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Commentary on "Confidence in the Prophetic Gift"
Day 5: Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The lesson states: “ ‘Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets’” (Matt. 23:28-31)
What do Jesus’ words have to say about the attitude that many have had towards the prophets? What lesson can we draw from these words for ourselves?
The scribes and the Pharisees pretended to honor the OT prophets by building and/or repairing their tombs and putting wreaths on their monuments. In memorial speeches, they said they would not have joined their ancestors in killing the prophets. …they admitted that their fathers, of whom they were physical sons, shed the blood of the prophets. But Jesus used the word sons in the sense of meaning people with the same characteristics. He knew that even as they were decorating the prophets’ graves, they were plotting His death. Second, in showing such respect for the dead prophets, they were plotting His death. William McDonald, Believers Bible Commentary, pp.1290-1291.
Summary
The lesson asks: “What is your own attitude about the writings of Ellen White? Why do you hold them? Think through your reasons for those attitudes. Are you open to change, if need be?”
- Everyone needs to answer these questions after thorough and objective research like their eternal soul depends on it…because it does.
- Wouldn’t these be the same questions that we would ask a Mormon concerning Joseph Smith or a Jehovah Witness concerning his Watchtower organization - hoping that they would be thorough and objective? We should expect the same of ourselves.
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