APL: -- why do you want others to change their beliefs -- yet you have your ideas in which no amount of evidence seems to engender any revision?

You have built on a different platform, thus you think your ideas are firm.

But there are many things in your belief system on sin, atonement, judgment, and Who and what Christ is and does that I can never agree with, and I have strong Biblical reasons for NOT agreeing. The main "cognitive dissonance" they cause is that I can NOT see them lining up with whole of scripture.

And why would you suggest my beliefs are built on tradition?
I've met all my challenges with over 40 years of bible study. -- and yes, I've met some serious challenges long before I knew you existed -- and found my platform of truth in scripture.

Yet can I ask a simple question? --

Are you sure YOU are not basing your belief on tradition?
I find it strange that you seem to base so much on what the "fathers' said. The "fathers" of Adventism made such and such statement, thus those who have seriously and prayerfully studied the matter from scripture and come to a different conclusion must be wrong in your opinion? If those "fathers" aren't in full agreement with today's church, does that mean we must be in error? Is there no room for doctrines to grow from the initial belief obtained in the
Connextion church from which several of the strong leaders of Adventism brought their anti-3 with them -- to grow into a deeper understanding of Who Christ is?

Isn't that what "tradition" amounts to?
The "fathers' said -- thus that is truth?
The "fathers" taught --

You talk a lot against "creeds" -- suggesting that our present statement of general agreed upon doctrines in Adventism are "like a creed".
Well, APL, what are you doing with the 1890 or 1872 statements of belief -- are you attempting to make a creed out of them?
Making them into "unchangeable" truth?

A study of Adventist history shows those pioneers were serious about finding truth, BUT it is also evident that they were not saints, I was actually amazed at how much they fought amongst themselves over doctrinal issues. Yes, they were seeking truth, but they did not arrive at full and final truth in everything -- they were trying to find it, but don't for a moment think they fully arrived.

How do you know those paragraphs you and Green quote urging me to change my beliefs weren't written to those "fathers" and "pioneers" (seems to me she was writing to people in her time) that they needed to advance and re-assess some of THEIR understanding of truth -- especially the truths concerning Christ?.

Where in the world did you pick up that concept -- NO -- I'm not at all afraid to study the Bible with Church members.
But I don't arrange private meetings to pull church members away from the church and to teach them strange doctrines.
Do you even read what people write?


No one compiles EGW quotes as often and as lengthy as APL on this forum Anyone perusing the forum will notice and be able to verify that..
and yes, I do see it as selective, picking to render things unbalanced.
I've long known that to compile EGW quotes on these forums general does nothing more than convince onlookers that EGW contradicts herself -- simply because people refuse to see her balanced rendering of the subject.

And no I do not reject "The Character of God"
I just don't think you have a balance picture of it.

I sense two extreme poles biting each other's heads off on that subject and the whole thing destroys any real concept on the awesome holiness, righteousness, and glory of the Character of God whom we should refer to with utmost honor and respect, not in the crude way some posts (from both sides) have voiced themselves.
Thus, as a moderator, I closed those thread.

the idea of a trinity is not found explicitly in the Bible and is assumes, it is tradition. The position of the Father, is easily defended by the Bible.
 
I could ask you the same question. My view of God and Christ as easily found from the Bible alone. It is also the belief of the Adventist Pioneers, do you really disagree with that? If you do disagree, then you need to bring the evidence, but there is very little on the trinity view and indeed they were against the heresy of the trintiy and othere Roman viewpoints.
 
The Adventist Pioneers were Bible students,and they rejected the trinity based on the BIBLE.
 
 
Ah, by what you said?
 
Unbalanced - when she writes plain statements, who is it that rejects them because is goes against they preconceived ideas?" Johann had no problem with what I presented from the Bible and EGW. Why wsa that? A few quotes you ultimately reject: {GC 35-37}, {COL 84.4} {DA 759.1} I could give hundreds more.
 
Balanced? You mean like rebellion is not to be overcome by force ( the Bible view) until it is overcome by force (the traditinoal view)? SMH
 

People think that the TRUTH naturally engenders animosity. Well, so do LIES. The animosity is NOT a satanic condition against what is good, BUT a natural consequence of the law of inertia.

• People resist change, especially when the change is seeming to strike a blow against ownership and authority. The human capacity for self-delusion is truly amazing. But no one willingly enters that state but is willing to deny some new reality for the comfort of what is known.
   
• Then there are those who can kill their conscience for the sake of survival or some perk they enjoy. They know they are teaching nonsense but the reality is, they claim, one cannot survive on a few "minor disputable things". They know the things are true and sharply contradict their view, but does admittance put food on the table or pay the airfare for conferences and holidays around the world? Would it provide a congregation of friends or an attentive crowd?
   
• And then there are those who love intellectual adventure, but pride of heart becomes like a wall against openly accepting anything. Deep down inside however, they marvel and rejoice, ponder and ruminate. By and by, in a year or two, they repeat those new ideas in their own unique way as their own to a different set of people.

LIFE IS COMPLEX AND THE WISE KNOW THIS.

When Jesus was about to ascend to heaven, he told his disciples, "you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." Acts 1:8. In Jerusalem? Where they killed him? Really? Do you know why? Because some seeds take time to spout. And the harvest can sometimes be unexpectedly huge! The Jews were the very people God warned NOT to worship any man! To put a man to death for claiming to be God was THE LAW. It was going to take a resurrection from the dead to lift the veil from their eyes; and God was patient enough to allow for that.

An evangelist, a true evangelist is always aware of these things. Does a woman immediately embrace a man who approaches her? Does she not test him and try him and prolong the time? But if that man will be patient and not relent, he might end up in prison but she will, after considering all things, read his letters all over again, repent and come and visit him, even bring food for him and work diligently to set him free for her own dear self.

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