How To Handle New and Strange Teachings
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Release Date: 11/07/2023
Sunday Keeping Doesn't Warrant Changing the 7th-Day Sabbath
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
The Sabbath School quarterly mentions that, "Adventists have sometimes shied away from resurrection morning because of the way it is misused to support Sunday sacredness." Sabbath School Quarterly Lesson, Saturday, September 21, 2024. Some who feel this way might think that whatever is used to support Sunday is a potential threat to the Sabbath truth. But really, even if Sunday could be shown to be divinely appointed as a day of worship, this wouldn't show that the Sabbath has changed from Saturday to Sunday, nor would it show that the command to keep the 7th-Day Sabbath is no longer...
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How Was Jesus Three Days and Three Nights in "The Heart of the Earth"?
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Have you ever wondered about the calculus of Jesus' "sign of Jonah" statement? Jesus said, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the huge fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40 WEB). This is usually understood as referring to Jesus' time in the tomb, but this interpretation runs into some obvious difficulties. The gospels leave a very plain record that Jesus was buried Friday evening soon before the Sabbath and that he was resurrected early Sunday morning. That's a span of about 36 hours, which is...
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Was There a Bible Canon in Jesus' Day?
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Was there a bible canon in Jesus' day? A bible canon is a set list of writings that are considered to be THE list that's authoritative for a religious community. That means that if we want to know if there was a bible canon in Jesus' day, we have to determine if, at a minimum, the Jews were agreed on which books were scripture. Did they have some sort of official list of books they accepted to the exclusion of others - did they have that sort of thing or not? Did they have a council that approved a list, or was there a list that everyone had a consensus on? Today we are going to...
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Does God Have a Moral Standard Outside of Himself?
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Why is God's law good? Often, people think it's good because God said it and whatever God says is good by default. While this might initially sound good and honoring to God, we need to consider whether this sort of explanation really makes sense. Consider, if anything God says is good by virtue of him saying it, could *anything* be good so long as God said it? Like, hypothetically, if God were to say, "Thou shalt not take care of the sick, the elderly, or the infants," would that *actually be good* just because God decided to make it a commandment? And how about other things, like racism,...
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Is the Principle in the Parable of the Mustard Seed Still Relevant?
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
In the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus taught his audience that the kingdom will start small then grow large, and by implication, that we shouldn't disregard or bias ourselves against something on the basis of its small size. Of course, this was very relevant when Jesus spoke the parable since his band of followers was very small as compared to other religious groups in the world and even as compared to other groups among the Jews. But now that the SDA membership is 22 million or so, is it safe to say we are done now with the principle Jesus laid out in the parable of the mustard seed?...
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Is it Okay to Question the Traditional Authorship of the Gospels?
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
None of the 4 gospels in the New Testament list the name of is author, nor are they listed anywhere in the bible. So, is it okay to question the traditional authorship of the gospels? Or is that a doctrinally off limits thing to do? Like, is someone who questions these authorship traditions to be considered someone who doesn't really have a high view of scripture or something like that? Is it theologically okay to question a tradition if we are basing our doctrines on scripture alone? In our study today, we consider this. For more study, see: Is Merely Mental Prayer...
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You Can't Make Sense of an Immaterial Soul | Early SDA D.M. Canright
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Are humans dualistic beings – two part beings, composed of a material body plus an immaterial soul? The reason some have this idea is the belief that matter cannot be organized to think, and therefore, the thinking ability of humans must be attributed to something immaterial. This is then used as a basis for the belief in the soul's naturally immortality. If it's immaterial, it has no parts, so it can't be destroyed and must endure forever. While that might *seem* to make sense, it depends on the idea that the mind is immaterial. And the apparent necessity for that vanishes if matter can...
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Can Matter be Organized to Think? | Early SDA D.M. Canright
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Can matter be organized so that it can think? Or is there an immaterial part of humans that is responsible for thought, reason, and emotion? The SDA doctrine of the non-immortality of the soul is very well known among SDAs today, but what is less well known is the core reason behind this doctrine. This core reason is really the foundation on which the non-immortality of the soul rests, and it was plainly understood and explained by the SDA pioneers. If we don't understand this foundation, we're prone holding other beliefs that are actually in conflict with it, without even realizing it. One...
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Who Is Benefitted by Jesus' Priesthood?
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
Who is benefited by Jesus' priesthood in the Heavenly Sanctuary? Many are under the impression that people are benefited by just professing Him as their lord and savior, or accepting that He is the savior of the world. But is this the case? In this study we are going to take a look at a book which has Jesus' priesthood as the central theme – the book of Hebrews. For further study, see: "What Jesus Taught About Doing Right and Wrong," by Trent Wilde, “What Are The Streams of Water In Psalm 1?" 2024 Sabbath School, Quarter 2: The Great Controversy – Week 8, "Light From...
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How Knowing the Great Controversy Can Help In Practical Life
Sabbath School with Branch Davidians
As SDAs, we all know about the Great Controversy. We all have this idea in mind that there is this controversy between Christ and Satan going on in the background. At least Satan wants us to think it's just that—a background scenario that's mainly independent from our every day lives. In light of the Great Controversy between Christ and Satan, our controversies could be called small controversies in the scheme of things. But, as I'm sure we all would admit, we tend to think of our personal controversies as though they're great controversies, and sometimes THE Great Controversy between...
info_outlineIn Acts chapter 2, we see that Peter was speaking to a Jewish audience that had come from far and wide to celebrate Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks. Peter confronted their incorrect beliefs and offered new explanations for what people were seeing and experiencing.
These incorrect beliefs being confronted were the incorrect beliefs of God's denominated people at the time. And these corrections were not coming from the established religious leaders.
It's easy to read Acts 2 and imagine that we would have been the ones accepting these corrections and getting baptized into these new beliefs, but before we jump to that conclusion, let's examine ourselves for a moment. How do we handle new teachings that go against long held beliefs? And do we honestly investigate teachings that do not come from the established religious leaders in the SDA church, God's denominated people of today? Are we like the 3000 who honestly considered Peter's teachings? Or are we like the majority of the Jews, God's denominated people of that day, who rejected these new and strange teachings on the basis that they did not come from the established leadership, or went against long held ideas, or both?
Today we will look into what Ellen White had to say about how to handle what seem to be new and strange teachings that come about in the church.
For more studies on this, please see:
"The King of Crises in the Seventh-day Adventist Church," by Trent Wilde, https://www.bdsda.com/the-king-of-crises-in-the-seventh-day-adventist-church-2/
Sabbath School Q4 2023: God's Mission, My Mission - Week 6, "Motivation and Preparation for Mission"
A Branch Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist perspective on the Sabbath School lesson.