Gods Sabbath

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E NTERING INTO G OD ’ S S ABBATH R EST

instructions, obey them alone. That is what he should have done, but did not do. Instead, in his desire for harmony, he de cided to accept their suggestion. “The next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them.” Acts 21:26. The performance of the vow in the temple was not in itself a great and significant act, but its implications were. By this act Paul gave a testimony that the ceremonial law was still binding, thereby contradicting the witness that God had given at the great council at Jerusalem. It is illuminating to look at biblical stories from various as pects. When viewed from the angle of the Sabbath rest princi ples, we can see that Paul had a problem. This is summed up in the following paragraph: “Many of the Jews who had accepted the gospel still cherished a regard for the ceremonial law and were only too willing to make unwise concessions, hoping thus to gain the confidence of their countrymen, to remove their prejudice, and to win them to faith in Christ as the world’s Redeemer. Paul realized that so long as many of the leading members of the church at Jerusal em should continue to cherish prejudice against him, they would work constantly to counteract his influence. He felt that if by any reasonable concession he could win them to the truth he would remove a great obstacle to the success of the gospel in oth er places. But he was not authorized of God to concede as much as they asked.” The Acts of the Apostles , 405.1. Whenever God sends a message through His chosen messenger, there are those who accept it to a point, but who are slow to follow all the way. Old prejudices still battle for the mastery and some, in their unwillingness to surrender the past, strive to marry the new and the old. Inevitably, this leads them to compromise present truth to avoid offending the church members of the old churches from whom they have become separated yet still desire to win. Paul’s Compromise