How To Handle New and Strange Teachings

Sabbath School With Branch Davidians

In Acts chapter 2, we see that Peter was speaking to a Jewish audience that had come from far and wide to celebrate Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks. Peter confronted their incorrect beliefs and offered new explanations for what people were seeing and experiencing.

These incorrect beliefs being confronted were the incorrect beliefs of God's denominated people at the time. And these corrections were not coming from the established religious leaders.

It's easy to read Acts 2 and imagine that we would have been the ones accepting these corrections and getting baptized into these new beliefs, but before we jump to that conclusion, let's examine ourselves for a moment. How do we handle new teachings that go against long held beliefs? And do we honestly investigate teachings that do not come from the established religious leaders in the SDA church, God's denominated people of today? Are we like the 3000 who honestly considered Peter's teachings? Or are we like the majority of the Jews, God's denominated people of that day, who rejected these new and strange teachings on the basis that they did not come from the established leadership, or went against long held ideas, or both?

Today we will look into what Ellen White had to say about how to handle what seem to be new and strange teachings that come about in the church.

For more studies on this, please see: "The King of Crises in the Seventh-day Adventist Church," by Trent Wilde, https://www.bdsda.com/the-king-of-crises-in-the-seventh-day-adventist-church-2/

Sabbath School Q4 2023: God's Mission, My Mission - Week 6, "Motivation and Preparation for Mission"

A Branch Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist perspective on the Sabbath School lesson.