Comments for Seventh-day Sabbath Issues

Comment on A False Issue – The Day-line by John Wallace

John Wallace — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:21:14 +0000

Interesting comment from Matt Rosenberg, the geographer at About.com (the learning website).

“As a geographer who respects history and the calendar, I find the move by the SDA to Sunday to be somewhat historically unprecedented.”

Comment on The Samoan Sabbath Dilemma Revisited by Inge Anderson

Inge Anderson — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 04:29:28 +0000

Elena, I do want to join you when you write, “Praise God for the faithful ones who are still trusting God in this time of testing and keep the same sabbath day.” These are the 300 or so faithful Seventh-day Adventists who are still keeping the same seventh-day Sabbath on Saturday, June 15, like Seventh-day Adventists in the rest of the world, while most of the church is keeping Sabbath on Sunday, June 16. The faithful 300 are keeping the same Sabbath on Saturday as did the early pioneer Sabbath keepers in Samoa who gave up much to keep God’s true Sabbath on Saturday.

It takes courage and faith to stand against the majority – both in the church and outside of it. By contrast, keeping Sabbath on Sunday takes neither courage nor faith, because it is very convenient, allowing people to engage in the sports prominent on Friday evening and Saturday, and allowing them to do their shopping on Saturday. It does not take faith to follow the majority.

It does take faith to stand apart and endure not only inconvenience, but the loss of friends, family and pastoral care because of the Sabbath truth that the Seventh-day Adventist church teaches, as stated in the 2010 Church Manual, p. 138:

The Sabbath holds a special place in our lives. The seventh day of the week, from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday (Lev. 23:32), is a gift from God, a sign of His grace in time. It is a privilege, a special appointment with the One who loves us and whom we love, a sacred time set aside by God’s eternal law, a day of delight for worshipping God and sharing with others (Isa. 58:13). We welcome the Sabbath with joy and gratitude.

Comment on The Eden Day-Line Theory by Inge Anderson

Inge Anderson — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 12:33:46 +0000

Thanks, John, for this interesting little bit of additional history. In the brief article to which you refer, it is mentioned that “in 1902 William Colcord served as the third president of the Queensland Conference.” I also find it significant that he spent much of his time opposing the enforcement of Sunday laws.

It seems that history is repeating itself, and Colcord’s article is every bit as relevant today as it was in 1901.

Comment on The Samoan Sabbath Dilemma Revisited by Inge Anderson

Inge Anderson — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 12:18:02 +0000

Elena, it is quite clear that Ellen White was not referring to the IDL as the “snare of the devil.” Instead, she was referring to a “day line theory” which would result in some people keeping Sunday as Sabbath:

Now, my sister, … I write … to tell you that we are not to give the least credence to the day line theory. It is a snare of Satan brought in by his own agents to confuse minds. You see how utterly impossible for this thing to be, that the world is all right observing Sunday, and God’s remnant people are all wrong. This theory of the day line would make all our history for the past fifty-five years a complete fallacy. But we know where we stand….(Selected Messages III, p. 318, from a letter written in 1900.)

The “day line theory” was being agitated agitated at the time, and you can find out a little more about it an “The Eden Day-Line Theory,” an article in the Bible Echo shortly thereafter.

It is apparent that the “day line theory” to which Ellen referred was a “day line” to be used specifically for the purpose of deciding which day is the Sabbath. The “day line theory” taught that, for Sabbath keeping purposes, the date line recognized by local island governments was to be ignored. Does that sound like something being taught in the South Pacific today? The issue was agitated for some years, as is evident by another article written on the subject in 1906, entitle, “A False Issue – The Day-line.”

So what teaching is now resulting in some people observing Sunday as the Sabbath? What teaching is “a snare of Satan”?

Comment on The Samoan Sabbath Dilemma Revisited by elena davies

elena davies — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:59:26 +0000

I would like for you to read what E.G.White said about the IDL. It is the snare of the devil to confuse Gods people. The Sabbath day the Samoa Tokelau mission is keeping is the true sabbath day of the LORD thy God. That is the sabbath from the beginning. God is allowing that event to test the faith of Gods people in Samoa. Praise God for the faithfull ones who are still trusting God in this time of testing and keep the same sabbath day.

Comment on The Eden Day-Line Theory by John Wallace

John Wallace — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:48:26 +0000

I go further than Pr Colcord. Any doctrine which nullifies to ANY PERSON in the world the very pith and point of the last message God has for the entire world, cannot be of God.
The SDA Church has a vital warning message to every nation kindred tongue and people. How can the SDA leadership, with responsibility for facilitating that, justify making a decision that caused even a small number of Seventh-day Adventists in a few Pacific Islands to begin keeping Sunday?

P.S. Colcord was not just a pastor – http://sqheritage.adventist.org.au/president-william-allan-colcord

Comment on A False Issue – The Day-line by Staff

Staff — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:35:27 +0000

This article from the 1906 issue of the Signs of the Times gives some indication of how persistent the agitation over the “Eden Day-line” was in our history. The first published reference to it of which we are aware was in a letter by Ellen White in 1900, as published in Selected Messages, Vol III. And here we see another article published in 1906!

This day line theory served to bring in confusion, adding to the confusion regarding the actual date line in places such as Tonga, where not only Seventh-day Adventists but other denominations as well were confused over which week to follow.

So what is the lesson for us today?

Comment on The Eden Day-Line Theory by Staff

Staff — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:28:58 +0000

We have re-published this article from the January 28, 1901, issue of The Bible Echo for the benefit of our readers.

There had already been agitation over the Eden Day Line for some time before this was published. In fact, Ellen White’s letter from a few months previous to this article, as published in Selected Messages III, p. 317, seems to be referring to this theory, since there was no agitation over the actual date line that would have resulted in Seventh-day Adventists keeping Sunday as the Sabbath. Unfortunately, the editors of Selected Messages inserted a title of “The Question of the Date Line” which just confuses the issue.

For your convenience, we have high-lighted the sections that describe what this theory actually taught.

The saying is that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. So we ask our readers, What can we learn from this bit of history?

The question for us is what we can learn from this little bit of history from more than 100 years ago.

Comment on SDA Church Dispute Heads to Court by R. G. White

R. G. White — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 13:23:55 +0000

Thank you, Ulicia. Had Ellen White been warning us not to recognise the actual day/date line as determined by the authority which God has given to the civil governments of the world, as Bro. Asoleiuga seems to be suggesting, one has to wonder what she would have been urging upon us.

It seems that would certainly have forced us to resort to some kind of theoretical day line, with Friday or Sunday observance in some part of the world being the inevitable result. To suggest that the Spirit of Prophecy was not trying to warn us against Sunday keeping is to ignore Ellen White’s plainest words.

As for refusing to allow governments to move the International Date Line, we simply have no grounds for doing so, seeing the Word of God nowhere specifies any fixed location for it. Nor is the inconvenience of a one-time 6-day or 8-day week too much for our conscience to handle, as we prove every time we travel across the IDL. Rather this appears to be one of those “manufactured difficulties” to which Ellen White sometimes refers.

Comment on SDA Church Dispute Heads to Court by Ulicia Unruh

Ulicia Unruh — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 21:22:41 +0000

Dear Asoleiuga,
Your comments reflect a deep love for Christ, but I would like you to consider the following.

Before the change in 2011, when one travelled from Fiji to Upolu (Western Samoa), leaving Fiji on a Friday morning, he/she will arrive in Upolu (WS) on Thursday, which is a day before Friday. Now after the change Upolu (WS) made in 2011, when one made the same airplane trip, leaving Fiji on a Friday morning he/she will arrive in Upolu (WS) on Friday. The day remains the same. The Saturday Sabbath is the same on both Island groups.

Or lets go back to July 1892. Before July 2, 1892 a person could leave Fiji early Friday morning and fly (if they had airplanes back then) to Tonga, or Samoa (AS or WS) and it would still be Friday. It was the same day on all these Island groups. All these Islands shared the same Saturday and the same Sunday.

But after July 2, 1892 a person leaving Fiji on Friday morning would find the Samoans saying it was still Thursday. Somehow (by a government decision) they had fallen a day behind!

The snare of Satan is to use a THEORY of the dateline that causes people to worship on Sunday, while ignoring the actual dateline that determines what day it actually is.