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?