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I have learned much from the explanations of others concerning various Biblical concepts and interpretations. The key is to always check the Word yourself to see if what others preach is indeed true (or at least feasible). Is it feasible that God created everything there is in 6 literal days? Yes. Is it feasible that He created the universe over billions of years? Yes. Is it feasible that all existence (including human life) proceeded forth from a spontaneous "natural" explosion of an infinitely dense singularity? No. I believe that the point God is making in the creation story is that HE and HE ALONE created all that is seen and unseen in both the physical and spiritual world - including the Sabbath. Exactly how He did it is not a salvational issue IMHO.

1) my daughter finally fisnished her final year of High school here in australia- called Year 12, the exam in called the HSC ( higher school certificate). she is now waiting to see if she got into Uni. 2) i got my learners for motorcycles! We managed to buy a 250cc sccoter that supports my back well enough- for use going to and fromt he shops. has a glove box and LOTS of storage under the seats. 3) i sat my First exam in my Theology degree- New Testament epistles. so a big time. The phot below is my daughter with her friedn on the day of the formal.

Lots of milestones! Keep looking ahead!

My person experience is this, the majority of those who say that, are saying something that is reflective of their own lives.

Jesus accepts all who come to Him, He loves ALL of us. he came to save SINNERS. We must remember we are ALL sinners. Look at who God chose to lead Israel at times- a murderer(Moses), a drunkard, a man who married a prostitute. Just because peple are different to us does NOT mean we shouldnt accept them. Jesus came to THEM, even when they were too scared to come to him directly. The woman who bled, the tax collector in the tree,,,, so many.... If Jesus loved them and accepted them, WHO gave us the right to reject them? Judge Ye Not, lest Ye yourself be judged......

I agree with you here. The 5th seal I see as Satan trying to destroy the church, before Christ steps in from the 6th seal onwards. The 5th seal is "The Great Tribulation". From the 6th onwards is "The Day of the Lord". But Revelation is totally end-time, hence future. Any historical INTERPRETATION is just that, an INTERPRETATION. John said he was in the spirit "on the Lord's Day" Rev 1:10. That is the end-time.

Wingnut, I agree with you that if there is a feasible way to literally interpret a prophecy, that's the preferred interpretation (without totally dismissing a spiritual interpretation). I look at the first 4 seals/horsemen as literal last-day occurrences that demonstrate man's inhumanity to man rather than God's wrath towards the wicked. The subsequent seals/trumpets/plagues are God's efforts to stop humanity from destroying itself.

I appreciate Robert Folkenberg for making us a Mission Driven Church. He started Global Mission and other initiatives to grow the Church. I understand his health is bad, and that he is a thin man, not by choice. He made a difference, and I value him and his friendship a lot.

They are tiny groups. Their words are big, and they can kill civilians, but any notion that they threaten to hold even one country, let alone world dominance, is simply farcical. As our new Prime Minister said this week: "they have more smartphones than guns". They have a social media presence and can reach out to disenfranchised youth, but they're no sort of existential threat. It's silly to take them at their word on this. Isolate these extremists and embrace all other human beings. Don't isolate a billion Muslims, most of whom roundly reject the extremists: if you do, there will be more of those disenfranchised youth to target. If they hate your freedoms, the way to defeat them is not by giving up your freedoms. If their violence is evil, the way to defeat them is not to become more evil. There was a dude named Jesus who said some stuff and did some stuff. I reckon if we followed that we'd probably do OK.

aside from the President of Adventistan, H.M.S. Richards comes to mind...

Problems? May I ask what you are talking about?

Thanks Stan and happy turkey day. or is that vegi-turkey? God is Love! Jesus saves!

Tom and Seventh Day The Adventist Church has an unfortunate tradition of spiritualising away the natural way of reading a scripture. I am going to divert the discussion for a moment to illustrate this point. Rev 6: 7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. 8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. Now when I read that with no SDA filtered glasses it reads that 1/4 of earth's population is going to be killed by war, famine and pestilence as well as animals gone wild. Yet you go and research what Adventists teach this means - something about a backslidden church. I say it is super-wrong EVER to teach that something which has a literal possible interpretation should be taken any other way. It creates a terrible precedent of interpreting scripture rather than taking literally what can be taken literally.

I have believed something very similar to your hypothesis for many years. To make the land "appear", God "divided the waters" - creating waters above, and waters below. I think that HE caused evaporation of a huge amount of the "waters", to create a firmament above. There was no "sea" - as we know it now - after the land appeared. I like Dr Baugh's hypothesis that the H2O was split into H, which crystallized about 12 miles up, and O2 (making the pre-flood atmosphere very rich in oxygen). In this biosphere, the weather was mild, and the atmospheric pressure was roughly twice what we know now. Wounds healed almost overnight. Anaerobes were non-existent. Snakes were not poisonous. It was like living in a hyperbaric chamber. Pterodactyls could fly. At the flood of Noah, an asteroid crashed into the crystalline biosphere. As the fragments were pulled toward the earth, the hydrogen combined with the oxygen, creating water from the sky. Water once AGAIN covered the face of earth. Some of the water then evaporated, until 1/4 (of the former amount) of land appeared. And the rest is history - as they say.....

Well put, Wingnut! I have believed for a long time that there is a long, indeterminate amount of time between Genesis 1:1 and the rest of the chapter. IMHO, the Bible is the record of God's interaction with humanity; not necessarily the all-inclusive history of the eternal God.