Is spiritual rest superior to physical rest?

[DamianWarS]

I agree with everything you say until you get to the point of denying the object lesson God was using to teach Peter not to think that Gentiles were not worth saving. You deny the entire point of why this story is in the Bible when you take the stance you do.

It's in the Bible to show us how much God loves us, not to tell us to go ahead and destroy ourselves with unhealthy foods. That's what the devil wants us to do because we were created in God's image and he hates God with everything that he is. He hates us just because God created us. He's so full of hate he worked with all his energy and deceitfulness to destroy one third of his fellow angels.

Where God is love personified, he is hate personified.

I don't recall encouraging a poor health lifestyle. My point is to show distinct spiritual meaning and benifit outside of the physical. Peter didn't think gentiles were worth saving because of the unclean/clean system that would declare gentiles were unclean. God then uses that same framework to show it's true meaning.

So the physical is the object lesson that points to the spiritual, this can be broadly said about all law and even creation, they are all have very physical focus that testify to the spiritual. But ultimately the spiritual has greater purpose, as it is that which remains with us after the physical has passed. It doesn't nullify the physical aspects but it does force us to reevaluate the purpose of these laws. This is not a one time application either, the same methodology would be indescriminately applied to all law rather than a descriminate approach you seem to prefer. You've neatly grouped some laws together and call them health laws, but the clean/unclean system far extended beyond what we eat. I'm curious how you view the other requirement to abstain from the unclean?

 

[Gary K]

I don't recall encouraging a poor health lifestyle. My point is to show distinct spiritual meaning and benifit outside of the physical. Peter didn't think gentiles were worth saving because of the unclean/clean system that would declare gentiles were unclean. God then uses that same framework to show it's true meaning.

So the physical is the object lesson that points to the spiritual, this can be broadly said about all law and even creation, they are all have very physical focus that testify to the spiritual. But ultimately the spiritual has greater purpose, as it is that which remains with us after the physical has passed. It doesn't nullify the physical aspects but it does force us to reevaluate the purpose of these laws. This is not a one time application either, the same methodology would be indescriminately applied to all law rather than a descriminate approach you seem to prefer. You've neatly grouped some laws together and call them health laws, but the clean/unclean system far extended beyond what we eat. I'm curious how you view the other requirement to abstain from the unclean?

Your reasoning is often used to deny Biblical teaching. Like the Sabbath, for instance. It's also used to deny health reform like the SDA church has taught for more than 100 years. Long before anyone had heard of cigarette smoking being bad for us the SDAs were teaching it. In fact doctors were still telling people to smoke for tobacco smoke's health benefits when we started teaching it was harmful. We've also been telling people alcohol use was harmful for that long too. As someone who has the addiction gene, I know just how harmful.

 

[DamianWarS]

Your reasoning is often used to deny Biblical teaching. Like the Sabbath, for instance. It's also used to deny health reform like the SDA church has taught for more than 100 years. Long before anyone had heard of cigarette smoking being bad for us the SDAs were teaching it. In fact doctors were still telling people to smoke for tobacco smoke's health benefits when we started teaching it was harmful. We've also been telling people alcohol use was harmful for that long too. As someone who has the addiction gene, I know just how harmful.

Muslims have been teaching to abstain from alcohol for over a 1000 years so does the make Islam more right than SDA? The Bible encourages drinking and wine is an intimate symbol of our faith. Is the SDA more right than the bible?

I'm not sure exactly what your point here is. Ciggerete companies have historically always tried to mask the harmful effects of smoking in advertising like saying "more doctors smoke x brand than anothers" or pushing a slim/diet angle for women" doctors even gave out ciggeretes to patients like a dentist gives out toothbrushes, funded by ciggeretes companies to hide health risks of smoking. The fact that this was even done suggests a cover up for the health risks, otherwise if it was so widely accepted as healthy your as anadoctal claim suggests then why weren't more parents (or doctors) giving their children ciggeretes?

This is anadoctal and driven at presenting the SDA as more ahead of their time, I will also add it's unsolicited, why are you telling me this information? What is your goal? There is nothing spectacular about declaring that alcohol and smoking are harmful, the salvation army, LDS, Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, etc.... All teach it too. Just because the SDA have a particular drive towards health doesn't actually make them biblically endorsed nor does it make the health cause uniquely a biblical perspective. This is all speculative.

You've made a claim here "Your reasoning is often used to deny Biblical teaching" so what is the suspect reasoning and what is the biblical teaching I'm denying?

 

[Gary K]

Muslims have been teaching to abstain from alcohol for over a 1000 years so does the make Islam more right than SDA? The Bible encourages drinking and wine is an intimate symbol of our faith. Is the SDA more right than the bible?

I'm not sure exactly what your point here is. Ciggerete companies have historically always tried to mask the harmful effects of smoking in advertising like saying "more doctors smoke x brand than anothers" or pushing a slim/diet angle for women" doctors even gave out ciggeretes to patients like a dentist gives out toothbrushes, funded by ciggeretes companies to hide health risks of smoking. The fact that this was even done suggests a cover up for the health risks, otherwise if it was so widely accepted as healthy your as anadoctal claim suggests then why weren't more parents (or doctors) giving their children ciggeretes?

This is anadoctal and driven at presenting the SDA as more ahead of their time, I will also add it's unsolicited, why are you telling me this information? What is your goal? There is nothing spectacular about declaring that alcohol and smoking are harmful, the salvation army, LDS, Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, etc.... All teach it too. Just because the SDA have a particular drive towards health doesn't actually make them biblically endorsed nor does it make the health cause uniquely a biblical perspective. This is all speculative.

You've made a claim here "Your reasoning is often used to deny Biblical teaching" so what is the suspect reasoning and what is the biblical teaching I'm denying?

I have no goal other than to defend the characrer of God as what we believe about Him is reflected in our beliefs. or vice versa.

The Sabbath. There may be other non Biblical beliefs too. I'm not sure and they are none of my business as this forum is about the Sabbath and any other discussion would be way off topic.

 

[DamianWarS]

this forum is about the Sabbath and any other discussion would be way off topic.

This forum is about Sabbath and law

 

[DamianWarS]

I have no goal other than to defend the characrer of God as what we believe about Him is reflected in our beliefs. or vice versa.

alcohol consumption is more biblical encouraged than not and wine itself is an intimate symbol of Christianity. Yet you felt the need to tell me SDA was ahead of its time in saying it was not a healthy focus. It would seem that your goal is not to tell me biblical revelation but to tell me SDA revelation. I'm not interested in what the SDA says, I'm interested in what the Bible says so you will have to learn to separate your denominational culture from what the Bible actually says.

No denomination is perfect and has various reasons and history that have caused a specific development or stance on an issue, for example, the Salvation Army is pretty clear about its views on alcohol, smoking, aka substance abuse because they started reaching out to people affected by substance abuse and that in turn has shaped their development of the issue on a denominational level. This also is the same for ordinances/sacraments because they saw a corruption and broad misunderstanding of the ritual and practices of the church and chose to move away from that culture, so no baptisms or eucharist in the Salvation Army church. They essentially have stripped away the physical veneer to focus on the spiritual. I get their reasoning and think this focus can work inside a context of many denominations as there is indeed corruption and the Salvation Army reminds us to refocus on the things that matter.

Ironically enough the history of the Salvation Army is rooted in the same as SDA both a product of the Second Great Awakening protestant revival movement but land at very different conclusions. Why are the SDA conclusions better than the SA (Salvation Army) conclusions? Perhaps it's time to think outside SDA culture and just read the bible what the bible says instead of being an SDA parrot, then once you understand the context of the text without a bias first applied you can apply it inside SDA circles to better understand their goals and be more responsible for your own actions.

We are all part of some sort of faith group but we are responsible for our own actions inside those groups, we can't just say to Christ at the judgment "but that's what X denomination said"... he won't buy that then.... he doesn't buy it now.

 

[Gary K]

alcohol consumption is more biblical encouraged than not and wine itself is an intimate symbol of Christianity. Yet you felt the need to tell me SDA was ahead of its time in saying it was not a healthy focus. It would seem that your goal is not to tell me biblical revelation but to tell me SDA revelation. I'm not interested in what the SDA says, I'm interested in what the Bible says so you will have to learn to separate your denominational culture from what the Bible actually says.

No denomination is perfect and has various reasons and history that have caused a specific development or stance on an issue, for example, the Salvation Army is pretty clear about its views on alcohol, smoking, aka substance abuse because they started reaching out to people affected by substance abuse and that in turn has shaped their development of the issue on a denominational level. This also is the same for ordinances/sacraments because they saw a corruption and broad misunderstanding of the ritual and practices of the church and chose to move away from that culture, so no baptisms or eucharist in the Salvation Army church. They essentially have stripped away the physical veneer to focus on the spiritual. I get their reasoning and think this focus can work inside a context of many denominations as there is indeed corruption and the Salvation Army reminds us to refocus on the things that matter.

Ironically enough the history of the Salvation Army is rooted in the same as SDA both a product of the Second Great Awakening protestant revival movement but land at very different conclusions. Why are the SDA conclusions better than the SA (Salvation Army) conclusions? Perhaps it's time to think outside SDA culture and just read the bible what the bible says instead of being an SDA parrot, then once you understand the context of the text without a bias first applied you can apply it inside SDA circles to better understand their goals and be more responsible for your own actions.

We are all part of some sort of faith group but we are responsible for our own actions inside those groups, we can't just say to Christ at the judgment "but that's what X denomination said"... he won't buy that then.... he doesn't buy it now.

You're mistaken in you assumptions about me.

If anyone has an excuse for rejecting SDA beliefs, I do. I was born into an SDA home, but not a Christian home. I was abused physically, mentally, and sexually. My older brother tried to murder me when I was in the eighth grade. By the time I graduated from high school the emotional pain was so bad I didn't want to live any more. I started a deliberate attempt to destroy my mind with drugs and within a few years came close to succeeding. If God had not intervened in my life I would have been in a mental hospital or dead in a short time.

He did and I began studying spiritual things. The last thing I wanted was more association with SDAs. I looked at eastern religions and found them meaningless. Then God so arranged circumstances in my life I had to move back home because I was physically unable to work for a long time. My parents were living in the northwest corner of Montana 30 miles from the closest town and it was winter time. I had lots of time on my hands and had nothing to do as there was 3' of snow on the ground. I had grown up loving to read so I started reading everything secular in the house. I soon ran out of that and had to go to reading spiritual material. I have always been a history buff so I started reading Ellen White's series of books called The Conflict of the Ages.

It's a 5 book series that covers the history of the war between God and Satan from the time of Satan's rebellion against God in heaven and goes till God puts an end to sin. It covers the story of the flood, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. and the children of Israel as well as the kings of Israel. It moves on to the loss of Judah'a sovereignty and then the life of Christ. She devotes an entire book to the life of Christ. That book is by far the best book ever written on the life of Christ. By the time I got through with it I realized that God loved me. Me, the person so damaged that his entire family despised him. That seemed incredible to me. Recognizing that love changed my life completely. I was the only Christian in my family although my parents were baptized the same year I was born. The abuse continued during the years that followed. But God was working in my life.

It took Him decades to completely heal me from the scars of sin but He did it and I have come to understand that that kind of healing is the process of sanctification for sin affects us in ways we don't recognize because all we've ever known is sin. It surrounds us. We're bombarded with it daily. The healing of those scars is what allows us to obey God as it changes our characters back into His image.

Anyway, that's the very short story of my life. It's why I am an Adventist today. SDA beliefs reflect the love of God in a way no other denomination's does or even can. I know because I've not only seen it, I've lived it. So I don't "parrot" anything.

 

[DamianWarS]

Anyway, that's the very short story of my life. It's why I am an Adventist today. SDA beliefs reflect the love of God in a way no other denomination's does or even can. I know because I've not only seen it, I've lived it. So I don't "parrot" anything.

What you have experience is the love of God filtered through the SDA church, and because of that have formed a SDA identity and aligence. You were raised as SDA so it's not exactly that remarkable to say you returned to SDA despite your abuse or hardships because this is the Christianity that was mirrored to you as a child that you can still connect with us as adults. I would assume the book you read was also SDA endorsed being in your SDA parents library so of course you would land at a SDA conclusion.

Read your story again, and pretend it is someone telling you their story, replacing SDA with Catholic, or Pentecostal, or Methodist, etc... would you believe the account if it was told to you by another? Or would you have doupt to the authenticity of their experience? Now read it again and replace SDA with another religion, say Islam or Hinduism. Does it get the same feel to it, yet there are stories that exists where each affirm their own system just as you have.

This is just called a bias which we all have, but if the fundamentals of your faith cannot be reconciled with scripture then there has been some human intervention involved. The SDA church has cut law into pieces unsupported by scripture and has told you which to value and which to not value, I find this lacks an honesty to how to approach scripture because it views scripture descriminately and there is no clean answer as to the measure. It also discourages a critical approach to stuying scripture. How many times can you ask why until you get an answer of "because God says so". Critical thinking keeps asking why... so don't stop at when the SDA says stop.

I'm sure you don't mean to suggest that I or others outside the SDA have not experienced the love of God to the same capacity. It is not uniquely the SDA church that holds the keys to the love of God. We have all had a journey that has brought us to the point where we are now and ahead lies a path before us that often will continue in similar foot steps. Our denominations we are active in acts as a filter for how we read scripture and this forms an identity of scripture that has blinders. we need to be able to understand this to approach scripture without the blinders.

you can still practice Sabbath for example and what the SDA calls health laws while still studying these laws outside the lens of the SDA church. You are a follower of Christ first than a part of the SDA church, don't confuse the order. We should actively question things to get a better understanding of it ourselves so we may have a deeper relationship with God.

I may in fact drink alcohol and be in harmony with Christ and certainly scripture easily support this. So what else may I do that the SDA doesn't support but still be in harmony with Christ/scripture? My goal is not to conflict with the SDA church but a lot of what I hear causes me to scratch my head, and when I look into it deeper and I don't come to the same conclusion. I still daily surrender myself to Christ and try and walk in his footsteps I'm just not driven to do this instep with the SDA church and I'm ok with that.

I'm also ok with challenging my own denomination on their own blinders. We are voices within these circles and can be a voice of reason when people easily fall into legalistic traps of following rules over Christ.

 

[honey badger]

You're mistaken in you assumptions about me.

If anyone has an excuse for rejecting SDA beliefs, I do. I was born into an SDA home, but not a Christian home. I was abused physically, mentally, and sexually. My older brother tried to murder me when I was in the eighth grade. By the time I graduated from high school the emotional pain was so bad I didn't want to live any more. I started a deliberate attempt to destroy my mind with drugs and within a few years came close to succeeding. If God had not intervened in my life I would have been in a mental hospital or dead in a short time.

He did and I began studying spiritual things. The last thing I wanted was more association with SDAs. I looked at eastern religions and found them meaningless. Then God so arranged circumstances in my life I had to move back home because I was physically unable to work for a long time. My parents were living in the northwest corner of Montana 30 miles from the closest town and it was winter time. I had lots of time on my hands and had nothing to do as there was 3' of snow on the ground. I had grown up loving to read so I started reading everything secular in the house. I soon ran out of that and had to go to reading spiritual material. I have always been a history buff so I started reading Ellen White's series of books called The Conflict of the Ages.

It's a 5 book series that covers the history of the war between God and Satan from the time of Satan's rebellion against God in heaven and goes till God puts an end to sin. It covers the story of the flood, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. and the children of Israel as well as the kings of Israel. It moves on to the loss of Judah'a sovereignty and then the life of Christ. She devotes an entire book to the life of Christ. That book is by far the best book ever written on the life of Christ. By the time I got through with it I realized that God loved me. Me, the person so damaged that his entire family despised him. That seemed incredible to me. Recognizing that love changed my life completely. I was the only Christian in my family although my parents were baptized the same year I was born. The abuse continued during the years that followed. But God was working in my life.

It took Him decades to completely heal me from the scars of sin but He did it and I have come to understand that that kind of healing is the process of sanctification for sin affects us in ways we don't recognize because all we've ever known is sin. It surrounds us. We're bombarded with it daily. The healing of those scars is what allows us to obey God as it changes our characters back into His image.

Anyway, that's the very short story of my life. It's why I am an Adventist today. SDA beliefs reflect the love of God in a way no other denomination's does or even can. I know because I've not only seen it, I've lived it. So I don't "parrot" anything.

what are your thoughts of Ron Wyatt ?

 

[Gary K]

What you have experience is the love of God filtered through the SDA church, and because of that have formed a SDA identity and aligence. You were raised as SDA so it's not exactly that remarkable to say you returned to SDA despite your abuse or hardships because this is the Christianity that was mirrored to you as a child that you can still connect with us as adults. I would assume the book you read was also SDA endorsed being in your SDA parents library so of course you would land at a SDA conclusion.

Read your story again, and pretend it is someone telling you their story, replacing SDA with Catholic, or Pentecostal, or Methodist, etc... would you believe the account if it was told to you by another? Or would you have doupt to the authenticity of their experience? Now read it again and replace SDA with another religion, say Islam or Hinduism. Does it get the same feel to it, yet there are stories that exists where each affirm their own system just as you have.

This is just called a bias which we all have, but if the fundamentals of your faith cannot be reconciled with scripture then there has been some human intervention involved. The SDA church has cut law into pieces unsupported by scripture and has told you which to value and which to not value, I find this lacks an honesty to how to approach scripture because it views scripture descriminately and there is no clean answer as to the measure. It also discourages a critical approach to stuying scripture. How many times can you ask why until you get an answer of "because God says so". Critical thinking keeps asking why... so don't stop at when the SDA says stop.

I'm sure you don't mean to suggest that I or others outside the SDA have not experienced the love of God to the same capacity. It is not uniquely the SDA church that holds the keys to the love of God. We have all had a journey that has brought us to the point where we are now and ahead lies a path before us that often will continue in similar foot steps. Our denominations we are active in acts as a filter for how we read scripture and this forms an identity of scripture that has blinders. we need to be able to understand this to approach scripture without the blinders.

you can still practice Sabbath for example and what the SDA calls health laws while still studying these laws outside the lens of the SDA church. You are a follower of Christ first than a part of the SDA church, don't confuse the order. We should actively question things to get a better understanding of it ourselves so we may have a deeper relationship with God.

I may in fact drink alcohol and be in harmony with Christ and certainly scripture easily support this. So what else may I do that the SDA doesn't support but still be in harmony with Christ/scripture? My goal is not to conflict with the SDA church but a lot of what I hear causes me to scratch my head, and when I look into it deeper and I don't come to the same conclusion. I still daily surrender myself to Christ and try and walk in his footsteps I'm just not driven to do this instep with the SDA church and I'm ok with that.

I'm also ok with challenging my own denomination on their own blinders. We are voices within these circles and can be a voice of reason when people easily fall into legalistic traps of following rules over Christ.

Knowing what I know from personal experience about the damage abuse does to a person if someone from another denomination told me their story of how God changed their life I would absoluitely understand that the power of God had been at work in their life. However, you have to admit our denomination has very distinctive beliefs that other denominations do not have. No other church has them.

To call returning to the SDA church aa preconceived bias on my part is just flat out wrong. It was rthat I found out God loved me, personally through Ellen White's writings that brought me back to it.

I was a total misfit as my wife tells me. On our senior trip we went to Victoria, BC and spent a couplr of evenings at a college biology station on Puget Sound. A girl I really like walked up to me on a hike we took one evening and took my hand and continued to hold it. I thought she was the prettiest girl in school and she was smart, A straight A student and I had always liked smart women. I had been bullied so much by my family, and as a result of that, the kids I had gone to school with I had to to let go of her hand and literally ran away from her because I thought she would get bullied just for associating herself with me.

Unless someone has gone through what I have it's impossible for them to really understand what it does to a person. Love is the only thing that could have drawn me back to the SDA church because love is the most powerful force in the universe. Far more powerful than any bias,and I had a definite anti SDA bias.

 

[Gary K]

what are your thoughts of Ron Wyatt ?

I don't know a lot about him. I did just watch a few of his videos a short time ago. I thought they were very interesting and I liked them. Why?

 

[honey badger]

I don'tknow a lot about him. I did just watch a few of his videos a short time ago. I thought they were very interesting and I liked them. Why?

well seeing the SDA is a consortium and you have not heard about him within it ... speaks boatloads to me regarding control ... never mind .. it was just a question ... pay it no heed

 

[Gary K]

well seeing the SDA is a consortium and you have not heard about him within it ... speaks boatloads to me regarding control ... never mind .. it was just a question ... pay it no heed

Huh? Are you implying he was an SDA? I didn't know that.

 

[honey badger]

Huh? Are you implying he was an SDA? I didn't know that.

he was at the time of his discoveries ... but left the organization some years before his death ...

 

[Gary K]

he was at the time of his discoveries ... but left the organization some years before his death ...

So? What's rthat have to do with anything? Lot's of people leave lots of denominations for lots of reasons. I don't see the point in bringing it up. Am I supposed to hate him because he left the denomination? I find that to be a weird concept.

 

[honey badger]

So? What's rthat have to do with anything? Lot's of people leave lots of denominations for lots of reasons. I don't see the point in bringing it up. Am I supposed to hate him because he left the denomination? I find that to be a weird concept.

hate him ... far from it ... my point is that how can one have any trust in a denomination which hides things from their flock ... speaking to the same have you ever wondered at the significance of EGW tombstone !

you are free to think what so ever you like .. but from years of study for me nothing is insignificant ...

 

[Gary K]

hate him ... far from it ... my point is that how can one have any trust in a denomination which hides things from their flock ... speaking to the same have you ever wondered at the significance of EGW tombstone !

you are free to think what so ever you like .. but from years of study for me nothing is insignificant ...

Hides him? Where does that come from? You don't understand SDAs. We are a group of independent thinkers. We started from that and have remained so for only independent thinkers will face discrimination from all directions to maintain their beliefs and practices. Look at this forum. We are by far the smallest group and face opposition all sides. We also face discrimination in keeping the Sabbath. It takes independence to face that over a life time.

 

[honey badger]

Hides him? Where does that come from? You don't understand SDAs. We are a group of independent thinkers. We started from that and have remained so for only independent thinkers will face discrimination from all directions to maintain their beliefs and practices. Look at this forum. We are by far the smallest group and face opposition all sides. We also face discrimination in keeping the Sabbath. It takes independence to face that over a life time.

what tithe are you paying ... the only discrimination i see within your organization is that they have discriminated against one of their own and by doing so ... are doing it to you ...

 

[Gary K]

what tithe are you paying ... the only discrimination i see within your organization is that they have discriminated against one of their own and by doing so ... are doing it to you ...

The Biblical tithe. 10% plus a generous offering every week to show my gratitude to God. I give about 80% of my tithe in offerings every month.

 

[honey badger]

The Biblical tithe. 10% plus a generous offering every week to show my gratitude to God. I give about 80% of my tithe in offerings every month.

so your buying a stairway to heaven ... interestingly Jesus had no steps in his ...