At the Decker Prairie Church of Christ, our differences with Seventh-day Adventists come down to four things. The day we gather, whether any writing after the New Testament carries prophetic authority, what happens to a person after death, and who governs a congregation. We read the same Bible they do, and we confess the same Lord. Five passages carry our side of it, so here they are one at a time.
First, What Adventists Teach, in Their Words
Let a church speak for itself before anybody else speaks for it. The Seventh-day Adventist Church holds a statement of 28 fundamental beliefs. Among them: the fourth commandment still requires observing the seventh-day Sabbath, Friday evening to Saturday evening, as the day of rest and worship. On their account the gift of prophecy showed itself in Ellen G. White’s ministry, whose writings they hold to speak with prophetic authority, while the Bible remains the standard by which all teaching is tested. They hold as well that Christ ministers now in the Most Holy Place of a heavenly sanctuary, and that the soul is not immortal by nature, which leaves the dead unconscious.
They immerse believing adults rather than sprinkle infants. That’s real common ground, and we’d rather begin there than end there.
Acts 20:7, the Day We Gather
Here’s why our building fills up on Sunday morning: “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight” ().
Breaking bread there most likely refers to the Lord’s Supper, and Paul asked the Corinthians to set money aside on that same day (). We didn’t move the Sabbath. We assemble on the day the first Christians assembled, for the reason they did.
Colossians 2:16-17, Why We Bind It on No One
We also won’t make a rule out of this for anybody, and we don’t think less of a believer who rests on Saturday. Paul settled that: “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” ().
A shadow is cast by something solid. We’d rather have the substance. That being said, the concept of “sabbath” can remain a beneficial practice for spiritual growth for those who use it. Setting aside a day of rest can be a blessing. Yet it is not a commandment of Jesus for his new covenant people. Therefore, we do not bind this practice.
Hebrews 8:13, the Two Covenants
Under the calendar question sits a larger one, and this verse is where we settle it: “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” ().
So we don’t sort the commands given at Sinai into some that still bind us and some that don’t. We study the Old Testament regularly in our classes, because it was written for our instruction (). We just don’t live under its law. Adventists read this same chapter and reach a different conclusion about the Sabbath, holding it to be an ordinance from creation and older than Moses. On that point the two readings divide, and it is visible in the text.
Jude 3, Whether Anything Came After the Apostles
This is the deepest difference we have with them, and it decides the rest: “Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” ().
Once for all. So we receive no writing after the New Testament as prophetic or binding here, and no book that tells us what a passage has to mean. Adventists are careful to say Ellen White’s writings don’t replace Scripture, and we take them at their word. They do treat them as prophetic counsel to the church. That category doesn’t exist here. Where the authority differs, the conclusions differ, however carefully each side reads.
A limit on all of this. Our congregation is autonomous. There’s no headquarters above us, no denominational office, no board of any kind, so what you’re reading is what’s taught here and nothing more. We can’t answer for every church wearing the name. We won’t try.
Matthew 25:46, What Jesus Said About the Judgment
On Adventist teaching the dead are unconscious until the resurrection, and the lost are destroyed rather than punished without end. We teach what Jesus said about the outcome of the judgment, and we stop where He stopped: “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” ().
One word covers both destinations in that sentence. We don’t go past it, and we can’t get around it.
How Our Congregation Is Organized
The Adventist Church has a worldwide General Conference, with layers of organization standing above the local church. We have nothing like that. Our elders oversee this congregation and no other (; ; ). Nobody sends us a program.
Our worship follows the New Testament pattern. We sing without instruments, we pray, we observe the Lord’s Supper every first day of the week, the preaching comes out of the text, and a collection is taken (; ; ; ). Baptism here is the immersion of a believer for the forgiveness of sins, the point at which a person enters Christ (; ; ). These practices are all clearly found within the New Testament, which gives us confidence that God is pleased by such worship.
Keep Studying, With Us If You Like
There are 260 to 270 of us out on Hardin Store Road in Magnolia, about half a mile east of FM 249. Ordinary people who found real purpose in serving God and each other rather than in keeping a scorecard. If you’d like to open Acts 20, Colossians 2, Hebrews 8, and Jude with our preacher Brent Moody he, or any of our members, would be glad to sit down with you. You can also hear more of what we teach at deckerprairiechurch.com/sermons before you ever walk in.
Plan your visit and we’ll save you a seat.
To read what the Bible says about becoming a Christian, start here.
When we meet:
- Sunday: Worship 10am, Bible Class 5pm
- Wednesday: Bible Class 7:30 pm
