Building on the Foundation

  A few days ago, I came across an article entitled “The First Wave-Sheaf Offering” in the United Church of God newspaper, the United News . Or rather, it was brought to my attention. You can find this article on pp. 6-7 of the latest issue, the May-June 2025 issue. The article begins by analyzing Joshua 5 and asserts that Israel offered a wave sheaf on “the day after the Passover” (Josh. 5:11) before eating the produce of the land — an assertion I agree with. It then continues, based on this passage, to try to establish when we should begin our count to Pentecost. But unfortunately, the article makes several inaccurate and unproven claims, some of which beg for a response. Now, the purpose here isn’t to examine the article as a whole or even to prove when we ought to keep Pentecost, but merely to address two or three specific claims. Let’s give our attention in particular to the section “Timing of the Offering.” Here in this section, we read, It helps to more directly consider the...

  Do you, as a Christian, consider God to be the ultimate authority? Do you consider the Bible to be His written Word and therefore, likewise, the ultimate authority? Does your church? Does your church base all its doctrines, to the best of its knowledge, on God’s Word? Or does it instead follow the traditions of men? Worse yet, does it follow pagan traditions masquerading as Christian ones? God’s Word says, “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it” (Deut. 12:32). Jesus Christ spoke to the religious leaders of His day, quoting Isaiah the prophet, “In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Mat. 15:9). Has very much changed from that day to this? Given the differing doctrines and the many disagreements among the churches out there in this world, it logically follows that they can’t all be right. Most of them must be “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” This shouldn’t surprise anyone, fo...