On Sunday, October 23, 2016 (the day after the anniversary of the Great Disappointment, incidentally), Oliver Glanz, a professor of Old Testament at Andrews Theological Seminary, and Oleg Kostyuk, a PhD student and adjunct professor of New Testament commenced a 100-mile “ultra-run” to kick off the university’s first “Wellness Week”: “Mission Fully Alive”. Glanz explains, “We call something ‘ultra’ when it is further, higher or deeper than what one would consider being just far, high or deep.”
Kostyuk adds, “Everyone has an ultra. An ultra is anything beyond your comfort zone in every aspect of life: studying, love, public speaking, parenting, etc. Going one step further than you thought you could is what makes it an ultra.”
In a startling interpretation of biblical terms, Glanz says, “The Bible writers encouraged their readers to be fully alive. According to Paul the best way to do that was to become a Hebrew—the biblical word for the modern word ‘ultra.’” He continues to explain, saying that only two people are called “Hebrews” in the book of Genesis, Abraham and Joseph. “These two individuals become the prototypes of the Hebrews,” he says. “They leave their comfort zone and explore new social, physical, spiritual and psychological limits. They go ultra. They become fully alive.”
The duo’s ultra run fit the purpose of the university’s Wellness Week: “to encourage every student and employee to consider embarking on the mission to become fully alive by making positive lifestyle changes and a commitment to positive transformation to improve health and wellbeing.”
The theme of the Wellness Week and the motivation for Glanz and Kostyuk’s ultra-run demonstrates the underlying Adventist view of man’s material being. Lacking a belief in a human spirit that can be made alive and thus know God, Adventists are stuck with physical discipline as their only means of attempting to gain spiritual insight. Their inability to understand what it means to be truly alive, passing out of death into life through belief in the Lord Jesus while still living in a mortal body, is revealed in the ways they talk about growing spiritually by pursuing physical challenges.
“Christians are called to be Hebrews and be ready to go beyond to take the challenge and receive life to the fullest”, Glanz says. “To not shy away in the presence of pain, disappointment or rejection but to keep pushing, to fight for that life that brings healing, joy, true community and satisfaction. To fulfill the mission of being fully alive. To commit to a life that seeks new limits, that does not accept the status quo but seeks more of that life that God promises, to receive the blessings of God more readily, to surrender to God more fully. To become more fully alive.”
It’s somehow fitting that this physical challenge to go “ultra” in order to experience greater joy and community, to surrender to God more fully, and to receive God’s blessings more readily, was showcased at the Adventist theological seminary. Adventism is a religion that denies the spirit. The foundational belief that one cannot receive the Holy Spirit if one is physically unfit, if one’s diet and health are poor, drives the Adventist “health message” and rests on their belief that they must keep the Law in order to demonstrate belief in God.
From the Adventist perspective, going “ultra” is the ultimate demonstration of one’s fitness for salvation.
Source:
http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/story4733-running-100-miles
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