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Chaim Yankel applied for job after being dismissed by his previous employer. "So tell me, Chaim Yankel," asked the interviewer, "have you any other skills you think might be worth mentioning?" "Actually, yes," Chaim Yankel said modestly. "Last year I had two short stories published in a local Jewish magazine, and I just finished my first novel." "Very impressive," he commented, "but I was thinking of skills you could apply during office hours." Chaim Yankel explained brightly, "Oh, that’s what I plan on doing during office hours."

Mrs. Eckstein, the fourth grade math and science teacher at Bnai Israel school was giving her students a lesson in logic. "Here is the situation," she said. "A man is standing up in a boat in the middle of a river, fishing. He loses his balance, falls in, and begins splashing and yelling for help. His wife hears the commotion, knows he can't swim, and runs down to the bank. Why do you think she ran to the bank?" Little Rivky Reisman raised her hand and asked, "To draw out all his savings?"

Rabbi Steinman decided to take his five year old son Moishie out for burgers and fries to his favorite restaurant - Bais Burger. As they approached, they saw what looked like a serious car accident. Using this as a teaching moment, Rabbi Steinman said, “Moishie, we should daven to Hashem that everything works out for the best.” From the back seat Rabbi Steinman heard Moishie’s earnest request: "Please, Hashem, don't let those cars block the entrance to Bais Burger."

Here is what a secular magazine - The Federalist - had to say about the Pope's visit to Morocco: http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/22/pope-franciss-new-morocco-logo-imply-submission-islam/

I agree. Just saying that this trip might be different than a trip to a predominantly Christian (or at least non-Muslim) country. I'm not trying to teach anyone anything. I brought up the item for discussion to see what others thought about it; not to "teach or "proclaim" anything. I agree - this may be no big deal. But on the outside chance that it is ...

I share here in blog form my original manuscript of this week’s (February 3-9) Sabbath School Adult Teacher’s Edition for people to use or compare with the edited version. The changes were not massive or disruptive in most cases. I share my analysis of the changes in the next blog. These comments were made in […] The post Original Teachers’ Notes for Rev 7 (Week 6) appeared first on Jon Paulien's Blog. View the full article

Do you beleive what your eyes are telling you is true? https://www.wisegeek.com/can-you-see-through-these-real-life-optical-illusions-1

I am not on the fence concerning Mrs. White. I believe she is a respected and inspired expositor of Bible truth. I do not believe her to be the inerrant prophet that the White Estate and the Church proclaim her to be. She herself said she was not a prophet. And I certainly don't believe that Rev. 19:10 refers to her writings when it talks about the Spirit of prophecy. Furthermore, I don't believe that accepting or not accepting her as a prophet is a salvational matter.

It would seem that you should just get off the fence and say either Mrs. White is totally wrong regarding receiving visions and messages for the church or she is who she says she is. I personally believe that end time events are such that the church is blessed to have had her service as a messenger of God. She did not want it and I am sure that someone would have eventually been chosen for the position if she hadn't. All that said, I still believe the Bible is first in being the source of beliefs and she would have agreed with it. One of the things brought out in the sabbath school lesson today is that the intervention to end the conflict has begun in heaven. This followed the verses in Revelation where the souls under the alter asked "How long?" So after nearly 2 millennia of "silence" from heaven, we have the prophecies of EGW. The very last deception of Satan will be to make of none effect the testimony of the Spirit of God. “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18). Satan will work ingeniously, in different ways and through different agencies, to unsettle the confidence of God’s remnant people in the true testimony.—Selected Messages 1:48 (1890) He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. Matthew 10:41

5 Things You Didn't Know About Groundhog Day February 2 is Groundhog Day, when people pull a sleepy groundhog out of its burrow to compete with weather forecasters. If the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, sees his shadow, then that forecasts six more weeks of winter. Will he see his shadow? Will he not? Here are five things you didn't know about this kooky holiday ... It Could Have Been Called Hedgehog Day The origins of Groundhog Day go far back to before the Christian holiday of Candlemas began; previously, it was called St. Brigid's Day, which was a Christianization of the old holiday of Imbolc (which is still celebrated at the beginning of February by many Wiccan and neopagan traditions). But the addition of an animal weather prophet started sometime later, with German farmers who wanted a way to figure out how long the winter (i.e., the season when they couldn't really grow anything) would last. They looked to nature and animals that seemed to follow seasonal cycles, and the best one they found was the hedgehog. When people used to that tradition came to the United States, they couldn't find hedgehogs to help them out but noticed that groundhogs seemed to follow a similar schedule. More Than One Groundhog Is Used to Predict the End of Winter Punxsutawney Phil is the most famous groundhog and gets national attention, but he's not the only furball on whom townspeople rely for dodgy predictions. Georgia, North Carolina, and Alabama all have their own local groundhogs to help figure out when winter will end. This isn't surprising because not only do people like to have their own local version of a fun event, but the late-winter weather in Pennsylvania is going to be a lot different than that in places like Alabama. It only makes sense that the state would want its own version. More Than One Groundhog Can Predict the End of Winter Whether or not Punxsutawney Phil's predictions hold up, there is a connection between groundhogs and the end of winter, and it doesn't really have to do with their shadows. Early February is when a lot of male groundhogs wake up from hibernation and go scope out the females of the species in preparation for mating, which takes place in March. Hibernating animals, in general, have internal clocks that help wake them up, but they can go back into hibernation mode if the weather is too cold (in fact, there have been cases of bats and bears waking up too early because of warmer weather). If you manage to see a number of groundhogs in February, then, that means their internal seasonal clocks are working, and they've decided spring is on the way. The Weather on Candlemas Day Used to Be the Key to Weather Prediction Remember the German farmers who looked to hedgehogs to predict the end of winter? The weather on Candlemas itself used to be a predictor. People believed that if Candlemas was sunny, winter would last about another six weeks. The idea of animals seeing their shadows and thus predicting more winter weather likely sprung from that. After all, animals can't see their shadows if it's not sunny. Chances Are Punxsutawney Phil's Prediction Won't Be Accurate Regardless of seasonal indicators and whether or not February 2 is sunny, Punxsutawney Phil's predictions are not really accurate. Overall, he's been wrong almost 61 percent of the time, and when you look at how his predictions have held up in specific regions, he fares even worse. For example, in Columbia, South Carolina, he's been accurate only 36 percent of the time since 1950.

Christ our Passover

i don't follow Ted Wilson, I don't follow Dan Jackson. I let Christ be the one authority in the Church.This was a real problem for the religious authorities in his day. He was considered radical and a rebell, and fighting against the established righteous authority of His day. I pray today, I will be found standing In Jesus and Jesus alone. If i add human authority to the authority Jesus in my life i will stand in human strength and not in the strength of the Holy Spirit.

Thanks to Spectrulm: Adventist Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee Temporarily Steps Down from Key Posts Amid Ex-aide's Retribution Claim in Sexual Assault Case. Houston Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee, under fire from a former aide's lawsuit alleging she was fired in connection with a sexual assault complaint, said that she will step down temporarily as chairwoman of a key House Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice. Jackson Lee, a Seventh-day Adventist in her 13th term, also resigned as chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, a post that helped raise her national profile. The lawsuit, filed by a woman who worked in Jackson Lee's office from November 2017 to March 2018, claims that she was dismissed after notifying the congresswoman's chief of staff that she planned to take legal action against the foundation over an alleged sexual assault involving one of the group's supervisors. Jackson Lee issued a statement "adamantly" denying the woman's allegation and recounting her record of advancing civil rights and non-discrimination legislation, including a law that applies to Congress. She also has been a key voice in the push to extend the historic 1994 Violence Against Women Act. The loss of a leading role on the criminal justice subcommittee was a setback for Jackson Lee, who would have been the first black woman in that post overseeing an important issue in the African American community. While Jackson Lee battles the woman's allegations, it became clear Wednesday that the case was costing her support among key allies, including the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, which announced that the group could no longer "support her continued lead sponsorship" of the Violence Against Women Act. From Houston Chronicle, “Sheila Jackson Lee steps down from key posts amid ex-aide's retribution claim in sex assault case.” NOTE: These are only charges. She has not been convicted of anything--GM.

I have received a private message from a well known figure in our church making the following comment on my above post. 1) (Agree!) 2) (Agree—and can add, “It is reasonable to propose that she would have continued to change her views, as she matured in her understanding of God’s purposes.) 3) (Agree! What you have identified is a component of the Historical-Critical method that some reject. We have applied the methods of this so-called “demonic” process to EGW for years, and don’t know it.) 4) (Agree! We claim we follow this process, except when we don’t.) 5) (Agree! These as-yet-to-be identified people appear to put their energy into making an organization that reflects their desires. These individuals might modify EGW’s well-known statement to read, “When the SDA denomination perfectly reflects the will of those who have been appointed to lead them, then Jesus can come.”) 6) (Agree. Interesting times lie ahead.) NOTE: I have very slightly modified the wording of the actual message sent to me. That modification does not change the meaning of the message sent to me.

Comments: 1) Ellen White grew in her doctrinal understandings in the same manner that we humans grow. We grow by prayer, Bible study and the experiences of life. So did she. God did not intervene to immediately correct her in every element of her doctrinal understanding that failed to fully reflect the truth of God. As humans it is only in eternity that we will fully understand God. It will not be in this human life. 2) A study of the life and doctrinal understanding of Ellen White will show that over time her doctrinal understandings changed in a number of areas. 3) Much of the individual advice that she gave specific people represented a specific application of a basic principle to their situation and not a generalized application to be applied to all people in all situations. Many people err in failing to understand this. They fail to understand why she may seem to tell one person to do something that she seems to tell another person not to do. 4) God did not give the ministry of Ellen white to the fledgling SDA denomination to replace the Bible as an instructional guide to understanding God. The Bible fills that role, not Ellen White. God gave Ellen White to this denomination to administratively guide it in its developing years. We would not be the denomination that we are today if it had not been for the ministry of Ellen White. 5) In my personal opinion, we have people, who I will not name in this post, who in rejecting the administrative advice of Ellen White, are attempting to form this denomination into a structure that rejects the advice that God gave us through her ministry. In addition, I believe that such fails to prepare us as a denomination for the events that we believe will happen in End Time. 6) These are serious times. As I believe that some of the problems that exist in the SDA denomination are beyond human resolution, I can only wait to see how God will lead and the direction that will take, if God does lead us beyond those issues, which I am uncertain that God will do.

You asked this after quoting my comment "Elder Jackson is standing on the shoulders of Mrs. White, Willie White, A. G. Daniels, W. W. Prescott and others " The answer is simple, I've studied Adventist history, but also something that I thought was just random but where I now believe that the Lord was leading me. When I was at Andrews besides what I needed to study for class, I also liked to just pick up a file in the White estate and read. As I said I did not make specific studies but would just pick up what ever file seemed to catch my interest or that I may have happened to grab at the time. Anyway, in file after file I kept coming across a series of letters that all sounded like each other. The one side of the issue was written by either Mrs. White or Willie. The other side was written by I originally thought it was the same pastor since the last name frequently started with the letter "W" However after a while I'd be surprised that there were names that did not start with "W" and eventually came to relize that even the "W" was at least 3 different last names: Watson, Washburn and Washburn's protégé Wilkinson. Mrs. White or Willie would write to these people telling them that despite the fact that they were using a massive amount of her quotes in their teachings, that they did not understand her message and were thus misrepresenting her and were in fact abusing her writings by using them to actually push their views, and that both Ellen and Willie told them that their views that they were pushing were WRONG. These ministers would defend their views. They would tell Mrs. White that they were indeed using her writings correctly and that they were not misrepresenting her and that they were not wrong, but told Mrs. White that she only wrote those sharp testimonies to them because people close to her were polluting her mind against them, but that these people who were polluting her mind are the ones who were wrong, they were lowering the standards in the church and that she needs to direct her testimonies towards those who were polluting her mind against them and that if Mrs. White knew what was going on, instead of sending them sharp testimony she would fully embrace their ministry and join them in their message. The letters to Willie were not that friendly often comparing him to Nadab and Abihu and the sons of Samuel, accusing him of being used by Satan to bring in New Theology into the church and changing his mother's writing to be against their views and to support his heresies. etc. I have to give these pastors credit that I did not read this next part in their letters, but I came across a couple of mimeographed messages that were being spread in the churches in the early 1900s. These accused Mrs. White of Apostacy, saying that until around 1888 Mrs. White's writings came from God. But since 1888 Mrs. White has apostatized. First she did not support the truth but started opposing the truth in the 1888 General Conference, then in the 1890s she went even deeper into aposticy when she accepted and started to preach the heresy of the trinity, and she no longer believes that she was a prophet because she teaches that her writings are not infallible. They also accused Willie A. G. Daniels, W. W. Prescott and sometimes others of having taken over Mrs. White's mind so that they are using her writings to spread their new theology. They warned people to avoid these heresies and to stop reading Mrs. White directly, especially what she wrote starting with 1888, and to ONLY read Mrs. White as quoted by and they named the different pastors such as Elders Watson and Washburn. The views of Fulcrum7 are basically the views of Elders Watson, Washburn, Wilkinson and the others. They are carrying on the torch of this thread of Adventism. When I was in the Army at Ft. Lewis Washington I use to read a journal called "Our Firm Foundation". That journal kept spreading the same message that I read in those letters that Mrs. White said was wrong. The footnotes kept quoting Watson, Washburn and Wilkinson and the others. I'm sorry but if Mrs. White could say to them that they were wrong back then, why are they right today? Fulcrum7 besides spreading the messages of Watson, Washburn, Wilkinson and the others, what they say about Elder Jackson sounds a lot like what these people use to say about Willie, Daniels and Prescott and what their followers were saying about the post 1888 Mrs. White. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is probably a duck.

Run with patience