“What Have They Seen In Your House”—Lesson 12
By Colleen Tinker
This week’s lesson uses God’s words to King Hezekiah when, after being healed from his disease and granted 15 more years to live, he welcomed Babylonian envoys into his kingdom. Babylonian King Merodach-baladan brought a gift to him ostensibly to congratulate him on his recovery.
Commentators believe that Merodach-baladan wanted Judah’s support in a military campaign against Assyria. In fact, he had already organized multiple revolts against them. Since the Assyrians were an ongoing threat, Hezekiah himself was probably wanting support from the Assyrian threat as well.
Adventism taught this story as a missed opportunity to witness to the Babylonian king, emphasizing that destruction follows bragging and showing off.
In a sense, this is a true piece of the story. In a bigger sense, however, this story is much more about Hezekiah’s turning immediately to his pagan neighbor in a trusting gesture than it is of his simply bragging and showing off. Even more, this story is NOT about a missed opportunity to witness.
When Adventists use the verse, “What have they seen in your house?” to suggest that families are to use their homes as witnessing venues, they are misusing Scripture. These words, in context, were a reproof from God to His king of His people. Hezekiah has shown the vulnerable “underbelly” to the enemy in an act of trust.
Israel’s and Judah’s kings had been told never to align themselves with the pagan nations. They were never to go to them for political or military help; they were to trust God. God had promised to bless and protect Israel if they honored His covenant with them, but in showing the Babylonians the wealth God had given them in the temple furnishings and in the nation at large, Hezekiah made Judah a political target.
When God sent Babylon to take Judah into exile a few years later, Hezekiah’s careless (and faithless) act had prepared the Babylonians to know exactly where to look to loot the wealth of the nation.
Hezekiah acted without the expected, God-assigned sense of protection and responsibility for his nation that the king should have had. He further acted in disobedience to God’s instructions that he not align himself with the pagans for gain or protection. Instead, Hezekiah put himself in Babylon’s camp, trusting the ones who were untrustworthy and putting at risk the golden furnishing of the temple that Israel had given for the worship of Yahweh.
Illegitimate Use of God’s words
The lesson’s main point this week is that a well-ordered Christian family can be a silent witness to unbelievers who will be drawn to want whatever it is that the Christian family has. The lesson also speaks to the problem of a believer being married to an unbeliever and comments on the ways an unbeliever is “sanctified” (as per 1 Corinthians 7:15).
The fundamental problem with these points, however, is the lack of definition. The context of this lesson as part of the Adventist Sabbath School Bible Study Guide is that the word “Christian” should be understood by the reader to mean “Adventist”. Furthermore, a “believing spouse” is supposedly an Adventist spouse, while an unbeliever is a non-Adventist. While this definition is not given in the lesson, contextually this definition is assumed.
In fact, Ellen White had things to say about marriages between people who were “unequally yoked”. If an Adventist married a non-Adventist, they would have, she said, a home where the shadows are never lifted.
Of course, a non-Adventist is a non-believer—from an Adventist perspective. From a biblical perspective, however, a non-Adventist may very well be a true born-again Christian, and the Adventist may be the unbeliever in the biblical sense.
Biblically, believers are those who have heard the true gospel of salvation and have believed and trusted the Lord Jesus and His finished work and have been born again. They have received a new heart and a new spirit, and they have been indwelled by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14).
The lesson for Tuesday says, “The presence of one Christian partner ‘sanctifies’ the other partner and the couple’s children. The word sanctifies should be understood in the sense that unbelieving spouses come into contact with the blessings of grace through living with their Christian partners.” (See 1 Cor. 7:15).
If one thinks of “believer” as a born again, Spirit-indwelled person, however, “sanctifying” takes on a different meaning. It isn’t merely that the “believer” will be gracious and loving and thus be a blessing to the unbeliever.
The word “sanctify” means to set apart for holy use. How does an unbeliever choosing to stay in a marriage with a believer (and I refer to a true believer, not to a religious Adventist who has not been born again) become “sanctified” by the relationship?
When a person trusts Christ and is born again, he or she has the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit—almighty God—in him. God’s Spirit never leaves one who has been born of God and adopted by God. The believer actually moves through every moment of his or her life infilled with God Himself. Oh, the believer still has mortal flesh which has in it a “law of sin” (Rom. 7:23), but the spirit of the believer is spiritually alive eternally, and God’s literal presence resides in him or her.
The unbeliever, in choosing to stay with the believer, is choosing to be in the intimate presence of a person infilled with God. For an unbeliever to choose to stay with a true believer, he or she is not hardening his heart against the power and presence of God. He is choosing to stay where God’s presence in his or her spouse will influence the spouse to love the unbeliever for God. Even an unbeliever is “sanctified” or set apart for God’s use when he chooses to stay where God’s Spirit and presence can affect his marriage.
The unbeliever is the recipient of “grace”…but not in the generic way the lesson speaks of it. The unbelieving spouse is affected by God’s love shown to him, and he also is influenced by God’s love within the marriage to care for the believing spouse.
In other words, this “sanctification” isn’t about a non-Adventist receiving gracious treatment from the Adventist. It’s about a non-Christian, a non-born-again spouse, being brought into the influence of God Himself through the intimacy of shared life with a true believer.
Hospitality
Furthermore, we cannot assume that Adventists are “Christian”. An Adventist family cannot think they can invite non-Adventists into their home and “convert” them through their lovely family life.
In Scripture, hospitality is commanded of believers. It is even a spiritual gift some believers receive. In the New Testament, hospitality is usually spoken of in the context of believers caring for one another. The two places the word is used in less-clear contexts are Acts 28:7 and Hebrews 13:2. Those texts are as follows:
Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days (Acts 28:7).
Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body (Hebrews 13:1–3).
In context, the Acts passage recounts Paul’s brief stay on the island of Malta where he was given a place to stay by the leader of the community. This example of hospitality was not one of inviting someone in so that the inviter could proselytize the invited. It was an unbeliever giving shelter to the apostle Paul.
In the Hebrews passage, while there might be some discussion of what a “stranger” would be, the context is of believers showing hospitality to other believers.
Nowhere in Scripture is hospitality recommended as a means of bringing unbelievers into one’s home to be influenced for the gospel. It is always used within the context of the local family of believers, extending even to others who profess Christ who may be visiting.
Now, it is not wrong to use hospitality as a means of making connections with unbelievers. That is clearly an option for many people! The Sabbath School lesson, however, takes the traditional Adventist position that having non-Adventists into one’s home is a great way to generate interest in Adventism.
This whole plan is conducted OUTSIDE of the true church of God. Adventism is outside the boundaries of Christianity because it teaches an incomplete atonement, a fallible Jesus, a material view of man and thus of Jesus, and it adds to the gospel by requiring seventh-day Sabbath-Sabbath-keeping and even the health message as necessary components of faith leading to salvation.
For the lesson to speak of the influence of a well-ordered “Christian family” in influencing “unbelievers”, it is deceptively assuming that this method of evangelism works in all of Christianity. It gives the message to Adventists that this deliberate practice of “hospitality” is a standard way to influence people to become Christians.
In fact, no one will become a Christian apart from hearing the biblical gospel. Having people into one’s home might cause curiosity, but it will not yield belief. Belief has to come from hearing the gospel and believing, trusting in Jesus alone for one’s salvation.
Moreover, an Adventist family having people in for dinner will not cause them to be interested in true Christianity.
Adventists need to know the true gospel. Presenting a loving front to the world as put-together families is not an indication of “having the truth”. It is simply a great public relations attempt to look like their religion is the way to happiness.
Only being born again through believing in the real Jesus and His finished work will yield salvation. Jesus alone saves. †
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Good commentary. It hits home. My mom a non Adventist married an Adventist. I married a Catholic. The Catholic Church does the same, it frowns on Catholic’s marrying non Catholics. When a married person gets biblically saved and their spouse is not, it creates problems big time. Sometimes the spouse does not leave because he/she does not want to lose the comforts. But there is much trouble in this home. The believer is torn between two worlds. The new one in Christ and the old one. Hezekiah, if he would have died when God said he was, he would not have committed this sin, and he would not have had the son he had who was the most evil wicked king yet in Israel 2 Kings 21. This picture shows that the influence of Hezekiah did not help his son. In the same way a marriage with a believer and unbeliever may not influence the unbeliever to become a Christian. It also shows when God takes a believer home it’s the perfect time, and maybe we should not influence this decision by asking for more days? Lest a believer and unbeliever have a child that would be quite wicked. And let me just say, the man my mother married the Adventist and his 5 children were quite wicked which have affected me and my 2 sisters to this day. My sister came from that marriage and she is now a believer and that is the only blessing that came from that marriage. Believers in no way should ever marry an Adventist though they think they are Christians, and most do believe they are. You will have much trouble for sure! Blessings!