How Do I Find a “Safe” Church?
Wow. I just watched the Cultish series [on Adventism] and I’m excited to learn more about your ministry. I’m looking for a new church home in Tampa, FL, and have felt like I was doing something wrong or sinful that could jeopardize my salvation because it wont be SDA.
I’m a little confused about what are “safe” denominations. I would love to know in what denomination you found refuge and fellowship if you don’t mind sharing.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: We at Life Assurance Ministries go to different churches; I attend an independent Bible church plant, Redeemer Fellowship, in Loma Linda (not a Saturday church!). The best thing to look for is a church with a doctrinal statement that places the inerrancy of Scripture, the gospel of the Lord Jesus, and the Trinity at the core of its belief system. Look for a church that preaches through the Bible directly from passages of Scripture as opposed to topical sermons. Also, be wary of churches that focus on the Holy Spirit and manifestations of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s role is to point to Jesus and to reveal the meaning of Scripture. He is never “center stage”, and churches that focus on experiencing the Spirit often miss the essence of the gospel and of biblical Christianity.
This doctrinal statement is an example of a statement that places the essence of biblical teaching in it proper place. The sermons linked to each statement will also help you understand the point of each statement.
Many former Adventists find homes in a variety of churches: Baptist, Presbyterian (PCA), Bible churches, often independent, and some even in Lutheran Missouri Synod.
The best thing to do is to ask the Lord to lead you to the church where He knows you will be taught well from His word and find a nurturing places to “rewire” your worldview and to find fellowship. Check out their doctrinal statements online, and visit churches.
It’s hard to say that any denomination or “family” of churches is “safe”. So much depends on the individual pastors and congregations. I would categorically say, though, that I would avoid churches whose doctrinal statements deviate from the pure gospel—such as charismatic-focussed churches—and such as liberal churches that no longer hold to the sufficiency and inerrancy of Scripture. The key thing is submission to Scripture and to the Lord Jesus and His finished work!
Help Needed with Colossians 2!
I am still dealing with an Adventist on Facebook, and he keeps sending me videos.
I keep sending him articles that I had, but I think he needs something more in-depth.
Do you have a good article on Colossians 2:14-17 that I could send him? Any help would be appreciated .I have many people watching this play out on Facebook, so I need some help.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: I’m going to send you the links to our two podcasts covering Colossians 2:
- “What Was Nailed To the Cross?—Colossians 1, Part One”
- “The Sabbath Is Not Important—Colossians 2, Part Two”
Finally, here is an article addressing Colossians 2:16, 17 directly: Which “Sabbath” Is Paul Referencing?
Where Is the Adventist Logic?
After having listened to all the podcasts on the 28 Fundamental Beliefs and doing some other reading, I have some things that puzzle me.
First, Adventists claim Biblical proof that there will BE a remnant church—and then, that they are it.
The verses they list as proof are largely about coming judgment and about the coming (present time) apostasy, which is Biblical. But I don’t see any of those verses even hinting that there will be a “remnant church” in end-times. Do you have any idea of their logic to write that into the Bible?
In their belief #12 they correctly say that the church is “the community of believers”, but then they exclude all other believers when they insert the Adventists. They narrow down a community to a specific man-made denomination.
Then we get to #18 on the gift of prophecy. There, they claim, without any Biblical authority, that having that gift is a mark of that remnant church (themselves). One of the “proofs” for that claim is Joel 2 and some New Testament verses that quote Joel 2. But even a cursory reading of Joel 2 tells you that the passage is about Zion (Israel).
In fact, the first verse says specifically “in Zion” and “on my holy mountain”. Yes, the coming judgments will affect the entire world, but that chapter is specifically about Israel. There is no indication that the speaking in prophecy or dreams or visions is for everyone in the world.
Then, ironically and totally out of context, they use Hebrews 1:1-3 which specifically says that as God spoke before through prophets, NOW, “in these last days”, He spoke through His Son.
Once again, that actually contradicts what they claim for their “prophet”.
Do you have any idea of the logic of how they get from Hebrews 1 to the opposite point of adding their “prophet’” I know they do it, but I don’t see the logic they use.
(Of course ,then they use “commandments” in Revelation just like they always do, without any understanding of the meanings of the original Greek words. But I digress!)
Now, I have long understood that they start with their conclusion—their remnant status and their prophet—and reinterpret the Bible to support that position. But don’t they have any logical chain of thought to do that? Or do they work entirely backwards from conclusion to “proof”?
I never really thought much about these questions until I listened to the podcasts on the 28 Fundamental Beliefs, but now, even realizing their habit of eisegesis, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Do they really expect members to totally suspend rational thought and just believe that what they say is true because they said it? That is just bizarre!
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts. I don’t know if there is really any answer to my wonderings other than simple eisegesis, but I am just curious to better understand the thought process.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: I assume (more and more, actually) that much of the founding Adventists’ framework they borrowed from covenant theology. Somehow James White and Jospeh Bates adopted some of the arguments of covenant theology that included keeping the law as a rule of faith and practice for Christians. That fact alone affected the way they read the covenants and prophecy. Covenant theology includes a worldview that says the church replaced Israel because Israel was apostate. Thus covenant theologians read the Old Testament as being interpreted by the new—which means they look back at the Old Testament prophecies to Israel and say that the new revelation of the church redefines the Old Testament prophecies. Thus the Old Testament prophecies given by God to Israel we are now to understand as finding their fullness in the church through Christ. The prophecies dealing with the temple, Jerusalem, and the land many say are realized in the church through Jesus.
Adventism goes farther. It doesn’t stop with Jesus as the fulfillment but makes ITSELF the church that is the final recipient of the blessings. So, whenever the Bible says God has a remnant, they say that they are the remnant. Never mind the fact that context CLEARLY puts that remnant in Israel! They read Adventists into the passages about God saving a remnant, and they apply verses like those in Revelation about keeping the commandments of God and having the faith of Jesus to themselves.
It all depends upon their attribution of authority. Because they believe the Bible writers were inspired exactly as was EGW, they see the Bible as having errors of “interpretation”. Because they believe in the idea of “present truth” as upheld by EGW, they can say that she is the LATEST interpreter of Scripture that God sent, so we can most confidently depend upon her interpretations because she was sent by God.
So, right or wrong, sensible or not, related to context or not, EGWs interpretations trump all others because they were God’s latest revelation on the topic. She narcissistically claimed Adventism is the remnant, therefore the whole Bible must submit to her visionary insight. Adventism’s final authority is NOT Scripture; it is really EGW and her influence.
If, though, we look under the hood even at her influence, we see that Adventists lose many progressive Adventists who don’t believe her unique stuff. Nevertheless, they still see her as sent by God, so they can’t dismiss her out of hand. Consequently, their worldview reflects hers because—WHAT IF she’s right? Besides, the physicalist worldview is really comforting to them because they can mock the idea of depravity. They aren’t THAT BAD. Furthermore, the “universalist” idea that Jesus forgave all sin on the cross and people are born into this forgiveness and just have to choose NOT to leave it means that no one is born dead, truly…they are only born “undecided”. So the urgency for truth, for salvation, is missing. From their perspective, it’s all mental, anyway.
“Present Truth” is their safe space. They can claim that whatever new interpretation or obfuscation they employ is justified because Adventism is defined by “Present Truth”. Consequently, their doctrines are a jumble of borrowed ideas from covenant theology, Restorationism, the founders themselves, and the recognition that the Bible doesn’t actually say what Adventism has historically claimed it says. They can recombine ideas, add and subtract from Scripture in context, and justify all of it by claiming to be honoring their legacy of “Present Truth”.
It’s so convoluted! Yet it truly reveals its diabolical nature when you peer at is deeply. The confusion, the diminishing of Jesus and His finished work, the not-so-bad condition of man…these are demonic ideas created to obscure people’s realization that they need to be saved. †
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