Comment on Mrs. White: “Don’t send your children to…” by Inge Anderson.
Pauluc wrote:
Is Enoch inspired or not? Like Ellen White he is not Canonical except among a small subset of Christians.
In this question, Pauluc assumes that the biblical Enoch who lived before the world-wide flood was the author of the book of Enoch. (By the way, there are a number of different books of “Enoch.”) This is not a little far-fetched, seeing that the Jews did not regard the book as inspire, nor did the early Christians. And we cannot be certain of its origin earlier than two centuries before Christ — thousands of years after Enoch lived on this earth.
It is likely that some of the prophecies of Enoch were extant among Jewish oral history. The author of the book of Enoch — whoever he might have been — would have incorporated these into the book. Thus the quotation in Jude is just as likely to have come from the common oral tradition, rather than the pseudoepigraphal book of Enoch.
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Recent Comments by Inge Anderson
Northern California Conference Votes to Act Independent of the General Conference
Sean, while I don’t currently have time to address all the issues in your post, one thing concerns me greatly – that, as head elder, you would recommend that your church members should use their tithe as a tool of political action.
If your recommendation were followed by others, hundreds of thousands of people would be justified in not turning in tithe at all because they believe that the General Conference is out of line, being manipulated and controlled by a very small number of people. (But that’s another story.) And, really, anyone who disagrees with something done in the conference or the GC would be justified to withhold or re-direct tithe, following your reasoning. I do hope that you will decide that you “just cannot go there.”
When Jesus commended the widow who gave her last two coins, the “church” was as corrupt as it ever was or will be. Yet God recognized the gift as given to *Him,* and He blessed her and millions of people since then.
When we return our tithe to the Lord, I believe we must do it in faith, letting go of any control of how it is used. If administrators misuse it, they must answer to God. When we don’t return to God what already belongs to Him, we must answer for it. The way I see it, since the tithe already belongs to God, it is not ours to manage.
Offerings are another matter. If you feel your local conference is out of line, you are free not to send them the usual percentage for the conference budget and send it elsewhere.
God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy
The direct URL for Cindy Tutsch’s article is http://ssnet.org/blog/2011/09/does-it-matter-how-long-it-took-to-create/
God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy
Lydian: There is something else I would like for someone to tell me—
Where in the world is the GRI in all of this? I have searched the internet and find virtually nothing there that would attract anybody to what it has to say–if it has anything to say.
Good question.
There are a number of Adventist sites that deal with science supportive of the biblical world view, Sean Pitman’s among them.
It seems that the only Adventist university that has a site supportive of a biblical world view in science appears to be Southwestern Adventist University.
Their Earth History Research Center features research papers as well as material quite understandable to lay persons. I recommend clicking through their links to see what is there.
Perhaps this is where we should look (and perhaps send our dollars) instead of the GRI. You will see that Ariel Roth, former director of the GRI (when it was more supportive of a biblical world view) is part of the Earth History Research Center.
May God abundantly bless the efforts of all who are connected with this project.
PS Currently http://ssnet.org is featuring an article by Cindy Tutsch entitled, “Does It Matter How Long God Took to Create?”
Professor Kent: This is but only the faith of Sean Pitman’s straw man. This is not the faith of the Adventist who accepts God’s word at face value.
Sean is correct in his characterization, because that seems to be the kind of “faith” that has been championed here by a number of individuals who have faulted Sean for presenting evidence in favor of creation having happened just thousands of years ago.
If you accept the interpretation of evolutionists who believe (by faith) that life began on this planet some billions of years ago and then “by faith” believe that God created the world a few thousand years ago, you are essentially asserting “faith” in what you intellectually recognize as being a falsehood. That’s a good sight worse than a child’s “faith” in Santa Claus, because the child doesn’t “know from evidence” that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.
I do accept God’s Word at face value, and because I accept it at face value, I know that all the evidence, rightly interpreted, will support the historical account in God’s Word. It is an intellectually consistent stance, whereas asserting belief in both evolutionism and biblical creation contravenes all rules of logic and intellectual integrity.
If you really do believe that the Genesis account is a true account of history, why do you characterize Sean’s presentation of scientific evidence to support the Genesis account as being anti-faith??
La Sierra University Granted Window to Show its Faithfulness to Church’s Creation Belief
This is encouraging, IMO.
However, the survey of students probably presents a more favorable picture than is realistic, since a significant percentage of the students may not even know what the Adventist position on creation is — considering the kinds of homes they are coming from. But even if they all knew, a 50% rate of believing that SDA views were presented is pretty dismal. That’s a failing grade, after all ..
