Inside Story for Friday 21st of February 2025

By Andrew McChesney

As a boy, Nelson was too young to go to rumba in Colombia. But he sensed something was wrong when his parents took him to church on December 31 and then left him at home so they could celebrate New Year’s Eve at rumba, a traditional party with music, dancing, and drinking.

Image © Pacific Press

In Nelson’s culture, Christians went to church to consecrate themselves to God before New Year’s Eve and then went to rumba to ring in the New Year. Although he was young, Nelson sensed that church was a holy place and that rumba, which was usually held in bars and nightclubs, was not holy. He wondered, “Why does my family go to church to get sanctified and then go to rumba to get unsanctified?”

Nelson asked his mother, “Why do you go to church and then to rumba?”

She didn’t answer.

As a young man, Nelson stopped going to church and began to play vallenato folk music at rumba. He was an excellent accordion player, and he made strides toward fulfilling a dream to become rich and famous.

Then he met his future wife, Laura, a former Seventh-day Adventist.

“Did you know that the dead are not in heaven?” she asked.

Nelson didn’t like Laura’s ideas, but he liked her. So, they stayed together.

After some time, Laura returned to the Adventist Church, and she invited Nelson to meet her parents. At their first meeting, her father surprised Nelson when they sat down to eat. “Let’s pray for the food,” he said. Nelson had never prayed before meals.

Nelson and Laura’s father became friends. Before long, Nelson started to pray at meals. He also began to go to church with Laura. He didn’t enjoy it at first because it seemed strange to go to church on Saturdays. But then he read the fourth commandment in Exodus 20:8-10 and realized that God commanded people to keep the seventh day holy. He wanted to be holy.

Today, Nelson Silva, 30, is an Adventist musician who no longer plays the accordion at rumba. Instead, he plays in restaurants and at birthday parties. He tells listeners about God’s mercy and prays for them. He and a group of church musicians also play on public buses.

“Music made me shine in the world, but now I want to shine for Christ,” he said.

Pray for the gospel to be proclaimed to all cultures and people groups around the world. Thank you for your mission offerings that help share the gospel with unreached and underreached people groups. Watch a YouTube video of Nelson playing the accordion at bit.ly/Nelson-Silva.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-08-inside-story-from-rumba-to-church/

Daily Lesson for Friday 21st of February 2025

Read Ellen G. White, “ ‘God With Us,’ ” Pages 19–26, in The Desire of Ages.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

“The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of ‘the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal.’ Romans 16:25, R. V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God’s throne. From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency. So great was His love for the world, that He covenanted to give His only-begotten Son, ‘that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ John 3:16.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 22.

Discussion Questions

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-08-further-thought-free-will-love-and-divine-providence/