s mission was actually to be as he left Ur, travelled to Haran, and then went into Egypt to avoid famine. While it refers to “mission” as being difficult (in the context of Abraham’s wrongly representing Sarah as his sister and placing her in danger), what his mission was supposed to be in Egypt is never articulated.

    In the Bible, Abraham’s trek into Egypt is never explained beyond the fact that he went there to avoid a famine, he lied about his wife and placed her in danger, God protected her and revealed his lie through the pagan Pharaoh who sent him out of the land with great wealth and a female slave who became his concubine. These facts of Abraham’s Egyptian sojourn are never mentioned in the lesson—only the vague hint that mission is difficult, that Abraham made his situation worse, but God is forgiving and could still use him.

    Abraham, however, was never presented as a noble or good man intrinsically. He was a deeply flawed man who worshipped other gods when God called him to leave Ur. Abraham, however, believed God when God spoke to him, and he obeyed God when God told him to do things. His belief in God is what God credited to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6). This central fact about Abraham is never mentioned! Yet this belief is what made Abraham the central figure in the history of both Israel and the church. He was the original patriarch from whom God formed His chosen people and brought forth His promised Messiah.

    Abraham’s “mission” was simply to obey God as God gave him directions, and he did. This belief is not the “mission” the lesson tries to portray. It illegitimately uses Abraham to “illustrate” Adventism’s own commitment to proselytizing, and this use of Abraham is dishonest.

What about Peter?

In Wednesday’s lesson the author tries to make the point that the early Jewish believers did not preach the message to anyone other than Jews. The even say this:

    Peter, a disciple of Jesus and one of the leading figures of the early church, was averse to taking the gospel message to the Gentiles, even after Paul had begun to do so. Peter was known as an apostle to the circumcised (meaning the Jews), and Paul an apostle to the Gentiles (Gal. 2:8). Early on, Peter did not even want to be seen with the Gentiles (Gal. 2:11, 12). However, God moved Peter out of his comfort zone and changed his heart. He was starting to learn about what the gospel commission really entailed and what Jesus’ death was meant to accomplish for the whole world.

    This claim is wrong. Jesus appointed Peter to be the apostle with the “keys to the kingdom”. It was Peter who preached first in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Acts. 2) and saw 3,000 Jews come to faith in Jesus, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and baptized. Then, in Acts 8, it was Peter whom the church sent to Samaria to check up on the converts Phillip had made. He found they had not been baptized into the Holy Spirit, so he baptized them into the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the first Samaritans received the Holy Spirit. This followed Jesus’ command to go first to Jerusalem and Judea (to the Jews), and then to Samaria. The Lord appointed Peter to be the eyewitness to these first non-Jews receiving the gospel and the indwelling Holy Spirit.

    If an apostle had not been the witness to this miracle, the church would have been divided from the beginning. The Jews back in Jerusalem would never have believed that the Samaritans could receive the Holy Spirit and be Christians equally with them, the chosen people. Yet Peter witnessed them being born again in exactly the same way as the Jews were—without coming under the law!

    Finally, in Acts 10, the Lord sent Peter the famed “sheet vision” filled with all kinds of unclean animals and told him to “Kill and eat” and not to call unclean what He had declared to be clean. Then Peter was summoned to go to the home of Cornelius, the Roman centurion. Peter the Jew had to stay in a gentile home, eat gentile, unclean food, and realize that God had declared both these gentiles as well as their food, Clean!

    As he preached, Cornelius and his whole family believed and were also filled with the Holy Spirit exactly as the Jews had been—and all without coming under the law! Peter baptized them, and his eyewitness was the official proof that gentiles could be saved and equal in God’s eyes. There could be NO division or caste system in the church. All were equal in God’s eyes. When a person believes, he becomes a new creation, and he is equally God’s child as all others who believe, whether Jew, gentile, or Samaritan.

    Peter was the FIRST to be sent to the gentiles. His later episode with the Galatians was sin, and Paul called him out. But he was appointed by the Lord Jesus Himself to take the gospel to the gentiles first and to witness their coming to faith in exactly the same way as the Jews did.

The lesson’s self-serving claim that Peter didn’t want to take the gospel to the gentiles is simply a lie!

A nation of priests

    Finally, the Teachers Comments state that God made Israel a nation of priests to serve all nations. The comments even continue by appealing to Solomon and the prophets. It’s incredible, really. The text the author uses to establish this idea is Exodus 19:4–6:

“You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. ‘Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel” (Exodus 19:4-65).

    His making them a nation of priests was not to serve the world. It was to be wholly dedicated to HIM. They were set apart from the nations and were to be a holy people for His glory, a people who would be ready to welcome the Messiah who would come from their own bloodline one day. God dealt with Israel as a nation, and they were to remain separated from the nations in order to stay pure, both genetically and spiritually. Their priesthood was for the purpose of their knowing they were dedicated to the One True God, unlike the pagans around them who had multiple cruel gods.

    The lesson misuses the biblical accounts because Adventism is a false religion. Because they have taken their cues from a false prophet, they have a completely wrong worldview and a wrong hermetic for reading Scripture. They feel free to use the Bible creatively to force it to fit their own agenda. They mislead people by misquoting Scripture out of context and applying wrong ideas to it.

This lesson is subtle, but its misuse of the Word of God is egregious and inexcusable.

    I urge the reader to get a notebook and to begin copying the book of Galatians or Hebrews, a few verses a day, into the notebook, praying to know what God wants you to know. He is faithful, and His word cannot fail. †

Colleen Tinker, the editor of Proclamation! magazine, and her husband Richard left Adventism in 1998 with their two sons, Roy and Nathanael, who were in grades six and ten. They have co-led the Former Adventist Fellowship since 1999. Colleen, a graduate of Walla Walla University, is a former high school English teacher and also the former managing editor of Adventist Today magazine. Colleen became the stepmother of Roy and Nathanael in 1989, and in 2008 she adopted them. Romans 8:15-17 has assumed new depth and significance for her and Richard since she and her sons chose to claim each other legally and permanently. She and Richard share an office and a commitment to sharing the gospel of the true Jesus with all of those seeking a way out of the bondage of the false gospel of Adventism.

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