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Hohenwald SDA Church

Dennis Priebe

Will Our Church Go Forward?

Father in heaven, this afternoon as we try to understand again your will and our understanding of your will for our lives, I pray for your Holy Spirit to guide and direct and lead us.

May we truly be under the Holy Spirit's direction and not our own minds, I ask in Jesus' name.

Would you turn with me to 2 Peter, chapter 1, 1 of the most familiar texts we have all read in the Bible.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy.

Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts, knowing this verse, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Well first of all, back to verse 19, Are we in a dark place today in our world?

Do we need a fair amount of light in this dark world in which we live?

And then in the next verse, verse 20, Is there a danger that we might get into private interpretations?

Here's a little principle that I'd like to share with you.

In all of your Bible study, When you are reading any Bible text to try to understand what God is saying in that text, you dig everything out of that text you can.

If necessary, you look up the word in its...

If you can't read the original languages in a concordance or a lexicon which tells you what the word means.

You dig everything you can out of that text and then you don't speculate 1 inch beyond that text.

Since this says then maybe over here and we go on into our little private interpretations.

Most of our problems come is when we go beyond the text and speculate and guess and infer instead of just reading what the text says.

So that's a principle here that will help us to avoid private interpretations.

Verse 21 is the great divide in modern Bible study.

Did the prophets come up with ideas, and then the Holy Spirit gave them special impressions?

Or did the prophets speak and write only as moved, and the word moved is really carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Did they come up with ideas and the Holy Spirit helped them or did they speak only as carried along by the Holy Spirit?

That's the great divide in modern Bible study.

Is the prophet's teaching limited to his culture, or does the prophet speak across cultures to our time?

I'm coming across many people who profess Christ as Savior, but relegate certain portions of the Scriptures as opinion pieces.

Well, that's what the prophet thought at that time.

This plays out most notably when there is biblical instruction that sort of cuts across what our current culture says is reasonable and right, or our personal practices say is reasonable and right.

And the Bible says no, and we say, well, but that was their understanding.

There's a growing phenomenon of Western culture called religious pluralism.

That simply means that opposing views are equally valid.

You have 1 view, I have the opposite view, we're all relating to God directly, both of our views are just as valid as the other 1.

And that's impacting us in the Seventh-day Adventist Church as well.

When we filter Scripture through the lens of culture, culture almost always wins.

When culture dominates how we interpret the Word of God, when the way our society works, And I think most of our problems today are due to looking to society and culture.

I don't think we're much different than Israel, as they began to look outside of themselves for what was going on over here in this group, how did they worship over there, What made their worship more exciting than ours?

And we're looking outside instead of God's Word.

Another text, 1 of the also familiar texts, is 2nd Timothy.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

All scripture, not just selected portions.

You know, critiquing is good, but sometimes we just get into that mode of everything has to be criticized.

Sometimes we go to the altar and then we alter.

Moses and Paul were highly educated, but didn't they have to unlearn most of their education to be used by God?

Dissection can be very damaging in the long run.

All right, we're gonna do a little fun thing right now, I think, I hope.

Recently a young Adventist bemoaned the biblical literalism and fundamentalism rampant in our church.

We're going to do just a quick whirlwind Bible study this afternoon.

The question is, what about literal understandings of Scripture?

Some of you might know what that text says.

Exodus 20 verse 11, for in 6 days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.

Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Does that sound like a literalistic, fundamentalistic spin on Genesis 1 and 2?

Let's go to the New Testament though, that's where most of the interesting things are.

1st Timothy, quick Bible study, 1st Timothy chapter 2, verses 13 and 14.

1 Timothy 2, 13, For Adam was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." Is that about as literal an interpretation of Genesis as you could possibly read?

You know what that is, the faith chapter.

Chapter 11, verse 4, By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead, yet speaketh.

By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death, and was not found, because God had translated him.

For before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." Sounds as if Paul believes that these people were real, doesn't it?

And the biblical account of their story was true.

Even someone being translated without seeing death, that's a pretty far-fetched story, isn't it?

Yet he seemed to believe that that's what happened.

2 Peter 2 Peter 2 verse 5, "...and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.

Could Peter, a prophet and apostle, have actually taken the Noah story as it reads?

Matthew chapter 24 verse 37, But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.

For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." So Jesus not only believed the Noah story, He gave it added theological significance by linking it with His second coming and do we hope that's literal?

Well maybe if 1 is then the other is too.

Matthew chapter 19, Matthew 19 verse 4, And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be 1 flesh?

Wherefore they are no longer twain, but 1 flesh.

What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Pretty literal spin on the creation story coming from Jesus again.

For as Jonas was 3 days and 3 nights in the whale's belly, So shall the Son of Man be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth." Now wait a minute, you mean Jesus really believed the Jonah story to be literal?

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Will Our Church Go Forward?

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