Inside Story for Friday 6th of March 2026

Rene Tucaldo is chief financial officer of the 1000 Missionary Movement, whose headquarters in Silang, Philippines, were constructed with the help of a 1996 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering. Read more next week.

Image © Pacific Press

After six months of going to church on Sabbaths, Rene was summoned by his boss. “The other accountant doesn’t work as well as you,” he said. “Can I ask you a favor? Can you work for at least one hour on Saturday?”

Rene remembered he had prayed for two years, “God, if You give me a chance to go to church on Saturday, I will keep the Sabbath holy until I die.”

He shook his head. “I cannot,” he said.

“You have to,” his boss said. “Only one hour. What time is your church?”

“Eight to 12.”

“Then in the afternoon. You can come at one o’clock.”

“But it’s Saturday.”

“It’s OK.”

“It’s not OK with me.”

Rene’s boss looked at him long and hard.

“It’s up to you,” he said, and left.

Six weeks later, the boss gave an ultimatum with a thinly veiled threat. “What’s your final decision?” he asked. “You have to work this coming Saturday. If you don’t, I don’t know what I will do.”

Rene knew he was working in a country hostile to Christianity. People didn’t have the right to exercise their religion. He had heard about people being imprisoned and facing death for their faith.

Back at home, he cried, “Lord, it seems like I have a lot of problems. Do You want me to die here?”

Three days later, Rene went to church on Sabbath. He lived in an apartment located in the same building as his office.

As he left the building, a coworker asked, “Are you not coming in today?”

“I will not come,” Rene replied.

Rene had a company cell phone, and he switched it off. He didn’t want to be tracked when he went to church.

That afternoon, his boss made a surprise visit to the office. He repeatedly called Rene but couldn’t reach him on the phone.

Later, the coworker told Rene, “The boss was like the devil. His eyes were very red, like he wanted to eat you. He might want to send you to prison. Please don’t get us in trouble, too.”

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/26a-10-inside-story-risking-prison-or-death/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=26a-10-inside-story-risking-prison-or-death

Daily Lesson for Friday 6th of March 2026
Further Thought

“As in the days of the apostles men tried by tradition and philosophy to destroy faith in the Scriptures, so today, by the pleasing sentiments of higher criticism, evolution, spiritualism, theosophy, and pantheism, the enemy of righteousness is seeking to lead souls into forbidden paths.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

To many the Bible is as a lamp without oil, because they have turned their minds into channels of speculative belief that bring misunderstanding and confusion. The work of higher criticism, in dissecting, conjecturing, reconstructing, is destroying faith in the Bible as a divine revelation. It is robbing God’s word of power to control, uplift, and inspire human lives. By spiritualism, multitudes are taught to believe that desire is the highest law, that license is liberty, and that man is accountable only to himself.

“The follower of Christ will meet with the ‘enticing words’ against which the apostle warned the Colossian believers. He will meet with spiritualistic interpretations of the Scriptures, but he is not to accept them. His voice is to be heard in clear affirmation of the eternal truths of the Scriptures. Keeping his eyes fixed on Christ, he is to move steadily forward in the path marked out, discarding all ideas that are not in harmony with His teaching. The truth of God is to be the subject for his contemplation and meditation. He is to regard the Bible as the voice of God speaking directly to him. Thus he will find the wisdom which is divine.”—Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, Pages 474, 475.

Discussion Questions

<–Thursday

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/26a-10-further-thought-complete-in-christ/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=26a-10-further-thought-complete-in-christ

Key Thought: By praising sentiments of higher criticism, evolution, spiritualism, theosophy, and pantheism, Satan is leading souls into forbidden paths,
March 7, 2026

1. Have a volunteer read Isaiah 61:3, Matthew 3:10, I Corinthians 3:6.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. How do these verses illustrate the plant metaphor as a symbol of believers?
3. Personal Application: What has been your experience in dying to self to receive Christ? Why is this a continual process? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “When we accept Christ, His Spirit comes to dwell in us. Thus, we are led by the Spirit, so we don’t have to worry about sin or wrongdoing because God dwells in us. We are saved, filled with the Spirit, and free from the curse of the law.” How would you respond to your relative?

2. Have a volunteer read Colossians 2:11-15.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What issues does Paul seem to be combating here?
3. Personal Application: “Are there problems that are brought out that come with the use of these texts? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “The Sabbath, along with all the other commandments were nailed to the cross. We are no longer under the law, but under grace. You Adventists try to get people to keep the old Jewish Sabbath, classify food as clean and unclean, and are legalistic to try to get Christians to follow the Old Testament..” How would you respond to your relative?

3. Have a volunteer read Colossians 2:16,17.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What Jewish – Christian practices are highlighted by Paul?
3. Personal Application: How do we apply this counsel rule to any area of Christian living, including the Sabbath? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “We should be keeping the Passover and other ceremonial laws as well because they are in the Scripture. It’s better than keeping the pagan days of Easter and Christmas.” How would you respond to your friend?

4. Have a volunteer read Colossians 2:20-23.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. How do you understand Paul’s admonitions based on other elements discussed in this chapter?
3. Personal Application: IS our salvation based on what Jesus has done for us, outside of us, in place of us, regardless of what He does in us? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.

(Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared. ”Ministry of Healing, p. 148).

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/10-complete-in-christ-teaching-plan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=10-complete-in-christ-teaching-plan

Daily Lesson for Thursday 5th of March 2026

As in his epistle to the Galatians, Paul characterizes the concern over keeping Jewish ceremonies as “the basic principles of the world” (Colossians 2:8,20, NKJV; compare Galatians 4:3,9). In other words, like the earthly temple, these things belong to the earth, but our citizenship is in heaven. We need not be encumbered with the ceremonial law because it merely foreshadowed the reality that we now enjoy through Christ. That is, even though originally given by God, these ordinances, having served their function, are no longer needed.

Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com

Because all these regulations were done away with at the Cross, as indicated by the divine hand rending the temple veil (Matthew 27:51; compare Daniel 9:27), Christians (including Jewish-Christians) are not subject to these regulations. By submitting to them, we would actually be identifying ourselves with this world, which is passing away, in contrast to the new world promised us in Christ.

After all, we look forward to “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13) and not merely a renovation of this old one.

Besides the fact that Pharisees and scribes had added additional human requirements on top of the Mosaic regulations (see Mark 7:1-13), the perpetuation of Old Testament ceremonies, which had been fulfilled by Christ, could no longer be considered divinely required, but only as humanly imposed duties. Indeed, it seems that they were becoming a burden to faith, as opposed to something that would enhance it. It’s so easy to start to look at doing all these things as not only making oneself superior to those who don’t, which is bad enough, but also perhaps even subtly as somehow being meritorious for salvation, a trap into which we don’t want to step.

Throughout Christian history, Bible experts have succumbed to the temptation to make religious pronouncements, usurping the role of the Holy Spirit in guiding believers as to what the text means. Christ Himself is the fountain from which springs the truth of the Scriptures as taught by Paul and the other Bible writers.

<–Wednesday Friday–>

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/26a-10-commandments-of-men/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=26a-10-commandments-of-men

Join It Is Written Sabbath School host Eric Flickinger and this quarter’s author, Dr. Clinton Wahlen, as they provide additional insights into this week’s Sabbath School lesson,

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/10-complete-in-christ-it-is-written-discussion-with-the-author/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=10-complete-in-christ-it-is-written-discussion-with-the-author