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SDA Church in Samoa Sunday Worship a Convenient Compromise? — 6 Comments

  1. The many 7th Day Adventist Churches in Samoa are not keeping the 7th day Sabbath on the day that is now called Sunday, because they are being expedient or afraid of persecution. Like Daniel they are standing up for the Truth, because they love the Lord and want to be obedient to Him.

    The Lord commands we keep the 7th Day holy, so they are doing that even though the Govt. now calls it Sunday.

    On the 1st day of Creation week the Lord created the first 24 hour day. He separated the day from the night. We get 12 hours of night and 12 hours of day in each 24 hr. day. There are 360 degrees in a circle. Divide it in half, it is 180 degrees for each half. That is where the 180 meridian was established by God on the 1st day of the week. It was God ordained! It runs in a straight line from Arctic to Antarctic, through mostly ocean. So to say it is manmade is an error and can be blown out of the water, so to speak.. It is Godmade, therefore we cannot change it. The islands on the left… or west are a day ahead of those on the right ..or east. It is better to obey God rather than man. May God bless His faithful followers who love Him & are keeping the 7th day holy according to His Commandments,

    • Dear Noeline,

      Thank you for your thought-provoking observations.

      Now I’m sure you know that the 180th meridian is where it is because an international conference in 1884 established the Prime Meridian at Greenwich, England. The secular reason had something to do with Great Britain being the greatest naval power of the time.

      Now you seem to be sure that the international agreement established the Prime Meridian exactly where God wanted it. And I’m wondering how you came to that conclusion. Is it perhaps because you have British background and are sure that it’s God’s very own country? 😉
      (Others have argued that a Prime Meridian would have been better placed at Jerusalem or wherever Noah’s ark first landed or wherever the Garden of Eden might have been.)

      I’m sure you also realize that there was never an international agreement on where the date line ought to run, with the decision being left to individual countries. Have you looked at a globe recently to check where the 180th meridian runs, through populated land masses?
      (I’m guessing that it was for this reason — that the 180th runs through land masses — that the choice of where to draw the time zone line that divides one day from another was left up to individual countries.) See The International Meridian Conference.

      Do you really believe it was part of God’s plan that next-door neighbours ought to be not only in different time zones, but also on different days?

      I confess I’m having a bit of a problem with that idea. But I’m willing to look at your evidence that the 180th meridian was established by God as the dividing line between one day and another.

  2. How can it be Sunday for me and Monday for my neighbor who lives across the street when we both see the sun rise and set at the same time. God never intended that there be an international dateline. Why was the dateline for the Samoa people changed on July 4 1892 giving them two Mondays July 4 and July 4. Any 7th day sabbath keeper who went to Samoa after July 4, 1892 and kept the sabbath on Saturday as they met it was in error then because Monday July 4, Monday July 4 was in fact the second day, and third day (as per pre July 4 1892 calendar)and the 7th day would have been Friday and not Saturday, so when the day has been now changed back to pre July 4, 1892, it is taken the days back to what it was then. So 7th day Sabbath Keepers in Samoa today should continue worshiping on Saturday because that is the correct day when calculated from July 3, 1892.
    We will all be in error if we do not go back to the Bible’s teaching of using the Sun and Moon to calculate the days of the week. For the convenience of trade and business man wants a uniformed system and in this way we are not dependent on God. This is the devil’s way of changing time and laws. Dateline or no dateline we will continue to be in error when we ignore the teachings of the bible.
    If the international date line runs in a straight line then it is not true for Samoa nor Alaska.

  3. Phyllis, you ask, “How can it be Sunday for me and Monday for my neighbor who lives across the street when we both see the sun rise and set at the same time?” And your question as well as your concluding paragraph illustrate the problem of using a meridian (straight line) as a dateline. Since this line runs directly through some (not many) inhabited areas, it would literally put neighbours in different days! And that’s why it is left up to individual countries to decide where the dateline should be in relationship to their countries.

    You rightly point out that an “unbroken 7-day cycle” argument inevitably has to point back to Saturday being the seventh day of the week, just as it was before 1892.

    However, if God “God never intended that there be an international dateline,” He would not have made the world round! On a round world, it is necessary to designate a place where the day begins. Please take a look at this great Youtube video. “How the International Date Line Works” that illustrates why a dateline is necessary on a round world. Also see the Wikipedia article, “International Date Line.

    The dateline could be any place on the planet, but a line running through the Pacific Ocean is the most “natural” choice — partly because it avoids most populated areas and partly because that great ocean was a natural barrier between migrating people who brought their own time keeping with them. It also makes sense that this line should make jogs around inhabited areas, and that’s exactly what it does.

  4. For those of us who have experienced crossing the date line, I think this matter should be a bit easier to understand. For the rest, I can only ask you to use your imagination. If you were to travel to some place on the other side of the IDL from your birth, would you keep a day other than Saturday as “your” Sabbath?

    In fact, my wife and I got together by one of us having crossed the date line. As it turns out, I had crossed the IDL from my birthplace in North America, and was living in Korea. My wife’s birth had taken place over there, in Malaysia. A couple of years after we were married, we crossed the IDL together to our present location, near where I was born.

    Had we been so strict about keeping our individual “unbroken 7-day cycles,” my Sabbath in Asia would have been Sunday, while my wife’s Sabbath would have been Saturday, since she was born there. Here in Canada, my Sabbath is Saturday, but my wife’s would have to be Friday in order to keep her 7-day cycle unbroken. The only way the two of us could worship together, on the same day, would be for one of us to travel around the world alone. My wife could travel westward, back across the IDL, to where her Sabbath would be Saturday, and then continue around the world, across Asia, Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, and North America — back to British Columbia again. Then our two Sabbaths would be the same. On visits back to Malaysia, we’d have to travel the long way around the world in order to worship on Saturday with my wife’s family.

    “That’s ridiculous!” someone might object, “Every person can’t have his or her own individual Sabbath. There’s only one Sabbath for everyone.”

    Exactly! The same goes for individual countries or island groups. Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, and Wallis/Futuna can’t have one Sabbath, while American Samoa, New Zealand, and the rest of the world have another. There is only one Sabbath for everyone, and that is the 7th day, known in English as Saturday.

    I believe the correct solution is simple and obvious, once we accept that there exists no “natural” date line. There is only the IDL formed by the collective decisions of the world’s legitimate civil authorities. Keep the Sabbath whenever the 7th day arrives, wherever you may happen to be, and (as I see it) the problem is solved.

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