An email from an ex... "It's freaky..."

[True-believer]

Luke,

Since you've been rather quiet again about where you are in your views right now, I don't know if the below applies to you or not right now... But in case it does, I wanted to share my thoughts directly with you -- not just with your mum.

She sent me a message of concern that you might be being torn in the direction of keeping these silly, extreme rules of "Sabbath observance" that some are consumed with. I pointed out to her that such is certainly not Jesus example!! And so investing oneself in such ridiculous extremes demonstrates that the follower has REPLACED the worship and following of JESUS with the worship of the law -- or a DAY. To do such is IDOLATRY -- and might even mean that such a person is not a Christian. Because to be a Christian means that CHRIST alone is central to everything you do, believe, follow, and observe. If he is merely one component of your religion, that makes you no better off than a moslem -- they have a place for Jesus, too. But they are wrong -- more than for any other reason -- because they don't make JESUS CENTRAL to their faith. Any religion who does not keep Jesus at the absolute center is a FALSE RELIGION!

SDAs make THE SABBATH -- not Jesus -- the center of their faith.

Anyway, here's some of what I wrote your mum...

It was a wacky, guilt-driven world of artificial boundaries and arbitrary observances. Because the code we followed was not actually derived from the Bible (except in a quilt-work, pick-and-choose fashion), we would each set our personal limits according to our own understanding -- and this resulted in every person having slightly different standards of behaviour than everyone else. The roar of the discrepancies could be deafening! But somehow we managed to largely ignore that. Or, we'd separate ourselves off into a little sub-group away from the others, where we somehow imagined we were more "Holy" than the rest... Or "enlightened"... Or whatever...

As for Luke's present torment: If he's actually buying into the nonsense that he needs to give care to such absurd rules about Sabbath keeping, he needs to be reminded that Jesus was in CONSTANT trouble from the Jewish leaders for BREAKING the Sabbath. And there is NO evidence that Jesus gave much thought or care about being "careful" to avoid bending those Sabbath Rules. He did NOT prevent or scold his disciples from/for doing the "work" of picking the wheat to eat as they walked through the fields together on the Sabbath. The fact that they were walking together through those fields suggests that Jesus led his disciples to BREAK the Sabbath Law in terms of how far one was permitted to travel on the Sabbath (there were a very limited number of steps a person was permitted to take on the Sabbath, and just crossing one of those fields might well have used up their quota for the entire day!). He did not delay the WORK of healing people till another day -- even though it would often have been reasonably convenient to do so.

There isn't ONE example of Jesus NOT doing ANYTHING on the Sabbath that He was accustomed to doing on ANY day!! He taught, he healed, he traveled, he prayed, he ate and drank... Nothing changed! When reprimanded by the Pharisees for breaking the Sabbath (yet again!) for healing a man, Jesus replied, “My Father is always at his WORK to this very day, and I, too, am WORKING.” John 5:17.

He DIDN'T say, "But guys, you only THINK I'm breaking the Sabbath -- but I'm really careful not to cross this and that line... What I'm doing isn't actually WORK..." He didn't deny the charge that He was "guilty"! He agreed that He was "WORKING"!!

So, if Jesus is our perfect example, it would seem that we need not be too careful about how we view "Sabbath Keeping" -- even if we imagine that we are still bound to live under that (dead) ordinance!!

The extent to which these crazy uber-SDAs engage in this bizarre rule-keeping extreme merely points out that they are WORSHIPING THE LAW (DAY), and NOT actually following or worshiping JESUS! And that is IDOLATRY!!!!

[True-believer]

This is an email by a Dennis Rainwater via my mother, it is pretty interesting...

But... I feel he is being too hypocritical against sda's...

I love you guys...

And I feel and know for a fact that the sda Church is Biblically based and they are Christ-centred.

Yes, we might go to Church on the seventh-day Sabbath, but we still keep Jesus Christ at the centre not the sabbath.

The sabbath is just another day, another doctrine that we all believe, but our eyes our always focused on our Lord and Savior Jesus forever and not a particular day.

Dennis Rainwater has it all wrong.

We do focus on Christ alone.

[carolaa]

1. Jesus did not go to the synagogue every day - only on Sabbath.

2. Jesus *made* the Sabbath. He did not need the Jewish leaders to tell him how it should be kept. He made the Sabbath long before there were any Jews.

3. The Jews idolized the law. Sadly, some SDAs do the same thing. But obedience and idol-making are two different things.

[SivartM]

Those regulations on how far to walk and what you could and couldn't do were all man-made laws. Jesus never followed the laws of the rabbis, only the law of God. He certainly did keep the Sabbath, if that's what you're trying to deny. He even gave divine instructions for the Sabbath, like that it's good to heal and help on the Sabbath.

I hope that most Adventists don't put the Sabbath where Jesus should be. Jesus created the Sabbath, not the other way around, and the Sabbath is all about Jesus!