
Robert Vincent
For most of my life I have said that if anybody wants to argue the Sabbath with an Adventist they really should do it on the basis of the dateline, not on the Bible. 1After all, Sabbath is the day between Friday and Sunday according to all four gospels. Now we have a disagreement between ourselves as to which day is the true Sabbath of the Bible, not because of any new or present truth but because of the international dateline, and between Seventh-day Adventists in the same country!
I first found out about this on Friday, 30 December, 2011, as our family was returning from my brother-in-law’s funeral in Palmerston North, en route to Tui Ridge for Camp Meeting, when we stopped for fuel at Turangi. My daughter bought a copy of the NZ Herald, our largest daily paper, which she began to read as we resumed our journey. It wasn’t long before she gave me the paper which had the headline, “Pacific Nation Does The Time Warp Again.” In short, it explained that Samoa was going to “skip a day, tomorrow, to align its dates with New Zealand.” The paper reported the concerns of the only objector, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, whose “leaders in Samoa have declared they will continue to observe their holy day on what would have been Saturday – therefore observing Sabbath on Sundays from now on. But in the village of Samatau, church members say they will not be following the rule and will worshipping [sic] on the new Saturday.”
Sitting beside me in the car were my daughter and youngest son, both of whom stopped attending church many years ago. My daughter pointed out the article to me and seemed to relish the dilemma that the church has found itself in.
The news item was a shock to me. However, I was well aware of the dateline issue, since my son had shared it with me nearly twenty years ago when he was a student at Longburn College. There he learned that Seventh-day Adventists in Tonga attended church on Sunday because of a previous dateline consideration. He had accepted that they knew what they were doing, and so had I – until now.
When we arrived at Tui Ridge, I pursued the matter with Pastor Eddie Tupai, who had a camp meeting to run, but he informed me that worship on Sunday was the recommendation from the South Pacific Division. I was absolutely amazed and said, “I thought we were to call people out of confusion, not lead them into it!” He supplied me with some documents to read on the subject and my disappointment grew.
I involved my friend, John Wallace, who also had the newspaper and was able to download the discussion documents. We worked to try to get a response written by the end of Camp but were unable to, even though the correct course of action was so obvious to us. How to explain it was another matter, but we have had valuable insights since and are thankful to God for the Sabbath School Lesson, Glimpses of our God.
We both have been brought up in the church and the church is our life, so how could all of our understandings on SDA uniqueness and mission, judgment and grace, be swept aside and ignored in mistaken legalistic zeal to protect an “unbroken seven-day cycle” of time for Sabbath keeping, as has occurred in Samoa? As Jesus said, we have strained a gnat only to swallow a camel. Maybe it has served a purpose, since the problem has been in Tonga for a long time and needs to be resolved.
Robert Vincent
Dargaville, NZ
Ph +64 9 439 7946
5 February 2012
John Wallace
Whangarei, NZ
Ph +64 21 125 5064
5 February 2012
- Note that this essay was originally written in January 2011 ↩
Praise God for He is not a God of confusion but of Order. I appreciate and like the article written by Robert Vincent and John Wallace regarding the situation in Samoa. May the Holy Spirit continue to lead and encourage His people in Samoa and other parts of the world to consider seriously the 7th day Sabbath. God is God! A righteous man will be remembered. He will have no fears of bad news. His heart is steadfast trusting in the Lord. His heart is secure. He will have no fear. In the end he will look in triumph on his foes. Psalms 112v6-8. To the Samatau Sabbath Keepers and people of Samoa, look unto God not the South Pacific Division, for in God you will find Triumph. God’s blessings
It is coming up to three years since Samoa realigned the IDL. Still there are 300 faithful Seventh-day Adventists living there who refuse to keep Sunday with the official SDA Church. They are heroes who will be proven right one day. They faithfully keep the Sabbath although they have been abandoned by the Church they love. Some of us think about them every day. We continue to hope and pray that the Samoas-Tokelau Mission will have the courage to return to keeping Sabbath on Saturday like the rest of the SDA Church. Please pray with us!
i don’t understand which way your article is stated.
Do they worship on Sunday according to their new calendar for their
Sabbath?
or
Do they accept the new calendar Saturday for Sabbath?
The majority of Adventists in Samoa worship on Sunday according to their new local calendar. A small group continue to worship on Saturday, the seventh day of the local calendar.
The calendar isn’t new. Its the same calendar as before. The suggestion by SPD leaders that the calendar was changed is misleading. Check for youself: Before the change to the dateline the 1st of January 2012 would have been Sunday. After the change the 1st of January was Sunday. No change to the calendar. The SDA Church leaders have created their own calendar to fit their error.
I do not understand how the South Pacific Division can condone Sunday worship! No matter where we are, the Sabbath is the day between Friday and Sunday- Sabbath/Saturday.
Those many who were baptized as Sunday worshippers have been led astray by the church and I see it as wrong. How sad it is for such a beautiful race of people like the Samoans .
Interesting that our fundamental statement on the Sabbath doesn’t say which day it is. Our Church tried to bring that to the GC Session in San Antonio for a rewording to make it clear -“sunset Friday to sunset Saturday.” But it was blocked by our Union after being supported by our Conference!
Well, It’s five years to the day when Samoa skipped a day and the Adventist Church went into confusion. The faithful few still remain loyal to the Church which has marginalised them, and the STM & SPD still defend the decision to keep Sunday.
What do we need for action?
Publicity or prayer?