All men and women have a moral obligation to promote truth over error, but that obligation, given them of God and confirmed in the ministry of his Son, Jesus Christ, does not sanction force, cruelty, or even condemnation. Even when acceptable, the unrelenting, daily nature of some debates create an unacceptable spirit, merely by the compounded weight of repeated attack. The gospel is a postive message. Yes, Christ said he came to bring a sword, in a certain context, but that does not keep him from being the Prince of Peace. The controversy (sword) that he brought was in the preaching and example of humility in the face of pride, the preaching of love in the face of hatred. It was his opponents, not Christ, who drew the sword, spilling his blood.

Christ, in his sinlessness and prophetic office, had prerogatives of judgment not afforded others. He could read the thoughts and intentions of the heart. He knew the motive of all he met. We do not. We may and should defend the truth against lies and against attacks, but the weapons of our warfare should never bear the imprint of evil. We are to speak with the gentleness and love a humble heart creates. Even in rebuke, even in strong disagreement, our tone and assumptions should assume a deep compassion, avoiding any impression of unfairness or character assassination.

The quote below, which speaks directly to my point, is from an early founding member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Ellen G. White. She was no stranger to controversy. She was and remains the object of virulent personal attacks from time to time. However, I fully support her work and consider her an authority of highest standing in all things spiritual. I do accept her work as prophetically inspired. That said, here is something of what she had to say on the way Protestants should regard their Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ:

    It is true that we are commanded to “cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” Isaiah 58:1. This message must be given; but while it must be given, we should be careful not to thrust and crowd and condemn those who have not the light that we have. We should not go out of our way to make hard thrusts at the Catholics. Among the Catholics there are many who are most conscientious Christians and who walk in all the light that shines upon them, and God will work in their behalf. Those who have had great privileges and opportunities, and who have failed to improve their physical, mental, and moral powers, but who have lived to please themselves and have refused to bear their responsibility, are in greater danger and in greater condemnation before God than those who are in error upon doctrinal points, yet who seek to live to do good to others. Do not censure others; do not condemn them. From the book, “Testimonies, Vol. 9, page 243, by Ellen White.

It is common today in some Adventist circles, to frequently and presistantly make hard, attacking statements against public figures, political or religious. It is as if this statement was never read, or ignored, or simply denied. But such attacks on persons, persons such as the Pope, are uncalled for and not done in the spirit of love.

I reserve my right to openly disagree with some Catholic doctrine. I believe some beliefs of the Catholic church undermine some Biblical truth. I also regret and repudiate the violence both Catholics and Protestants have exercised toward those they deemed “heretics”.

While heresy is a real concern for the church, one I too have spoken against, the violent attitudes and actions shown our opponents is not Christian. I know this spirit of violence is still alive in the world and I believe the prophets when they say it will increase. I believe religious persecution, from every side, from Protestant and Catholic, will increase against those who stand for Biblical truth. However, I choose today and I hope forever to not be part of that class who use evil to overcome good.

In 2008 I posted four times on the work of Dr. Veith (he holds a Ph.d in Zoology). Veith is an ordained pastor of the Seventh-day Adventist church. I believe he is still based out of South Africa. For more information you can see his website here. I objected strongly to the conspiracy theories he offers in his “Total Onslaught” DVD series, clips of which you can find on YouTube. As your pastor, for those who are members, I would advise great care with Dr. Veith’s website. Should you choose to explore it in depth, I would do so in a spirit of careful, considered inquiry. Check the “facts” offered. Be sure quotes are in context and represent the writers orginal meaning. Check the sources for accuracy, authority, and bias.

Though it has been almost two years ago, 30 percent of the search traffic on my blog relates to Dr. Veith. These posts continue to generate the largest comment content on this blog. I have chosen not to close those comment sections because it seems obvious to me that the question is very much alive on the internet and within the Adventist church. I try to respond to each comment made, even though this has involved repeating myself from time to time.

Some of those who leave comments appear to be very angry with me, going so far as to accuse me of being a child of Lucifer. At least one man does so with entire web pages.

I’m not posting now to make a personal defense or review my objections to some of Dr. Veith’s teaching. If your interested in that, you can enter search words such as “Walter Veith” in the search box in the upper right side of this blog. You will find more than you probably care to read. You would see how much the intervening two years have generated.

I’ll close this explanation by saying I am not familiar with any changes Dr. Veith may have made in his work to date. Though his website is current and would offer that opportunity, my curent work doen’t allow me the time to keep exploring this single issue. A brief look in that direction does suggest to me that matters remain largly the same.

In 2008 my interest had more to do with the effect of his conspiracy theories on my local churches in Wales and the church in Europe as a whole. I stand by my objections, though on review, I wish I had stated them with less “vigor” from time to time. But you should not consider that caveat a retraction of my objections to the preaching of conspiracy theories or to the distortions of Bible prophecy they create.

My objections to Dr. Veith’s teaching have not been intended as a personal attack on his character, though many seem to construe any objection to the work of a pastor as just that. Separating objections to the work of a man and the man himself is not always easy. I do apologize if I have not made that clear.

I have no doubt this post, because it intentiionally contains Walter Veith’s name and restates my objection, will be a new source of comment. It will more than likely generate more invective and diatribe me personally. I do not plan on repeatedly answering old arguments. I would refer objectors to my previous writing unless they offer something truly new.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.  2 Timothy 3:14-17 

Still, I like having the choice. What I choose to do with it will say something, one way or another, about the things I value. There is at least a lesson worth learning in that.

Af the moment this new way of posting is proving useful since I'm alone in my office without my Mac. I came by with Sharon for our second meeting with a baptismal candidate, someone who is becoming a friend. That meeting is over. Now I'm waiting for Sharon to finish rehearsing with her worship team.

I think now would be a good time to stop writing with both thumbs and do some reading.

A mature woman with long, brown, stringy hair, her right hand clinched palm up, awkwardly, unnaturally like a claw, walked next to a shorter, older woman, someone I imagined as her mother. I couldn’t remember ever seeing legs so thin. They were tightly wrapped in black jeans. How did she get them on? One leg seem thinner than the other. Unable to fully lift her right foot, she pulled it behind her, catching the edge of her white shoe where the asphalt met the sidewalk. She wore a flowing black cloak festooned with brightly colored musical notes and a keyboard, perhaps in memory of a time when she could extend her long fingers toward the piano. A young, bulging woman laughed behind her, at her I think; her husband looked down at his feet as he shushed her. 

I thought of Christ in his suffering, of the call to share his sufferings. I thought more about my vanity.

As for the ARCHIVES, the renewed link is at the top of the page, left side, in the header next to “home journal”. 

The archives are listed in three ways. 1. By category 2. By title…it’s a long, long list 3. By month, at the bottom of the page. 

I hope I can recover the other lost pages. If not, it will be a slow process of rebuilding. 

I’ve also re-instated an old feature, recent comments, just to your left in the sidebar, in case you want to see who is saying what lately. It seems certain older post still catch a lot of google search traffic. 

By naming a person, a thing, an idea—to name anything—is to distinguish one thing from another. In doing so we also locate it; if we can say what something is we can better say where it is. This includes ourselves. Definition helps locate us in the world. With good definition we are better able to know our relationship to others who have their own names, their own locations. We are better able to see where we are, where we’ve been, or where we might go. 

However, if a word can mean anything it means nothing. Without meaning we are also dislocated, disconnected, indistinguishable in the world.

There are limits in naming, in defining things. Everything exists with an edge. To define something or someone marks a line, a boundary between what is and is not, what is mine and what is yours. Living with edges, painful though it be, is necessary. Without the edge definition creates we cannot separate or come together with any tangible meaning. We may become aliens to those we might have known by name. 

Ignoring our need of definition and the importance of a clear identity creates and multiplies confusion, as well as frustration, anger, and alienation. Reality must be definable to be lived in and lived with. 

With this said, I’ll ask a question I think is relevant today. How do I define my faith and practice in relation to God and others? (My reality is one of belief in God.)

How do I define my beliefs? How does history (events in time and space) shape or change my identity? How does culture? How does God? Each of these things has a name of their own. Do I know the relation one of these things bears to the other? 

If I cannot name my faith, how can I rightly say I have one? And does the name I give it correspond to the name others recognize as the same? If I identify my faith and practice in a way that other “believers” do not recognize, how can I have any sense of unity with them in my faith and practice? How can they have a sense of knowing me as they know themselves if we both take the name but define it differently?

But let’s go further…how do the contexts of time and place, the proximity of one thing to another, and other such matters, how might these change the meaning of thing? Does a thing mean the same thing in a different context? Change matters to us. Does it not effect meaning and definition? If so, should we resist change for the sake of feeling safer, more well-defined in a secure past than in a less-sure future?

There is this problem of our less than perfect perceptions. Like all other things, we too have our limits, limits that very with age, education, experience, health, and so forth. What I perceived as a child changes as an adult. With knowledge in time, definitions may change, broaden, expand, or even contract, just as weather alters the boundaries of the earth. 

Definition may bring certainty in an uncertain world. But the process of definition, the ongoing need to redefine the things I once knew by another name, may also bring doubt, if at least for a little while. 

As the apostle Paul said, we only know in part. We see through a glass darkly. Therefore, we need faith, hope, and love to transcend the mystery of our living ignorance, something more to pierce the unnamed darkness that threatens us. 

That “something” we need also has a name. They called his name, Jesus. 

Just a few thoughts before bedtime, a little game of “Name that Thing”. 

“Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” 

Proverbs 29.20

“For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words”.

Ecclesiastes 3.5

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” 

Matthew 12.33-36

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord. 
He is like a tree planted by water, 
that sends out its roots by the stream, 
and does not fear when heat comes, 
for its leaves remain green, 
and is not anxious in the year of drought, 
for it does not cease to bear fruit.” The heart is deceitful above all things,
 and desperately sick;
 who can understand it?
“ I the Lord search the heart
 and test the mind,
 to give every man according to his ways, 
according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Jeremiah 17.7-10

Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.“ I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 

Matthew 3.4-12

Too often the preacher’s felt-needs, his spiritual hunger or spiritual drought, dominate his ministry to others; his particular area’s of weakness too often control his mind and heart. They continually spew from his mouth. Only through a daily surrender of myself to the Spirit of God, only by a daily conversion, a rebirth from the flesh to the spirit, am I able to have an abiding, living relationship with Christ. 

“Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus”. The mind of Christ, his humble, self-sacrificing spirit, can be ours “in him”. It is ours together as his body and ours separately as believers alone with God. Knowing the weakness of our flesh as we see ourselves in “Christ crucified”, we will long for and have the spirit of his resurrection. Our obedience is to be the obedience of the cross. It comes out of death and receives the new life of his righteousness. Each day calls us, as Christ calls us, to “take up our cross” and follow him.

Jesus said that unless we do this we cannot be his disciples. That is, only in the daily experience of death and resurrection in him will we be able to follow him in the path of self-denial for the sake of others. Without this daily experience we prefer to be served rather than to serve. Our life will be the working out of our naturally self-centered heart.

The Word of God presents only one solution for the terrible work of the flesh. It is death in Christ. When we are weak enough to count ourselves dead to the world and alive to him we can have the confidence of his own abiding strength in our heart.

I have this one day, this one Sabbath day, ahead of me. I can live it through dying with Christ or I can be dead to the Spirit as I am alive to my selfish need. The choice of faith, as always, remains my own. If I will exercise this faith that he has given me, then I can make Christ my own as he has made me his own. Today I have life and death presented to me by the Word of God. The choice and the privilege of dying to live are mine in Christ.  

More and more the words of Jesus are pressing on my mind, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”. Matthew 4.4

All that Scripture defines as true life, the true life of man, the definition of what it means to be human, the very intent of and knowledge of God…all this comes to us through his living Word. God is the God who speaks. He is known by us through his speaking to us. And as we come to know him we know the meaning of our own lives, for the One who speaks to us is our Maker and our Redeemer. 

It is the Word of God that forms us and reforms us. Once made in his image, then deformed by sin, God is acting now in the world to reform all who long to be what he first intended. To do this our minds must be changed, we must be turned in a new direction, our values must be his values, our ways his ways. And this is accomplished for us and in us when we willingly receive his Word into our hearts.

What is this Word of God? It is the word that has come to us through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. It is the Word made flesh that “dwelt among us”, Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, as revealed in those Scriptures. It is the Word spoken to and passed on through his witnesses, the apostles of Christ. God has spoken to men through men; that word, that revelation has been recorded for us so that we might know and do the will of God.

In this Word is all the creative and redemptive power of God for our salvation. If we will hear him and follow his teaching we will be led all the way through this wilderness to the land beyond, we will be led into the heaven of eternal life with God.  

Nothing will be more important for me today than to read his word, to listen for his voice, to study his teachings, so that I might know my duty as a servant of Christ. What else do I have worth doing today other than serve Christ? Why should I feel safe in going my own way, in following my own plans, why should I think to live as if God has not spoken to me concerning all that matters in my life? If God has spoken, if I believe that, then what greater thing do I have to consider?

Nothing in life compares with or is greater than the will of God, for he is life itself. To know and do his will is life. Such a life is ours through his Word. 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God….In him was life, and the life was the light of men” John 1.1,2,4

God gave Israel, through his prophets, specific instructions about how to come into his presence and receive his blessings. We see in these inspired stories a history of true and false worship. With John the Revelator, the curtain is drawn away from the future so that we see the final conflict between good and evil centers around true and false worship. 

The worship of God is the heart of spiritual life. To worship in spirit and truth together, to have a faith that loves to obey and serve God, is the life of the church.

I’ve asked the following questions elsewhere and offer them here for us to ponder:

Would you say your personal worship of God, corporately or privately, is informed and conditioned on the Word of God, personal preference, cultural norms, thoughtless habit, or a combination of these? How did you arrive at the values you invest in worshiping God? Are you sure God accepts your offering? Why or why not?

Worship, if offered without thoughtful conviction, is neither true or spiritual, and is not accepted by God. Nor is offering God our achievements as the basis of acceptance with him. Only when we come with helpless dependence on the blood of Christ shed for the forgiveness of our sins, is our offering of thanksgiving and praise acceptable to him. But do we know what it means to come as true, real sinners before God?

Such offerings will be marked by humility in the giving of ourselves and joy in the receiving of God’s acceptance. We will think, speak, and act as if we are in the visible presence of a pure, holy God. We will be conscious of the blood we spilled and the suffering we caused him through our sin. We will tremble at his Word and in his presence until we have the full assurance that our sins are forgiven. 

Yet more often than not, the forgiveness of sin is taken for granted, as a casual occurrence, something God owes us without condition because we have professed a set of beliefs or been “reasonably good”. After all, nobody’s perfect! Everybody makes mistakes. We often act as if the sins we so frequently commit have had no serious consequences for God, ourselves, or others. We love a cheap grace that requires no repentance, no change, no suffering on our part though we have caused others immense grief. We condemn those who feel the pain of their sin in crucifying the Son of God, as if that in itself were a sin to repent of. 

From the signs around us, when compared to the lives of Bible saints, true worship is exceedingly rare today, so rare that Jesus asked his disciples, “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Will we have the courage to ask ourselves, “How rare is it with us?

   Christ crucified is the one pure human being, the true man made in the image of God. At Calvary man is seen for what he was meant to be. Calvary reveals the promise of glorious things to come and secures that future for all who believe. Conformed to him we become like him, moment by moment, for as long as we abide with him on the mount made of God.

   Calvary is the place humanity most needs to be, yet it is the place we most resist. If it were not for the drawing power of God in Christ on the cross we would be lost for eternity. Thankfully, his call, “Come unto me”, is still rich with all the spiritual rest of heaven. Jacob’s ladder still extends to earth, the Shepard of souls still seeks his wandering sheep, there remains a door open to the sanctuary above, where Christ ministers his blood at the right hand of God.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2Co 3:18 ESV)