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Greetings RedSearch, I was interested in your article and agree with all of this. I believe that man is mortal and returns to the dust at death and his thinking ceases. One of my favourite verses: Daniel 12:2 (KJV): And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Also when Lazarus died, Jesus described him as sleeping, but when the disciples commented, Jesus then emphatically stated that Lazarus was dead. John 11:11-14 (KJV): 11 These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. 12 Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. 13 Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. 14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. Could I ask a question, and I am not wanting to debate. I have heard the expression “Soul Sleep”. Is this an expression used in the SDA environment? I find the term ambiguous, as it gives the impression that the body and soul are two different entities, and that the body returns to the dust, but the soul is asleep. I believe that it is the whole of the man that is asleep, and that the expression “soul sleep” is best avoided. What I am trying to say is that death is a return to the dust and thus a cessation of being, and the expression “sleep” or “unconscious sleep” is not a reality, but a Scriptural figure to indicate that God will raise the dead from the dust of the earth. Isaiah 26:19 (KJV): Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Kind regards Trevor

The law of God is self sacrificing love/ self renouncing love. No more and no less. We may ask what this means so we have the two great principles; to love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves. How do we do this? we get the 10 commandments. In the Exodus 20 version breaks into 3 thirds: The first third is 3 commandments telling us how to love God supremely. The last third is 6 commandments telling us how to love our neighbor as ourselves. The middle third is one commandment that tells us that the only way we can love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves is by resting in a relationship with God. (the three thirds also corresponds to the 3 aspects of the trinity). The foundation of Seventh-day Adventism is that the law is the reflection of God's character. It is a reflection of his very nature. The foundation of sin is that God is a tyrant in imposing upon others a law that does not apply to himself. That the law is outside of him and that he is simply arbitrary that we all submit to him and to each other while he is alone at the top. God is the only self existent one and life only comes from him so we need to submit to him for life. However with in the trinity the law of self sacrificing love/self renouncing love is practiced. For the trinity their neighbors are the other members of the trinity. They all submit to each other and thus live in a righteousness by faith relationship with each other. Each relates to the other as the other is their head. God is NOT the papacy which is how Satan likes to picture the role of God and the rest of us. This new teaching "Headship Theology" is simply Roman Catholicism filtered through Calvinistic philosophy. Seventh-day Adventism is more Methodist, not Calvinistic. If headship theology is true then Mrs. White's thought is not true. We have no reason for being Seventh-day Adventists. Satan wins the great controversy and the Sabbath becomes nothing more than an arbitrary imposition.

Daryl: Welcome to our forum. I have often wondered what you were doing as I had not seen you post in CA for some time. For those who may not know, Daryl is the owner of another forum that is similar to Club Adventist in many ways. However, while there are a very few people who post both in Daryl's forum and in Club Adventist, the majority of people only post in one forum. I note that you have posted links to two videos that are almost one hour each. That is a long time for most people to spend attempting to get to a brief formulation of the issues involved. Daryl, I would suspect that the majority of people on your forum believe that the Bible is clear on at what it says about this subject. They may have some division as to the important issues. NOTE: In my personal understanding, the Biblical issue is not ordination. Rather it is the role that women should play in spiritual nurture. Regardless of the stand that people take on ordination, I believe that those who focus on ordination have missed the main Biblical issue. In any case, I suspect that most of the people who contribute to your forum agree as to whether or not women should be ordained. While I have a personal position on the subject and you probably know what it is, I have come to a different understanding that many people, on both sides have. I agree with what is essentially the position of the SDA Church, at this point in time. Perhaps it will change either in July , or at some other time. My position is that a the Bible does not speak so definitively on this issue that all can come to agreement on it. I am still searching for why this may be. But, I am leaning to either it is because: 1) God does not consider this to be fundamentally related to salvation and therefore has not had the need to speak with clarity. 2) God has not spoken with clarity because God want to force people into a deeper study of the Bible. If the reason is not one of these, perhaps there is another. In any case, it is the Holy Spirit that is responsible for leading us into truth. In my personal opinion, while I believe the Bible is the ultimate test of authority, the leading of the Holy Spirit is also instructive. For about 175 years of our denominational existence, I see a common thread of God leading as to the role that women should have in spiritual nurture. Anyway, what am I getting to in all of this? I will ask you what your purpose and mission is for the forum that you own and host? Are you attempting to lead a forum that is dedicated to the proposition of one specific answer to this issue, even though that answer may be founded on what you believe the Bible says/ Or are you willing to concede, as a forum, that Bible based Christians can disagree on this issue and that ultimately in the end it will have to be God that will settle it. In the mean time, we will live at peace with each other and thanking god for the ministry that each of us is doing?

Got one! :)

We must humbly pray for those who are blinded by the headship theology.

Really in line with the EGW quote about not forgetting how the Lord has lead us in the past...

The book has also been translated into Spanish. Both are available from adventistbookcenter.com The English version also comes as an eBook.

God is not trying to force his church. Radical Islam want's God to force them. The problem with the way some of the Pharisees were applying the Bible in Jesus' day was they became very strict and forcing tradition on others. The false Messiah's around the fall of 70 AD were all trying to force compliance and ended up fighting against each other instead of the Romans and this lead to the fall of Jerusalem. With the exception of stepping in to save a life, force is a tool that is not one of God's major tools and one that he does not like to use and is very careful with if he needs to use it. Force is one of Satan's favorite tools. God wants to lead us and guide us. He wants us to learn from our mistakes. While there were a couple people where Jesus came right out to say that he was the Messiah, he tended to want to let people come to it on their own. (and even the few times he did tell they were probably catching on quicker). Mrs. White had pressing matters, telling people that the Millerite movement was from God and that we should not give up our experience. Then the formation of the church, then the formation of the health and education work, finally the issues of the Great Controversy. When the New York Conference and Atlantic Union wanted to ordain women ministers in the first decade of the 1900s, Elder A. G. Daniels on the one hand agreed with them. On the other hand he asked them to wait a little bit. The reason for waiting was that there were people who did not understand that women could be ordained. He did not want to confuse these people until they were better educated. Since he worked very closely with Mrs. White and was a good friend of hers, and her hand picked and trained leader for our church, odds are that he discussed this with her. (Especially when NY and the Atlantic Union was going to start ordaining women). This sounds like something that she would say. And Mrs. White had a chance to simply stop us. She wrote articles about women in ministry that the anti ordination people study like a lawyer studying the law for loopholes. She had a chance to tell Elder Daniels that he made a mistake in only asking NY and the Atlantic Union to wait a little bit while they try to educate the church. She had the chance to not write the articles about women in ministry and just write how God did not want women to be ordained. But she did not do this. I think that it is quite telling in how Elder Daniels believed that women should be ordained but wanted to educate our members. How Mrs. White wrote gentle articles encouraging women in ministry and to try to soften people's prejudices towards women in ministry and how she missed the opportunity to prevent us from being where we are today.

Simply to make it easier for EGW and other women to be able to travel!?!? The historical accounts make no mention of that. That seems to be a notion invented in more recent times to diminish the significance of the reality that there were proportionally far more women active in pastoral ministry doing evangelism during EGW's lifetime. And perhaps the reason more women were not ordained during her lifetime was the same reason that other things seemed to have stalled in the Church during the latter part of her lifetime and after she died. She certainly felt their should have been more women involved in ministry. She employed a favorite expression in context of women preaching the gospel - "if there were twenty where there is now one..." She proclaimed that amazing results would happen. Perhaps she was reflecting God's desire then. Why it didn't happen is perhaps the same as why many other great things didn't happen.

interesting article... Just out of curiosity, I did research on one of the authors, "S. C. Welcome," who penned the 1860 article, "Shall the Women Keep Silence in the Churches?" His name was Solomon C Welcome [sic]. He and his parents and siblings were from Maine and had gone to Wisconsin in the late 1840's, and lived in a sod house for awhile. By 1850, Solomon's brother, Michael, had become a minister in the First Day Adventist Church. Solomon was a farmer, but also became a part time minister of the Seventh-day Adventist church. His brother, Michael, remained a First Day Adventist preacher. Solomon was married and had two sons. One of Solomon's sons, George T Wellcome, also became an Adventist minister, moving to Brawley, California, still a minister - eventually becoming the city mayor. Of note, he was a member of the Brawley Masonic Lodge. (Burdette, Robert J., ed. American Biography and Genealogy: California Edition. Volumes I–II. Chicago, New York: The Lewis Publishing Company, [1912]. California State Library, Sacramento, California.) Solomon's other son, Henry Solomon Wellcome, decided to travel to England around 1875, becoming interested in medicine. In 1880 he founded the pharmaceutical company of Burroughs Wellcome. Henry was also a Freemason. He married, then divorced, Syrie Barnardo, who then married British author and playwright, William Somerset Maugham. Henry Wellcome was knighted by King George V in 1932. When Henry Wellcome died of pneumonia in 1936, his will designated that a trust be established, the Wellcome Trust, and has become the world’s largest charitable foundation devoted exclusively to the biomedical science research to benefit both humans and animals. rather interesting... (didn't mean to divert from the topic.... I just get involved in researching, and go nuts! )