Text-Proof - Reply To Message

The following is from a reply that was given to an emailed reply commenting on the Testimony to the Church Part 1 Message. The reply basically was a listing of passages that were suppose to refute that message. Each of the cited passages were responded to and interpreted in their proper Biblical context. Comments in Gray background with bold text are the emailer's comments/cited texts.

[Originally Composed in September/October 2000]

THE BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

            As I start out on my Biblical refutation of your attempts to justify the SDA Church, I will lay down the following two mandatory principle. The first one is one that is clearly defined in a introductory speech that Dr. Hans K. Larondelle had made at an annual gathering of the  “Continuing Education for the Ministry.” He said, and I quote:

            “Nineteen-seventy-four seems to be a new beginning in Adventist eschatology; because the General Conference had then organized a series of Bible studies called Symposium on the Biblical Hermeneutic [the science of Biblical interpretation]. And most of us will have that book of that title. Under the leadership of Gordon Hyde. It seems to me that that year, and that series of Bible studies, all over the United States, and then snowballing over other parts of the world, was inaugurating the end of a certain phase-which I would call the ‘old style “proof-text” method.’  Not that we are no longer using proof texts. But the old style of detached proof-text method, that was popular, and that I also have used for many years to prove our doctrines. And there is nothing wrong with proving a doctrine, as long as we know what we’re doing. But this symposium on Biblical hermeneutics, with the supervision of the General Conference, all over the world, was teaching our ministry that we have to do a little better with handling the Bible.

The Genesis Flood - Global, Localized or Weighted

The Genesis Flood: Global vs. Localized, or instead: Targetedly-Weighted

            An issue of debate that typically comes up with the account of the Genesis Flood is whether or not it was a planet-wide destruction or only a localized event, i.e., solely where people actually lived at the time. The following is a brief, currently cursory and non-exhaustive, overview on the various Biblical and Physical Science reasons why it is more likely than not that the Flood in Genesis was crafted/targeted by God to much more destroy the inhabited portions of the earth then vs. the parts which were not so inhabited. And in such a precise, “surgical”, i.e. targeted, flooding event, God would have demonstrated His great power and control over nature in, even cataclysmic conditions and circumstances, with, as it will be seen, the concrete purposes of ecological preservation and fair (effects of) judgement, especially in regards to yet-to-live generations.

Commentary - Ed Reid - 7-Year Christian Mortgage?!?

Ed Reid  - ‘Mortgage Debt Should Not Be Longer Than 7 Years (Deut 15:1)’

By My Spirit - Love Not The World. [3ABN #27]

[00:06:43-00:08:02]

SDA Statement: “...the Bible says that we are the salt of the earth, it also calls us the light of the world, but unfortunately many times the world is salting us more than we are salting it. And I'll give you this illustration: let's pretend like someone who does not believe in the Bible, or doesn't follow the Bible's guidance in his everyday living, wants to buy or build a house, how's he going to do it if he doesn't have the money? Well, he'll go to the bank and become qualified and get a loan. Unless he tells the banker different, the loan will be for 30 years. That's the typical thing in the US, but let's just say that a Christian, Bible believer, decides he wants to buy or build a house, he doesn't have the cash to pay for it, so he goes to get a loan, what will he do?

            Well, the interesting thing is unfortunately the Christian will do almost exactly the thing that the non-Christian does, and that's get a 30-year mortgage, without a second thought actually, in spite of the fact that the Bible indicates we should not be in debt longer than...you know, don't you?

God’s Original, and “Very Good”, Intent (Gen 2:18; 1:31a)

             In the course of this discussion about Ernie Knoll, the spurious claim was made here that in a then just released new study entitled “Dress for Today” [1]: ‘Knoll was moving towards a ‘lewdness/nudity’ direction by advocating, out of an (assumed to be canard) health concern, that women should not wear bras (pp. 4-8) or underwear (p. 9)’. However, as I pointed out in response here, that study is actually quite reliably and historically documented, including from valid counsel from the SOP. It indeed does not take much scientific knowledge to perceive that the various constant containment and/or artificial shaping “stresses” from both female and male undergarments can have adverse effects.[2] I personally have not seen a valid reason to disagree with the health concerns/reasons cited with the statement that, especially modern undergarments, are/can be detrimental to one’s health, -and really, the counsel to ‘not wear them as much as possible’, is only controversial today, as compared to, e.g., the pre-1863 days of EGW when that was the norm, because of how the “final layer” of dress has today become quite scanty, sheer and/or “fringed”...when not outrightly “lacunistic”. However, while I don’t disagree there, I actually disagree with a concluding opining claim made in that study, which I have variously heard echoed by others, including SDA’s, indeed along the following lines:

...Without a Niqab!

Reasonable Accommodation or Hypocritical Exigence?

A Religious View

            Following a local commotion in the province of Quebec following a request of a Muslim group to have their meals at a public Sugar Shack specially prepared in accordance to Muslim religious dietary requirements and the clearing of the main floor for prayers, the question of ‘what was a “reasonable accommodation” in regards to religious groups’ became a vigorously debated topic for a while. In fact, during these times, a special 30-minute “Second Look” documentary was aired on this issue in which (Quebec) Seventh-day Adventists and the Sabbath work accommodations granted to them took up half of it.[1]

The Church Triumphant

 [Originally Composed and Released: (starting on) April 19, 2006 - See Forum Discussions here]

“Show the World”[1] - The Triumphant Church [=CCh 308.4]

Is Capitalism Biblical and Should (SDA) Christians Be “Going Along” With It?

I. The Crisis

II. The Cause

III. The Root Cause

IV. The Alternative

V. The Resources

VI. Decision Time

VII. The Endtime Mandate

VIII. The Biblical Challenge

IX. The Project

X. Further Information 

                                                             

I. The Crisis

           One of the foremost questions posed by unbelievers concerning Christianity, and God in particular, is: How could God exist when there is so much suffering in the world? Where is "your God" when so many people are gratuitously dying? They cannot reconcile how a loving God can allow all these things to go on. But in reality, the question that should be asked is : Where is God’s Church and His people in this world? Where are his supposed “ambassadors” and “representatives” in the face of the world's humanitarian needs?

Theological Musings

Theological Musings (Bible|SOP)

This dedicated blog post is for various inceptive Theological ideas that I have come to

have but which I have not yet studied out in full detail. However I have thus far found enough Bible and SOP support to consider them as valid/viable. Similar ideas that have been discovered and posted elsewhere in this blog, most even developed as full study posts, or even, as done in this post, have been posted in succinct summarizations and snippets. However this blog post is being dedicated only to inceptive and inchoative ideas, which will most likely later be expanded. As much as possible, the major points/reasons why they are being considered as potentially valid/viable Theological Views is also cited. They are posted as they may be Spiritually/Theologically beneficial to others. So here are my, more than less, exegetically noticed/observed Theological Musings:

Response to some Skeptics

-First of all, before reading through my own, rather “animositic”, forum discussion, I recommend viewing the following, ‘Versus Skepticism’ subject-matter related, presentation by Pastor&Apologist Mike Winger. It also serves as a summation for his 20-part series: "Evidence For the Bible"

[Note: In matters of prophetic interpretation I recommend to instead see the pertinent posts on this blog to get the Biblical and most accurate {i.e. non-Futurist-Dispensationalist} interpretation.[1] Namely for: (Daniel 2 here); (Part 3): Daniel 7 here & Daniel 8 here; (Part 9): Daniel 9 here; (Part 5): Daniel 11 here]

________________________

So I, myself, had recently gotten involved, contrary to my initially, logical thinking given the fact that all should have been easily resolved upon my initial, factual correction in regards to the Angus T. Jones story...but no, the vexed correctee had to resort to ad hominem attacks, no doubt thinking/assuming that I would just mindlessly take it and ‘turn the other cheek’, but he happened to have attacked me, and I just knew I was not going to let that stand. So we were having our discussion, however typically moronic, vacuous and quibbling there answers increasingly got, and as then also typical when such morons are defeated, they then resort to strong arming tactics such as there barring me from replying but them continuing to make their stupid claims and comments, -for that is the only way that they can be seen to be right. So here, since I have some time to burn, and given the Proverbs 26:4-5 imperative, I’ll, as succinctly as possible, be responding to those unanswered additional comments. Their comments are in bold with their name preceding them, mine (“NJK:”) are in normal font weight.

Angus T. Jones’ Conversion Testimony

December 3, 2012

God’s Inherent Object Lessons in the Conversion of Angus T. Jones to Seventh-day Adventism

            I am glad to hear of the conversion of child TV/Movie star, now 19 year old, Angus T. Jones to the Remnant (SDA) Church message, and, personally, not at all because ‘a celebrity has joined the SDA Church’, but, just from reading and seeing the various interviews that he has given about his conversion, you can see that, unlike the many knee-jerk claims, in the secular world, he has a sound personal and spiritual grasp of both the Christian message in general as well as the furthering distinctive truths of the Remnant (SDA) Church itself, -and in my view, on many key levels, he actually has a more advanced understanding of what God expects of a true/full follower of Him than most SDA’s both individually and corporately. Much (digital) “ink” and “film” has been set forth on Jones’s conversion, so I won’t be going into those details in this blog post commenting [See some links in this note[1]], however it just jumped to my face how this conversion of Jones highlighted the pointed reason why God is deliberately withholding the expected Latter Rain blessing on the SDA Church: because were He to do so, and then the Church would routinely make the headlines as it did in recent days surrounding Jones’s statement against the TV show he is (currently) contractedly obligated to work on, then the world would simultaneously see all of the entrenched and revered “abominations”, -for lack of a spiritually more descriptive term, that reign supreme in the Church. (6T 370.3).

Pleading Proverbs 26:4, 5

Pleading Proverbs 26:4 & 5 (NASB)

            That’s it!... Enough is enough!!... After years of not pleading either of the cognate statements in Proverbs 26:4 & 5 for the incredulously nonsensical statements made by, particularly, SDA Preachers, who could, and should, know better, this is literally the ‘drop that makes my cup overflow!’ It is almost the default stance of SDA Preachers, in an attempt to address difficult/controversial passages to engage in a “smoke and mirrors” approach, (at best), or use diversionary, denigrating tactics all in order to not have to admit that they really do not have an answer. The other option is to try to “dumb down” a discussion (ala: ‘the square root of 2 is simply 1’) so that the involved, core issues may actually never surface. In the light of the many available and accessible Adventist Colleges and Universities within the Denomination, resorting to such “dumbing down” attitude has absolute no acceptable rationalization, excuse or justification.

Book Preview: God All Mighty

Divine Foreknowledge or Divine Foreplanning?

            The topic of the foreknowledge of God has come to be one of the most controversial, even divisive, theological issues in Christianity. However, like many other Bible topics, the precise truth as to what the Bible actually, specifically teaches on this topic can be arrived at by proper exegetical Biblical study. Proper exegesis of course is not reading into a text an outside, preconceived/supposed meaning, but extracting the meaning provided by the text itself. Unfortunately, many in the study of this topic, have, presumably, inadvertently, imposed a preconceived notion into the passages of the Bible that involve ‘God and the future.’ This has led to a detrimental, incorrect, and inconsistent, and thus unbiblical, tangential view on who God is, His Power, His Ways and His Character.

            It must be emphasized that whatever one can come to know about God, can really only come from the revelation He Himself has given in Scripture.

The Wisdom of Children of this Age

The "Wisdom" of the Children in the Dark

Link to Online Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2GhchZxqEQ 

             In a recent presentation on Post-Modernism at ASI 2009, It Is Written Speaker/Director Shawn Boonstra (Seminar #1 ~ 18:13ff - clip posted above), makes a comment in regards to the documentary work of Michael Moore which is quite hard to believe.

The Historical Two Witnesses of Revelation (Rev 11:1-14)

Historic-al/-ist Precedents for the Eschatological Fulfilment of Rev 11

            The present blog post is for a commentary|exposition on  the interpretation and fulfillment of the Two Witnesses prophecy of Rev 11 from the Biblically valid Historical/Historicist perspective. There are many (much more than less) good/valid such expositions out there, -mainly presented by SDA evangelists/expositors such as the following:

Historicist|SDA Intepretation Video Presentations                        

Kenneth Cox - Give Me the Bible Series: The Two Witnesses (=Rev 11:1-6) & The Beast from Bottomless Pit (=Rev 11:7-13) {also here & here}
Kenneth Cox - Revelation of Jesus Christ Part 14 - Two Witnesses {also here|here}

Ranko Stefanovich - #16 - Two Witnesses {transcript+}

Wes Peppers - God's Answer to Modern Atheism

Doug Batchelor - The Two Witnesses

Walter Veith - The Beast from the Bottomless Pit

Historicist|SDA Interpretation Websites

Revelation Bible Prophecy Ch. 11 - Revelations Two Witnesses

Bible Explained - The story of the two witnesses; The third woe

Andrews University Seminary Studies - “The Reign of Terror”

(Cf. this 2016, 515-page, comprehensive subject-matter literature, AUSS Dissertation [Online/PDF] on (mainly) the identity of the 2 Witnesses)

Ministry Magazine (1940) - Two Witnesses in Prophecy
Amazing Discoveries - Revelation 11 Commentary

            As usual with prophetic presentations in this blog, the purpose here is not to “reinvent the wheel”, but rather to fix any key errors in those other presentations and/or upgrade them to provide more accurate exegesis, interpretations/understandings and applicaftions. As the very first message of this ministry to be widely published, back in June 2000, was the present day Eschatological Age fulfillment of the Two Witnesses of Rev 11. Back then, an exposition on the historical fulfillment was virtually entirely not discussed, with just the similar eschatological application, but now with different main players (i.e. the SDA Church replacing the prior Roman Catholic Church to be judged (Rev 11:1) having been changed. However, as the Historical fulfillment of this prophecy (i.e. from 538 A.D. to 1798) provided an important background and template to properly understand the eschatological fulfillment. This is now being presented in this post.

            Again not every element of the Historical prophecy will be re-expounded on in detail here, -but only when they need to be bettered, so do see the above cited presentation/exposition references for such expounding, and these betterments will serve to better grasp the pivotal part of this prophecy, pointedly the “3.5 days (=3.5 years)” of Rev 11:9, which main SDA expositors themselves contend, more than less acceptably so, -i.e. for merely a Historicist Wave of fulfillment application, that it transpired roundly between ca. Nov. 24/26, 1793 and June 17, 1797 (=1260+39/41=1299/1301 days) during the French Revolution...And along with this better key understanding are the other two major time portions of: the 42 months (Rev 11:2) and the 1260 days (Rev 11:3); plus the seemingly non-substantive, but contextually sequitur/related, “hour” of Rev 11:13. It will be shown & seen that these portions, along with the entire prophetic statements from Rev 11:1-8a, have a dual application within just the Historical wave of fulfilment of the prophecy. The First Application of that Historical Wave was fulfilled in Church History and the Second Application had a most emblematic special application within the time of the French Revolution itself. So with that background, here is a Biblically and Spiritually “upgraded” understanding of the Prophecy of the Two Witnesses...and as an overviewing guide to the detailed discussions in this post, here is the Master Timeline of the Historical & Eschatological Chronological Prophetic Events in/for (and related to), this most pivotal prophecy:

Testimony To The Church Part 1

[Note: See the precedenting, -but now/here Eschatologically-advanced, (thematically&chronologically accurate) Historical fulfillment (=538-1798 AD: Catholic vs. Reformers Ordeal+French Revolution+Papacy “Wounding”) of this prophecy in this dedicated post].

[Initially Released: June 26, 2000]

            Rev 11:1

Then a reed similar to one of a measuring rod [cf. in 1T 577.2b] was given to me, causing to be said: “[Make it your top priority to] raise up yourself, and [begin to] measure/judge/evaluate [see Matt 7:1-2 = “indict” (Gr. krino #2919 = Rev 19:11 -see in here] the sanctuary [belonging to] God, [that is] both the Altar  (i.e., priestly/Temple ministry[1]) and the ones who worship in it.”

            The Seventh-day Adventist Church, as God’s Faithful Remnant of Israel has been a movement of prophecy. But as God’s Israel, God fore-envisioned that there would come a day when the church would lose its initial zeal for Him. Like the spring at the peak of Heliopolis that “flows hot from the spring, but cools as it flows down the hillside-depositing minerals-[and] flows warm past Laodicea"[2] (lit. expresses the pivotal need for a “righteous people/laity” LDE 49.1; RH, August 19, 1890 par. 10-11; June 19, 1888 par. 5), God, who ‘can “foresee” the probable deeds of this Church’ (Rev 3:15) knew well-enough that His tremendously blessed end-time chosen people would eventually literally become a stagnating, nauseating pool of lukewarm water; with the citings of being: “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” indicating attained collectively deficiencies in ‘character, spirit/psyche, socio-economy, physical wellness and image/dignity,’ respectively. (Rev 3:16-17).