The Imminent Danger of Kingly Power

This may be telling stories out of school, but it's been over two decades, and I need to illustrate the forthcoming point. So I'll make this as anonymous as possible:

I was part of a collegiate organization of over a hundred students that was going on a tour that involved a twelve-plus hour trip across the country on a coach bus, a quick performance, and a return trip. As I was about to board, a professor who sponsored the organization approached me and asked if I would be willing to be in charge of the students of my coach for the trip.

Now this organization had an executive committee elected by its students specifically to run events like the tour we were about to embark on. As I recall, I pointed this out to the professor and that some of the exec were riding on that coach. The professor told me that, nevertheless, I was in charge.

I somewhat reluctantly deferred to the professor's authority, and, without announcing the arrangement, picked up the microphone and began to run things. I expected someone to challenge me, to ask me who had given me that authority and why, but it never happened.

That experience caused me to reflect on the way that taking the initiative to lead can be self-legitimizing, because people want to be led rather than take charge of their own affairs, and on the ways I could take personal advantage of that reality, were I so tempted/inclined. It didn't help that on the trip I was reading books for a research paper on the David-Bathsheba-Uriah narrative.

The story of King David taking Bathsheba the wife of Uriah is one thread in a tapestry that the Bible weaves to develop the theme of kingly power. For the purposes of this essay, we can pick it up with God's warning to the nascent nation of Israel about what a king would take from them in exchange for his leadership. But then we find that when Israel was settled in their promised land, they were incapable of self-governance under an arrangement I'll call theocratic anarchy because they were prisoners of their corrupt desires and kept trying to hedge their spiritual bets by worshipping other gods, thus removing themselves from God's protection. So they rejected direct divine kingship and asked God to grant them a theocratic monarchy for efficiency's sake. But eventually, the Davidic dynasty fell to the same corrupt desires that made self-governance impracticable—for to rule well, one must be well ruled—and God could no longer maintain his people in the Promised Land without compromising the integrity of his character.

After God (partially) restores his people from exile, Jesus interprets the principle that this tapestry illustrates:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions use their authority over them. It must not be this way among you! Instead whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
(Matthew 20:25b–28 NET)

The reason God alone (monos) is fit to exercise kingly power (archon) is that he alone has the power and the character necessary to be the servant of all without diminishing his capacity to rule, even to the point of dying for all (Matthew 20:20–23). According to the principle of his kingly power, Jesus establishes his church as a theocratic anarchy, in which the power of the Holy Spirit to transform our desires replaces the power of the state to coerce behavior and self-governance based on the gifts of the Spirit replaces the single executive whom everyone reports to.

Jesus's vision for leadership didn't last past the first generation of his followers. Francis A. Sullivan's From Apostles to Bishops traces how a series of subtle changes over the course of several centuries beginning in the post-apostolic church amounted to the rise of the monarchical bishop, who possessed all the spiritual gifts through the laying on of hands such that he constituted the church and through whom all other authority in the church devolved. Thus, the church came to emulate the Roman power structure that once persecuted it.

Reformers in the Roman Catholic Church—beginning with Joachim of Fiore—recognized this situation as the end-time manifestation of metaphorical Babylon predicted by the Book of Revelation: a power-arrangement in which the church gave theological legitimacy to the so-called "divine right of kings" and those kings employed violence to coerce their citizens into accepting the rule of the bishops in the church.

And in the same way that the church didn't jump into kingly power all at once, it took several centuries for the reformation to arrive at the place where this double-dealing relationship could be undone. Nicholas P. Miller tells that story in The Religious Roots of the First Amendment: Basically, marginal and even sectarian Protestant groups like the Anabaptists and Dissenters ended up with their view of church/state separation codified in the US Constitution because it made the most sense to the early-modern (classical) liberal theorists.

But kingly power persisted the American democratic republic via at least two other historical trajectories. First, the model of corporate governance used by American businesses descends from the Roman model of imperial governance via the Roman Catholic model of church governance. Essentially, the CEO is an elected monarch who can be deposed by the vote of a board of directors, a board that the CEO often chairs.

Second, certain occupants of the office of US President have used, or attempted to use, their position of executive authority like that of a term-limited elected monarch rather than a public servant who presides over an executive branch constrained by checks and balances. By my lights, none have attempted to rule by kingly power more than Donald Trump in the opening weeks of his second administration. He has cut off spending authorized by Congress and issued a raft of executive orders that could easily have been laws passed by a Congress dominated by his party. Although the Supreme Court is currently dominated by Catholic justices appointed by his party and has ruled that, while president, he had expansive immunity from prosecution, his vice president has stated that he would simply ignore a Court ruling that restrains his executive authority. As I warned last fall in the latest update to my Trump-as-divine-judgment thesis:

"A second Trump term is unlikely to be like his first because the plans are in place to remove those who restrained his unconstitutional impulses. If he is elected, we may experience the national catastrophe of having our democratic republic replaced by the majoritarian White, Christian nationalism that many warned about eight years ago"
(Source).

In the background of these developments is a sea change in how Americans try to achieve freedom that began with the Baby Boomers and was completed by social media. From the founding until WWII, Americans thought that freedom meant being able to influence how things around them were being run. They achieved that by relying as much as possible on self-governing free associations that gave their members a lot of say in how things are run in exchange for the self-restraint necessary to get along in such communities.

Today, the current prevailing conception of freedom is being able to authentically express unique individuality. We achieve this by relying as much as possible on expert-run bureaucracies that efficiently provide resources for individual expression and platforms for identity recognition in exchange for us giving up our say in how things are run.

This has led, as I've written about here, to a situation known as the culture wars, conflicts over what expressions are allowed where and which identities are recognized by which institutions. To take an example, the racist reactionaries in the Trump administration appeal to the abuses of disciplinary DEI bureaucracies in attempting to right historical wrongs on behalf of ethnic and racial minorities in order to justify their access to political power on behalf of the ethnic/racial majority. But on a more mundane level, we now choose our colleges, convenience stores, and congregations based on how efficiently they help us with the difficult task of individual self-realization, which sorts us into often lonely silos where we rarely have to associate with our social others.

My point is that these ascendant bureaucracies that facilitate expressive individualism—like the tech giants, the non-denominational mega-churches, the financial system—operate according to the CEO model of governance. Accordingly, for most Americans, it seems only natural that the US government will begin to be run like a business, that is, by kingly power, and Trump's administration is only too happy to oblige them.

But note well that for many who object to President Trump, it is not so much because of how he is running roughshod over the rule of law but more that he is doing it for the wrong side because, for example, they had no problem with the Biden administration attempting to nullify the Supreme Court's ruling on the Equal Rights Amendment.

I take this to be an apocalyptic revelation of corruption in the character of America because I believe, according to my faith's interpretation of the biblical book of Revelation, that the United States is a different kind of beast. It is at once the best and the worst nation in the world, and one that will ultimately prove incapable of self-governance when it finally reunites church and state.

So what is to be done?

We’re no longer in "culture war." At least on Trump-Musk side, there’s a phase shift to civ[ilizational] war, because they now "know who they are." Democrats are still figuring out who they are, and so are in an ineffectual, tired culture-war mode. Sitting ducks. Still fighting Trump 1.0.
(Source)

Religious liberty may not survive this escalated warm war phase of conflict that short of a full-on civil war but in which one side is longer trying to persuade people on the other to join them but rather exercising power to dominate them. The "Trump-Musk side" relies on a fusion of Catholic and Charismatic movements that are set on ushering in the millennium by coercing culture to Christian ends, while the Democrats' ethos derives from the Puritan impulse to impose their egalitarian vision of the ultimate good on society, including the church, using the disciplinary power of the regulatory state. Nevertheless, those of us who care about the Dissenting Protestant tradition of American liberty ought to agree that, given the unprecedented danger to self-governance posed by Donald Trump's recent exercises of kingly power, it is imperative to join with whomever is the most effective opposition his attempts at monarchical presidency regardless of how good anything else he is doing may be.

For American Christians, we need to accept that authentic, individual expression can only happen in a church community that constrains our worst impulses and cultivates our characters by giving us actual responsibilities.

And for American Adventists, it's time we learned how to be conscientious cooperators again, only this time in a civilizational war.

[2025-02-15 UPDATE: This morning, Donald Trump tweeted: "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."]

[2025-02-19 UPDATE: This afternoon Donald Trump posted a image of himself wearing a crown with the title "TRUMP" and subtitle "LONG LIVE THE KING". The caption of the post read: "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"]

Notes on Last Generation Theology

Historical Background
1.    1700s
 1.1.    John Wesley and Methodism: Holiness, experience, community
  1.1.1.    Wesley: The Holy Spirit’s "second work of grace" is called "entire sanctification."
  1.1.2.    It is character perfection: “purity of intention” and “love excluding sin.”
  1.1.3.    No more intentional sin, but mistakes and other kinds of growth are still possible.
 1.2.    American Methodism: Revivalism, corporate enthusiastic experience
  1.2.1.    Early Adventism was revivalistic: shouting, singing, and speaking in unknown tongues to receive the Holy Spirit.

2.    1800s
 2.1.    Oberlin College: Christian perfection by receiving the Holy Spirit through an act of the will
 2.2.    Phoebe Palmer: a "shorter way" to "higher life," immediate entire sanctification, which means one cannot be lost
 2.3.    Higher Life movement: The “second blessing” of the Holy Spirit can confer even sinless perfection, a state in which one cannot sin.
  2.3.1.    Quietist slogan: “Let go and let God.”
  2.3.2.    Keswick (KEZ-ick) Conventions influenced D.L. Moody (a Calvinist) such that higher life became the most popular view of perfection in non-confessional, American Protestantism
  2.3.3.    A.B. Simpson starts the Alliance Church out of this movement
 2.4.    In Adventism, Ellen G. White sticks closer to Wesley on this subject, opposing ecstatic revivalism and immediate entire sanctification while interpreting perfection as a corporate, end-time experience (e.g., the Holy Flesh movement in Adventism influenced by Hannah Whitall Smith; see AA 560).
  2.4.1.    For Ellen White, the end-time remnant will experience Christian perfection but can never claim sinlessness (ST 23 Mar 1888; COL, 62–69; 2SM, 32–33).

3.    1900–1930
 3.1.    Victorious Life movement: Fundamentalist influence on Higher Life, opposes anything worldly, reduces sinlessness to following rules and regulations in order to eliminate ambiguity in the conflict with Modernists ("New Theology")
 3.2.    Pentecostalism arose from Higher Life’s emphasis on healings and miracles: The sign of the second blessing is speaking in unknown tongues.
 3.3.    Adventists influenced by Higher Life/Victorious Life literature—esp. E. J. Waggoner (1901 GC Sermon) and Meade McGuire (His Cross and Mine)—interpreted sinless perfection—never breaking God’s rules—as a condition we must meet for the end-times to commence.

4.    1930–1980
 4.1.    Neo-Evangelicals (now, simply Evangelicals) emerge from the Fundamentalist movement with an emphasis on engaging with the world and grace vs. works.
 4.2.    Fundamentalist Adventism, leveraging end-times anxiety to produce performance, slowly collapses under the weight of its expectations.
  4.2.1.    Adventist evangelistic ministries like Voice of Prophecy and It Is Written break with Fundamentalist strictures about the worldliness of mass media before the Neo-Evangelicals do.
  4.2.2.    Robert Brinsmead’s phases: perfectionist (1960s), evangelical (1970s), secular humanist (1980s–present)
  4.2.3.    Desmond Ford taps into a well of dissatisfaction in the church fed by a spring of spiritual anxiety.
 4.3.    Fundamentalist Adventism adopts a posture of fighting retreat.
  4.3.1.    Post-war period of Adventist missions: most active in our history
   4.3.1.1.    Those who viewed Adventism as a program for rule-following spread that vision of perfection around the world.
   4.3.1.2.    Robert J. Wieland and Donald K. Short return from the mission field and attempt to reinstate that vision in America, arguing that the Keswick Conventions and Victorious Life movement didn’t go far enough and that Adventists needed to corporately repent for rejecting Waggoner’s view of perfection, which they believed Ellen White endorsed as part of the 1888 message of righteousness by faith.
  4.3.2.    Fight for control of the General Conference: Robert H. Pierson’s 1978 farewell address
  4.3.3.    Independent ministries begin to advance Fundamentalist critiques of mainstream North American Adventism and the denomination (e.g, Creeping Compromise by Joe Crews), believing that a return to rigorous rule-following is necessary for Jesus to return according to Last Generation Theology.

Definition of Last Generation Theology
Last Generation Theology is the proposition that the sinless perfection of the end-time remnant will make the second coming possible because it will finally vindicate God’s character by demonstrating that human beings born into sin can live according to God’s law.

1.    “Last Generation Theology” (LGT) is an exonym defined by a critic, the “dean of Adventist studies” George R. Knight (A Search for Identity, I Used to Be Perfect).
 1.1.    The endonym? Something like “Victorious Adventism” (coined by Adventist historian Michael Campbell in a 2023 presentation), but in its time it didn’t need to be named because it was the default Adventist view of perfection.

2.    LGT explains two big questions for Adventists:
 2.1.    Why hasn’t Jesus come back yet?
 2.2.    Why does the last generation need to be perfectly holy?

3.    LGT offers one simple answer: We have a climactic part to play in the Great Controversy by vindicating God’s character by following his rules down to the smallest detail so that humanity’s probation can close and Jesus can come back.
 3.1.    In other words, the second coming depends on you not wearing high heels, eating cheese, watching sports, etc.

Theological Evaluation
The only problem with LGT is that it implies heresy. Why? Protestantism broke with Catholicism because we should not put the church in a place that only Christ can occupy.

1.    Professor M.L. Andreasen, who synthesized the early-twentieth-century Adventist view of perfection in a chapter on “The Last Generation” in his magnum opus on The Sanctuary Service (1937), considered the vindication of God’s character by the end-time remnant to be a stage of atonement.
 1.1.    This construes the end-time remnant as standing between the holiness of God and the sinfulness of humanity, making it possible for God to save all humanity because of the sinless perfection God has accomplished in their human nature.
 1.2.    Therefore, LGT implies that humanity has another ‘mediator’ in the end-time atonement after Christ’s advocacy for us in the pre-Advent, investigative judgment is finished: the end-time remnant (contra 1 Tim 2:5).
 1.3.    That the perfection of the end-time remnant after the close of probation is necessary for all humanity to be saved makes it a sort of ‘co-redemptrix’ in LGT.

2.    The cross was the sufficient demonstration that vindicated God’s character before the onlooking universe, so there is no need for a second such demonstration for God to close the Great Controversy (Rom 3:26; John 12:30–31).
 2.1.    Because of what Christ has done, God would still be seen as being in the right even if every human being were to reject his offer of salvation (Rom 3:4).

3.    The pre-Advent, investigative judgment settles the questions Heaven’s residents might have about the fitness of the saved to join them there (Zech 3, esp. v7).

4.    Ellen White used the word "vindicate" in three distinct ways that accord with the three detentions of "vindication" in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary.
 4.1.    To proclaim vindication—those who keep God's law during the final crisis "vindicate" his "honor" by "pronouncing it holy, just, and good" (4T, 593; RH, 16 April 1901; compare Eze 36:26).
 4.2.    To prove vindication—Jesus's life of obedience and sacrifice vindicated God's character by providing the necessary evidence (8T 207; PP 68; compare John 12:27–33).
  4.2.1.    This is where LGT inserts the end-time remnant alongside Christ.
 4.3.    To provide vindication—God will ultimately vindicate his character by destroying sin and sinners forever (DA, 764; compare Rev 19:1–4).

Theological Possibilities
How then can Adventists answer the end-time questions that LGT explains?

Question 1: Why hasn’t Jesus come back yet?

Answer:
1.    God in his foreknowledge (and, arguably, middle knowledge) accounts for the future, free decisions of all his creatures in order to predestine a plan of salvation that gives everyone a good-faith opportunity to accept salvation (Rom 8:28–30).

2.    There is a pattern in salvation history of God delaying his judgments, including the end-time judgment, to ensure that everyone will receive that opportunity (Matt 24:14; 2 Pet 3:9).

3.    We can hasten Jesus’s coming by deciding to surrender to the Holy Spirit so that we will rightly represent his character to the world by overcoming sin and living loving lives that invite others to join God’s kingdom (2 Pet 3:10–12; Rom 2:19–24; 1 John 4:19; John 13:35).
 3.1.    But that being the case, the decisions of those who are ultimately lost also delay the second coming.

4.    The end-time harvest must first mature as the final crisis (Rev 13:11–18) and three angels’ messages (Rev 14:6–11) bring everyone alive to the point of making their decision for or against God (Matt 13:24–30; Rev 14:14–20).
 4.1.    Therefore, we should not discourage people who are still maturing with criticism of their spiritual state as if this will hasten the Second Coming.

5.    While we retroactively influence God’s plan by our present choices that he foreknew, God has already determined when Jesus will come back (Mark 13:32).

Question 2: Why does the last generation need Christian perfection?

Answer 1:
1.    The mature (not sinless, 1 John 1:8) perfection of the remnant (and not individuals only, Eph 4:13–16) in loving character will call humanity to repentance in the final crisis by proclaiming the love of God in Christ (John 13:35).

2.    Christian perfection cannot be reduced to a program of scrupulous rule-following because those who try to eliminate moral ambiguity as far as possible by identifying as many rules as possible are not attractive but rather the robotic slaves that Satan accuses God of trying to create through reward/punishment (Job 1:9–11).
 2.1.    In the first crisis, Satan tried to make God appear more restrictive than he truly is (Gen 3:1), so also in the final crisis (1 Tim 4:1–5).
 2.2.    From the beginning, God’s rule(s) bounded a much wider field of actions open to interpretation, which provides for sort of moral judgment calls necessary for character development (cf. Gen 2:16 and 2:17; Rom 14:12–13, 22–23).
 2.3.    The Bible defines perfection in terms of grand character qualities, not Pharisaic attention to ethical minutiae (cf. Matt 5:48 and Luke 6:36; Jas 1:4; Rev 14:4).
  2.3.1.    We follow God’s rules because we are developing his character, which also gives us the freedom to make good judgment-calls in non-rule-governed domains of morality (cf. Matt 23:23 and Luke 11:42).

Answer 2:
1.    The last plagues that will harden the unrepentant in their rejection of God (Rev 16:9, 11) will also serve to sever our attachments to the passing things of this world and strengthen our attachment to God (Eph 5:27, cf. the maturation of the end-time harvest).
 1.1.    The plagues that fell on Egypt not only hardened Pharoah in his rejection of God but inspired other Egyptians to leave Egypt (Exod 12:38).

2.    The intensity of God’s last judgments on sin before the second coming will call for him to give the faithful an equally intense experience of dependence on him (Rev 7:3, 14:1).

Conclusion
Therefore, providing a second round of evidence that vindicates God’s character is not necessary to explain the end-time significance of Christian perfection.

1.    It is false to claim that rejecting LGT means rejecting the Christian perfection of the end-time remnant.

2.    It is false to claim that believing in the Christian perfection of the end-time remnant means accepting LGT.

Recommended for further study:

• 1919: The Untold Story of Adventism's Struggle with Fundamentalism by Michael W. Campbell
• "Holiness Adventism: The Victorious Life Movement, Seventh-day Adventism, and Last Generation Theology" by Michael W. Campbell (paper presented at the 2022 Evangelical Theological Society National Meeting)
• "Pardoned and Perfect: A Comparative Study of the Soteriology of John Wesley and Ellen White" by Esther Louw (Andrews University MA Thesis)
• God's Character and the Last Generation edited by Jiří Moskala and John C. Peckham
• "Living Without an Intercessor" by Ángel Manuel Rodriguez in Adventist World
• The Judgment and Assurance: The Dynamics of Personal Salvation by Woodrow W. Whidden

"Judgments of God?" in the 2024 United States Presidential Elections

Early in 2020, I published a 2017 paper in the Brazilian theological journal Kerygma arguing that the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency was a divine judgment that exposed the hypocrisy of the right, center, and left of American politics. I found that this judgment was not a national catastrophe but rather one that had sifted Americans by how we responded to the immorality that had resulted in our preferred factions acting as if God does not intervene in human history.

Then, four years ago to the day of this writing, I published an article in the now sadly defunct Compass Magazine assessing how well my providential interpretation had held up over the intervening years. I found that only the center seemed chastened, while the right and left had plunged even further into their hypocritical immorality.

In the sketch that follows, I will bring my thesis up to date without going into detail and without rehearsing arguments I made in my previous publications. So I suggest that you familiarize yourself with them if you've not done so already.

The Left

Musa Al-Gharbi's We Have Never Been Woke came out this year, and he nails down my thesis about the hypocrisy of the left better than I ever could. I recommend this review in Front Porch Republic. It is also possible that we have passed so-called "peak woke," but all this means is that the left's agenda has become institutionalized to the extent that it is no longer noteworthy or cutting-edge.

The Center

The hypocrisy of the center was exposed in the first presidential debate when it became obvious that the faction of competence was attempting to foist a manifestly incompetent incumbent on the nation. At least the centrists in the press did not let the centrists in the Democratic White House get away with Jill Biden's turn as Edith Wilson. Then, the champions of democracy did not allow an open primary to select Joe Biden's replacement, selected by Mr. Biden himself, not for her competence, much less her character, but for her identity. The Hillary Clinton-esque ideological makeover Democratic party operatives have given Kamala Harris, leaves no doubt that the center is not so chastened after all.

The Right

The surprising events of January 6 came close to turning this sifting judgment into a national catastrophe, but America retained its form of government under constitutional procedure despite Donald Trump breaking with the US tradition of peaceful transfer of presidential power begun by George Washington. With prominent Republican figures endorsing his opponent and his former chief of staff calling him, in broad terms, "a fascist," the putative defenders of freedom continue to stand condemned of hypocrisy by their own side's admission.

Providence

Despite all his legal woes, including a felony conviction, and several attempts on his life, including a grazed ear, Mr. Trump is neck and neck in the polls with Mrs. Harris. Even unbelievers are astonished at how many close calls he has avoided. This surprise is consistent with the divine judgment thesis because God does not allow his judgments to be preempted by human efforts.

The Stakes

As I see it, regardless of who is elected, we will have a president who governs as if God doesn't intervene in human history and, therefore, our immoral hypocrisy is justified because it's all up to us. Mrs. Harris will continue to offer symbolic victories to minority groups while ensuring that the elites are secure in their positions of power regardless of the indignities that this requires everyone else to suffer, and she will be open to whatever pragmatic compromises are necessary to get her a second term. Under a Harris presidency, the sifting will likely continue. On the other hand, a second Trump term is unlikely to be like his first because the plans are in place to remove those who restrained his unconstitutional impulses. If he is elected, we may experience the national catastrophe of having our democratic republic replaced by the majoritarian White, Christian nationalism that many warned about eight years ago.

Conclusion

The purpose of a divine sifting judgment is not to cause us to pursue our preferred outcomes in the world but to test our characters to see whether our interpretation of our situation aligns with loyalty to God or has been compromised by other loyalties. How you choose to vote (or abstain from voting) will show whether your hope is in a political faction that represents your identity attaining worldly power for you and yours or whether your hope is the God who intervenes in human history and will eventually return to destroy America for its sins and set up his eternal kingdom.

The Modern State of Israel: An Adventist Interpretation

The modern, liberal-democratic Jewish nation-state of Israel does not resume the covenantal status God established with the ancient Davidic dynasty of the theocratic United Monarchy of Israel for three reasons:

1. Israel’s post-exilic, geopolitical mission of bringing about the messianic age was accomplished in the events surrounding the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Israel’s Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth (Daniel 9:24–27).

2. There is no inspired revelation of God renewing his covenant with any modern nation, including Israel, nor would God need to because

3. Between the first and second comings of the Messiah, God’s kingdom is not geopolitical but spiritual-only (John 18:36), and his temple is not earthly but heavenly (Hebrews 9:11–12).

Yet because God continues and will continue to have a particular love for the people of Israel (Romans 11:2, 28–29), how much more has God providentially guided the subsequent history of the Jews given that he does so for every other nation (Acts 17:26)?

In the providential interpretation of human history, we recognize that God has accomplished his goals through past or current events based on patterns in the prophetic record of his previous interactions with groups of humans, his enduring characteristics, and his revealed plans. While discerning divine action in history is necessarily speculative, it is, I argue, necessary for us to align our approach to changing circumstances with divine action in history. The study and experience of history is one way God pushes back on our wrongly cherished views of reality, reforming our character. In the wake of recent events, let us briefly consider the history of Jews after the ascension of Jesus with an eye toward discerning God’s purposes for the State of Israel today.
 
A series of Jewish revolts against Roman imperium based on messianic expectation of a restored geopolitical kingdom resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple (AD 70) and the eventual complete expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem (AD 135). These disasters caused the Jews to turn away from messianic expectation altogether and allowed the politically ascendent Christians in the Roman Empire to distinguish themselves from the Jews via antisemitism. God then allowed the Jews to suffer persecution in Europe under the rule of the established churches and divided kingdoms that oppressed Jewish and Christian Sabbath-keepers in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. (The Jews who remained in Judea, Galilee, and elsewhere in the Middle East suffered dhimmitude under Muslim rule during roughly the same period.) After Martin Luther’s religious antisemitism was secularized in the philosophy of the German Enlightenment, this antisemitic strain in Christendom culminated in the Shoah under the Nazis. Then, in his mercy, God raised up and protected the State of Israel where persecuted Jews may seek shelter on their ancestral lands.

This does not imply that we ought to reflexively side with the Jewish State of Israel and in its conflicts any more than we ought to reflexively side with the United States just because we recognize that God raised it up to provide a bastion of religious liberty with separation of church and state for his church (more on that here). The interests of God cannot be wholly identified with one side of a human conflict (Joshua 5:13–14). For example, as Ellen White saw in a vision and Abraham Lincoln later understood, although the Union's war against the Confederacy was just, God was also judging the Union states for compromising too long with the sin of slavery. Thus, to seek a swift victory for the Union because it was on ‘God's side’ would have been to oppose another purpose of God in the US Civil War.

The rise and fall of nations and the shifting of their borders are determined by God so that we might seek him and be saved (Acts 17:27). It follows that according to God’s particular purpose of saving all Israel (Romans 11:26), God raised up the modern State of Israel. But Israel, like every other human polity, is on probation to determine what it will do with the blessings God has given it. Will it govern so that Jews, Muslims, and Christians can shelter in it together in peace (Daniel 4:21)? Will it be a nation of which it is said that Jews love Arabs as much they love themselves (Leviticus 19:34)? Will it be a nation where the stranger, the widow, and the orphan can find justice, or will it be cursed for unnecessarily making more and more of the strangers who dwell in its land widows and orphans (Deuteronomy 27:19)? If the State of Israel, or any other nation, does what is just, its prosperity may be prolonged (Daniel 4:27).

Along with the other kingdoms of this world, the State of Israel will eventually be judged for its sins and destroyed, if not before, then at the Second Advent of Israel’s Messiah, who alone can rescue Israel from its enemies and sins. Jesus will then set up God’s everlasting kingdom (Daniel 2:44), and, together with the saved and all creation, Israel will receive its ultimate geopolitical inheritance, its never-ending Promised Land and eternal dwelling place with God (Acts 13:32–39; Romans 8:21; Hebrews 11:13–16, 39–40; Revelation 21:3).

How to Use Digital Bibles

The Word of God has been recorded in a variety of media: tablets (Exodus 32:15–16), scrolls (Deuteronomy 17:18), papyrus sheets (2 John 12), and, last but not least, human memory (Psalm 119:11). The codex—pages made from sheets that have been bound together, in other words, the object we think of when we think of a book—was adopted soon after the last Bible books were written. More than a thousand years later, the printing press made it possible to mass-produce books, spurring the Protestant Reformation.

Likewise, in our time five-hundred years after the Reformation, the electronic digital medium (through which you are reading these words) has changed the way we record, study, and distribute God's Word.

By electronic, I mean Bibles that are recorded on a media device that requires a source of electric power to access. And by digital, I mean Bibles that are recorded in a numeric code that makes their words subject to computer manipulation, as opposed to, say, the popular Gospel According to Matthew film (though speech-to-text technology is changing that).

One advantage of studying the Bible digitally is that the code allows easy access to the original languages. Similar to how I have linked the following text to a website, Blue Letter Bible and similar websites link the original Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek words of the biblical text to the English words that are used to translate them. No more lugging around heavy interlinear Bibles and concordances!

This also means that there is no excuse for relying on English dictionaries for the meaning of Bible words when at the click of a mouse or tap of a finger we have free access to lexicons—dictionaries of the original languages of the Bible—along with all the occurrences of a given word in Scripture. My favorite website for this sort of study is the Bible Study Tools interlinear Bible search.

But beware: The meaning of a word is not determined by its dictionary definition but by the textual and historical settings in which it is used. Unless you have studied the grammar and syntax of the original languages and the historical backgrounds of the Bible, a list of lexical possibilities can take you only so far towards the meaning. So always consult translations and commentaries, which are only a click or tap away in many digital Bibles, to get a sense of which sector of a word's semantic range is being selected by the text in its context.

Also, beware that certain free Bible apps and websites are known to sell information about your searches and other activity to internet advertisers. Even publishers of digital Bibles have to pay the bills. And on the internet, as the saying goes, if you're not a paying customer, you're likely the product being sold.

There are many free Bible apps available for smartphones and tablets, but I prefer those that download the Bible to my device for offline use. Again, Blue Letter Bible has a quality app, and I have successfully used Olive Tree and e-Sword in the past, as well. Beware of apps that ask for unnecessary permissions like contacts or location (if you're not the customer, ...).

These days I use only paid Bible study platforms. They are more or less expensive depending on the resources you want to get with them but are only worth it if you are prepared to use their extra features. Prices range from just over a hundred to thousands of dollars for a full library of resources. Accordance has the fastest and most powerful searches, but they charge you for the software in addition to the resource packages. Logos is slower but free and has the most resources available. Both platforms have resources specifically for Seventh-day Adventists.

The great, irreplaceable advantage of digital Bibles is that you can quickly find what you are looking for along with lots of other information about it. The inevitable disadvantage that goes along with that: Easy come; easy go. The human mind, which is where God's Word ultimately needs to be written (Jeremiah 31:33, Hebrews 8:10, 10:16), is best activated by sustained bodily contact with physical objects. We remember best what we have a sensory experience with.

So how will we know what to search for in our digital Bibles in the first place? By regularly interacting with our good, old codex Bibles.

If you're wondering How to Read the Whole Bible for the First Time, click here. 

Wondering What Bible Should I Read? See my recommendations here.

What Bible Should I Read?

Short answer: Any Bible that you read is the right Bible for you to read.

All Bibles—regardless of which translation or what supplementary notes—convey the written Word of God. The Gospel is a translated message from its inception (Acts 2:6) and therefore always comes to us as an already interpreted message. This means that there is no one-and-only, given-for-all-time version of the Bible. To have a Bible that you regularly read is what matters most.

On the other hand, we are blessed with so wide a variety of English translations and study Bibles that many people don't know where to start or how to build a well-rounded collection for personal or family use.

The English Bible most first-time readers consider is the

King James Version (KJV or Authorized Version, AV): Authorized by King James in 1611, what set this Bible apart from previously published English translations was the fact that it did not come with interpretive notes in the margins. So, it was able to be used in churches of all doctrinal persuasions. The KJV is also an artistic achievement whose beautiful language, along with that of the works of Shakespeare, standardized Modern English.

A linguistic quirk of the KJV is its thee-s and thou-s. These second-person pronouns had already fallen out of ordinary use, but the translation committee brought them back from Middle English because they took a word-for-word approach to translation. Even if the point is lost on most readers, the KJV makes the same distinction between singular (thee/thou) and plural (ye/you) found in the original Hebrew and Aramaic of the Old Testament and New Testament Greek.

While the KJV's spelling has been revised many times, some words have changed in meaning over the last 400 years, which can result in misunderstandings. Over that time, our knowledge of the original languages has also significantly improved, so I do not recommend the KJV for in-depth Bible study.

New King James Version (NKJV): It retains the KJV's commitment to word-for-word translation and elegance of language, but uses words according to their current meanings and incorporates discoveries about the original languages made up to the early 1980s. This results in a formal-sounding translation that, while understandable, has some difficult turns of phrase that do not always clearly convey the intent of the original.

Because the NKJV sounds the way many English speakers feel that a Bible should, I like to use it for preaching.

Andrews Study Bible (NKJV/New International Version, NIV): For notes to help you understand difficult passages in the NKJV and clarify many points of interpretation from a Seventh-day Adventist perspective, I recommend the Andrews Study Bible.

It is also available in the NIV, another popular translation that attempts to balance word-for-word translation with a thought-for-thought approach, which affords an easier and often clearer reading experience. But thought-for-thought translations make it harder to understand how they translated English expressions from the original languages, and sometimes clarify things wrongly.

Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: (NIV/NKJV/New Revised Standard Version, NRSV): For a study Bible from a broader Christian perspective, I recommend the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. It has a wealth of notes and illustrations that will give you the latest scholarly understandings of the historical contexts of the biblical texts (not that I would endorse all of them). I recommend this Bible for in-depth study.

It is also available in the NRSV, which leans more toward a word-for-word approach than the NIV, but with less regard for harmonizing the texts of the Bible.

New English Translation: (NET): As its acronym suggests, this translation was meant to be presented on the internet as well as in hard copy.

The NET has a full complement of translation and study notes that explain almost every interpretive decision in detail. These notes can be clicked and expanded when reading online, so they don't take up too much space on the page. But they are also available in the thick, hardcopy Full Notes Edition of the NET.

The notes lean toward Reformed Evangelical interpretation but typically give both sides of the various arguments. I recommend this Bible for in-depth study.

ESV Reader's Bible (English Standard Version): The visual opposite of study Bibles, reader's editions remove even the chapter and verse numbers, leaving only the biblical text on the page just as you would find it in any other book. It is a liberating way to read the Bible, and I recommend it to other experienced readers.

One affordable reader's edition uses the ESV, a good word-for-word translation, but one that is controversial for translating certain passages as excluding women from church leadership in a time when it was well understood that the original pronouns could have referred to both men and women.

Bibliotheca (American Literary Version): This is a more expensive, but, in my opinion, better reader's edition. It began as a solo, passion project that received so much support on the crowd-investment platform, Kickstarter, that the founder was able to form a committee of scholars to revise the American Standard Version, resulting in an elegant, word-for-word translation that incorporates current insights into the original languages.

The Hebrew Bible by Robert Alter: While translation committees guard against individual idiosyncrasies, they also tend to make the biblical books all sound the same. But the biblical authors wrote with distinct voices. Individual translators have proven more willing to take risks in translation that allow the style of the different books to come through.

I don't endorse everything he says in his notes, but Robert Alter's literary sensitivity is second to none, and his translation of the Old Testament highlights the strange beauty of ancient expression without being impenetrable.

The Kingdom New Testament by N. T. Wright: The New Testament books were not written in the elevated Greek of the Homeric epics but in the simplified Greek spoken on the streets by people who had often learned it as their second language.

In his translation, which does reflect his theological interpretations, N. T. Wright moves away from elegant, formal-sounding English and instead uses plain-spoken, simple English to better give a sense of how accessible the original language of the New Testament was.

Common English Bible (CEB): For a translation that even young children can understand, I recommend the CEB. It will also challenge experienced readers to overcome clichés with its thought-for-thought translations of common biblical expressions (like "Human One" for "Son of Man"). Also, it is the only Bible I know of that had Seventh-day Adventist scholars working on its translation committee.

Final Thought: The farther I have gone in biblical studies—especially of the original languages—the less opinionated I have become about translations. Translation is really hard. And even where I disagree with a translation decision, I have learned not to criticize until I understand the case that can be made for it. Translators have their reasons, and they usually illuminate something in the text.

If you're wondering How to Read the Whole Bible for the First Time, click here.

If you want to know How to Use Digital Bibles, click here.

How to Read the Whole Bible for the First Time

 

The Bible can be intimidating if you've never read something like it before. It's very long, and some of its texts are more easily understood—or misunderstood!—than others.

It's become a cliché that many who attempt to read the Bible straight through crash out around Leviticus.

I recommend the following sequence of biblical books for your first read-through:

1. Mark. The shortest account of the life of Jesus (New Testament).

2. Genesis. The first book of instruction, which is the account of origins (Old Testament).

3. John and Matthew. The last of account of the life of Jesus and then another that is more similar to Mark (NT).

4. Luke and Acts. A two-part account, first of Jesus's life and then of how God founded his church (NT).

5. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The other books of instruction, which are the account of how God founded his nation, Israel (OT).

6. Hebrews. A letter to the church about how the instruction relates to Jesus (NT).

7. Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. The history God's nation, Israel, and stories of people who played a part in it (OT).

8. Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. Letters to the church about how Jesus helps us (NT).

9. Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Wisdom about how to deal with evil and suffering (OT).

10. 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Letters to the church about the end times and life together (NT).

11. Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations. A love poem and then longer writings warning and encouraging Israel along with some accounts of visions from God (OT).

12. James, 1 & 2 Peter, and Jude. Letters to the church about how to follow Jesus (NT).

13. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Shorter writings warning and encouraging Israel along with some accounts of visions from God (OT).

14. 1, 2 & 3 John. Letters to the church about God's love (NT).

15. Ezekiel and Daniel. Accounts of visions about God's plans for history and the end times along with some stories about how to deal with powerful people (OT).

16. Revelation. A letter warning and encouraging the church along with accounts of visions about God's plans for history and the end times (NT).

Tips:

1. Set a consistent time for reading the Bible every day and set up reminders for yourself.

2. Plan to read for a minimum of five to ten minutes at a time and increase it as your attention span grows.

3. Pray before you start; ask God's Spirit to help you find something that lets you know Jesus better.

4. The Bible rewards a lifetime of reading, so don't try to understand everything the first time.

5. When you feel like you don't understand all of what you're reading, keep reading until you find something you do understand.

6. If you get bored with what you are reading, you can either pray and try again, skim ahead until you find something more interesting, or stop and come back to it tomorrow.

7. If you feel like you understood less than half of what you read or didn't understand anything at all, ask someone more experienced to help you with its meaning.
   

Wondering What Bible Should I Read? See my recommendations here.

If you want to know How to Use Digital Bibles, click here. 

Annual Observances for Seventh-day Adventists

In Seventh-day Adventism, some families and communities feel called to observe something like a festal or liturgical year to rehearse the story of salvation rather than enjoy merely secular holidays or take the extreme position of observing none at all. Ellen G. White also recognized that there are certain times of the year that, like Christmas Day, may be observed as a "sacred event" (Review and Herald, 17 Dec 1889), yet one on which, unlike Sabbath, "there is no divine sanctity resting" (Review and Herald, 9 Dec 1884). Therefore, we have the Christian liberty to observe them or not as is most meaningful to us. But Ellen White counseled us to not neglect the opportunity to make much of Christ on occasions when people, especially young people, expect a celebration (9 Dec 1884).

Introduction

What follows is a framework within which Seventh-day Adventists can develop a rhythm of annual observances for individual, familial, or communal devotional practice. I do not present it as a program to which nothing may be added and from which nothing may be subtracted; the Sabbath is the only day we are to keep holy without exception.

This annual cycle incorporates observances from Adventism's deep Jewish, broadly Christian, and specifically Protestant backgrounds:

• Three festivals that Gentiles can celebrate with Jews—the Feast of Lots (Esth 9:27), Passover (Exod 12:48, Num 9:14), and the Festival of Tabernacles (Deut 16:13–14, Zech 14:16) 
  
• The Five Evangelical Feasts recognized by Reformed Christian communions—Good Friday, Resurrection Day, Ascension Day, Pentecost, and Christmas—along with two Western Christian seasons included in the mainline Protestants' Revised Common Lectionary—Advent and Christmastide
• Reformation Day
• Three holidays recommended by Ellen White—Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's

These combine to present the story of Jesus Christ and his church:

The Five Spring Observances tell the story of Christ's death, burial, resurrection (1 Cor 15:3–4), and ascension to Heaven (Acts 2:33–35) and heavenly sanctuary ministry (Eph 4:7–8) in the context of the great controversy.

The Five Autumn Observances tell the story of the end-time events in Revelation 13–14 in the context of Christ's Second Coming, concluding with the hope of Immanuel, God with us, at "the restoration of all things" (Acts 3:21) when the great controversy is resolved (Rev 21:1–22:5).

Spring Observances 

1. Feast of Lots
Old Testament feast day commemorating the victory of the Jews over Haman's plot
Date: (movable) February 26–March 26
Salvation Story Theme: the great controversy between Christ and Satan
Suggested Activity and Scripture Reading: Put on an Esther play while reading the Book of Esther.
Suggested Scripture Reading: Job 1–2
Suggested Psalms: The Lord's My Shepherd, Send Out Your Light, Psalm 46, Psalm 121

2. Passover
Old Testament feast day commemorating Israel's exodus out of Egypt
Date: (movable) March 28–April 25
Salvation Story Theme: Christ's sacrificial death
Suggested Activity: Hold a Passover feast with traditions that Jesus followed.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Exodus 11–12; John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:6–8, 10:1–13
Suggested Psalms: God Be Merciful to Me, Psalm 51, Psalm 130, Psalm 136

3. Easter
Evangelical feast days, Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, commemorating Christ's death and resurrection
Date of Good Friday: (movable) March 25–April 25
Salvation Story Theme: Christ's burial and resurrection
Suggested Activities: Have a sundown worship service (Good Friday); have a sunrise worship service (Resurrection Day).
Suggested Scripture Readings: (Good Friday) Matthew 26–27, Mark 14–15, Luke 22-23, John 18–19; (Resurrection Day) Matthew 28, Luke 24, John 20
Suggested Hymns: (Good Friday) He Never Said a Mumblin' Word, Lead Me to Calvary, In Christ Alone, God Rested; (Resurrection Day) Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, Now the Green Blade Rises, Because He Lives, Easter Song

4. Ascension Day
Evangelical feast day commemorating Christ's ascension
Date: (movable) May 3–June 3
Salvation Story Theme: Christ's ascension to the right hand of the Father and the inauguration of the heavenly sanctuary
Suggested Activity: Feast on food that rises like fluffy pastries or (plant-based) poultry.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Acts 1; Ephesians 1:20–21, 4:7–8; Revelation 4–5
Suggested Hymns: A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing, Alleluia! Sing to Jesus, Arise, My Soul, Arise, Is He Worthy?

5. Pentecost
Evangelical feast day commemorating the beginning of the church
Date: (movable) May 13–June 9
Salvation Story Theme: Christ's heavenly sanctuary ministry and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
Suggested Activity: Feast on first fruits and/or food that looks like or is cooked with fire.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Joel 2:28–29, John 14:15–31, Acts 2, Galatians 5:13–26
Suggested Hymns: O for That Flame of Living Fire, Baptize Us Anew, Come Holy Spirit, Build Your Kingdom Here

Autumn Observances

6. Festival of Tabernacles
Old Testament seven-day harvest festival
Date of the first day: (movable) September 21–October 19
Salvation Story Theme: Christ's Second Coming as the ingathering of God's harvest
Suggested Activity: Sleep in an outdoor shelter or as if you were in one.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Matthew 13, Matthew 24–25, Revelation 14.
Suggested Psalms: Psalm 34, All People That on Earth Do Dwell, Flourishing, Psalm 126

7. Reformation Day
Protestant commemoration celebrating Reformation heritage (Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on All Saints' Eve) and memorializing martyrs on All Saints' Eve and/or All Saints' Day
Date of All Saints' Eve: (fixed) October 31
Salvation Story Theme: the beast from the sea and the Protestant Reformation
Suggested Activities: Dress up like reformers; post the 95 Theses on a door; read the testimonies of martyrs.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Daniel 7; Revelation 6:9–11, chs. 12–13
Suggested Hymns: Faith of Our Fathers, For All the Saints, When the Saints Go Marchin' In, By Faith

8. Thanksgiving Day
American holiday instituted during the US Civil War and recommended by Ellen White
Date: (movable) third Thursday in November (USA) or second Monday in October (Canada)
Salvation Story Theme: the beast from the land and religious liberty
Suggested Activities: Share testimonies of gratitude and feast on locally harvested food.
Suggested Scripture Readings: Psalm 95, Psalm 100, John 18:36, Revelation 13:11–15
Suggested Hymns: Now Thank We All Our God, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, Thank You Lord, 10,000 Reasons

9. Advent
Christian season that anticipates the coming of Christ
Dates: (movable) November 27–December 3 to (fixed) December 24
Salvation Story Theme: preparation for the Second Coming and the Three Angels' Messages
Suggested Activities: Give Advent calendar treats; have an Advent theme for family or group worship every week: (week 1) the second coming, (week 2) the messianic prophecies, (week 3) John the Baptist, (week 4) Mary and Joseph.
Suggested Scripture Readings: (week 1) John 14:1–14, (week 2) Isaiah 52:13–53:12, (week 3) Luke 3:1–20, and (week 4) Luke 1
Suggested Hymns: (week 1) O Come, O Come Emmanuel, (week 2) Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming, (week 3) On Jordan's Bank the Baptist's Cry, (week 4) Magnificat

10. Christmastide
Christian season that includes (1) Christmas Day, an evangelical feast day commemorating the birth of Christ, which Ellen White recommended, and (2a) New Years Day, another holiday that Ellen White recommended as a time of reflection and re-commitment, and which coincides with (2b) the commemoration of Christ's circumcision eight days after his birth; and concludes at (3) the commemoration of the visit of the Magi (Epiphany)
Dates: (fixed) December 25 to January 6
Salvation Story Theme: God dwelling with us and the great controversy ended
Suggested Activities: Give gifts to those in need (Christmas); renew your covenant with God (New Year's); sing Christmas carols during the twelve days of Christmastide (December 25 to January 5); and give gifts to the needy (Epiphany).
Suggested Scripture Readings: (Christmas) Luke 2:1–21; (New Year's) Psalm 139, Luke 2:22–40; (Epiphany) Isaiah 60, Matthew 2, Romans 9:30–11:36, Revelation 21–22
Suggested Hymns: (Christmas) Once in Royal David's City, Go Tell It on the Mountain; (New Year's) Lord God, Now Let Your Servant Depart in Peace, Wake the Song; (Epiphany) We Three Kings

Application

Traditional elements for this cycle of annual observances may be found in the Scriptures and the other foundational texts of the background traditions, or in their popular interpreters. If unfamiliar, Google, Wikipedia, and your local library can resolve that.

"Tradition is an argument extended through time" (Alasdair MacIntyre), but enter into these arguments with due regard for the faith in God expressed by the contemporary practitioners of Adventism's background traditions. Jewish-Christian relations are fraught with a history of persecution by Christians aimed at erasing Jewish identity. Thus, many Jews take offense at Christians observing their traditions, including Shabbat rituals for keeping the seventh day.

Because we should use our Christian liberty to serve others (Gal 5:13) and not to cause them offense (1 Cor 8:9), I recommend the following limits for non-Jewish Adventists who choose to observe Old Testament festivals: Don't hold public-facing meetings involving extra-biblical Jewish traditions and make it clear to participants that you are observing such events only insofar as they build up faith in Jesus and not attempting to keep them for the sake of the covenant God made with Israel. People who convert to Christianity offer certain of their traditions to other Christians so that all believers can better express faith in Jesus, and so, out of respect for the integrity of Christian and Jewish identity, seek out resources that are offered by Jewish Christians to other Christians for the purpose of building up Christian faith. Just because it is something most Jews do does not necessarily mean it is beneficial for a Seventh-day Adventist to do it.

Regardless of the background tradition involved, these observances require Adventists to interpret or modify these elements of the contemporary expressions of the background traditions in ways that accord with our faith. Where expedient, we can also create new elements that make them more meaningful for our families or communities. This may include moving the dates of observances to coincide with Sabbath, achieve the desired order in the cycle, or align with a minority calendar, like that of the Karaite Jews or Eastern Orthodox Christians.

Even for those who had to keep feasts and festivals, God clarified making adjustments based on circumstances and limitations was preferable to not receiving the benefit of them at all (Num 9:10–11). These observances have benefited me spiritually whether I, my family, or my small group did a lot or a little. Do not let others judge which, if any, annual observances are beneficial to you, nor how maximally or minimally you observe them (Col 2:16).