The morning Manna
will be provided at 6am. Thanks.
Studying Ephesians in
the SSnet.org series Lesson 6, may the Holy Spirit be the speaker to your
heart.
The Topic today
is: “Was the Old Testament Jewish Particularism or God’s Universalism for
Morning Manna of the Sabbath School Lesson Ephesians”.
The Opening Hymn
will be 229 "Spirit of the Living God."
The Sabbath School
Quarterly, downloadable from SSnet.org in the Teacher's Edition is on page 72.
The SSnet.org site
allows anyone, anywhere to read the lesson in their own language. Choose your
own language to see God speaking also to your heart.
Why do you not
click on this now?
https://www.adultbiblestudyguide.org/pdf.php?file=2023:3Q:SE:PDFs:EAQ323_06.pdf
---Or
try in alternative this one: https://ssnet.org/lessons/23c/less06.html
---One of the
thorniest issues to explain is one that Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul, Luke and
others as well as Ellen White properly understood: “Through
Israel it was God’s [purpose] to impart rich blessings to all people. Through
them the way was to be prepared for the diffusion of light to the whole world.
The nations of the world, through following corrupt practices, had lost the
knowledge of God. Yet in His mercy, God did not blot them out of existence. He
purposed to give them the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with
Himself. He designed that the principles revealed through His people should be
the means of restoring in men the moral image of God. What a work is before us,
and how few comprehend this work!” 22LtMs,
Lt 361, 1907, par. 6 ---I do not
think I have seen this approach in any Reformed Protestant or Catholic
literature ancient or recent. The role of Israel as a light to the nations in
the Old Testament. ---All through
Ellen White’s books, it is a thread saying that salvation was not just for the
Hebrews. It was to be Hebrews to the nations. ---So where does
the exclusivity come from? ---Pockets of
evil treatment or reaction to evil nations attacking the remnant of God or the
faithful in the remnant of God who is His focus, are scooped up and used by
earthly powers in the Hebrew nation of the Old Testament as ratio dicidendi for exclusivity,
particularism, by Judaism. ---What is
Judaism? Judaism is not the same as the Hebrew Revelation of God in the Old
Testament. It is an attempt to interpret it and made the interpretation dogma
which is setting up a system of worship style and fashion that follows strictly
the dogma and not the Hebrew Revelation of God. ---It is the
same in Protestantism (Luther said, Calvin said, Wesley said…therefore I will
follow Luther or Calvin or Wesley even though they did not follow Exodus 20 to
have their Sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday). ---Dogmatism and
people personality worship rather than God worship in His Hebrew Revelation. ---Rabbi so and
so said that Rabbi so and so said and that is why I do what I do. ---Dogmatism of
the interpretation by a Rabbi of the Hebrew Revelation of God rather than
following self by own reading by own interpretation directly the Hebrew
Revelation of God. ---Therefore the
New Testament Gentiles were treated the way they were. ---But there is
a certain thread of wisdom in this. Psalm 1:1-2 says that one should not sit in
the ring of the sinners, or evil or for short, pagans or Gentiles who are
pagans. ---But what
about Gentiles that are faithful? Psalm 18 of the faithful Canaanite (Charles
Fensham’s interpretation of it). ---Or what about
the Gentile Faithful Ruth the Moabite? ---“God-fearers”
they are termed. ---Hans K.
LaRondelle in his book Perfection
summarized the principle of the Bible the best I have heard on this topic: “The
perfection imperative presupposes the redemptive indicative” (page 162). ---This is in
the Old and New Testament. ---When Paul
then in Ephesians is talking about the Gentiles that were not permitted to
worship, it is the selfmade rules of Judaism taking pockets of texts of the Old
Testament as ratio dicidendi for
their behavior but which Christ re-interpreted with His own Word, that Word
being the very Hebrew Old Testament that they were using. Nice. Correct?