I have been absent from this forum for a very long while. I do see the comments come through, I do think about them, sometimes “authorize” them to be published, but have little time to debate these issues. Some of the comments just seem too confusing to me to publish.

Some of my views have subtly changed … usually in the opposite direction of becoming more fundamental in particular beliefs. That does not mean I have left behind the majority of what is written here, but if I were writing these articles now, they would be more nuanced.

Much of my extra time is spent in teaching a Sunday School class, a home Bible study, sometimes youth camps, which do not obsess over secondary matters such as sabbatarianism. I respect those who feel it is part of their obedience to God to observe a day – I have friends who are both first-day and seventh-day sabbatarians. I have moved from a seventh-day sabbatarian position to a position that Jesus is our rest, which the sabbath pointed toward, and found its fulfillment in Christ. In this way, I consider myslef a “sabbatarian” – the true realization of the rest is found in the person, not a day.

This does not mean that there can not be a legitimate place in the life of a believer who wishes to set aside a day for rest and corporate worship. I have expressed this elsewhere in this site. And I do not feel that it is my duty to become lord and teacher to such, to demand that they relinquish such a practice. I do take issue with those who feel they need to force this belief/practice on other Christians, as there is no biblical precedent for this.

It is highly unlikely that I will deviate from my beliefs in this regard, as I have weighed the arguments for decades. I see inadequacies in both first-day and seventh-day sabbatarian constraints on New Covenant believers, the main one being the silence of teachings about this as a necessity or an issue of membership or faithfulness in any of the epistles.

I have brothers and sisters who are paedobaptists and credobaptistss. I know faithful people who are Roman Catholics, as well as Seventh-day Adventists. I do not sit in judgment of them, through I do think that their organizations and authority structures tend to set up false idols of belief, which tend interpose themselves on their relationship with God and compete for spiritual alleigiance, and lead to false interpretations of biblical doctrine.

This does not mean that I don’t think the differences here matters. But my focus has been that “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” I spent a lot of my younger years in Biblical debates. I can hold my own in these debates, but most often, so do my friends on the other side.

I now find myself investing more time in serving in my local church, assisting in inreach and outreach, trying to be helpful in practical and spiritual pursuits other than highly divisive secondary issues.

I removed an article which was heavily criticized in a comment, as being historically unsound. I may change some of the wording as my own views change, this blog really was born from a young man realizing that much of what he had been taught as a Seventh-day Adventist was “not so” and trying to work out the details. Many of the straw men that were presented to me were just that – arguments against made-up errors/misinterpretations/misrepresentations, using them to reinforce false doctrines.

In the end, I wish the best to all those who seek to follow the Lord Jesus, even if in the end, our differences in understanding remain. Feel free to leave a comment.

In Christian Charity,

Leif