This update is from one of our members, Raquel Frame. Raquel was baptized at Richardson Seventh-day Adventist Church in September 2011 and is currently living in a remote part of Panama. Here is her report.
I opened my home for Bible Studies. I wanted an open forum and discussion group so I did not announce that I was a Seventh-day Adventist. I started with a few that accepted the Sabbath Day and even changed to observing the Sabbath Day. That was a blessing. As more came a person from “The Church of the Great God” visited with his wife. He was a retired pastor from “The Hebert Armstrong” group. They believe much like us but with a difference in the area of:
- Feast Days
- Trinity (The Holy Spirt is not a person but the thoughts of God)
- 1,000 year reign will be on earth where people will be born and must choose God or Satan at the end of the 1,000 years
I always say that Truth will always win out over Deception so I do not have issue with people who think contrary to the Bible. A problem arose that started a splinter in the group. They wanted to study of Feast Days. The ex-pastor of the Hebert Armstrong group started out with the Passover comparing it to The Lord’s Supper. I was ok with that but as they moved into the other Feast Days I started really digging into the Word of God and found that we do not need to observe the Feast Days because Christ died on the Cross. [Click here for Bible study and additional resources on this subject] The ex-pastor wanted to create an exclusive group and pre-screen anyone and rejected all that were not in agreement with him. He stated that much of the Bible that we have today has falsehood because of mis-translation. I said that the “Dead Sea Scrolls” show that the Bible today was an accurate translation from thousands of years ago.
My issue is that if a person observes the Feast Days is he or she not saying that Christ died on the cross in vain, and that he (Christ) was silly to believe that his Blood was the only thing that would save us?
Anyway the Study Group was shattered but I learned more during that difficult time.
Love in Christ
Raquel Frame