Too much too hard too fast too quick

As I walked out into the hallway of the ocean-front condo this morning, I saw a USA Today paper lying by the door of our neighbor’s room. Like a downbeat doormat it sat there, its loud headlines easily summed up in two words: Bad, and News. I was reminded of this quote: “The final movements will be rapid ones.”

Those of us who are looking forward to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to earth are probably aware of this ominous warning about the end. Not only is it gonna happen soon, it’s gonna happen fast! 

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Biblical hermeneutics: blest be the tie that binds us

The World Church, in its General Conference (GC), has voted twice not to allow the ordination of women to the office of elder/minister. This was not because the GC saw women and men as created unequal, but because of divine order assigning different roles to the genders. Once again the issue is being urged. So the GC has invited all of its divisions to give input on the matter.

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LSU professor: extremists think Bible is church manual

Last Saturday while attending my local church, I read a flyer in the bulletin that invited me to attend a soup and salad study by La Sierra University professors Kendra and Gil Valentine. The flyer said they would be considering "ways of reading the Bible that allow texts to live anew in our contemporary world and in our particular stories. Implications of this approach will be explored for the Theology of Ordination Committee, Ellen White, and the Fourth Gospel."

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'Mean' conservatives

A prominent leader in North American Adventism recently stated, during a discussion in which I participated, that the term “nice conservative” has “almost become an oxymoron” in the contemporary church.  I countered by acknowledging that while at times needless severity and harshness have certainly attended efforts to defend beliefs and practices peculiar to classic Adventism, one must beware of defining “niceness” pursuant to an agenda of pleasing as many and offending as few as possible.  Few if any of God’s heroes through the ages, including Jesus Himself, would qualify as “nice” under such a definition.

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Judgment granted in favor of church in LSU-3 lawsuit

On March 5, the Riverside County Superior Court granted Summary Judgment in favor of all defendants on all claims in what has come to be known as the LSU-3 lawsuit. The court has ruled that there are no disputed issues of material fact that would need to be decided by a jury, and the undisputed facts are sufficient to allow the court to rule on the case as a matter of law. The court has ruled in favor of the church defendants, including (1) La Sierra University, (2) the Pacific Union Conference, (3) the North American Division, (4) Ricardo Graham, president of the Pacific Union Conference, (5) Dan Jackson, president of the North American Division, and (6) Larry Blackmer, NAD Vice President for Education.

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One Project: present or emergent truth?

I had made no plans to attend the One Project scheduled for February 10 and 11 in Seattle, but a mid-morning phone call stirred me from my intended Sunday morning sleep-in.  A friend on the phone urged, "I've been given two tickets to the One Project. They’re free!  Do you want to go? Let's go! Free tickets!" That got me up and going.

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David danced

In this article we will look at 2 Samuel 6:14-16 and 1 Chron. 15:29. In 2 Samuel 6:14-16 the Hebrew word most often rendered “dance” in English versions for is Karar (pronounced kah-rar) and is only used these two times. In 1 Chron. 15:29, the Hebrew word is Raqad (pronounced raw-kad) and is used nine times in the Old Testament. In order to understand what David was doing in these passages, we must understand what these Hebrew words signify. We cannot impose contemporary meanings onto ancient words which have changed definitions over the centuries. The truism is still applicable: biblical words must be understood and interpreted based on the actual meaning of the terms, and in the contexts in which they are used.

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Is the fleur-de-lis a suitable decoration for an Adventist church?

A couple of friends recently approached me, four days apart, complaining of decorations recently added to the Keene Church sanctuary. Someone had placed two fleur-de-lis, separated by an arrangement of candles, on the organ console in the main sanctuary of the church. Both of my friends separately insisted that the fleur-de-lis is completely inappropriate for use as a church decoration in a Seventh-day Adventist Church. Both were very upset.

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How postmodern Adventists can engage in personal evangelism

I have been working for a few months now on a set of diaries written by a certain Mr. Dortch in the mid-1880's.  The diaries are part of the original manuscript collection in the Southwestern Adventist University Library.  In this lecture, I focus particularly on Dortch's relations with his rural neighbors in Tennessee; a relatively new convert to the SDA Church, Dortch, and a farmer, regularly socialized and met with his fellow farmers and frequently shared with them the SDA doctrine of the Seventh-Day Sabbath (Saturday) and other doctrines peculiar to Adventists (such as the 'Nature of Man' as in the rejection of the standard Christian belief in the immortality of the human soul). 

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The final generation

Why will the last generation become the last generation and not any generation before it?  Is something missing?  I believe we need the latter rain, but what will bring that about?  I had heard that we will not receive it until we are completely without sin, so I tried very hard to get rid of all the sin in my life.  I’m not the person I was when I started on my Christian journey, but I have not attained perfection.

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The human race

I knew my dad would have been proud of me, as I raced through our town. Timing the traffic lights perfectly and squealing the tires around every turn bore frantic evidence to the desperation of my charge. Was it a matter of life and death, with each passing second ticking away someone’s life? Was it the extreme anxiety of a million dollars hanging in the balance that drove me to such reckless speeds?  No, it was much more important than that. I was late for church.

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Why you're not praying more

We should pray much. We need to pray much. Jesus prayed much. If He needed to pray much, how much more should we pray? Secret prayer is the breath of the soul, yet many of us are weak and easily overcome by sin because we do not pray much. We will never enter into the fullness of communion with God, understand His Word, or have the power to relieve the woes of sin and Satan all around us, nor will we will make it into God's kingdom, if we do not, "watch and pray" (Mark 13:33).

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