KELSIE PETERSEN | Contributor and a Boy-Mom
Over the past couple of months, I’ve had the great pleasure of reconnecting with someone I knew briefly in my years as an Adventist. This person has recently come to know the gospel and has left Adventism. A couple of weeks ago, this friend met me at the church my family and I have been attending, as she is moving back to the area. As we sat together through the sermon, there were a couple of moments where I could feel the smile on her face matching mine, and I knew it was because while the speaker had said something completely sensical and Biblical, we were both thinking of how differently we would have heard and understood his words as Adventists.
We keep comparing the “then” and the “now”, how we would have heard and understood this Bible teaching when we were Adventists, how an Adventist listening today would understand it, and how we understand it now as born-again believers.
After the service, part of our conversation was centered on how it seems that neither of us can “help ourselves,” when listening to Christian teaching. We keep comparing the “then” and the “now”, how we would have heard and understood this Bible teaching when we were Adventists, how an Adventist listening today would understand it, and how we understand it now as born-again believers. It was interesting that, while I have been out of Adventism nearly 20 years and she has left only within the last couple of years, we both still have this sort of “default mode” in our minds when we listen to Christian teaching. We can’t help comparing and contrasting.
As I thought about what to write for this Proclamation! article, I perused back through 2 Corinthians 3, which I discussed last time, and looked ahead at chapter 4. As I read, I found myself doing that same thing. It’s almost as if I’m reading it from two different brains at once: my Adventist brain, and my Christian brain. I thought it would be interesting to take a trip through 2 Corinthians 4 and unpack what my Adventist brain reads and hears. It’s not something that our Christian friends understand, and it is truly something unique to those of us who have left an organization such as Adventism.
So let’s get started! First, here are verses 1 and 2 of 2 Corinthians 4:
Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.— 2 Corinthians 4:1, 2
Paul has just finished extolling the wonders of the new covenant to his audience in Corinth. Remember, he has compared and contrasted it with the old covenant, making it abundantly clear that the two covenants are NOT the same. When he opens chapter 4, he begins with “Therefore”. One teacher I’ve listened to has always reminded me to ask, “What’s the ‘therefore,’ there for?”
In this case, it is there to frame the coming paragraph in light of the clearly NEW ministry of the NEW covenant.
As I read these verses, the first thing that stuck out to me was the word “ministry.” My Adventist brain would have associated this word with the unique message of the church, particularly the Sabbath. As an Adventist, even in Adventist university, I was taught to “study” the Bible, not to read it, and this study was often a “chain” of short passages, so if I had come across this verse, I would not have automatically gone to check the context; rather, I would have applied my own meaning to the words, depending on the point of the chain study I was going through.
In a conversation with a family member, he said it was probably one of his first “red flags” regarding the church, when as a willing and eager volunteer at a seminar, he was directed to deflect and not answer questions as to what group or church was sponsoring the events.
As I continued through these verses, I couldn’t help but notice how Paul points out that, in his ministry, he has essentially committed himself to honesty and integrity. Immediately I was reminded of the prophecy seminars put on by my local Adventist church—and others—in the area where I grew up. I remember how they were never advertised as being linked to a church or denomination but were held in neutral locations, such as community halls.
In a conversation with a family member, he said it was probably one of his first “red flags” regarding the church, when as a willing and eager volunteer at a seminar, he was directed to deflect and not answer questions as to what group or church was sponsoring the events.
I admit that, sometimes, I have to do some mental heavy lifting to sort out how the last sentence in verses two impacts my thinking. As I think through many of the well-meaning Adventists I still know—though mostly at a distance after nearly 20 years away from the organization—I think about how, as far as most of them know and are concerned, they DO believe they are “setting forth the truth plainly,” and commending themselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
It takes me some time to turn the thoughts over in my mind and connect back to the fact that they are missing the real “ministry” completely, and they are part of an organization that hides its identity in order to proclaim its message. As an Adventist, particularly in the years between when I was born again and when I left the organization, I know I lived with a lot of cognitive dissonance, things I couldn’t quite reconcile yet “knew” had to be true, because, truthfully, if they were false, it would cost me a lot, and I wasn’t ready to pay the price.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.— 2 Corinthians 4:3-6
As an Adventist child and teen, I grew up with far more exposure to “Sunday” Christians than just about any Adventist or former Adventist I’ve met. I began going to Christian schools in fifth grade and attended them for all but one year right up through high school graduation. My Adventist church was small and had few youth. I had one Adventist friend I spent time with, but he also went to my Christian school.
I distinctly remember two thoughts regarding my Christian friends and Adventism during that time. The first was that I was a little worried, because now that my schoolmates knew me and knew that I was Adventist and what that entailed, they now knew about the Sabbath. Therefore, they would now be responsible to God for what they did about it. I remember wondering if it might have been better for them if they’d never met me, because they seemed like such sincere people of faith (they were). I had the sense that maybe God would have gone easy on them regarding the Sabbath thing if they could say they didn’t know about it—but now they did.
The other thought I had was how pretty much anyone who hadn’t “accepted the Sabbath” likely just hadn’t studied or didn’t understand it. In my Adventist mind, I couldn’t reconcile how anyone could have possibly looked at the topic and not come away with an understanding that matched the one I’d been taught all my life.
Imagine my surprise when I later encountered Christians who WERE well versed in the topic and had quite a different viewpoint! When my old Adventist mind reads “…Jesus Christ as Lord….” and the following phrases, it automatically applies “…of the Sabbath” at the end, both following “Jesus Christ as Lord,” as well as “the light of the knowledge of God’s glory” In my mind, nearly everything in Scripture, it seemed, was somehow pointing back to the Sabbath. This was a difficult place to be, because I was born again when I was 12, so often I was reading these verses as an Adventist teen, but yet with a new heart. While I knew, deep down, that Scripture was all about Jesus, my conditioning and training had taught me to bring everything back to the Sabbath.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.— 2 Corinthians 4:7-12
When my old Adventist brain reads this section, once again, the Sabbath becomes the focus. The treasure that we have must ultimately be the Sabbath. Sure, we share Jesus with people, but the ultimate goal is to share the Sabbath. They can hear about Jesus at just about any church on the block, but the Adventist goal is to share the Sabbath.
I don’t know about you, but as an Adventist teen, I spent my fair share of nights trying to go to sleep, thinking about what it was going to be like to be persecuted for my Sabbath-keeping and wondering if I would be strong enough to endure.
Moving along in these verses, we see descriptions of persecution and hardship for the sake of the message being preached. I don’t know about you, but as an Adventist teen, I spent my fair share of nights trying to go to sleep, thinking about what it was going to be like to be persecuted for my Sabbath-keeping and wondering if I would be strong enough to endure. It’s true that Paul and the early Christians endured much more hardship for the sake of the gospel than most of us in our modern world have ever experienced, but my Adventist mind would always shoot forward to the end times, when all Sabbath keepers will be sought out and persecuted for their faith.
It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit offaith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.— 2 Corinthians 4:13-15
Reading this with my Adventist lens, my mind goes to the great controversy theme. As Paul talks about “knowing” that God will raise us with Jesus and present us to himself, there is always the caveat in the background: IF we are ready! There’s the investigative judgement to pass first! We have “faith” that we will be raised and presented to God, but what then? How can we know what the outcome of this judgment will be?
As an Adventist living under the specter of the investigative judgement, there is truly no way to know for certain that you have been accepted by God for eternity. When I read about “the grace that is reaching more and more people…” my old Adventist mind takes me right back to the “message” of the Sabbath.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.± 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
In the closing verses of this chapter, when I read through the lens of how I thought as an Adventist, even one that was already born again, the “light and momentary troubles” would be applied to my life as potential persecution for keeping the Sabbath. The last verse, about fixing our eyes on what is unseen and eternal, would remind my old Adventist brain that the Sabbath is eternal and that if I had to suffer for keeping it, that would be a worthy cause. As I thought my way through this eventual persecution, I would pray and hope that I would be able to be strong enough when the time came.
Going through this chapter, reading through the lens of Adventism that I was given and that I developed over 25 years of my life, I am reminded of the complexity of being an Adventist and reading the Bible. It is so incredibly difficult to let the words say what they say, because it seemed there was always an inferred meaning behind them, as far as we understood.
I think one of the most refreshing parts of leaving that lens behind is the ability to let the words say what they say, and mean what they mean. This is not to say that all Scripture is always easy to understand, but the meanings are not hidden. There is no secret code to reading the Bible, where everything harkens back to one or two church-specific things.
When you let the Word of God speak for itself, the grand theme becomes crystal clear. It’s not a day, it’s not a judgement, it’s the person and work of the Lord Jesus. †
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