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I was purusing the Adventist Review when I found this piece by George Knight, who taught church history at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. He wasn't born into Adventism, no cultural Adventist here. But read his unique observation of our dwindling numbers here in NAD.
http://www.adventistreview.com/article.php?id=2702
...But making problematic statements was not Jesus’ only difficulty. He was also affected with what we might call “sanctified arrogance.” He so believed in Himself and His politically incorrect message that He told 12 relatively unlearned men to spread it to the entire world. That commission staggers the normal imagination. Who did He think He was? And who did they think they were? But they did it!
Now, you don’t do those kinds of things without some firm convictions. You don’t give your life and your worldly goods without knowing that you have the truth. If Jesus had been politically correct and had lacked sanctified arrogance, Christianity would have existed for a few years as a backwater Jewish sect and then blended back into the Near Eastern woodwork.
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Is our objective hidden in "sanctified arrogance", a uniqueness willing to die for, the desire to be different enough to pay a 10% tithe and give 1/7 or your time for this "sanctified arrogance" Geoge Knight claims Jesus had in starting Christianity??
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You really make me chuckle. First of all there is no such thing as Christian tithing found in scripture. Tithe was a tax and was not necessarily given from the heart. It was a requirement.
1/7th of our time? We are, if we love Him, to give Him our whole lifetime. 1/7th is the mindset of SDAs. They think that if they observe Sabbath that they have fulfilled the requirement. Non SDAs know better.
I know I will be hammered and told that is not true. Well, I lived with the flock a long time and I picked up on a lot of things. In fact I was the best of the flock thinking I was doing OK by giving my double tithe (Ellen's council)while working two jobs to do it and only giving 1/7th of my time to the Lord by sleeping all afternoon on the Holy day because I was too tired to do anything else. Yep, I do know. I was sick just like the rest of the flock.
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Christianity would have existed for a few years as a backwater Jewish sect and then blended back into the Near Eastern woodwork.
Had it not been for Paul, the first apostle to the Gentiles, who brought the message of Jesus and him crucified, there would be NO CHRISTIANITY! There would only have been one of the many other sects in Judaism. Only by opening up this new movement to the former pagans, when it had previously, with Jesus' preaching, been limited to the Jews.
Had the Gentiles been forced to undergo circumcision, it would never have moved past the Jews. Only, and because Peter, Paul, and the other apostles refused to make the pagan Gentiles adopt Jewish ways, did Christianity spread as it did; so much so that within less than 400 years, it was the religion of the Roman Empire. The Jews had been around for centuries, but because they were to be separate and no proselytze, did it remain theirs exclusively. Once the barriers that had kept Judaism within their ethnic group, the message of Jesus became Christianity in the Greco-Roman world.
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What do you think most of the NT is, Paul's writings. Jesus told Paul he was going to show him things He wanted relayed, did he not:
Acts 26:15"Then I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?'
" 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,' the Lord replied. 16'Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. 17I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.'
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In summary, let me repeat that the first route to the neutering of Adventism in the Apocalypse is beastly preaching--preaching that fails to put Christ and the love of God at the center of every message. As we move toward a less beastly approach to apocalyptic we need to keep at the forefront of our thinking the truth that biblical preaching is not gospel versus apocalyptic but gospel and apocalyptic. Apocalyptic rightly understood is gospel. But even in the gospel we need proper balance. Without balance we have beastly preaching.
http://www.adventistreview.com/article.php?id=2702
Is George Knight correct, Gospel preaching is balanced Apocalyptic preaching.
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