by Loren Seibold | 30 November 2023 A question arose not long ago in a Facebook group that Carmen and I follow: should a pastor, someone asked, check his church members’ contribution records to make sure they are giving faithful tithes and offerings? I was a bit alarmed by how many of my pastoral colleagues […]
30 November 2023 | The average Christian (among whom are even seminary-trained Christians, as I have come to discover) assumes that the term “Christ” is a religious term unique to the religion of Christianity. Biblically, this is not the case. This assumption may hinder any realization of the radical spiritual calling that is in Christ. […]
by Shelley Curtis Weaver | 28 November 2023 | If you haven’t visited the Pacific Northwest and the Columbia Gorge, you are missing a unique experience. I remind myself each time that I am making passage, enjoying river-crossings that daunted early explorers like Lewis and Clark. The views are impressive. Basalt columns climb to the […]
27 November 2023 | Dear Aunt Sevvy, Is God more likely to answer prayer if hundreds or thousands of people are praying for the same thing? Signed, Needing answers Dear Needing Answers, There is a persistent view—probably because of passages such as John 14:13—that prayer is a way to get things done: that if we […]
American Thanksgiving is a confusing holiday for me. The older I get, the more I learn about why we celebrate Thanksgiving and the real story about what happened between the Pilgrims and Native Americans. I learned that the Thanksgiving holiday the United States celebrates today was created during the American Civil War to help foster […]
by Rebecca Brothers | 24 November 2023 | Several years ago, I made a new friend while volunteering at a school. Let’s call her Agatha. Agatha was 81 years old when I met her. She was a lifelong teacher who retired, got antsy, joined the Peace Corps, moved to the Dominican Republic, married a local […]
23 November 2023 | Change is a biblical concept. Change happened in Bible times. The world around us is changing. It seems to many of us that the church must change if it wants to remain relevant and to be successful in its mission. Not everyone agrees. Some imagine a church of the past—the church […]
by William Law | 23 November 2023 | There is no state of mind so holy, so excellent, and so truly perfect as that of thankfulness to God, and, consequently, nothing is of more importance in religion than that which exercises and improves this habit of mind. A dull, uneasy, complaining spirit, which is sometimes […]
by Angus McPhee | 22 November 2023 | A history of Seventh-day Adventists would be incomplete without Ellen White’s role in their doctrines and institutions. She appeared on the scene as a teenager when her family attended Millerite meetings. Lisbon’s earthquake (1755), New England’s Dark Day (1780), and the Leonids (1833) had become signposts pointing […]
20 November 2023 | Dear Aunt Sevvy, I recently heard an Adventist pastor say that the rise of the Adventist church is prophesied in the Bible. Is this true? Signed, Curious Bible Student Dear Curious, The “proof” that the Seventh-day Adventist church is God’s only true church is based on two texts read together. The […]
