Questions for Sabbath, Sept. 30

Romans 6:15-23

1. Is 6:15 asking the same question as 6:1?

2. Verse 17:“slaves to sin” – did YOU used to be a slave to sin? When telling your conversion story, would you have described yourself that way?

3. Verse 18: “free from sin” Can you think of another Bible passage with similar language?

4. Verse 19 “offer … parts of your body” – what’s Paul talking about?

5. Verse 23, the “classic” verse of this passage. Re-write it in your own words.

Comments on lesson of Sept. 23

Last week's lesson was on Romans 6:1-14 and we spent some time on perfectionism (the belief that some group of Christians will achieve victory over sin before Jesus comes) vs. non-perfectionism (those that believe victory over sin will not happen before Jesus comes). The EGW quote referred to was: "When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own." - Christ's Object Lessons, p. 69.

I lean strongly toward the perfectionism camp, although I believe that those who achieve the victory won't even realize they're victors because Jesus is filling their thoughts and hearts. One of Satan's claims is that the law is unjust and cannot be obeyed (see Desire of Ages, p. 308).

Jesus proved Satan wrong by His perfect obedience and says "If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love." I don't see any asterisk there with a note: "by the way it's impossible for you to obey" nor do I see one by Phil. 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens" * with the exception of overcoming sin.

I am very far from that goal as you know very well if you know me, but I still believe the goal is possible. Really, the debate is unnecessary because a sincere Christian who believes perfection is not possible in this life is still surrending themselves to Jesus every day and growing closer to Him, just like the sincere Christian who believes in perfectionism.

The FOCUS must be on JESUS and not on self.

The God of the living or the dead?

The SDA Bible Commentary comments on Matthew 22:32 (the parallel passage to Mark 12:18-27): "What honor is there in being the God of dead men? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were dead at the time God appeared to Moses before the burning bush. Why would God identify Himself as the God of the patriarchs, except in anticipation of the resurrection?" SDABC vol. 5, p. 483.

SDA abortion statement

Many don't realize all the information SDA's have online. We DO have a statement on abortion (see the links column), as well as on many other topics. The church is changing--we didn't used to want to make statements on controversial topics, but now we do so quite regularly. Recently, world church president Jan Paulsen even commented on the Muslim cartoon issue. Too busy this week to write more.

Thanks for the comments (Click on "3 Comments" at the end of "One of my favorite stories"), now I feel like there's discussion and not just monoblog.

One of my favorite stories

Matthew's version (21:33-46) of The Parable of the Tenants has long been one of my favorite stories. I think I first liked it because I think of myself as a rebel, and here Jesus appears to "set up" the religious leaders of the day. He must have been a fantastic story-teller, and here the chief priests and elders are SO into the story that they answer His question without thinking (verse 41) and so condemn themselves.

However, after thinking about it, He wasn't looking to make them look stupid as they blundered into His "trap." He "saw in every soul one to whom must be given the call to His kingdom" (Desire of Ages, p. 151). What He really wanted was for them to think about all God had done for the Jews, and how their time of probation was nearly over, and how their only hope was to realize they were rejecting the Messiah and to STOP and to accept Him.

The Parable of the Tenants connects to Isaiah chapter 5, where Isaiah asks, "What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?" (verse 4).

And of course, this applies to us Seventh-day Adventists today, too. What more could God have done for us? Given us a special message, a prophet, told us that we are in the very last days? What more could He have done? What are we doing?

Any comments? (I wonder sometimes if I'm the only one who reads this!)

High priest, rope, bells

Last Sabbath, someone mentioned (I can't remember the context) that they tied a rope to the ankle of the high priest and put bells on the tassels of his robe. This was done in case the high priest was struck dead by God. They would know he was dead because they could no longer hear the bells, and they could use the rope to pull him out because no one was allowed to go into the Most Holy Place. I was kind of skeptical (how unusual!) but didn't say anything.

This morning I ran into Doug Tilstra from SAU's School of Religion and asked him about it. He said that although this information is not in the Bible, it is in Jewish writings and is probably true. He is going to check with Dr. Leatherman and get back to me.

The Blog Begins

LAST SABBATH: We discussed Mark 11:12-14 and 11:20-25 "The Cursing of the Fig Tree." (Note: The Desire of Ages chapter 64 "A Doomed People" has some great commentary on how the fig tree represented the Jewish people who were "corrupted by the love of the world and the greed of gain.")

We noticed that Mark 11:26 is included in KJV but not in modern translations. This got me off on the following tangent:

After our discussion last Sabbath, I did some research. I checked out the SDA Biblical Research Institute web site (adventistbiblicalresearch.org) and found a couple of good articles. Both were excellent and I recommend that you take the time to read them yourself. I am writing a short summary here, though.

The first article, "Which Version Can We Trust?" (click on link to the right to go there) was very interesting. Here are some points that I got from the article (please read the article yourself!):

1. The differences between the Greek texts used for the translations of the various versions of the Bible are not very significant. These differences are minor and do not affect any doctrines or teachings of the Bible. We should never base our belief on a single verse or phrase but should rather look at all the teaching of the Bible on a particular subject.

2. The thousands of Greek manuscripts have been classified into four categories (types, or "families"), two of which are significant: the Alexandrian and the Byzantine.

The Alexandrian is “generally characterized by brevity and austerity” with “little evidence of grammatical and stylistic polishing." This text family includes the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus—two well-known old manuscripts.

The Byzantine has the largest number of manuscripts, but they are “the latest chronologically.” The scribes who worked on these manuscripts tried to smooth over differences in parallel passages, producing harmonizations.

3. The Textus Receptus ("Received Text") (published in the early 1600's) is very similar to the Byzantine text family and this is what the King James Version is based on.

4. Biblical scholars Westcott and Hort published a Greek text in 1881, after 28 years of research. Their goal was to determine the "most probable" reading of the original Greek. The English Revised Version of the Bible (1881-85) and the American Revised Version (1901) relied on a text similar to Westcott and Hort's. This is really where the controversy between the KJV and the "modern versions" began.

5. Modern language translators try to eliminate "verses, phrases, or words that were inserted into the biblical text under the influence of the Byzantine textual tradition. This practice has proved troublesome for many who have come to accept these additions as an integral part of the Word of God, even though they were introduced into the biblical text simply by well-meaning copyists. Their removal is considered blasphemy."

Finally, let me emphasize:

1. READ THE ARTICLES (the other article is "Modern Versions and the King James Version" (click on the link to the right). Don't quote me, read it for yourself--you're already online!

2. DIFFERENCES IN THE PASSAGES ARE MINIMAL. The articles emphasize:
"the teachings of Scripture have not suffered because of these omissions or expansions." "We need to remember, however, that such omissions (or additions) are never vital to Scripture..." Most of them "are trivial and devoid of any theological significance,..."