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This is a touching story regarding elephants that sought help from a wildlife shelter after other humans (poachers) shot them with poison arrows: Injured elephants travel to humans to seek help There are some days that I just cannot wait for Jesus to come! Humans injuring humans, humans injuring animals...

Jesus grew up in a society where people expected the Messiah to come as a mighty warrior King. He attended the synagogue each Sabbath, but he didn't confront the numerous theological errors of his day until his public ministry began. How do we know that he kept a low profile over these years? Well, what we do know is that when he eventually opened his mouth in his home town, they all tried to kill him! (Nazareth was a rough place! See Luke 4:29.) Also Jesus told us to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16), and he cautioned us against “casting pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). What this means is that we shouldn't make things unnecessary difficult for ourselves. There are times when speaking the truth does nothing good, it will only enrage the wicked and cause them to harden their hearts. It's not our duty to bring a time of trouble on ourselves prematurely. The Bible is filled with advice about how silence is our best course of action in certain situations, so it's definitely not lack of faith that makes silence a viable option in many cases. Solomon did for instance say: “The prudent keep their knowledge to themselves, but a fool’s heart blurts out folly.” - Proverbs 12:23 As @Gail said above, there is a time and place for everything… It's certainly our duty to stand firm for truth and justice, but it's also our duty to spend our talents in the best possible way. This means that sometimes we should retreat rather than sounding the trumpet and alerting our enemies.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/lists/people/fact-checking-2016-gop-presidential-candidates/

Yes!! Doug Batchelor, Steve Bohr, Steve Wohlberg, EGW, etc., etc. Shawn Boonstra, Lonnie Melashenko, these are just off the top of my head. All of them have pretty much the same interpretation. Also Jon Paulien, there are others!

Can you imagine communicating with beasts as intelligent as the elephants or perhaps our pets or the whales and dolphins?

Higher criticism can show us how the people understood what was said/written in the time in which it was said/written.

If I wanted to read Hayek I'd read it on paper. I don't particularly, but I will if you'll read Piketty.

In the next life no animals will be afraid of humans because those who would harm them will no longer exist.

Unchained, I found your post extremely insightful. The only change I would make is to change to word "silent" to "discrete". I believe we all need a group of like believers and spiritual mentors to share with. There are things I share with "like believers" face-to-face that I would never share on the internet. I don't stay silent; I just carefully choose with whom I want to share certain things.

I don't want to offend anyone. So it may be best that way. One of the things that is troublesome is people being honest about sex from different thoughts and experiences. This may not be the best place for it.

I was thinking of those who came after. If they had the day wrong, wouldn't the ones who had been there corrected them?

This is a great topic to discuss. A quick simplistic answer is that the Bible records how people perceived things, or, perhaps better stated, the things which were written reflect how the writers perceived things, which may not always be how Jesus perceived them.

I have this one: http://www.amazon.com/Disarming-Scripture-Cherry-Picking-Violence-Loving-Conservatives/dp/0692307265/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442608038&sr=8-1&keywords=derek+flood. It's pretty interesting; worth reading. Great is his other book, "Healing the Gospel".

Just from the standpoint of logic, the early Christians believed Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, so even apart from considering other Scripture texts, how could they possibly have gotten that wrong, given that they were there when it happened? It would be like getting the day of the week that Kennedy was assassinated wrong.

Like many other spiritual debates, I guess time will tell who has this right, if it even matters. This debate will never be resolved in my lifetime.

She greeted me with a bright smile and a wave of her hand. Cheerful, as always. She is about the same age as my granddaughter-- 10 - 11 years. I greeted her and asked what she was doing. She smiled back at me. But she did not respond verbally, as I expected. About once a month, or less, I will get a one word response and once I had a three word response. When she dos respond verbally, I immediately rush to tell her mother so that we can all celebrate. You see, she has "angelman syndrome." She is always happy. But, she does not communicate by normal means. Let us all appreciate what gifts we have.

I'm disappointed to read this. Sabbath School is the one interactive part of the service, and should (IMO) be the most interesting and stimulating. Is your criticism directed at the content (the topics presented in the quarterly) or at the way the teachers present it? We try to make Sabbath school the place where our members and visitors receive the "training and encouragement" you refer to. We don't always succeed but we do our best.

Maybe that's why Kenneth Cox has been preaching so long since it takes him longer than most to do the harvesting. If I'd been working since 1777, I'd be worn out. LoL God is Love! Jesus saves!

Would you consider this "in your face"? While there perhaps have been times in the past when a pile of leaves dumped on me may have been a little much, but if I were in danger, while driving at night rapidly approaching a cliff I could not see, my momentary disapproval at the momentary disruption of my travels would be more than compensated for by the relief I experienced when recognizing my life had just been saved from irreplaceable loss had I continued without Someone concerned whether I lived or died. I'm satisfied we're living in that time. God is Love! Jesus saves!

Just make sure that Stan doesn't decide to give jars of Marmite as prizes.....!!!!!!!!! Nuff Sed.....

It seems rather strange to try to remove emotions from spirituality. It is kind of like removing breathing from life. Look at all of the emotionalism in the the Psalms. The whole range of emotions get covered there. A major author of them was described as a man after God's own heart. If emotional responses and motivations are wrong how do we reconcile that with simple texts like "Jesus wept"? Frequently, Jesus is described as being "moved with compassion". And lets not overlook the several times he was described as being angry. Emotional Jesus. We are his followers. To deny emotions should have a part in our religious/spiritual life is to strip it of its essential meaning. God is love. And don't try to neuter love by saying it is just a principle. Because then you really don't have love. You have duty.

The job of the government isn't to provide services. It's to protect the natural rights of its citizens (their God-given liberty and rights) and to protect them from outside forces that would harm them. It is also to provide an environment which favors no one group over another. That is called The Rule of Law. It should never punish those who work and earn so it can support those who do not. That is the epitome of unfairness. Nobody has a "right" to an income they do not earn. The Bible tells us that, repeatedly. What we see under the system you support is people who are thrown in jail for exercising their rights under the Consititution. Our Consititution says that there shall be no law that limits the right to the free expression of religion. Yet we see people being thrown in jail for doing just that today. Just because a person works for the government or owns a business doesn't mean they must give up their conscience. That is pure fallacy. That is what happened in Germany in the 1930's and 1940's.

In none of the 8 versions of the Bible I have (NJV, NIV, Louis Segond, Bible en français courant, Reina-Valera, João Almeida, Nova versão internacional, Luther Bibel) is there anything in the fourth commandment about holding church services on the Sabbath.

And then there is the amazing fact that Ellen White herself regularly stood in the pulpit and preached. On Sunday. In Sunday keeping churches. For their Sunday worship service.

Well, Tom, people who do not read Ellen White, in detail, and rely on 2nd hand references to her writings really do not know what she has said on a lot of point. Yes, she clearly encouraged SDAs using Sunday for evangelistic outreach. You know, I like the CD index to her writings. However, there is a dark side to it. Some how use it, use it instead of reading her writings. That index is not a method of getting to the full flavor of here written works.

Then they should abandon Ellen White who actually encouraged this sort of outreach.