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Friday: Further Thought – The Burning Bush — 1 Comment

  1. In our Sabbath School lesson studies we often take the stance that the lessons are primarily intended for our own spiritual growth, That is quite reasonable and I often ask myself the question what can I learn from this study. But, I think that sometimes look at the lessons collectively and ask the question, “What can the chuch organisation learn from these lessons?”

    I would like to make two points:

    • Within the book of Exodus, there is a big lesson about leadership and organisation.
    • The Seventh-day Adventist Church is this very week holding a General Conference Session, which is really about the business of organisation and leadership of the church.

    It is probably a good time to think about linking these two ideas.
    Exodus is not a book of rules on how to run a spiritually directed organisation, but rather a case study. The people are not perfect, and nor are their leaders. The story includes grumbling, dietary complaints, internal disagreements, schisms, tempers lost, and frustrations vented. And, looking over the history of Seventh-day Adventist organisation and management, I see much the same.

    If we think that we can learn to be a perfect church by looking at the Exodus, we may have perhaps missed the purpose of the book. In one sense, the book is prophetic: The modern church is not very different.

    Keeping one's faith in an imperfect church with imperfect leadership is difficult. I know that many of you will respond that the only way to survive is to look at Jesus rather than one another. I have heard that admonition all my life. But how do I put that into practice when I am interacting with real, imperfect people like me?

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