Samoa and the SABBATH

[daquick]

Matthew 23:24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

[HopefulOne]

No belittling at all. She rightly indicated that her travel was needed.

Care to share the quote to prove that "redwood" ?

[Naomi]

Matthew 23:24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

[Ulunruh]

"Adventist Concern Ministries" has a face book page with interesting poster pictures.

One that just caught my attention declared:

Our lives begin to end

the day we become silent

on things that matter.

Break the silence!

Tell everyone that

SUNDAY IS NOT THE SABBATH!

While it may be interesting to philosophizes over situational enigmas of crossing the dateline it really does not address the very real issue facing Sabbath keepers in Samoa.

For a Seventh-day Adventist in Samoa to keep the day that lies between Friday and Sunday, (known around the world by Adventists as the Sabbath) is to be considered disloyal to the church, refused pastoral ministry, and numerous other unpleasant experiences with the people who used to be their friends and fellow believers.

There are some 300 Saturday Sabbath keepers living on the Samoan Islands where the main church body has decided that Sunday is the Sabbath day.

Many misconceptions are being circulated --

HISTORY

Late 1700's and early 1800's London Mission Society as well as Wesleyan missionaries set up mission stations on many Islands in the South Pacific. The London Mission group set up in Samoa and Wesleyan missionaries had success in Tonga. In fact the Wesleyan's were so well established in Tonga that this Island Kingdom's whole politics were influenced by the missionaries. These missionaries were strict Puritan SUNDAY keepers who called SUNDAY "the Sabbath" not only in Tonga but also in England and even in America. When they helped write the constitution for Tonga they included Sunday laws.

The Tongan Constitution was enacted by King George Tupou I on November 4, 1875. Sunday in Tonga is celebrated as a strict sabbath, enshrined so in the constitution. But it is SUNDAY the day also celebrated as the resurrection day.

During all those years Tonga and Samoa (and pretty much ALL the Islands in the South Pacific) were following the ASIAN week --

1884 The International Meridian Conference.

The Conference was to chose a Prime Meridian that would help standardize time around the world. The chose Greenwich, England, for not only was England at the time the leading nation with colonies around the world, but they were also leading sea travelers with great map making skills. From this decision time zones were to be counted as being so many hours more or less than Greenwich time.

There was NO decision on setting an international dateline along a meridian to govern the Islands, or even to govern time strictly by meridians. Time zones often, to this day, often overlap several meridians.

Ships on high seas tended to change their time at the 180th but when entering harbor waters they were to accept the local time.

But westerners started pressuring the Islands that were situated east of the 180th to adjust their week.

July 4, 1892 Samoa had two July 4 Mondays making it an eight day week and placing themselves a day behind their neighbors (Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia etc.) The Cook Islands also changed. Tahiti had changed earlier when the French took over that Island group.

TONGA however, NEVER changed. They refused to change and stayed on the same day as their close neighbors (Fiji, New Zealand etc. )

ADVENTISTS

Adventists arrived in the years when this confusion was at its height. Samoa was already on the American week so the American Adventists had no issue. But in Tonga the American Missionaries felt Tonga should change, and they wrote home saying everyone in Tonga was already keeping the right Sabbath day, even though they called it Sunday, giving a totally wrong impression. The Adventist missionaries kept Sunday along with the Wesleyan missionaries right from the start.

Even when it became totally apparent that Tonga would continue to operate on the Asian week Adventists continued to worship on Sunday. The world recognizes the international dateline to run to the east of Tonga but Adventists refuse to accept the international dateline and have put their own in place saying it should run along the 180th. However they aren't even consistent in that as the Fiji Island group has at lest one of it's Islands on "the wrong side", but they are still keeping Saturday according to the Asian week.

Now the recent issue is that Samoa has reversed the move made in 1892 (skipping a day in Dec. 2011 in order to reverse the effects of the double day in 1892, and return to the Asian week.

There was NO RENAMING of days.

Sunday is still the first day of the week, followed by Monday, Tues etc.

Everyone still celebrates Easter Sunday on Sunday.

The other Sunday keeping churches all go to church on Sunday.

There is NO CHANGE in the calendar.

August 16, 2013 is Friday there as well as everywhere else.

Saturday and Sunday are still the "weekend" and Monday to Friday still the "standard" workweek.

The only change?

Adventists in Samoa now keep Sunday and go to football games or fix their houses etc on Saturday.

But not all -- there are the faithful 300 who keep the seventh day of the week (Saturday) even though many of them had to meet in small groups outside, under tarps, and face difficulties because of their stand.

These faithful ones NEED THE SUPPORT OF THE WORLD CHURCH!

It has been very difficult for them.

[Johann]

It must be difficult as a Seventh-day Adventist to worship on the same day as all other churches do - Sunday.

[Windsor]

I'm not sure who the faithful ones are. This is a situation that was not planned for in the Bible. Without God Himself telling us His will in this situation, who can know it?

[Neil D]

So what happens if you fly to Aussieland from New York, and it is Friday Evening from New York, the only day you get a ticket, and you cross the date line and it is Sunday?

Which day do you rest on?

Or coming back, you have 2 days that are Sabbath?

Why?

that is my question to you......Why? Does it matter? If Sabbath begins at sundown, did you fly during the Sabbath? Or did you cross the other way around the world? Does it matter? Isn't the airplane your own little world during your trip? Cant you spend Sabbath in your own little world??? Does it matter???

Can you just figure that once you crossed the International Date line, that you lost a day?...and will gain a day back at a later date?

Oh bother......

And as for the Samoan Sabbath issue...too much for me to figure out....time for another thread....

[Ulunruh]

I believe inspiration gave us a safe principle to follow.

Back in the late 1890's a movement was growing within the Adventist Church that tried to establish a "dateline" based on their perception of the Bible. They argued that the dateline should be somewhere in Armenia since that is where they supposed the Garden of Eden was once located, thus the day began there. According to their thinking all countries lying between Armenia and the accepted dateline were worshipping on the wrong day and that Sunday was really the seventh day for these countries.

To this Ellen White wrote:

"Now, my sister, . . . I write . . . to tell you that we are not to give the least credence to the day line theory. It is a snare of Satan brought in by his own agents to confuse minds. You see how utterly impossible for this thing to be, that the world is all right observing Sunday, and God's remnant people are all wrong. This theory of the day line would make all our history for the past fifty-five years a complete fallacy. But we know where we stand. . . . {3SM 318.4}

That same principle is in play in Tonga and Samoa today.

The official international dateline runs to the east of them putting them in the SAME time zones (the same sunrise/sunset for Sabbath) as Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, Japan, Russia etc.

Adventists have chosen to ignore this official international dateline and insist a line that HAS NEVER BEEN the official terrestrial dateline as their chosen "dateline".

Thus they have a "THEORY of the day line that is a snare of Satan to confuse minds and say that it IS possible for the world to be right observing Sunday and God's remnant (the faithful 300) to be all wrong.

[Ulunruh]

So what happens if you fly to Aussieland from New York, and it is Friday Evening from New York, the only day you get a ticket, and you cross the date line and it is Sunday?

Which day do you rest on? Or coming back, you have 2 days that are Sabbath?

A little planning would take care of that problem, however, having the dateline running through the middle of the South Pacific Division creates very strange circumstances.

When the Wesleyan and London Missionaries converted the South Pacific Island natives to Christianity beginning in 1798 and on through the 1800's ALL these Islands were on the same day. (Asian Time) clear over to Tahiti.

When Adventists arrived about 90 years later, it was a time of upheaval with pressure to have the dateline tugged closer to the 180th which ended up separating these Islands so a large number were still the same as Australia, while others were now a day behind.

This also resulted in the South Pacific Division (then known as Australasian Union Conference) being divided. The Islands were under their direction since 1901.

Consider the layout --

The South Pacific Division has it's headquarters in Wahroonga, Australia.

It is made up of four regional offices. They are the Australian Union Conference (headquarters in Melbourne), New Zealand Pacific Union Conference (headquarters in Auckland), Papua New Guinea Union Mission (headquarters in Lae) and Trans-Pacific Union Mission (headquarters in Suva, Fiji).

Every one of these offices are on Asian time, even the regional headquarters over Samoa and Tonga resides in Fiji which is on Asian Time.

So we have reports of regional officers going to church Saturday morning in Fiji. Jumping on a plane for Samoa after church, having a game of golf in the afternoon of the same day in Samoa, then going to church in Samoa the next day, and after church flying back to Fiji where it is Sunday, and since Fiji Adventists keep Saturday, the regional official can engage in secular activities.

To me this (which happens fairly regularly as I understand) is a far greater problem than that of someone who hasn't planned very well taking a one time flight from America to Australia Friday evening.

The Puritan (Weselyan and London Missionary Society) Missionaries had the days right. The colonizing countries messed it up. Now Islands who were pushed into changing their position on the dateline are simply returning to be on the same day as their neighbors.

The solution to the Sabbath problem is simple.

KEEP THE DAY from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, the same as the people in the regional headquarters in Fiji.

[Ulunruh]

The issue does in a sense revolve around the names Sunday and Sabbath.

You see -- the early Non-Adventists missionaries called Sunday their Sabbath and even put it into their constitution that "Sabbath" must be kept.

There is a definite linguistic misunderstanding by some that the Tongan non-Adventist missionaries somehow were keeping the Biblical 7th day.

The missionaries from both the London Mission Society and the Wesleyan Mission society were Sabbatarians. Most Adventists associate the word “Sabbatarian” with the seventh day Sabbath, Saturday, but these Missionaries were not Saturday Sabbatiarians.

Sabbatarianism is usually defined as the belief that Christians must observe a particular day of the week as the Sabbath, and to the Puritan mind, with few exceptions, this meant Sunday. This Sunday observance meant much more than going to church on Sunday; they began their “sabbath” on Saturday evening and they observed it till sundown Sunday evening.

This Sabbatarianism was also fully exhibited in the first American colonies and we can look there to see and understand it better.

Quote:

Quote:

“The New England Sabbath always began at sunset on Saturday night and ended at the next sunset.... [Activities] prohibited on Saturday evening... were allowed on Sunday evening. (George M. Stephenson, The Puritan Heritage [New York: MacMillan Co., 1952] p. 181-2

“From sunset on Saturday until Sunday night they would not shave, have rooms swept, nor beds made, have food prepared, nor cooking utensils and table-ware washed. As soon as their Sabbath began they gathered their families and servants around them...and read the Bible and exhorted and prayed and recited the catechism until nine o'clock, usually by the light of one small "dip candle" only.... Sweet to the Pilgrims and to their descendants was the hush of their calm Saturday night, and their still, tranquil Sabbath, — sign and token to them, not only of the weekly rest ordained in the creation, but of the eternal rest to come. (Alice Morse Earle, The Sabbath in Puritan New England [New York: Scribner, 1909], 254, 257)

With this Sabbatarianism came the “blue laws” in the early American Colonies. Now, early American history is clear that the enforced “Sabbath” was Sunday. These blue laws included not simply the mandatory closing of businesses on Sundays, but also mandatory church service participation.

THE SABBATH IN TONGA

In Tonga's Constitution, part six of the Declaration of Rights reads:

Quote:

Quote:

“Sabbath Day to be kept holy The Sabbath Day shall be kept holy in Tonga and no person shall practise his trade or profession or conduct any commercial undertaking on the Sabbath Day except according to law; and any agreement made or witnessed on that day shall be null and void and of no legal effect.

The following from a book published in 2001 on Tonga, summarizes what is and isn't permissible in Tonga on Sunday.

Quote:

“Buses don't operate, businesses are closed, sports events are prohibited and planes may not land. Contracts signed on Sunday are considered null and void and any Tongan caught fishing or guilty of any other breach of the Sabbath is subject to a T$10 fine or three months' hard labour. Even swimming at the beach is a no-no on Sunday for Tongans. [Matt Fletcher and Nancy Keller, Tonga (4th Edition) (Australia: Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd, 2001), 30.

WHY WAS SUNDAY CALLED “THE SABBATH” IN TONGA?

These protestant missionaries were following Asian time. All the Islands east of Australia clear over to Tahiti were once on Asian time. The London Missionary Society was very active bringing many missionaries to every Island that would receive them, and consistently following the Asian week everywhere they set up a mission. The Wesleyan mission, whose strong areas were in Fiji and Tonga also followed the Asian week.

They were Sunday Sabbatarians. Just like their fellow believers who attempted to enforce Sunday “Sabbath” keeping in the American colonies by passing Sunday laws, these missionaries were calling Sunday the “Sabbath” and caused it to be part of the Tongan constitution.

This constitution was drawn up by King George Topou I in 1875 with the help of Mr. Shirley Baker who came to Tonga as a Wesleyan Missionary in 1862.

Tonga, in those years, was not isolated from the world so it is incorrect to say a band of missionaries just didn’t realize they had crossed some dateline, they had contact with numerous European and other foreign officials. Quite a number of missionaries came (and went) over those years.

(There are several books concerning these early missionaries on the web) Tonga was not isolated. They knew Sunday was Sunday the day of the resurrection, and it was the day they honoured as the Christian Sabbath.

They knew it was the same Sunday that Christians observed in Australia and New Zealand. Christianity became the religion in the whole of the Kingdom of Tonga with everyone going to their chapels of worship on Sunday—it was part of their constitution. And all this took place BEFORE Adventists set foot in Tonga.

Conclusion

We know Christians in the New England colonial states in America were calling Sunday, “the Sabbath”, but it was still the first day of the week, not the seventh. Both Seventh-day Baptists and later seventh-day Adventists realized the Sunday Sabbath was not the Biblical Sabbath. In the same way, just because these early missionaries named the first day of the week "Sabbath", (sapate) these early LMS and Wesleyan Missionaries were NOT keeping the Biblical seventh-day Sabbath and just mistakenly calling it Sunday. They regarded Sunday as the Christian Sabbath and it was Sunday the first day of the week, which they called the Sabbath.

[Ulunruh]

This is an open letter by two men who are very much concerned about the situation in Tonga and Samoa.

It has some interesting Biblical insights into the Saturday vs Sunday issue.

Quote:

Open Letter to Pastor Nick Kross & Litiana Turner – South Pacific Division of the SDA Church

Thank you for the visit of Litiana to the Church in Dargaville.

The distribution of the World Changer Bibles (WCB) is good to see and we still have an interest in it here in our local Church. However there is an aspect of great concern to our congregation. Please take some time to consider and address this concern.

Quote:

An inserted explanation

World Changers Bible Institute (WCBI) is an affordable and exciting Bible school designed to equip leaders of all ages for excellence and success in life and ministry. So whether you sense a calling into full time ministry, to be a light in the business world, or to be a leader in your home…these powerful classes are designed to help you grow and be more effective in your Christian life!

Under the present circumstances the Church in Tonga and Samoa will use the Bibles and study guides to teach and entrench Sunday-keeping under the auspices of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

While we continue to support the World Changer project, we should consider

Psalm 127:1, “Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.

” It would be absurd to implicate “the Lord” in SDA Sunday-keeping for all the biblical reasons given in the WCB study guides. The reality of the Seventh-day Adventist Church keeping Saturday or Sunday as the seventh-day Sabbath is something that our young people should not have to deal with, but they do. Hence our appeal to you.

I think I have uncovered a biblical principle that has not been considered in relation to our keeping of Sunday in some parts of the Pacific. One reference this principle is found in is

Quote:

Proverbs 20:10 20:10 Divers weights, [and] divers measures, both of them [are] alike abomination to the LORD.

This says that diverse weights and diverse measures – both alike – are an abomination unto the Lord. To get a better understanding of the verse, here are the dictionary definitions:

Diverse: different; dissimilar; contradictory; conflicting; opposite; varied.

Abomination: abhorrence; evil; horror; torment; plague; affliction; annoyance; bugbear; loathing; repugnance; disgust; hate; hatred; aversion.

It is easy to understand that dissimilar or varied weights and measures would be an abhorrence or evil to the Lord. They are to mankind as well. Standard weights and measures are necessary for every aspect of life. Proverbs 20:10 is saying that anything other than our standard weights and measures are an abomination. We must use socially accepted scales of weights and measures to understand one another for fair trade, and time-keeping. Contemporary weights and measures are the benchmark of our honesty, appointments and record-keeping.

Sunday-keeping is often challenged by Adventists because of its pagan origin and papal connections. It would be ridiculous to suggest that our SDA brethren in the Pacific keep Sunday because of these influences even though there is no proof of it. I believe this in good faith. Likewise, I believe to shift the IDL to the west of Samoa, creating a six-day week, was not a covert way for the Samoan government to get Adventists to worship on Sunday. We should also accept this in good faith. Adventists were worshiping on Sunday elsewhere prior to December 2011 by their own choice. Furthermore, Seventh-day Adventists are worshiping separately on both Saturday and Sunday by their own free choice in Samoa without any trickery or deceitfulness on the part of the Samoan government.

The evidence is that Adventists in the Pacific keep Sunday as a result of not accepting the IDL as the only authentic measure to separate and name each day. Adventists in Samoa began keeping Sunday because they could not understand or accept having a six-day week in order to assimilate the IDL realignment, when the commandment says, “six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord they God.” Not accepting the IDL realignment by having a six-day week, some of our people in Samoa have strained a gnat and swallowed a camel. The ongoing effect of this action is to worship on Sunday, the first day, instead of Saturday, the seventh, and they sustain their action by fabrications such as:

•“the name of the day changed”

•“it is not a Saturday Sabbath, nor a Sunday Sabbath, but it is the seventh-day Sabbath”

•“A piece of land that cannot move cannot be likened to a traveller crossing the IDL”

These fabrications are reinforced by the demonizing of the IDL by calling it only a “man-made” line. The fact is, all weights and measures throughout history have been man-made. God uses these man-made weights and measures to communicate His will to man, eg: Noah built the ark in cubits; Moses built the sanctuary in cubits; Daniel prophesied about weeks (of years) and “a time, times and the dividing of time;” The Apostle John’s angel messenger measured the holy city in furlongs; and there are many other examples.

For our youth to be united in their World Changer efforts we must try to protect them from the confusion of this Saturday/Sunday argument. We are trying to do this by way of truthful explanations. Without a Saturday Sabbath what significant world change could our youth in Tonga and Samoa make?

The Seventh-day Adventist Church knows that Saturday and Sunday are two different volumes of the substance “time.” So do our youth. We contrast Saturday, the seventh day, with Sunday, the first day of the week, in order to keep the seventh-day Sabbath in most of the world, yet in spite of that knowledge and practice, the Church has upheld Sunday-keeping in Tonga, declaring it to be the same day. This is impossible because Saturday and Sunday are different parts of the same scale of measure. One cannot be the other. Saturday and Sunday are not six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Just because the Church has behaved this way in Tonga for 120 years, and God has not raised up a prophet to draw it to our attention, does not validate the use of this different day – Sunday. Jesus said of the last generation, “If they don’t believe Moses and the prophets, why would they believe though one rose from the dead?” (Luke 16:31). This issue doesn’t need a special prophet, neither should we wait for one.

To use the diverse measure – Sunday instead of Saturday – is disgusting, appalling, horrible, contemptible and loathsome. To do it for 120 years does not make it right. It is still an abomination.

The human hurt of this offensive practice has been explained to me by a brother and sister who were brought up in Tonga as Seventh-day Adventists, where they were taught that Sunday is the seventh-day Sabbath. When they went to Fulton College to further their education, they learned that Saturday is the seventh-day Sabbath. They both say that the excuse for the double standard was the positioning of the international dateline (IDL). Now that they live in New Zealand they want nothing to do with this double standard. Just talking about it with them brings back the distress.

At the recent Pathfinder Camporee in Te Poi, NZ, I met another man from Tonga, where he was raised a Catholic. He had observed that both Catholics and Adventists go to church on Sunday back home. Now married to an Adventist lady he attends church on Saturday. Twice he said he was confused and I could see and hear his distress, so I offered him the excuse of the IDL. He had already heard of that but it obviously did not satisfy him.

Now that they have Bibles, how will the SDA youth in Tonga explain why they keep Sunday, the first day of the week when their Bible says the seventh day is the Sabbath, which is the present-day equivalent of Saturday in their terms of measure? How will these World Changers explain Luke 23:53-24:1 where the Sabbath is the day after the one they call Friday and the day before the one they call Sunday? I know that the Church in Tonga has done it for 120 years, but that only means it has been an abomination for 120 years.

What explanation will the World Changers in Samoa give to their peers as to why most Seventh-day Adventists changed from going to Church on Saturday to going on Sunday while some did not? The calendar didn't change, neither did the name of the day.

In my experience, as a child and teen, I didn't invent the message. I just repeated what I had been told. But I could understand the truth in what I was told using the standard measure. Can we honestly tell our youth that in some islands, like Fiji, the name of the seventh day is Saturday, but in Tonga and Samoa the name is Sunday? Using the standard measure, how can we put such fabrications on the lips of our young people, after putting a Bible in their hands, and expect their trust? Lying lips are also an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truly are His delight (Prov. 12:22). With the pain of the Sabbath issue in the Pacific, this is good counsel.

I know the respondents, the STM and the SPD, feel that they have acted in good faith, but there is a material and spiritual difference between Saturday and Sunday. First we must find out and accept what is the material difference between Saturday and Sunday, then we can solve this dispute amongst ourselves. Malachi had a similar problem in his day when there was a material difference in what the people were offering to the Lord. This showed their disrespect, according to Malachi.

We can learn from Malachi 1:8. Ask the authority on weights and measures. The governor knows the difference between the old and the new scales and how to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, feet and inches to metres and centimetres, or even cubits and metres if you ask him. God has put the governor in charge of weights and measures, so ask him which day is the equivalent of the biblical Sabbath, Saturday or Sunday. Malachi says that the material aspect of our honour to God has to be of the same standard you would offer to the governor - period. No ifs or buts. That approach is biblical.

My friend John Wallace and I personally feel the distress of this abomination. It is a contradiction of the seventh-day Sabbath we were baptised into. We have grieved over it ever since we read in the NZ Herald that the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Samoa was going to begin keeping Sunday from January, 2012, because of the realignment of the IDL. The only consolation we got was that there was a small group on the island of Samatau who were not going to change to Sunday but would continue to worship on Saturday.

We have tried to grow that consolation by putting logic and our reputation of Church loyalty on the line for this small group. We provide as much reassurance for these, our brethren, as we can, while giving transparent reasons why the whole Church in Samoa and all the Pacific Island nations should unite in keeping Saturday, the seventh-day Sabbath.

The IDL is the only authoritative measure to establish the volume of international named time for each day of the week, and the present-day equivalent of that measure of time proscribed in Scripture for the seventh-day Sabbath which is now known as Saturday. We need to put blind prejudice aside.

The relief we ask of you is to front up to this dilemma in the Pacific, and do something to protect the World Changers from the abomination of the last 120 years. We trust that this fresh biblical approach is of assistance.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Vincent

John Wallace

Dargaville

New Zealand

[Alchemy]

Before July 4th, 1892, Saturday was understood and known to be the seventh day of the week in Samoa. After the move of the International Dateline (IDL) on July 4th, 1892, Saturday was still understood and known to be the seventh day of the week. Now, in December of 2011, Samoa moves the International Dateline (IDL) back to where it was before 1892 and somehow Saturday is not the seventh day anymore!

Samoa always kept Saturday as the seventh day, even on both sides of the International Dateline (IDL). It didn't matter what side of the IDL Samoa was on, Saturday was the seventh day. Why not now?

Saturday is the seventh day, regardless of what side of the IDL you are located.

You know, people cross the IDL in planes and boats, whether for business or personal reasons. And they know what adjustment to make depending on which direction they are moving when they cross the IDL. Saturday is the seventh day, as known in the USA. Not everyone calls the seventh day Saturday.

Remember, it is a dateline, not a day-line. The calendar is the tool to watch as you enter new and different time zones.

[Alchemy]

On August 17, 2013 at 10:19 AM, Neil D said:

 

 

Why?

 

that is my question to you......Why? Does it matter? If Sabbath begins at sundown, did you fly during the Sabbath? Or did you cross the other way around the world? Does it matter? Isn't the airplane your own little world during your trip? Cant you spend Sabbath in your own little world??? Does it matter???

Can you just figure that once you crossed the International Date line, that you lost a day?...and will gain a day back at a later date?

 

Oh bother......

 

 

And as for the Samoan Sabbath issue...too much for me to figure out....time for another thread....

And Samoa did get an extra day in 1892. And they lost that day in 2011. So, there isn't any issue. You can follow our normal calendar in use today to tell you when the seventh day is. Saturday is the seventh day in Samoa.

[Alchemy]

On September 22, 2012 at 0:00 PM, Stan said:

So what happens if you fly to Aussieland from New York, and it is Friday Evening from New York, the only day you get a ticket, and you cross the date line and it is Sunday?

 

Which day do you rest on?

 

Or coming back, you have 2 days that are Sabbath?

Well, it depends which way you are traveling. In one direction you lose a day and in the other direction you pick up an extra day. Since it is possible to pick up a day, it would be possible to have two Sabbaths. There isn't any contradiction in this. Traveling east to west in the USA one can pick up and lose hours. It is the same principle.

[Alchemy]

On September 30, 2012 at 11:58 AM, phkrause said:

 

 

And I would believe they do, but it seems some would like to tell them how they believe.

Yes. And that somebody seems to be the South Pacific Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church!

I don't know what names of the week Samoa uses, but, I would think it was the same as the United States. In any case, every time zone has a legitimate seven day weekly cycle with a legitimate seventh day. There isn't ever a problem with recognizing what day the seventh day is. And that seventh day matches with what the US Naval Observatory and Jewish history tell us about the weekly cycle since before the time of Christ!

This is the power and beauty of the time zones and IDL! God's Sabbath is never lost! 

I read once that the Royal Observatory in England claimed that the weekly cycle goes all the way back to creation. Now, I believe that because of Scripture, I don't remember that article explaining why the Royal Observatory believed that.