Stephen
Terry, Director
Some
Principles of Prophecy
Commentary
for the April 5, 2025, Sabbath School Lesson
"For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this
one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Galatians 5:14, NIV
As I
read over the quarterly this week, I was astonished at the arrogance and
effrontery I found. I was a huge fan of the Shawn Boonstra of twenty years ago
who produced "The Appearing" while working with "It Is Written." But the Shawn
Boonstra who authored this quarter's lessons is not the same humble man who showed
love and the Holy Spirit in every word and expression of his being. That Shawn
Boonstra would never have said things like, "if you go to the Bible with a
rebellious heart, you are wasting your time," or "without judging people's
salvation, think about the 'darkness' that so much of Christendom exists in.
Something as basic as the seventh-day Sabbath, established in Eden, is ignored,
even dismissed, in favor of Sunday, a day rooted in Roman paganism." The latter
is an interesting irony to say he is not judging people and then proceeds to
judge them as living in darkness. Of course, I wonder how much of this is Shawn
and how much is Clifford Goldstein's editing since editorial changes are never
revealed with the quarterly, but Shawn's willingness to allow this to be
published means that his culpability endures.
When
Mark Finley was an evangelist, I reveled at his ability to bring the power of
the Spirit into his presentations. When he was promoted to the General
Conference, all that disappeared, and he simply devolved into an apologist for
denominational dogmatics. This may be happening with Shawn as well. It reminds
me of the conference ministerial secretary who told me when I asked why they
did not use lay ministers to cover for the pastoral shortage, "If we pay them,
we can control them." It also reminded me of an experience when I was in the
pastoral ministry in the Midwest. The conference president called a snap workers'
meeting because he was burdened about the "Omega Apostasy." When I arrived for
the meeting, I advised him that our local church had expended time and
resources for an evangelistic meeting to take place that evening, and I was the
speaker, so I needed to return in time to do the presentation. He assured me he
would let me out in time to go. However, he got wound
up about his topic and was going on well past the time I needed to return to my
central parish over one hundred miles away where the
meeting hall was rented. I got up to leave, and immediately he shot me a fowl
look, adjourned the meeting in mid-sentence and ordered me into his office. He
spent fifteen minutes dressing me down and reminding me that he was in control,
and if I ever forgot that again, it would be the end of my ministry. When he
finally let me go, I knew I would never make it in time unless I lead footed
the gas pedal. As a result, I was pulled over halfway there. However, the
police officer showed more compassion than my conference president, when I told
him why I was speeding, he let me go and wished God's blessing on the meetings.
Despite the president's need to assert his authority, baptisms resulted from
those meetings.
I believe
that as a denomination we are often responsible for greater hindrance to
furthering the work of the Holy Spirit than are the opposition. We have certainly
lost sight of the principles of the Reformation, replacing the earthly priest
and confessional with a direct relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. Somehow,
we have returned to every aspect of faith being determined by a paid clergy
with the power to hire and dismiss those they feel challenge their control over
the denomination. The "darkness" and "rebellion" that Shawn Boonstra attributes
to the rest of Christianity over their failure to recognize and adhere to the
dogma of Adventism has much that aligns it with the attitude of Roman Catholicism
toward the Protestant dissidents of the Reformation. I cannot help but wonder if
it were legal, would modern religious leaders burn those who disagreed with
them at the stake? Or as the Jews did with Paul, stone them? A person will do many disagreeable things if he feels his livelihood or his
family comes under threat, and there are those who would exert such pressure,
as my conference president of long ago was willing to do to me.
I do not
want to close this commentary without addressing issues raised in lesson one of
the quarterly, that are erroneous. Shawn Boonstra states that Sunday is a day
rooted in Roman paganism. Before, I respond to that, I will assert that I am a
Sabbatarian, not a legalist one as our Fundamental Beliefs demand, but a
Sabbath keeper based on faith and grace rather than submission to an arrogant
church demand. What does that mean? It means I do not need a sundown schedule
to keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath existed long before we believed that God sat
in heaven with a Rolex watch counting down the seconds until his people could
finally go about their secular activities without being cursed. The Jews used
to have a beautiful way of heralding the Sabbath mentioned in the series "The
Chosen." When the first star appeared in the heavens that would mark the
beginning and the end of the Sabbath each of those evenings. At no point was
Jesus ever challenged for breaking the Sabbath because he began it too late or
ended it too early despite not having a sundown schedule..
Now,
concerning the Roman paganism claim, as Samuele Bacchiocchi, in his book "From
Sabbath to Sunday," documented along with other scholars since, the
observance of Sunday by Christians began in the early second century, long
before Constantine's decree in 321 CE. It was an anti-Semitic response to the
persecution of Christians by the Jews and a desire not to be confused with Jews
by the Romans after the Second Jewish Revolt. There are references in the
writings of the ante Nicene church fathers to the contest between those keeping
Sabbath and those keeping Sunday, with those Sabbatarians at times referred to
as Judaizers. The controversy over this continued until late in the fourth
century when the Canons of the Council of Laodicea outlawed such Judaizing
practices, more than forty years after Constatine's decree illustrating that
his decree did not suddenly create Sunday worship by Christians as 1)it was
already being observed and 2)the church did not formally adopt it until 364 CE.
Secondly,
regarding the claim that the rest of Christianity is living in darkness, I
refute that with the words of Christ. "Whoever lives by believing in me will
never die." (John 11:26) and "I have come into the world as a light, so that no
one who believes in me should stay in darkness." (John 12:46) The judgment of
Boonstra against the Sunday keepers is harsh and implies he can tell who the
Lord's is and who is not solely based on Sabbath keeping. Jesus does not judge
the lost short of everyone having the opportunity to be saved. (John
3:17) Boonstra does not seem to have similar patience and compassion. I
wish we still had the Shawn Boonstra of old.
Two
things I wish to point out regarding an examination of the prophecies of the
Book of Revelation. 1) The book of Revelation claims to be written by John the
Apostle. The bloody revenge against the lost in Revelation seems very much out
of character for the one who wrote the Gospel of John and John's three
epistles. Love was the over-arching theme of those works. The idea of blood up
to the horses' bridles and birds feeding on the corpses of the lost calls into
question everything John wrote about God elsewhere if indeed John wrote it. 2)
the book of Revelation was a late comer to the biblical canon because its
authorship was in doubt for the reason I just shared. Martin Luther did not
originally include it in his German Bible, later adding it under pressure from
the church. While there is much of value in Revelation that explains why we are
where we are today such as the war in heaven in chapter twelve, texts, even in
the same chapter, have been misapplied to justify Adventist
dogma.
The
last verse in the chapter speaks of a remnant "keeping the commandments of God
and having the testimony of Jesus." The church assumes that the "commandments of God"
refers back to the Decalogue in Exodus, chapter twenty, and Deuteronomy,
chapter five. But this is an assumption no more valid than believing that it
refers to Jesus' statements about God's commandments and love in (Mathew
22:37-40). Adventist religious rulers maintain that they are one and the
same. However, while I have met many loving Adventists over half a century, I
have also noticed a lack of love and compassion and a desire to control and compel
the members on the part of leadership along with a willingness to give more
credence to the wishes of the wealthy over the remainder of the church. As a result,
nepotism and simony are rife within the denomination as it is in other
denominations, challenging our special "remnant" status.
That
last verse also refers to the remnant having "the testimony of Jesus." A simple
search for that phrase in a King James Version concordance brings us to
Revelation 19:10 where "the testimony of Jesus" is called "the spirit of
prophecy." This becomes the basis for referring to Ellen White's writings as "the
Spirit of Prophecy." In the minds of the pioneers this cemented our status as
the end time remnant. However, proof texting like this is already a suspect way
of doing Bible study, let alone proof texting that is dependent upon particular
translations above others. This kind of thing is why there is a movement that
feels the King Jame Version is the only real Bible. Rather than question such
methods, the early Seventh-day Adventists took the idea and ran with it. One
cannot deny the wealth and success of the Seventh-day Adventist Church,
rivaling that of the Roman Catholic Church. It is easy to understand why those
who would rattle the foundation by questioning whether the emperor really has
any attire would be persona non grata to leadership. It takes a vast river of money
to support that earthly empire. Anything that would disturb the flow of that
river could collapse the entire edifice. The idea that you do not have to pay
anyone money to be saved is anathema to the denomination. Johann Tetzel would
heartily agree.
Note:
If this lesson is an indication of what to expect this quarter, I will write regarding
each point as it comes up. There are several current prophetic perspectives
that no more hold water than Uriah Smith's invocation of the Ottoman Empire as the
terror of the End Times. For those who wish to see some alternative
examinations of the prophecies of Daniel, my book "Daniel:
Stranger in a Strange Land," is available on Amazon.