Accepting the Word, Part 2

By Andrew McChesney

Eulalia Rashid completed her goal of reading the Bible from cover to cover on the Pacific island of Saipan in three years. Based on what she read, she began to keep the Sabbath and eat a plant-based diet. An alcoholic for 37 years, she told her family that Jesus had taken away her desire to drink.

Image © Pacific Press

But she had colon cancer, a medical diagnosis that was made before she started reading the Bible. Then she came down with painful shingles. The two illnesses caused terrible suffering. But her attention was elsewhere. She did not understand why she felt like she did not really know Jesus even though she had read the entire Bible. She earnestly prayed.

Abruptly, an inexplicable desire overcame her to call the Saipan Seventh-day Adventist Clinic. “I’m sorry, but this is not concerning the clinic,” Eulalia told the person who answered the phone. “I need to talk with someone from church. I’ve read the whole Bible, but I’m still hungry and thirsty.”

A short time later, a young pastor showed up at Eulalia’s door. The two hit it off immediately. Eulalia felt like she had known the pastor her whole life, and they began to study the Bible together. Eulalia asked to get baptized.

About a month before the fall 2019 baptism, Eulalia’s terrible pain suddenly vanished. A doctor had told Eulalia that shingles was untreatable and she would suffer for many months. But now the pain was gone. She touched her stomach and sensed that something else was different. A short time later, the doctor pronounced her cancer-free.

Today, Eulalia is a missionary to her neighbors and family of four children and 13 grandchildren on Saipan. She prays for them as she tends her luscious green garden, which she calls her prayer garden. She gives the fruit of her labors to neighbors. A room in her house has been set aside as a worship place where Adventists and others gather on Sabbath evenings.

Eulalia, 66, has no doubt that the psalmist was correct when he said, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105, NKJV).

“My hope and encouragement to other people is: Follow the Word,” she said. “Jesus is the Word. He is the way to everlasting life.”

This mission story illustrates the following components of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s “I Will Go” strategic plan: Mission Objective No. 1, “To strengthen Seventh-day Adventist institutions in upholding freedom, wholistic health, and hope through Jesus, and restoring in people the image of God” and Spiritual Growth Objective No. 5, “To disciple individuals and families into spirit-filled lives.”

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The post Inside Story: Accepting the Word, Part 2 appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/inside-story-accepting-the-word-part-2/

Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “The Thessalonian Letters,” Pages 255-268; “Called to Reach a Higher Standard,” Pages 319-321, in The Acts of the Apostles.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

“The Romans,” wrote Stephen Cave, “were well aware of the Christians’ belief that they would one day rise bodily from the grave and did everything they could to mock and hinder those hopes. A report of a persecution in Gaul in 177 CE records that the martyrs were first executed, then their corpses left to rot unburied for six days before being burned and the ashes thrown into the river Rhône — ‘Now let us see whether they will rise again,’ the Romans are reported to have said.” — Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012), Pages 104, 105.

This little object lesson in theological skepticism, however dramatic, is beside the point; it proved nothing about the biblical promise of the resurrection. The Power who raised Jesus from the dead can do the same for us as well, regardless of the state of our body. After all, if that same Power created and upholds the entire cosmos, He certainly could translate the living and resurrect the dead.

“‘Even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him’ [1 Thessalonians 4:14], Paul wrote. Many interpret this passage to mean that the sleeping ones will be brought with Christ from heaven; but Paul meant that as Christ was raised from the dead, so God will call the sleeping saints from their graves and take them with Him to heaven. Precious consolation! glorious hope! not only to the church of Thessalonica, but to all Christians wherever they may be.” — Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 259.

Discussion Questions:

<–Thursday

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The post Friday: Further Thought ~ The New Testament Hope first appeared on Sabbath School Net.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/friday-further-thought-new-testament-hope/