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!)