Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Nations: Part 2
Commentary
for the May 3, 2025, Sabbath School Lesson
"Whom shall he
teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are
weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon
precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little,
and there a little:"
Isaiah 28:9-10, KJV
Even
though it was the most used translation of the Bible when I was a child, I do
not often refer to the King James Version due to its flaws. However, the basic
principles of its translation of this passage are valid. Put more simply, if we
examine something logically by proposing a Major Premise, a Minor Premise, and
a Conclusion, we can arrive at a true statement. A simple example: Insects have
six legs. Ants have six legs. Therefore, ants are insects. The logic breaks
down if any part of the syllogism fails. For instance, if the Major Premise was
that insects sometimes have six legs, then the conclusion that ants are insects
would change from a truth to an assumption. It may be true, but it also may be
false. Adding the word "sometimes" to the major premise necessitates changing
the "are" to "may be" in the conclusion.
Getting
to the truth in any matter is dependent upon properly constructed logic, even
getting to the truth in Bible prophecy. We can find ourselves with a castle
built of blocks that do not adequately support the structure. When that is
discovered, it can be problematic to rebuild the structure properly. As with
any building, it would require deconstruction and rebuilding with more stable
materials. Among those dwelling in the structure we call church, there are
those who are perfectly happy with the structure. Though flawed, it has seen
them more or less safely through life and they have taught the structure to
their children, and their children have taught it to their children, flaws and
all. Does one then go on building with the same blocks for the sake of continuity,
even if all admit that the edifice is growing ever more prone to collapse over
time, or does one do what must be done and thoroughly examine the stability of
the structure, shoring up in some places, and rebuilding in others?
This
is not simply a process related to dogma. It speaks to the essence of church as
an institution. It begs the question. Is what we call church really church? It
has been passed down to us over centuries, evolving along the way to become
what we understand the institutional church to be today. Along the way, it has
picked up unsavory attributes: simony, nepotism, and the institutional church in
the role of mediator between humanity and God as sole arbiter of who may or may
not approach the throne of grace. Like so many closed societies, one must agree
to an extensive list of demands to enter fellowship even at the lowest levels.
This is ironic considering Christ's words, "whoever comes to me I will never
drive away." (John 6:37) Strange then that those churches have detailed
information about how exactly to cast people out from the church. The same
church that claims to be the body of the One who will never drive whoever comes
to him away. But this is the logic of the truth as it exists in the modern institutional
church. And my denomination, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, though calling
itself God's special remnant is not exempt from this.
Our
most out there vulnerability as a denomination is in
the interpretation of Bible prophecy. When I joined the church at age 18, I was
young and had not yet studied logic and how it works for
getting at truth. Besides the reasoning by the denomination was that since
Christ is the truth (John
14:6), and the church is the body of Christ (1
Corinthians 12:27), the truth must reside only in the church. At my young
age, this seemed irrefutable. But now I understand that the church is the body
of Christ only as far as it manifests the character of Christ. A church full of
selfish, greedy, manipulative devils is not the body of Christ, no matter what copyrighted
denominational appellation is nailed on the front of the building. One might
find a scintilla of truth there, but it would be despite the church rather than
because of it.
When
a denomination sees itself as the sole arbiter of truth it can manifest in
several ways. It can manifest as isolation from others not of their
denomination. It can also manifest as extreme measures to assert control over
the denominational narrative despite ever growing challenges to that narrative.
It can manifest as my-way-or-the-highway interpretations of biblical prophecy,
when legitimate and logical challenges to longstanding assumptions inevitably
arise. For example, using the illustration of building a castle out of colored
wooden blocks, should a person have the temerity to point out that a blue block
could just as easily occupy the place of a green block thereby changing the
understanding of the building's structure, they would be rebuked because the idea
differed from the founders' and their most ardent supporters. The choice left for
those who would challenge what is for what might be is to be pressured into
either leaving the church or remaining within but silent, while never being
allowed a position of influence within official denominational culture.
One
example of a denominational assumption related to a prophetic book is found in
Daniel, chapter 1 where Daniel and his three companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego want to eat only a vegetable diet. This is touted as support for the idea
that a vegetarian diet is best, and Daniel was a lifelong vegetarian just as we
should be. This idea is unwarranted for these boys, as observant Jews, would
have participated in Passover and the temple sacrificial system, both of which
were commanded to include the consumption of meat. It seems more likely that
rather than try to explain the complex Jewish dietary laws to their overseer,
it was much simpler to simply request a vegetable diet. Even today, Adventists,
while traveling may request a vegetarian meal even when they are not vegetarian
to avoid trying to explain what unclean meats they are avoiding and why. We too
often make assumptions about what the Bible is telling us based on what we want
to believe instead of questioning our beliefs in the matter. This is not
surprising as we see the same in the political arena as well. Looking for
confirmation, even shaky confirmation, is a much more popular pastime than challenging
ourselves over what we believe to be true. But any professional athlete can
testify that failure to continually challenge ourselves can relegate us to the
bench and out of serious competition for the prize.
More
examples are in Daniel, chapter 2. An obvious error of interpretation that was around
fifty years ago and still crops up today was that the materials for the various
parts of the statue were representative of the metallurgy of the empire in
question. For instance, Greece under Alexander was said to have armor and weapons
of brass while the Roman Empire crushed all their foes with weapons and armor
of iron. Why this ever became a popular understanding is beyond me as both Greece
and Rome were Iron Age civilizations at that time. The Iron Age had arrived at
least six centuries before the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the
king Daniel identified as the head of the image in the king's dream.
But
the assumptions do not end there. The ten toes are taught as ten kingdoms that descended
from the Roman Empire. Lists of those ten kingdoms have been shared as biblical
truth instead of the assumptions they are despite Daniel referring to the feet
as a kingdom and not kingdoms. I imagine this is an attempt to harmonize a
later vision with ten horns with this one. But the most egregious assumption regarding
these feet and toes pertains to the stone cut out without hands that strikes
the feet bringing the entire statue to the ground. The Seventh-day Adventist denomination
has long equated that stone with the Parousia, even though the vast amount of
time between the feet of the statue and the Parousia is out of sync with the
one-after-the-other sequence of the other kingdoms of the statue. When we
consider the chronology of the rest of the statue, Babylon, Medo-Persia,
Greece, and Rome, it makes more sense to see the stone as representative of the
Incarnation rather than the Parousia. The Incarnation and not the Parousia
occurred during the days of the Roman Empire and Christianity grew from that
point to become the largest religion in the world.[i]
While there are those who associate the Roman Catholic Church with a continuation
of the Roman Empire that the stone might be interpreted as the Parousia, those
efforts have only resulted in the vilifying of millions of Catholics through the
centuries, causing more heat than light. After the Inquisition and various
persecutions in the Old World, we should know better than to walk down the same
path they once did.
So much
apocalyptic prophecy has been treated as though it was set in stone. That false
certainty has bred an arrogance that causes us to function as though we are God's
chosen and everyone else is headed to perdition if they do not wake up and smell
the prophetic roses we have grown. However, those roses are getting crinkly and
brown around the edges of the petals with age, and fewer and fewer are willing
to receive that bouquet without question. It would not hurt to question ourselves
as well with a little humility rather than a desire to squelch what cannot be
controlled.