Escaping Armstrongism - part II

A few weeks ago, I asked how we could help you, our esteemed readers. The answer I got is, people want to know more about what it is like to exit. Having done that once, I believe I can oblige.

This request turns out to be more complicated than I anticipated. There are so many variables. What is the best way to approach things? I decided to approach it in more than one way. In my last post, I started this effort by telling the story of how I left. My hope is that someone will find hidden in there some nugget of help; something to relate to.

This time, I am going to tell the story of how life went after I left.

OUTSET

It was late summer 2008. It had been a highly traumatic roller coaster of a year. I had just exited Armstrongism after three decades. The exit process took 6 years, starting in 2002. My life was upside down and backward. My beloved prophecy was gone, the bedrock of doctrine was gone, the Apostle himself was gone, and even the weekly Sabbath was gone - all victims of what would become what I like to jokingly refer to as "the patented As Bereans Did gauntlet". By this, I mean a whole new process of studying to allow the truth to be what it is - where we take as neutral an approach as possible, weighing all the evidence to see what holds up and what gets destroyed in the process. The cons far outweighed the pros for those items. They had to go.

I was afraid and excited at the same time. Everything seemed to be in extremes. Both north and south, but with no equator. I was blogging to try to make sense of it all. The world was filled with options, but I didn't know which way to go. It was like being in a large and energetic city ...watching your ride drive off and leave you there.

The only thing I was still sure about was Jesus and the paganism inherent in mainstream Christianity.
Rather, the only thing I was consciously aware I was still sure about was Jesus and the paganism inherent in mainstream Christianity. I had been in Armstrongism for so long, I didn't realize there was more baggage.

When you exit, you don't leave everything behind. I would guess you don't even leave half of everything behind. You might think you have, but it's hiding inside you. It's invisible until we run into situations that make us aware. That isn't necessarily bad, but it can be. I wrote a post called "How To Move Forward" where I write about the dangers. 

Learning about myself would be a recurring theme for the next several years of my life.

HALFWAY HOUSE

I was clearly going to need a new church. It was going to have to be something without all those unsightly pagan elements. It was going to have to be less authoritarian and not at all personality-centered. No more "God's appointed Apostle on earth" stuff. Catholicism was right out. Pentecostals? No way was I speaking in tongues. Out! Apostolic is basically the same as Pentecostal. Out. JW's was 100% out. Seventh Day Adventism seemed too personality-centered with their founder, so out. Not on your life was I about to go with some fringe Sacred Names cult, either. Totally the wrong direction. OUT! I needed to rethink this entire thing.

What I needed was something like Armstrongism, but not at all like Armstrongism. A place to avoid culture shock and buy some time while I wrapped my head around mainstream Christianity. A step-down detox. The only choice left in my area was the Church of God (Seventh Day). About whom I knew next to nothing save they kept the Sabbath and fired Herbert Armstrong.

I made a call to the local COG7 Minister. I was invited to attend the very next Sabbath. There was no interview, no home visit, no background check, no need to read material first, no correspondence course, none of that. Just show up and ...

... I honestly didn't know what.

The realization hit me. I had been doing 3 songs, opening prayer, sermonette, song, sermon, song, closing prayer, pot luck for so long, it had just become secondhand nature. I took it completely for granted until this situation made me aware.

What do other churches do? Is there going to be a sermon? Will there be a pot luck? Will there be a sacrifice and golden calf? Will there be singing?
Oh no! Singing!!
I didn't know anyone else's songs! You want to feel like a stranger and an outsider in a church, try not knowing their songs. And nobody there knew "Blessed And Happy Is The Man".

You see where this is going? I will spare you the details about every time this happened. Let's just say my first service was very uncomfortable.
And then came the sermon.

It started out mild enough. Familiar language with familiar Biblical principals about goodness and virtue. I started hearing a word I wasn't accustomed to: Jesus. For some unknowable reason, we in Armstrongism always call Him "Christ" or sometimes "Jesus Christ". You will rarely ever hear Him called just "Jesus". Yet, there was that name. Do you know what that Minister said next? (Of course you don't, I haven't told you yet.) He said it didn't matter to the COG7 what denomination people went to, they are our brothers in Christ if they have faith in Jesus. Then he said we just need to share our faith in Jesus with everyone.
The what? So, I'm not supposed to condemn people who think differently than me? I'm in a church that is nice to other churches? Share my faith? Does not compute! (More hidden baggage.)
Then he said, "Jesus Christ is the most amazing gift you could possibly receive. How could you keep such a gift to yourself? Share that gift with others. Share Christ!"

And that, my dear reader, was the first time in my entire life I recall hearing the Gospel. I had to go to the COG7, to the Sardis church of all places, to hear the Gospel.

That joy cranked up to 11. I felt it crashing like waves. I had to fight to maintain my composure because I was about to start crying like a baby right there in front of these people and my kids and the heavenly host and everyone. (There is a little dust in my eye right now just thinking about it.) I really could have that direct relationship with Jesus, just as my friend said. Jesus was trying to love me. If only I would let Him. He was trying to give a relationship to me. All I had to do was accept it. I had been too busy trying to earn it all this time. How could this have been there all along?

I spoke to the Minister later that week and told him how his words affected me. He was happy to help. We talked about my past and about the differences between the COG7 and Armstrongism. It was nice.

Piece by piece, the New Covenant in the finished work of Jesus Christ was coming in and it was pushing out the deprecated Old Covenant that never applied to Gentiles in the first place.
Yeah, it was going to be a hard day when I left this place. I only wanted a halfway house until I could acclimate to being on the outside. If it wasn't for those remnants of the Old Covenant they kept, I would just stay put.

INSERT PURPOSE HERE

I found myself at somewhat of a crossroads. I had a blog, I had an inexhaustible topic, and I had a choice. What should I do with it?

I was blogging to make sense of everything I had been through. That started to change into blogging about the flaws of the old system. I put up posts about prophetic failures, and I had in my pocket several posts about tithing and meats so those started going up too. Then there were the posts about Ron Weinland. It was the heyday of the latest prophet in all of history. I knew Weinland, you see. He performed my wedding. He once made the congregation take a written test. He allowed people to stay or kicked them out based on the answers. He had pre-printed letters ready to go for the people he expected to evict. I was one of two men passing them out, so I handed mine to myself. I was out. He was trying to gain sole control of the church's money. He needed to get the church corporation to vote him that control, so he was rigging it to where only loyalists would be there to vote. He called me later to tell me he made a mistake and I was back in. Oh, thank you, m'Lord! Thank you! I knew what a snake he really is. He wasn't fooling me at all. I had so much material to work with!

Was that really what I wanted to do? Write blog posts about former Armstrong things? There were quite a few other former Armstrongist blogs already. Aside from the ones I mentioned in my last post, there was Seeker's blog, James Pate's blog, Red Fox's blog, Felix's blogs, Mike DDTFA's site, Purple Hymnal's many sites, just to name a few. All of them were speaking out. Most of these blogs worked together. Felix even gave me the broken chain icon I still use. And it was nice to see regular commentors on the blog, like Third Witness, Henrik Blunck, Biker Bob, Bill Hohmann, Corky, and Doug Becker, among others. Perhaps this was a new community for me to join? That would be nice. I could use a community of people who understand what I went through. Maybe even understand what I was about to go through.
But what kind of blog would I have? There were blogs that focused on one thing, blogs that focused on many things, blogs that were light, blogs that were deep, blogs from people who were in Pasadena and saw how the sausage was made, blogs from people who had never been to Pasadena in their lives, blogs from atheists, blogs from Christians, and even a blog from a Marxist. All formers. All working in their niche.

I kept up on my studies on topics of interest. It wasn't hard to find things to study. Topics practically walked up to me and introduced themselves. Every day there was some new discovery. I was reading books like "Sabbath in Christ" by Dale Ratzlaff, God rest his soul, and "Difficult Scriptures" by David Albert. Clearly, I wasn't by any means the only one to see what I was seeing. Every time I opened my Bible study software, I would notice new things. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was that the entire book of Galatians, which I had read for decades, was surgically removed from every Bible on earth and replaced by an entirely different book. It was called Galatians, sure enough, but it was filled with this stuff about grace. It wasn't law-centered at all. In fact, it's against legalism. I suppose that's why we only read a couple verses at a time back in the old church.

We were woefully prepared by our Church of God teachers. "Poorly catechized" is how Catholics would say it. We were told precisely what to think, but never how to think, or how to study, or what good source material is versus bad. (That was by design.) I remember abusing Strong's Concordance to get my will out of the Bible. You open it, find your target word, pick the best fit from the list of options to achieve the desired result, then off you go to demonstrate how the Bible translators were wrong. I am sorry, dear reader, that is not how Strong's or the Bible or even how language itself works. Translators might not always agree with one another, but Hebrew and Greek are particularly structured languages. It only works in certain ways. Strong's has instructions right at the front. We ignored them. I for one never even read the instructions until this point. We only wanted what we wanted, so proof-texting and cherry-picking was a way of life. I needed to exorcise that demon. Why not help others to do the same! 

I saw my niche. Someone needed to investigate the doctrines of the system, from a Christ-centered perspective. Investigate them, verify them, expose them if necessary. Showing my work step by step. I would help people by giving them access to different perspectives about the doctrines themselves, apart from the personalities. If Herbert Armstrong had only known how to study, per chance none of this would have ever happened in the first place. Oh, I might kneecap Weinland from time to time, or Meredith, or Flurry (they deserved it) but it wouldn't be about that. I wouldn't rely on the low road of Herbert Armstrong's personal failings. I would take the harder path of doctrine because I knew it could be done. Ratzlaff and Albert had proved it.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I admit I did wonder what the people in my old congregation would think. I could tell one or two of them were visiting the blog. I didn't want them to hate me. I was already called a deceiver by one of my best friends (the guy from the truck incident). That didn't feel very good. It's nothing at all to brush off when some stranger shows up and starts running their mouth off because they have nothing of value to contribute. But these people were like family. Well, they used to be. I hadn't heard a single word from most of them in months. They didn't call. They didn't email. They didn't send a hello through an intermediary. I talked to one of them every day because I worked with him. They could have sent a message through him, but they didn't. I made certain to send email from time to time to my one friend who knew what I was up to at Pentecost. Otherwise, nothing.

When you leave a legalist church, you get marked. All communication stops. It isn't some gradual losing touch, it's fairly immediate. Jarring. Only the people who don't yet know what happened will still communicate, and only until they find out what happened. Then they call you a deceiver and never talk to you again. Even when you message them your condolences on the death of their wife, they still won't respond. It's quite devastating to some people where the church constitutes their entire social order. I knew a guy who got marked and couldn't find a character reference for his resume.

Not me, though. I had a family outside the church, a blog, a job, and a new church. I was going to be ok. Was I marked? Probably not officially. I was in a kinder, gentler group - but none the less legalist. Well, we would have only drifted apart anyway.

Could I blame them? If they left and I stayed, I wouldn't accept their new ideas. How could I expect them to accept mine? Especially now that I was actively disassembling theirs! I understood and accepted their distance. I hoped using the name xHWA would help obfuscate things and protect us from each other. Plus, I tried not to write anything that would give it away (in a way, I'm still doing that right now). 

I'LL GET TO THAT LATER

Certain topics were too much for me to bear, and worst of them all was (ugh!) holidays. The shadow of days loomed large on my mind as the year drew on. I still wanted to hate them.

The COG7 does not keep annual holy days. They don't see them as being directly tied to the Ten Commandments at all, and therefore were a novel introduction by Herbert Armstrong. It was one of the many reasons he was fired. No holy days? No starving at Atonement? No unleavened bread (I'm still eating bread of affliction, though). No second tithe for Tabernacles, at the place where the Lord places His name down the road from the go kart track? I was onboard with that!
Yet, they don't observe holidays either. How odd. No special days at all. Sounded .. bland.

Halloween came around again. It had been my tradition that, annually, when October 31st at 5:50 PM arrived, I would turn all the lights off and head to the grocery store to shop slowly for an hour and a half. I wasn't ready for all that trick or treating. I had not studied Halloween at all. It was too soon. Too Samhain-ey. Too much else going on. And clearly, I was still terrified from the years of indoctrination. I didn't realize it, but I brought with me from Armstrongism the notion of "once pagan always pagan". In a word - fear. I brought fear with me. (More baggage.) That's what going to the store on Halloween is, you see. It's fear. And I had a bad case of it.
Maybe some other time, guys. I need some canned goods.

Seemed like a proper time to dig up my copy of Ralph Woodrow's book. I never finished reading it from earlier. Time to change that.

Ralph Woodrow was a hero of sorts to us Armstrongists. To know Ralph Woodrow, you need to know Alexander Hislop. Herbert Armstrong and his lackeys, like Herman Hoeh, relied heavily on the work of Alexander Hislop. If there was a saint outside of the system, it was Hislop. His word was taken for truth. Ralph Woodrow wrote his own book supporting everything Hislop said. That earned Woodrow the status of a venerable sub-saint. Not a demi-god, exactly. More like a "hero of old" status, like Hercules. He was not a Hislop, but he was quite highly respected. Well, Woodrow had since recanted everything he ever wrote in support of Hislop. He wrote a new book called "The Babylon Connection", pointing out quite clearly the extraordinary level of nonsense that was Hislop's "The Two Babylons". Hislop's material was industrial strength, weapons grade, laboratory-pure bovine scatology. All of it.

So, you're telling me, Mr. Woodrow, that not only are there entire swaths of the Bible that I've never seen before that disprove half of everything I held dear for most of my life, but there are books out there which have been available to me and the ministry which disprove the other half of everything I held dear for most of my life?    Yes.

Ouch!!

Christmas was fast approaching. I had learned a little about myself from Halloween. I recognized now my fear of "once pagan always pagan" meant I was still indoctrinated. I wasn't sure what to do about that. By this point, I was distanced enough from regular attendance in Armstrongism that I was feeling a bit cheeky. Maybe taking a liberty would help. I went out and bought some decorations. It was only some silver candles and a couple faux-crystal snowflakes (the snowflakes are on my mantle right this minute). Norman Rockwell it was not. But at the time it felt bold! Here is what I wrote about Christmas in my post "God Is Love":

"Next week is Christmas 2008. I have been out of Armstrongism for about 4 months. I suppose this is as good a time of year as any to do some introspection. I don't personally keep Christmas (but I no longer fear it). Perhaps it's the years of indoctrination speaking. Or maybe I *gulp* agree with Armstrong on the origins of the day and it really does bother me. If my conscience is bothered by something, then I shouldn't do it. I know that in the COG7, Christmas is frowned upon. I support them in every way. God bless them and prosper them. But I will have my own relationship with my Savior, thank you. (Nor have they ever tried to dictate to me. It's really not like Armstrongism there!)"

In that quote, you might see a bold, free, self-aware man being reasonable and level-headed about Christmas, blazing his own path in life. The truth is, inside I was highly conflicted. Notice how I had read through Woodrow yet still wondered if I agreed with Armstrong. How? Such is the way of the Armstrongist mindset. I would like to introduce myself. My name is cognitive dissonance.
Healing was clearly going to take time, courage, and effort.
Some other time, though. Not today.

I went to my mother's house and helped her set up her Christmas tree. It was such a bonding moment. I loved it! Made me feel like a kid again. But, when I went home, I was afraid. It was one thing to share memories at another person's house. It was another thing entirely to have that at my house. I was wondering if it was wrong of me to have those two faux-crystal snowflakes. WWJD? I was getting cold feet. Sometimes healing is two steps forward and one step back.

Seven years after this, a very good Armstrongist friend of mine called me. One of the Heretics Club guys. He hadn't contacted me in, oh, about seven years. I didn't even recognize his voice anymore. He said he loves me and supports me and believes in his heart I am a faithful and genuine Christian even still ...but please, whatever I do, just don't keep Christmas.
The important message that motivated this man (who loved me and whom I love to this very minute) to call me after so much time was, "Whatever you do, please just don't start keeping Christmas."
THAT is the power of our indoctrination against Christmas.
I appreciated his call for what it was. I knew it meant he cared. He genuinely meant well, and I thanked him for it. Haven't talked to him since.

That sentiment reflected who I was seven years earlier. In 2008, Christmas couldn't leave soon enough. I let it pass with barely a notice. Problem is, this was just delaying the inevitable. Other holidays were coming.

SPRINGTIME OF MY LIFE

I spent the winter pretty much the same way as I did the autumn - absorbing information, keeping an eye on who the latest 'Elijah for to come' was, and giving thanks for grace. I still had so much to learn. Aside from holidays, I hadn't tackled huge ideas like Trinity, church government, sanctification, soul sleep, the millennium, eucharist and transubstantiation, "true history of the true church", religious icons like the crucifix, how exactly to relate to the Old Covenant, etc. etc. etc. There were even mundane things to work through, like which Bible version I like best. Was the NIV really a cursed version written in the blood of sacrificed goats by a coven of pagans?
Another detail I needed to work through is precisely what is the real nature of Armstrongism. Is it a (come in close and I'll whisper this word into your ear) cult (gasp!) or not? I was heading toward a solid yes, based on what I was reading in a book about thought control by Lifton. That was a mighty big pill to swallow.

There are many things to endure when one makes such a large switch in religions like I was. As I said, you just don't realize until later. "My yoke is easy and my burden is light," still felt pretty good, don't get me wrong, but there comes a time when the high of conversion wears off and you begin to circle back around to the details once again. So many details!

The novelty of the COG7 was also wearing off. I would still recommend it to this day for people who are exiting Armstrongism! If you're leaving, consider going there. But it felt lacking. In my town, there is only a small congregation who were all related to one another and most of them were over 60. I actually started skipping services. I felt bad about that. I had a feeling my time there was coming to a close. But where was I going to go? I couldn't make up my mind.
No speaking in tongues, tho! Nope. Still can't get that movie "Cape Fear" out of my mind. Every time I think of speaking in tongues, I hear Robert DeNero yelling, "Counsellor!"

Meanwhile, I was building up a good friendship with Seeker from the As Bereans Did blog. We both seemed to have a healthy dislike of the Spokesman of the Two Witlesses. We discussed how we might partner our blogs to be more effective. We wanted to build a partnership with other blogs. We eventually changed our plan to having me come over and write for her at As Bereans Did. We would invite others to write with us.

I finished up my series on tithes and meats, said a few other words, and just like that, the era of having my own blog was over. My last post at Escaping Armstrongism and my first post here (entitled "Hello World" as a little computer programming joke) was March 16, 2009.

Easter was coming. I didn't like Cadbury cream eggs. I hated bunnies and eggs and pastels. I don't hate them anymore, but I still don't like them. OK! I still hate pastels. How many more times would I have to avoid these holidays? Yet, if I wasn't going to keep Passover like the Armstrongists do, remembering the Exodus, then what was I going to do? I was learning more about what the Gospel really is. I know there is no New Covenant requirement to keep any day. Yet I felt like it would be nice to do something. I could attend with the COG7 I suppose. I spoke to my brother. He is an Evangelical. He was attending a small non-denominational Christian Fellowship church at the time. He invited me to attend Easter services with him. I figured why not. I'm free to go wherever I want. I had never stepped foot in a Protestant church before, save for one wedding ceremony, so this was a good opportunity to see what it was like. And I'll get to learn more about Easter.

Remember all that stress I had over attending the COG7 for the first time? Multiply that. I chose COG7 because they were distantly related to Armstrongism. Evangelicalism was absolutely not. These were completely uncharted waters. Being with family was the only thing saving me.

What songs were these? Again, no "Blessed and Happy Is The Man". People were singing enthusiastically! We never did that. No burgundy hymnal, either. All the lyrics were on a big screen. Why do some people have their hands in the air? That really happens? I thought that was just for television. Why were some people randomly shouting 'amen' during the sermon? My hands are staying DOWN and I am NOT shouting amen under any circumstances.
It was so foreign. No, I was so foreign. This was their land. Yet, beyond all reason, something felt nice.

There was an "old rugged cross" at the front of the hall, draped in white. There was a singular focus in the messaging on Jesus and what He did for us. I didn't feel guilt. No one was bashing other religions as pagan, or arguing over 14th v 15th, or emphasizing how days start at sundown. Nothing in the message was designed to make me feel guilty. I didn't have to drum up a sense of sadness. There was no focus on Moses and the Israelites. This day was about victory and overcoming and glory and life. This day was about the Lord who lived and died and lives again. This was the culmination of everything the Old Testament hoped for. This was an expression of the grace and the Gospel I was coming to know.

It was about Jesus from start to finish. This is how Christianity should be. The entire world felt like springtime. Who would have thought a holiday I was told is pagan could bring me to the foot of cross. I took it all in, and it brought me nearly to tears again.

I gave myself permission to question Armstrong's prophecy and I was rewarded. I gave myself permission to question doctrine and I was rewarded. I asked God for the truth, HIS truth, and I was rewarded. I gave myself permission to participate in a religious holiday and I was rewarded. I found just as much value in it as I did in any of the holy days I kept in Armstrongism. And not a single rabbit or egg or Asherah Pole was involved. No weeping for Tammuz. I didn't gyrate even once. No one went outside to face the sun. Nobody baked cakes for the Queen of Heaven. Total silence on Nimrod.

The halfway house had done its job. I was finally free! I found a good home church. I could go anywhere I wanted, and I wanted to go to this church again next week.

The As Bereans Did team had one year to study Easter. I needed to get that gauntlet greased up. This was going to be a very big job.

CONCLUSION

I had been in one church for most of my life. The very prophecy that sucked me in was what helped set me on the path out. I learned to give myself permission to question. Turns out the prison had no walls. I had to abandon everything familiar and step out into the unknown. I got a blog. I spent several months in a rehab church. Now I was a Gentile Christian with freedom to go wherever I want and worship the Lord in Spirit and truth. I was finally free!

I still had much to wrestle with.

Why did God let this happen to me? Was I punished for some crime committed as a child? No, this was all my dad's fault. I was angry at him! My life was nothing like it would have been if only he had avoided this mess. How could he do this to his family? He was supposed to be wiser than this! Seeing large flaws in a parent can be traumatic. Wait. I did the same to my kids. It wasn't about my dad or his intelligence. Far smarter, richer, more powerful, more experienced, and more travelled people than I were sucked in. Tens of thousands of people were sucked in. It was indoctrination. The deceived don't know they are deceived. I could forgive my dad.

But why did God let this happen to me? Wait. Was there no good that came from it? Let's imagine I hadn't gone through this, I would have been a nominal Christian at best. Uninspired and uninspiring. Now I had a roller coaster ride of a life to tell about. I had a perspective you couldn't buy from Harvard. I had an in-depth knowledge of cult mindsets, the Old Testament, and best of all a deep appreciation for grace. I could really use this to help people. Using my powers for good instead of evil. I think that life gives all of us lemons. I would have had tribulations no matter what. "Pick your hard" as they say. This was mine. So, I made lemonade to give to weary people in the system. For free! And a few of those lemons I froze so I could throw them at the likes of Weinland and Flurry.

Here is what I wrote in my article "How To Move Forward":

"I advise you to take this with you - God allowed you to have the COG experience you did for a reason. What is that reason? Find the good, and be thankful to God for it. You can be miserable, or bitter, or fearful, or thankful. Be thankful! God has never abandoned you and it wasn't all for naught."

I had many paths to choose from. I could do nothing. I could turn around and go backwards into the familiar (I've seen people do that). I could let it beat me, and end up dead or insane. I could give up and be an atheist. That's an easy road, and there are lots of people ready to help you walk it. We don't call Armstrongism the atheist-making machine for nothing! Or, I could insist on Jesus Christ and go into grace.

I insisted on Jesus Christ and pushed forward into grace.

And here you are, reading about some of the things you can expect if you're going through what I went through. Your experience will be different than mine in many ways. Hey! We're all unique. My hope in writing this is you would recognize some familiarity hidden in here somewhere and find some nugget of value in my story that might be of help to you. I don't know what that nugget will be. I don't know what help it will bring. Maybe it's just the knowledge that you're not all alone in this. I have a gut feeling that telling my story will help somebody move forward some day. I have learned over the past 15 years to follow that gut feeling. Whoever you are, you're welcome.

As for the rest of those 15 years, you can read about my progress in the many posts here on As Bereans Did. God bless you, dear reader! May He guide you and guard you. May your path ultimately lead to Him. May you step into the New Covenant and find the freedom of the finished work of Jesus Christ!

The Road goes ever on and on,

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can...

************

It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

************

Escaping Armstrongism - part I

A few weeks ago, I asked how we could help you, our esteemed readers. The answer came back, people want to know more about what it is like to exit. Having done that once, I believe I can oblige.

There are several ways to approach this. Where to start? I have a sinking feeling this is going to take more than one post.
Nothing to it but to do it.

Maybe it would be helpful to start by telling you how I left. I've told parts of it here and there, but never really plotted it out. Not that you care about me, or that I hope to get you to care about my tale, but maybe there will be a helpful nugget in my story that you can relate to.

This is the highly abridged version of how I left.

In today's post, I am going to take you through the major events that led to my initial exit from thirty years of following Herbert Armstrong. In my next post, I will go over my experiences after I made my escape.

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS

One thing I've learned over the years is that everyone's exit has to be personal. Nobody leaves for an empty reason. No one leaves for someone else's reason. My reason to leave, like my reason for joining in the first place, was deeply personal, and it starts with prophecy.

I was big into prophecy when I was a young boy. Prophecy is what got me interested in Herbert Armstrong in the first place. My father was a tithe-paying Armstrongist in good standing. He was a stern man, and I wanted to make him proud. My mother was not an Armstrongist at all. So, my father was never allowed to force anything religious on his children. He spoke to the Ministry in the Worldwide Church of God, and they said to just let it play out on its own. The church was always odd that way. Regular people were actively discouraged from evangelizing. I suspect it had something to do with money. My father would talk to me about the church and prophecy, and I would eat that up. He had all the written material and watched The World Tomorrow regularly, so I ate that up, too. It was prophecy that got me into other topics, like Easter for example, and the Sabbath. The hook being set, I was reeled in like a fish. And like a fish, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

As I got older, I would read through everything I could get my hands on (approved material only, of course). I wanted to crack that nut. I needed to fully understand prophecy. I could understand Revelation, I just knew it! That led me to gravitate towards others in the church who loved prophecy. Funny thing about prophecy nuts - none of us agree about much. And some of us didn't agree with Herbert Armstrong.

I was at the Feast of Tabernacles in 2002, in Pensacola, Florida. Hurricane Isadore was taking a tour of the Gulf of Mexico. A room full of friends had gathered to chat about nothing in particular. In my circle, the topic turned to ... yes, prophecy. Doesn't it always at the Feast, though? A friend of mine asked me if God could lie. (That was his ice breaker this year. He asked a lot of people that as a conversation starter.) Of course not! Why would He want to? We investigated it a while. He eventually asked if I believed the church could be wrong on prophecy. I didn't know how to answer that. Was this some kind of trick? I responded 'no'. How could the true church be wrong on prophecy? It was no trick. He pointed out how he disagreed with a few things. Minor things. But minor or not, the idea that the church could legitimately be wrong on prophecy was major. That was the first crack in the dam.

Fast forward a few years. I was at the Feast in Phoenix, Arizona in 2007. When they say "dry heat" it doesn't mean it's not hot. It a lot hotter, only dry. Which makes 113F/45C and full sun better in precisely no way at all. A group of friends from all over the country had arranged to gather there. We would sneak off in the early morning hours before sunrise, with our Bibles and some coffee in hand, to discuss ... yes, prophecy. We jokingly called it "The Heretics Club". We would discuss our disagreements with official views on prophecy, and each other's. It was mostly peaceful. The key to being a prophecy nut and having friends was to disagree with other people gently. Some guys just don't get that. We tried to get along. There we were, gathered in secret to disagree with each other and discuss secrets. Secrets about why the church was wrong. And why shouldn't we? There were sermons and articles piling up about why Herbert Armstrong was wrong. Every minister I knew about was either saying he was off the mark, or insufficient, or that they were even greater than he (they're still doing it). How was that acceptable but what we were doing was wrong? Wrong, no. Effective, yes. For some reason, what we were doing affected me. Here is the difference - we gave ourselves permission. What felt so risky wasn't the disagreeing so much, it was the permission to disagree. That was the second crack in the dam.

We were careful to keep our disagreements solely on prophecy. We weren't real heretics. That was just a fun little name. We saw ourselves as protecting the truth, not undermining it. I remember walking out of a session one morning, looking at the vast horizon, wondering in awe at the natural beauty and grandeur of God's creation. What force would it take to create all that waste? As I looked out at the mesas, I felt small, exposed. It's in moments like that (and, oddly, in the shower) when I do my best thinking. Maybe it's because I get myself out of the way. Then it dawned on me - if the church was so wrong about prophecy, what's to say they aren't wrong on doctrine too? I ducked into a stairwell and looked around to make sure no one saw me have that thought. I kept my mouth shut tight about that! If I breathed out a whisper about it, I'd be exiled for certain. But, like prophecy, articles and sermons littered the floor about why the church was wrong on doctrinal issues. We were wrong on government, evangelism, the role of prophecy, the centrality of Christ, the calendar, the Last Great Day of Tabernacles, race relations, the list goes on and on. Everyone I knew expressed some sort of dissatisfaction with how things were done in the past. Why couldn't I? My novel contribution was simply to put these smaller bites together to see the whole meal. Since no one was going to allow me to question, I needed to give myself permission to question. As providence would have it, Harold Smith's sermon that morning was his attempt to get ahead of all the doctrinal drift and force everyone back on point. It was a real stinker of an obvious attempt to manipulate everyone. Coincidence? I think not. It seemed there might be something to this doctrine idea after all. That was the third crack in the dam.

I held my cards tight to my chest. No one needed to know what I was going through. Not fully, anyway. I had a friend in my local congregation who was a black sheep if ever there was one. Intelligent and searching, that man. God rest his soul. He wasn't afraid at all to disagree openly. He was a thorn in everyone's side and I enjoyed that about him. We would share ideas, and he loved to do that, so long as your ideas were his ideas. He would not hesitate to disagree otherwise. Hey, at least I always knew where he stood. Harold Smith once made a cross-country trip to visit my congregation. I watched as my friend openly defied him right in front of everyone. It was a sight to behold! I couldn't decide which one I thought was correct, since they both made good points, but I definitely admired my friend for his gumption. He had a soft and friendly face that made you want to forgive him, or else I'm sure he would have been put out of the church years before. Upsetting the powers that be so many times has a way of changing one's perspective. It made him see himself as having a direct relationship with Jesus. No man could come between him and God (or put him out of the church). What a novel idea. I couldn't tell if it was true or arrogant, but it felt nice. Can I have a direct relationship with God, too? No Minister between us? Scary! But a key idea. That was his contribution to my exit.

One average day, I was studying an average topic - the Sabbath and how it was magnified in the New Covenant - preparing for an average sermonette, when, all at once, I "got it". An incredible torrent of joy washed over me. Jesus Christ really did magnify all things! Our flaw was that we had defined "magnify" as "made harder". That was wrong. The Sabbath was magnified just like sacrifices were. Joy was unusual and strange. Armstrongists don't have joy. We feel best when we're given a right good beating in the sermon. But this wasn't guilt, it was joy! And I didn't trust it one bit. I studied late into the night, trying to see if what I thought was real or some elaborate emotional deception. Was I falling away? Was this Satan? Other sinful things feel pretty good, so joy wasn't necessarily proof. I buried my face in church material. By the time I went to bed, I had managed to quench that joy and go back into believing Armstrong. Whew! A close call! That was the fourth crack in the dam.

I could bury that incident, but I couldn't forget it. I needed to know if we were right or wrong. Really know. I decided to do a little trial. I was going to take a doctrinal topic and put it to the test. Just like questioning prophecy, I gave myself permission to question doctrine.

I hated tithing. Nobody loves tithing. That would be my topic. I was going to study tithing every bit as hard as I studied prophecy, but I was going to be critical and try to poke holes in it. Devil's advocate. I think that is where the prototype As Bereans Did doctrinal gauntlet was first constructed. I would see for myself if the church was solid on doctrine. The doctrine of tithing went in, and wreckage came out. Did you know there's a difference between 10% and one-in-ten? Neither did I until that study. We were doing tithing very, very wrong. Highlights of that study are in the ten articles on tithing over at the old Escaping Armstrongism blog. Trust me, you wouldn't want to read the original study I made. It was 27 pages! Condensing it into 10 pages made it easier to digest.
That winter, I showed it to some close and respected friends from the Heretics Club. Try as they might, they couldn't disprove my thesis. It brought one of them to tears. He had sacrificed so much over the years. Tithing was his thing; his hill to die on. The thought of all that sacrifice being for nothing was too much for him to bear. He told me I was right, then apologized and said he could never read it again. Remember when I said 'nobody loves tithing'? Nobody but him. I loved that man. I still love that man, God rest his soul. If he needed to bury this, then I say bury it. Burn it! But as for me, the church could be wrong on doctrine after all. That was the fifth crack in the dam.

What if it was only tithing? Logic dictates I had to try one more topic. One could be a fluke, but two is evidence. I had to know! I chose clean/unclean meats.

I hated tithing, but I quite liked the meats laws. Pork made me feel sick when I ate it. I always knew when some found its way into my food at a restaurant. I thought this would be a fair choice. Certain of my inevitable defeat and confidently awaiting my comfortable return to orthodox Armstrongism, I fired up the doctrinal gauntlet. Much to my disappointment and confusion, the doctrine went in and wreckage came out. Did you know God gave Noah every creeping thing to eat, and that includes lizards? Neither did I until that study. Highlights of that study are in the eleven articles on food laws over at Escaping Armstrongism. You wouldn't want to read the full study of that one, either. It was 50 pages! That was the sixth crack in the dam.

This studying business was getting uncomfortable. During my search for information, I found the Painful Truth, IronWolf, Ambassador Watch and other websites with counter-information. Who knew an entire universe of information already existed? I wasn't quite ready for it all, but there I went all the same. I kept studying and I kept finding. Did you know we are commanded to travel three times a year to the place where the Lord places His name, not just once? We were even doing holy days wrong. So many flaws! How could the one true church have been so wrong?

Understand, I still believed it was the one true church. We had lots of doctrines that I thought were unique to us (because I hadn't yet found out they weren't unique to us), so we had to be one true. When I decided to interact on the anti-Armstrong websites, I always fiercely defended the church. We were one true, so if I was unable to defend my position it was no big deal. I was just unprepared was all. Better answers were out there. Because we were one true.

I was so sure of it, I tried convincing a co-worker of this foundational truth.
A long series of discussions culminated in him agreeing to read "The Incredible Human Potential" by Herbert Armstrong. I gave him my copy. I hadn't read it in several years anyway, so when he converted to the one true church and kept my copy, I wouldn't miss it. He didn't say anything about it for several days. I asked how he was doing. He mildly responded that he had certain disagreements with the material. I was flabbergasted. How can a person read this material and come away with disagreements? I found the book online and read it that very night. My review: what a complete load of steaming Holstein!
How did I ever find that book to be convincing?? The next conversation I had with my co-worker went very differently than the last. I never gave him "Mystery of the Ages" like I planned. Turns out that was pretty bad, too. That was the seventh crack in the dam. A big one!

I travelled to Illinois to spend the Spring holy days with some very dear friends. It didn't hurt that the lady of the house, God rest her soul, made this wonderful stuff called "bread of affliction", which was unleavened (technically). It used egg whites to add air. Affliction never tasted so good! We were all later told by Harold Smith that this was cheating and we were not to whip air into unleavened bread. That served to highlight the way our teachings were rooted in the Bible yet still highly opinion-based. Many people disagreed with him. I went on enjoying bread of affliction. On the last day of Unleavened Bread, my friend and I drove to church together in a beat up old pickup truck. The drive was a bit long, so I took the opportunity to mention some of what I had learned about holy days. I specifically mentioned the laws that required travelling to the place where the Lord places His name three times in the year. My friend told me about how, in the beginning, Herbert Armstrong taught travel three times in the year, but he later changed it when things proved too difficult and expensive. That certainly was news to me. I chewed on that a little and responded it was necessary because it is the law. He didn't agree that was necessary. There's that Bible-based opinion again. But it was the law, I complained. (The law! The law! Just not THAT law!) That was when he said the words I will never forget, "Herbert Armstrong changed the law out of necessity."

        And at that very second, the dam broke.

STOP THE WORLD, I WANT TO GET OFF

Something snapped. No, snapped isn't the right word. Shattered! Yes, something shattered. It was the strangest sensation. One second everything was normal, the next second everything - everything - was different. Do you know what a Dolly Zoom is? Google it. I imagine in the camera of my life, it looked like a Dolly Zoom. Complete with musical score. A switch was flipped. I was in the same truck with the same person, but it was as if it were an entirely different truck and an entirely different person. The friend who I loved so dearly was a stranger to me. Where I had felt comfortable, now I felt trapped. I was taking a cab to a place I didn't want to go.

To understand why that phrase shattered my worldview, you need to understand all it entailed. It meant we didn't really care about law. Armstrong made everything up as he went, and changed what he liked. All that talk about the law being eternal and "not one jot or one tittle" was all just propaganda.

All the prophecies, all the holy days, all the magazines, booklets, and shows, all the sermons given or received, all the discussions, all the studies and debates, all the stands taken over the Sabbath, all the meals skipped because of meats, all the jobs lost, all the opportunities missed, all the ridicule endured, all the sacrifices, all the poverty suffered from tithes, all the years up until then, and all the reasons for being at the Spring holy days (where I was at the time), were all at once shattered by those eight words. I felt cold. I felt trapped. I needed out of that truck, out of that state, right the heck now!

It was everything I could do to keep my mouth from hanging open. I felt like a man trying to stay calm after a life-threatening injury. The building was on fire and I needed the wherewithal to carefully walk toward the exit. I tried my best to act like nothing happened. It's fine. Everything's fine. They must not suspect a thing. I went to church and I did the motions on auto pilot. I no longer felt like I was inside the story. I was outside looking in. Like a near death experience, I watched events from a third person perspective, somewhere removed just off screen. Packed into a meeting room at a hotel with a crowd of strangers I knew and loved. My seat safely in the back close to the exit door. I didn't sing. I had no idea what the sermon was about, I only knew it lasted an eternity. When services finished, I walked outside to the sight of the most beautiful Redbud trees I had ever seen. A purple so vibrant it almost hurt. That little touch of God's beauty helped ground me. I went to lunch afterward, deeply contemplating the laws against having someone work for you on the Sabbath. Herbert changed that law out of necessity, too. We were hypocrites. All of us! Not that day only, but always. I even stayed the night. But I no longer saw the point.
The church was wrong on doctrine. My brain had finally accepted it was all made up as we went along. This entire time, we all were just saying whatever we thought sounded good at the moment.

AFTERSHOCKS

I went home and studied as hard as I had ever studied before. I was fairly down and needed something positive to happen.

I did a lot of looking into the holy days, since I had to give the sermon at Pentecost. My message was about how wrong we were about the holy days, but I stated it in a way that sounded like I was agreeing with everyone. They all said it was the best Pentecost sermon they had ever heard! All but one man. He knew. He came up to me afterward with a glint in his eye and a smile hidden in the corner of his mouth. Oh, he knew exactly what I'd just done. He was genuinely one of the most intelligent human beings I had ever known. He shook my hand with a wink and said it was a good message. We talked very briefly about how nobody else realized. I asked him if he'd thought about leaving. He said yes, but he was going to stay. That's where all his friends were. I thought that was a good reason for a man like him. That was it. Lord, do I ever miss that man!

I spent the summer studying and debating what I had learned online. I read "Churches That Abuse" by Ronald Enroth. That book hurt! I started to read "The Babylon Connection" by Ralph Woodrow, but that took a back seat to another matter. I happened across the infamous story of Herbert Armstrong's personal failings. (You know what I mean. We never go into detail about that here. That's for other websites. But it's all true!)

I was not actively looking for information on Armstrong, specifically. I was just reading everything I could find. I found out about his reliance on the ravings of G. G. Rupert, how he borrowed doctrines from the SDA, the COG7, and the Mormons, and would read the JW's Watchtower magazine to get ideas, how he read "Mein Kampf" and was a Communist sympathizer, how a woman offering him a stack of wood caused him to believe he was chosen by God, how he was fired from the Church of God (Seventh Day), how he predicted Jesus would return by 1936, how he was a plagiarist, how he let his wife die of a simple bowel obstruction but had a suitcase full of pills for himself, how he used to teach Pentecost was on a Monday but then changed his mind, how he was remarried to a woman young enough to be his granddaughter, and how he almost lost the Worldwide Church of God to the State of California in a receivership debacle in the 1970s. He was the test I never wanted. He needed to endure the gauntlet. He failed spectacularly. It was a thing of grotesque beauty. Like watching the Bismarck sink. This was the Apostle?! (Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms'?) Could this get any worse??

Once again, I was crushed. I recalled Armstrong's words, "The deceived don't know they are deceived." Finally, I knew I had not just been wrong. Yes, things could get worse.. I had been deceived. There was a marked difference between the church being wrong and me being deceived. There is no way for me to write to you about how that felt. I promise you, it was as if the very gravity that held me to the earth could not be trusted anymore, and I could possibly float away at any moment. Nothing was worthy of my trust. The only thing I was sure about at that point were the Ten Commandments. What else was hiding out there, waiting for me? I was about to find out.

Enter Justin Martyr.

For some reason I cannot explain, for about the past year or so by this point I suspected answers were hiding in the writings of the early church. I didn't know the first thing about these early church writers. We were always told to stay away from them. I forced myself to read them and become familiar. There were quite a few, so it took a long time. And, to be honest, they were confusing to me. I couldn't relate because I was coming from such a different place. They were saying things that weren't Armstrong's message at all. Like, at all. Not even a little. All of them did this. The natural proclivity of an Armstrongist mindset is to try and force everything into our worldview box, to protect it and keep it true. I couldn't do that with these "Church Fathers". Normally, when something defies every attempt to fit it into the box, it gets dismissed as deception from Satan, and condemned. I wasn't about to do that to them, though. The point was to understand them as they are, and get answers. Yet, to be even more honest, since we were told not to trust them, I didn't seriously trust them. I was afraid of this "lost century" thing. If you aren't familiar, Armstrong told us the true church was forced underground before the end of the first century and all the writings from about 90 AD and onward were nothing but evil Catholic propaganda. Of course it was. All of it disagreed with us! "Lost history" referred to the true church being nowhere to be found, even though it endured, secretly. Maybe in some valley in the French Alps. We don't know. They were lost. You can't prove it, so it must be true! Was any of that really true? No. Not at all. But we believed it was true. Long story short, it took me a long time to get through any of the writings from that period.

One average night as I sat on my couch, I came across a second century document written by a man named Justin. They call him Justin Martyr, for obvious reasons. Justin is the earliest extant Christian apologist. One of his writings is about a discussion he had with a Jew named Trypho. Among other things, Justin described to Trypho how Christians no longer observe the Sabbath. It was nowhere near as simple as, "We don't keep the Sabbath because the Pope changed it to Sunday." No. He went into detail about it. He debated a Sabbath keeper about it from the guy's own scriptures. I will never forget sitting there, realizing the church was wrong on the Sabbath, too. Not the Sabbath! Yes, the Sabbath.

Do you remember when I said I was shocked when I felt an inexplicable joy come over me as I contemplated the New Covenant? And how I said I was shocked when my friend said, "Herbert Armstrong changed the law out of necessity"? This was another of those times. Like earthquakes and aftershocks, they just kept coming. But this one was good!

It all made sense all at once. Armstrong was wrong! The early church were not Sabbatarians, and it was for completely Biblical reasons. There was no lost history. Jesus is our Sabbath! 
I sat on that couch, mouth agape, reading and re-reading Justin's words. I tried to explain it to the person sitting next to me, but I was so energized I stumbled and fumbled over my words. My mind was going faster than my mouth could keep up.

No wonder why we weren't allowed to read that stuff!!

The next day, I prayed about it. I kid you not, I laid face down on the living room floor like the men of old, and I prayed my heart out. I wanted the truth - GOD'S truth. I didn't care what the consequences were, so long as I knew the truth. And just like that, the joy I felt that one night retuned. It was one of the best feelings I'd ever experienced.
Something inside me knew the joy was temporary. This world can't keep joy like that. It was only a down payment; a foretaste. It would dissipate, but I was going to ride that wave as long as I could.

OUTRO

After services one Sabbath shortly thereafter, I asked my Minister to step aside and speak to me privately. He was an honorable man. Not at all like the rest. I told him I was having issues with what I had learned about Armstrong's behavior. He asked if I thought the Holy Spirit came through Armstrong. I considered it for a moment then responded, no. If the Holy Spirit comes at all, it comes directly to us through Christ. I assured him I wasn't questioning his ordination. Realizing that wasn't all there was to it, he probed for more. I responded I could not tell him more, because if I did, he would have to answer the same questions I was, and either he would have to agree with me or lie to himself.
He needed that place, he needed those people, and it wasn't right for me to take it away. It was clear I had to escape Armstrongism. I couldn't stay, like my friend would. I had to go. I was a threat to the group. All I could do any longer is cause division. For their sake and mine, I had to go.

A few days later, a Minister from another area called to ask if I would speak at his Feast of Tabernacles in Panama City, Florida that year. A great honor, which I had to politely decline. I didn't tell him I was leaving. I just said I couldn't attend that year. It was true enough.

Prophecy, gone. Doctrine, gone. Armstrong, God's appointed Apostle, gone. Sabbath, gone.
This is how I described my last day in my post "Welcome To Escaping Armstrongsm" on the old blog:

"I left my splinter group on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008.
I had followed Herbert Armstrong for 30 years.
I insisted on going to services in order to see everyone one last time. I arrived dressed in my best. I made sure to give out as many hugs and hardy handshakes as possible. I got a cup of coffee and settled in for the sermon. When the coffee was gone, so was I. Quietly, I sneaked out the back door, and I am not going to return.
These were the people who were there when I was a child. They were at my wedding. They saw my wife and I through our pregnancies. Everyone was invited to my wife's baptism. They were grandma and grandpa to our children. We went through agonizing church splits together. They loved us like their own. They were a closer family than my physical family. And I never wanted to have to go."

Three decades of my life dedicated primarily to one thing. All gone. All except for Jesus and a belief that mainstream Christianity was steeped in pagan ideas.

I bet my life and my future on the inerrancy of the church Herbert Armstrong founded. I lost that bet. This was supposed to have been the one true church sent from God to tell us the astounding truth! God's truth!!

I knew I had one last bit of unfinished business that I would not enjoy in the least.
... [deep breath]...
I went to my mother's house to humiliate myself and admit my failures. She was right that whole time, and I was wrong. I didn't listen, and I should have. I put her through so much for nothing. She took it well.

I started the Escaping Armstrongism blog that same month. I was still escaping. That's also when I came up with the name xHWA. In other words, ex Herbert W Armstrong believer. Seemed fitting. And sounded better than Silence DoGood.

I hope you found some nugget of value in my story. God willing, in the next post, I will tell you about how I went from recovering Armstrongist to mainstream Christian. See you then!

 

************

It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

************

Firstfruits and the Beauty of God's Timing

Herbert Armstrong was absolutely right when he said,

"Few professing Christians have ever thought to question or to prove this "Good-Friday-Easter" tradition. Yet the Bible tells us to prove (test) all things."
-Herbert W Armstrong, "The Resurrection Was Not On Sunday", 1972, p3

He lived in a time when average people generally did not have access to information. They didn't know anyone who questioned or proved, and didn't think to question or prove. When I tried to question Easter, I got garbage answers from people who were completely unprepared. I took their lack of ability to explain as evidence there was no good answer. For that mistake, I served a 26-year stint in Armstrongism.

These people had answers. I asked, and they PROVED! (Armstrong would always capitalize for emphasis.) But did they? Armstrongism was feeding me completely one-sided answers; the same few points over and over, which I was not allowed to question. I went from not knowing I should question, to knowing I should not question. I thought we were supposed to question and prove! No. Only enough to get you in the door. After that, it just gets you back out the door again.

Is confirmation bias and beating up on straw men really the same thing as proving? Was it really any different than when I questioned Easter at the outset? There are two sides to every story, but after all those years it dawned on me I had still only heard the testimony from one side. But if that was so, then I had never really PROVED either side of this. All this time I had been hearing only what I wanted to hear. This made me no different than the Easter-keepers who only heard what they wanted to hear. I didn't need to be coddled, I needed proof! But I didn't know Easter from Adam. Who was going to give me the answers I still needed? No one. I was going to have to get the answers myself. Thus began a 16-year journey here at As Bereans Did.

I made life-altering choices based on the information I had at the time. Now, dear reader, we have access to better information. Now we can finally PROVE as we should. As Bereans Did has several articles on Easter. Those articles do the heavy lifting on topics like "three days and three nights", the two Sabbaths of Matthew 28, the Quartodeciman Controversy, Constantine the Great, Eostra, Old Covenant vs New Covenant, and all the rest. See our Categories page for a list.

In my last post I promised another article. I did this because I have stumbled across something that I want to share with you. I was reading through the article "History of Easter - part I" when I was sidetracked reading about the Feast of Firstfruits. That led me to a little detail I thought was interesting enough to warrant its own article.

Today's post is going to be about the beauty and intricacy of God's timing. Specifically, the timing of Good Friday and Easter Sunday (the timing everybody loves to hate) and how it fits with the Feast of Firstfruits. But to get to that point, we need to learn about the Feast of Firstfruits.

FEAST OF FIRSTFRUITS

Firstfruits (Yom HaBikkurim = Day of Firsfruits) was an important ceremony within the timing of the Days of Unleavened Bread. We can read about it in Leviticus 23.

(LEV. 23: 9-11) 9 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. 11 He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12 And you shall offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the Lord. 13 Its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the Lord, for a sweet aroma; and its drink offering shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hin. 14 You shall eat neither bread nor parched grain nor fresh grain until the same day that you have brought an offering to your God; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

The Day of Firstfruits was the very day when the Wave Sheaf Offering was performed.
The Days of Unleavened Bread, which the Jews call Passover, was a harvest festival. Actually, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles were all harvest festivals. Passover was the festival of the first harvest of the year - the barley harvest. Since the first and best of everything is dedicated to God, the barley harvest couldn't begin in earnest until after the Wave Sheaf Offering. And the Wave Sheaf Offering couldn't happen until the barley was ready to harvest. The ripening of the barley and the Spring Equinox keep Passover tied to its particular time of the year. The Day of Firstfruits also helped to tie Passover to Pentecost. The 50-day count to Pentecost starts on Firstfruits.
The Day of Firstfruits was actually pretty important.

Firstfruits wasn't emphasized by Herbert Armstrong, therefore it is mostly overlooked by the Church of God splinter groups. Oh, you'll get mention of it here and there from detail-oriented ministers, but most people glossed right over it. Here is where I would usually give my catch phrase "The law! The law! Just not THAT law!" and where Armstrongists would object that this was ceremonial so it was done away, then I would respond that if you keep Pentecost then it isn't ceremonial and keeping 2% of the law is not keeping the law. Yada yada. Round and round it goes. Today's article isn't meant to be so polemic as that.

There is a fairly interesting detail hidden in here which you probably glossed right over. I'll put it here again for you -
     "On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it." (v.11)

Why is that important, you ask? Because, as fate would have it, that little word right there - Sabbath - caused issues that I think display the beauty and intricacy of God's timing.

WHICH SABBATH?

That's the big money question right there. Which Sabbath is verse 11 referring to? In my last article, I shared this quote from the UCG, "Two kinds of 'Sabbaths' leads to confusion." Not in Matthew 28, no, but in Leviticus 23 it really does. 

If you're here reading this blog, you already know there are two kinds of Sabbaths: weekly Sabbaths (Saturday) and annual holy days. In a multi-day festival like the Days of Unleavened Bread, you will always have at least one weekly Sabbath. By the nature of the DOUB, you will also have two annual Sabbaths - the first day and the last day. One feast, two kinds of Sabbaths.

When you have a thousand years to think on things, details like the word Sabbath can cause big disputes. By the time Jesus was born, that Sabbath in v.11 was interpreted in two very different ways. The Sadducees decided the regular weekly Sabbath was the one being spoken of. For them, the date didn't matter, only the day of the week - Sunday. The Pharisees, on the other hand, tied it to the annual Sabbath. Why tie the Wave Sheaf to a regular weekly Sabbath when you're reading a section of Torah detailing annual Sabbaths? For them, the day of the week didn't matter, only the date - the 16th. In any given year, there were two completely incompatible interpretations of the timing of the Day of Firstfruits.

You can read about this topic on any number of Jewish sources (e.g., Chabad).

Harder to find is information on when other Jewish sects observed the Wave Sheaf. From what I can find, Kenneth Strand (at the time of Andrews University) claims the Essenes sided with the Sadducees and observed after the weekly Sabbath.

We have mentioned in other articles the Church of God splinter groups disagree on when to keep Pentecost in years where the first day of Unleavened Bread falls on a Saturday. The nature of this debate is is why.

Which side was in the right? The Bible doesn't clarify elsewhere. If it were clear, there wouldn't be a debate. I am not going to attempt an answer. That is not the point of this article. I wish to show something quite different. I for one am amazed at something good that comes from these debates. I see God glorifying Himself in them.

I'll explain how in a bit! Don't rush me!

JESUS - FIRST OF THE FIRSTFRUITS

I said earlier that the Wave Sheaf is mentioned by the more detail-oriented ministers in Armstrongism. Some use it to dispute over the timing of Pentecost. The better sermons would explain how Jesus fulfills the symbolism of the Wave Sheaf offering. I like to give credit where credit is due - and these ministers deserve credit for being correct.
See? We at ABD always admit where people are right.

Christ is called Firstfruits in I Corinthians 15: 20 & 23. Christ is also indirectly called the Firstfruits in Romans 11: 16. The idea of associating Jesus with the firstfruits is an old one. Granted, Jesus isn't the only one associated with it. All Christians will eventually be associated. But that's for another article. Suffice it to say it is possible to demonstrate a tie between Jesus and Firstfruits.

Know that when Christ is called Firstfruits in I Corinthians, this is in reference to resurrection from the dead. The entire chapter is, overall, about resurrection.

(I COR. 20: 20-23) 20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.

God isn't interested in harvesting barley. Ultimately, we are the harvest God has planted. Jesus is the very first of the harvest. "The firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." Firstfruits and resurrection are linked so closely that, at least in Corinthians, Jesus' resurrection is the fulfillment of the Day of Firstfruits.

Taking what we've seen about Firstfruits, let's put that together with Passover.

Passover is fulfilled by Jesus' crucifixion, as He is our Passover lamb. The first day of Unleavened Bread is fulfilled by Jesus' death taking away our sin, as the leaven in the bread is representative of sin. And the Firstfruits is fulfilled by Jesus' resurrection, as He is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Three days that point directly to Christ.

Now that we've talked about imagery, let's talk about the beauty of how that played out.

GOD FULFILLS EVERYTHING

Remember how the Sadducees always put Firstfruits on a Sunday while the Pharisees always put it after the holy day? Imagine what a mess that must have been. The powerful and wealthy yet less numerous Sadducees, in control of the Temple, performing rituals according to their own views, versus the numerous and fastidious Pharisees, tithing to the last seed, wanting everything done according to their views. It had to have been a frustrating dynamic even on normal days. Yet, as providence would have it, in a Friday-Sunday scenario, both systems snap into alignment. But only in a Friday-Sunday crucifixion scenario.

I want to put a chart up for you so you can visualize what I just said:

	Nissan 13 Thursday	Nissan 13/14 Thu/Fri	Nissan 14 Friday	Nissan 14/15 Fri/Sat	Nissan 15 Saturday	Nissan 15/16 Sat/Sun	Nissan 16 Sunday
	Day	Night	Day	Night	Day	Night	Day
Traditional		Passover	Passover	First Day UB	First Day UB	Firstfruits	Wave Sheaf
Pharisees		Passover	Passover	First Day UB	First Day UB	Firstfruits	Wave Sheaf
Sadducees		Passover	Passover	First Day UB	First Day UB	Firstfruits	Wave Sheaf

The "Traditional" row shows how the traditional Good Friday-Easter Sunday scenario fits. For the Pharisees (and modern Jews), Firstfruits could be on any day of the week but it was always on the 16th. For the Sadducees, it was always on the same day of the week, Sunday, but it could be on any date.

See how that lines up? Only in a Friday-Sunday scenario is everything aligned. I find this to be an absolutely wonderful testament to the intricacy and beaty of God's timing. When our God says "fullness of time" He really means it!

What would this look like in the Thursday-Sunday and Wednesday-Saturday timelines?

Thursday-Sunday

	Nissan 14 Thursday	Nissan 14/15 Thu/Fri	Nissan 15 Friday	Nissan 15/16 Fri/Sat	Nissan 16 Saturday	Nissan 16/17 Sat/Sun	Nissan 17 Sunday
	Day	Night	Day	Night	Day	Night	Day
Thu-Sun	Passover	First Day UB	First Day UB	Sabbath / Firstfruits?	Sabbath / Wave Sheaf?	Firstfruits?	Wave Sheaf?
Pharisees	Passover	First Day UB	First Day UB	Sabbath / Firstfruits	Sabbath / Firstfruits		Wave Sheaf?
Sadducees	Passover	First Day UB	First Day UB	Sabbath	Sabbath	Firstfruits	Wave Sheaf

For the Thursday-Sunday scenario, you now have a choice for Firstfruits. Which will it be, the Saturday or the Sunday? That all depends on who is writing the article you read. For the Pharisees, Firstfruits moves to Saturday because it is the 16th and comes after the annual holy day on Friday. But now there is a problem. Usually, an homer of barley was cut immediately after sundown at the start of the Firstfruits, then the Wave Sheaf happened the next morning. With Firstfruits on a double-Sabbath, neither of those can happen. The Wave Sheaf would have to be postponed. Except, Exodus says not to delay this kind of ceremony.

(EXO. 22: 29a) You shall not delay to offer the first of your ripe produce and your juices.

Whether they delayed or not is beside the point. The point here is, the perfect alignment is ruined. Look at the chaos in that chart.

Wednesday-Saturday

	Nissan 15 Thursday	Nissan 15/16 Thu/Fri	Nissan 16 Friday	Nissan 16/17 Fri/Sat	Nissan 17 Saturday	Nissan 17/18 Sat/Sun	Nissan 18 Sunday
	Day	Night	Day	Night	Day	Night	Day
Wed-Sat	First Day UB	Firstfruits?	Wave Sheaf?	Sabbath	Sabbath	Firstfruits?	Wave Sheaf?
Pharisees	First Day UB	Firstfruits	Wave Sheaf	Sabbath	Sabbath
Sadducees	First Day UB			Sabbath	Sabbath	Firstfruits	Wave Sheaf

For the Wednesday-Saturday scenario, you again have a choice for Firstfruits. With whom will you side, the Pharisees or the Sadducees? Again, that depends on the opinion of who is writing what you are reading. For the Pharisees, Firstfruits moves to Friday, while nothing at all happens on Friday for the Sadducees. (Why didn't the women go to the tomb on Friday?) As you can see, this scenario completely ruins the beauty of the alignment.

A Friday Firstfruits complicates the symbolism of Jesus' resurrection fulfilling Firstfruits. Pharisees would never agree that He did. He was resurrected two days afterward. Alignment obliterated!

If you know what Armstrongism teaches about the Last Supper, then you know they claim Jesus was correcting the timing of the Jews. That means the slaughter of the lambs should be moved to Tuesday and Jesus was crucified a day later than He should have been. That wreaks havoc on the imagery of Jesus as our Passover Lamb. 
This time scenario ruins the imagery of Passover and Firstfruits. How does that fix the timing exactly?

Read our article "History of Easter - part I". In it we talk about whether Jesus was correcting the timing of Passover when He ate the Lord's Supper a day early.

Notice how the alignment gets uglier and more chaotic the farther away you go from the Traditional timing. Contrast that with the beauty of the traditional timing and the intricacy of the planning that must have gone into it on God's part. The alignment only happens in the traditional Friday-Sunday scenario. What a little detail, and easy to miss. Yet God did not miss it.

You will never see a chart like this in any Church of God splinter group's material. It would never occur to them to make one in the first place. The information is just as much in front of them as it is you, yet they cherry pick right past it. They don't concern themselves with things that don't support their desired outcomes. And they most definitely do not make charts that show there could be issues with their predetermined conclusions. Too much money is at stake.

It's about time we took Herbert Armstrong's advice to "prove (test) all things".

CONCLUSION

At the start of this article, I said, "I for one am utterly amazed at something good that comes from these debates. I see God glorifying Himself in them." I hope now you understand what I meant.

Is this some slam dunk of a point I'm making today? Standing on its own, no. But it is interesting! Good thing this point doesn't stand by itself. Taken with the evidence in our other articles we have written for you, it builds a decent case.

When we genuinely prove something, we look at all of the evidence, both for and against. Not like our friends in the Church of God splinter groups who only look at evidence for their claims, and hide everything else. If we refuse to accept any contrary evidence even exists, how are we proving? We here at As Bereans Did spent most of our lives in Armstrongism. We know what is said and what evidence is given. We don't deny it. What we realized we hadn't done was exactly what Herbert Armstrong said to do in the first place - really prove out the Friday-Sunday scenario. Well, against all expectations, turns out there is quite a bit to it when we let the Bible interpret the Bible, use the right definitions of words, count like a Hebrew, take into account extra-Biblical evidence, and genuinely try to poke holes in our own understanding in order to let the truth just be what it is.

God is a God of order, not chaos. He defeats chaos. Because of some points in the law that were not clarified, such as which Sabbath should mark the start of the Day of Firstfruits, the Jews fell into disagreement. The Jews debated timing and ended up with two incompatible timing scenarios. God, being wiser and more capable than all our greatest faults, found a way to satisfy everything. He patiently waited, and when the fullness of time had come, He acted. Truly, He was up to the challenge of whatever our confusion threw at Him. He practically wraps it all up in a pretty bow. Praise the Lord! Glory and laud and honor to the One who sits on the throne, surrounded by beauty and power, and who humbled Himself for us so we could be with Him.

And this alignment only happens in the traditional Friday-Sunday scenario.

God bless you, dear reader! You are why ABD exists. Thanks for reading.

If you have more questions about Easter and timing, please read our "Easter FAQ". I update it from time to time.

************

It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

************

Refusing To Understand

Hello readers! It’s me again. I had retired from blogging. I came out of retirement, briefly, to write this post. And the most succinct thing I can say about it is - I don’t know why I do this to myself. 

Lately, I have been working on updating the Easter FAQ (if you’ve never read it, or haven’t read it in a while, please do check it out, we answer almost everything there). After finishing, an idea popped into my head. I haven’t been to a Church of God website in a couple years. I was curious to see if they’ve improved their research skills. Maybe all of this information on the Interwebs has gotten through. Maybe things have changed for the better. I figured the most recent article on Easter from the United Church of God should be a fairly good representative. So, I pulled up the showpiece from 2023, “Good Friday + Easter Sunday It Doesn’t Add Up!” by Scott Ashley and Mario Seiglie.

Why, oh why do I do this to myself!?

Have research skills improved? No. Has intellectual honesty increased? No. Have they stopped posting the same old nonsense from 75 years ago? No. Have they stopped posting blatantly false information? Sadly, no.

Let’s see if the patented As Bereans Did gauntlet still works. It might need a little oil.

WHAT SIGN DID JESUS GIVE?

Mr. Ashley and Mr. Seiglie start with the classics, and quote Matthew 12: 40.

“This was the only specific sign Jesus gave that He was the promised Messiah: ‘For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’”

It's the good old “72 hours is the only sign Jesus gave” claim. We address this in depth in our 2013 article “Three Days and Three Nights”. Where did they get this claim? From Herbert Armstrong.

"He expressly declared that the only sign He would give to prove He was the Messiah was that He should be just three days and three nights in the rock-hewn sepulcher in 'the heart of the earth.' "
-Herbert Armstrong, "The Resurrection Was Not On Sunday", 1972, p.4

But let’s ask - is that the only specific sign Jesus gave? No.

Jesus gave one sign, stated in two ways.
In Matthew 12: 39-40 & 16: 4, and Luke 11: 29-30, He gave the sign of Jonah the prophet. Only Matthew 12 mentions time. The others do not. So, are the specifics of the timing really the point when only one selection out of three mentions it? Jonah is mentioned in all three. Some people can't see past the time aspect as if that's all there is to it. There is another thing to consider.
When we go to John 2: 18-19, we see an entirely different sign, the sign of the temple being destroyed and rebuilt in three days. Notice, three days, not three days and three nights. Seems pretty specific to me.
So, straight off the starting line, the UCG is wrong. That temple sign means the sign of Jonah is not the only one.

Yet, Jesus said only one sign would be given. A clear Bible contradiction? No. If we understand what Jesus was really referring to. Both the sign of Jonah and the sign of the Temple are the same sign, spoken in two ways. That sign is: His death and resurrection.
That is the one and only sign.

Ashley and Seigli will disagree, of course, because the founder of their church said this:

"That evidence was not the fact of the resurrection itself. It was the length of time He would repose in His grave, before being resurrected."
-Herbert Armstrong, "The Resurrection Was Not On Sunday", 1972, p.4

But as you can see with your own eyes, it really was the fact of His resurrection after all. There was a time component in the resurrection, but the time component itself is not the sign.

There was one sign stated in two ways. Just as Jonah and the Temple are one sign spoken of in two ways; the phrases "three days and three nights" and "three days" are one time period spoken of in two ways. It's the same.

We have quite a bit more for you on this topic in our article "Three Days and Three Nights".

Now that we know what the only sign actually is - the fact of a death and a resurrection - we can put to bed any talk about, "The only sign is a literal 72-hour three days and three nights." That was never the sign. If the time were the sign, don't you suppose someone would have been there to witness it? The only people there were Roman guards who were passed out in fear. Exact time isn't much of a sign if nobody witnessed it. But that He was dead and came back on the third day .. no lack of witnesses for that sign.
The whole claim about 72-hours is nothing but a gross oversimplification of the intricacies and beauty of the Biblical narrative. (That's for another article.)

These UCG authors aren’t exactly hitting a bullseye on Jesus’ signs. I imagine this is going to devolve into arguing over what the definition of “specific” is.

MATH DOESN’T WORK IF YOU DO IT WRONG

Next stop is the well-worn argument about Friday to Sunday not being 72 hours. 

Did you know you can use the truth to misdirect and deceive? I’ve read countless times in my day how, “Satan quotes the Bible, too.” It is actually true that Friday evening to Sunday morning is not 72-hours. But could there be a very important detail we are not being shown? After that last section about signs, can we be confident Ashley and Seiglie have looked at all of the evidence? I don’t think so.

If we let the Bible interpret the Bible (people still do that, right?), we might be able to go in search for the Bible’s own definition of “three days and three nights”. Let’s do that now.

Jesus refers to Jonah. Is there any marker of time in Jonah that will prove this is a literal 72-hours? None at all. It just says three days and three nights, then moves on. A definition of 72-hours is not something we got from Jonah. It has to be read into Jonah.

If we turn to I Samuel 30: 12, we will see the same phrase. The young Egyptian hadn’t eaten for three days and three nights. Then, in the very next verse he says, "I fell sick three days ago". That doesn’t seem to be 72-hours. In fact, it gives the sense of less than 72-hours. It seems like “three days and three nights” and “three days” are two different ways to say the same thing. It's as if "three days and three nights" is an ancient idiomatic expression not intended to be understood as a specific time down to the hour. A definition of 72-hours is not something we got from Samuel.

If we go to Esther 4: 16, we see the phrase "three days, night or day". Not exactly the same, but practically identical. Esther tells the Jews, "Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day ... then I will go to the king." Chapter 5: 1 says, "On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king's palace." Did you catch that? The time marker in Esther shows this "three days, night or day" period ended "on the third day". There is no way “on the third day” is 72-hours here. Esther puts a nail in that definition.

A definition of 72-hours is not something we get from the Bible. It has to be put into the Bible. When we let the Bible interpret the Bible, its own definition of "three days and three nights" is clearly less than 72-hours.

Here is where Herbert Armstrong and all who read his material will remind us Jesus said there are 12 hours in a day (JON. 11: 9). No one on either side denies there are 12 hours in a day. But this isn't about there being 12 hours in a day. This is about whether "three days and three nights" is meant to be understood literally. From its other uses, clearly is not. If you are going to hold "three days and three nights" to this literal standard, then all the rest of the descriptions must be literal as well. That simply is not possible.

Ashley and Seigli speak only about Matthew 12, as had everyone since Herbert Armstrong. But did you know that isn’t the only verse where the length of Jesus' interment is described? The length of Jesus' entombment was described in much more than one way:

• "The third day" 11 times.
• "In three days" 5 times.
• "After three days" 2 times.
• "On the third day" 1 time.
• "Within three days" 1 time.

    (These come from the KJV.)

Several different phrases that all describe the exact same event, yet some say “within” and some say “after”. Some of those are the same phrases used in Esther and Samuel. Of course they are! They are very Hebrew ways of talking about time. Do you get the sense the Israelites didn’t talk about time in the same way we do today? Do you think there might be even a small chance that forcing a modern American view of time into an ancient Israelite discussion while completely ignoring idiomatic figures of speech is why the timeline doesn’t make sense to Ashley and Seiglie? Maybe if they stop trying to make the Bible say what they want it to say, and just let it say what it does say, there won't be so much confusion?

They go on,

“Most theologians and religious scholars try to work around it by arguing that any part of a day or night counts as a day or night.”

Yes, most theologians do argue that. And for good reason. Because that is how the Jews understood time. The concept is called the onah. 

Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah (circa 90-155 AD), was President of the Sanhedrin after Gamaliel II (grandson of the Gamaliel that taught Paul) and is considered one of the great Rabbis whose views are recorded in the Mishnah. In the Jerusalem Talmud, in the Sabbath tractate chapter 9 part 3j, it says this:

“It has been taught: R. Eleazar b. Azariah says, ‘A day and a night constitute a span [onah], and part of a span [onah] is equivalent to the whole of it.’"

Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba (circa 180-230), who was also considered a great sage of his day, is recorded in the Mishnah as well. In the Talmud, Pesachim 4a v6, Rabbi Hiyya says this:

"...and part of the day is as the whole of it".

This cannot simply be ignored as something the theologians made up. It cannot be dismissed as if this is some perversion of the Pharisees. This is how they understood things. If you want to understand how people of that time and place thought about time, then heed this. It might not be what we think. But our opinions do not matter. The Bible wasn't written by modern minds in King James English. It was written in Hebrew by people who genuinely consider a part of a day to count as the whole of it. They even had a word for it! Put yourself in their shoes. If they read about how we count time, they would say we are the ones who don't make sense.

The word onah is ancient Jewish word that describes what we call inclusive reckoning. Inclusive reckoning is where the first item and last item in a series are included in the count. This isn’t some novel concoction. All the Mediterranean counted inclusively. It can be demonstrated in the Bible itself, from start to end. You want to talk about “God-given time reckoning”, this is it!
Would you like an example? Here:

(EXO. 19: 10-11) 10 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes. 11 And let them be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people."

Do you see how God says today (day 1), tomorrow (day 2), and the third day? That's inclusive reckoning. To put this another way, today (Friday), tomorrow (Saturday), and the third day (Sunday). Neither the first nor the third days are full days, but they are still counted. Do you suppose the Israelites arrived at the foot of Mt. Sinai directly exactly 72-hours later? No. So, even God included part of a day as the whole of day 1 and and part of a day as the whole of day 3. Onah!

It's completely Biblical, folks!

Do you suppose that maybe, just maybe, the math actually does add up and makes sense IF you are willing to think like the people who wrote the Bible?
Yet, Ashley and Seiglie say:

“Clearly something doesn’t add up. Either Jesus misspoke about the length of time He would be in the tomb, or the “Good Friday–Easter Sunday” timing is not biblical or accurate.”

Or! They were counting like ancient Jews.

The length of time Jesus was in the grave was spoken about in six different ways in over twenty verses. The only thing that doesn’t add up is why these two gentlemen had every opportunity to read their Bibles and see for themselves what I'm telling you - but they refused. What they are really saying in that quote is, "If the Bible doesn't say what we want it to, then it's wrong." We here disagree. We feel if we don't conform to what the Bible is really saying, then we are wrong.

Jesus was talking to the Pharisees in a way they would understand. Did the Pharisees think Jesus meant "exactly 72-hours"?

(MAT. 27: 63) “Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’

The priests and Pharisees say "after three days". That isn't at all 72-hours. Oh, they got the point. They understood exactly what Jesus was claiming. Yet, not a single one of these people who spent years of their lives memorizing and analyzing the scriptures took Jesus or Jonah to mean 72-hours.

Doesn't that say something?

Read our article “Three Days and Three Nights” for more.

PROPER DEFINITIONS LEAD TO CLARITY

Now we go on to the two sabbaths of Matthew 28. Typical fare. Predictable. So typical that we have an article on that, too. Written in in 2013. It's called "The Two Sabbaths of Matthew 28". The name's not very creative, but it's super practical. Nothing has stopped the authors from reading it, or any of the myriad other articles online like it.

We are told, “Two kinds of ‘Sabbaths’ lead to confusion.” Well, I can’t argue against that. It sure does!
…but not in Matthew 28.

The authors review how Old Covenant annual holy days operated, and how work was prohibited, and how that made them Sabbaths. So far so good. Then they say,

“Because traditional Christianity long ago abandoned these biblical annual Sabbath days (as well as the weekly Sabbath), for many centuries people have failed to recognize what the Gospels plainly tell us…”

Is that what it is? People don’t keep a Sabbath, therefore they aren’t aware of them? Well whadda ya know! All this time I thought it was because the Greek word sabbaton doesn’t actually support being defined as a combination of an annual Sabbath and a weekly Sabbath.

Let’s see the Strong's Concordance definition of that word. 

4521 Sabbaton: the Sabbath (that is, Shabbath), or day of weekly repose from secular avocations (also the observance or institution itself); by extension a se'nnight, that is, the interval between two Sabbaths; likewise the plural in all the above applications: - sabbath (day), week.

Do you see anything in there that says "sabbaton means a combination of an annual Sabbath and a separate weekly Sabbath two days later"? No. You don’t see it because that isn’t one of the possible definitions. It cannot mean what they say it means.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

The word sabbaton only refers to the weekly Sabbath; never an annual Sabbath. Greek has an entirely different word for annual Sabbaths: hoerte. In Colossians 2: 16, Paul separates "Sabbath day" (sabbaton) from "holyday" (heorte) in the same sentence. They are separate.

Even if for sake of argument we accept a Friday-Sunday timeline, and see John 19: 31 as saying the weekly Sabbath was also a high day, sabbaton still does not refer to a holy day. John says the sabbaton (weekly Sabbath) was high - using the Greek word "megas". Two days overlapped but separate. The words are still distinct in their use and their meaning.

Do you know why not a single Bible translation renders Matthew 28: 1 as Ashley and Seigli do? (Except maybe Fred Coulter's.) It’s not because Bible translators don’t keep the Sabbath and therefore don't know what a Sabbath is. It’s because they do know Greek.

What Ashley and Seiglie do here is utterly intellectually dishonest! It's one thing to redefine "three days and three nights" but it's another thing entirely to redefine Greek words. To be fair, it wasn't them. This is a very old claim. It was really Herbert Armstrong who committed the crime. These two just repeat it. But that makes me wonder who is worse? Herbert Armstrong's booklet "The Resurrection Was Not On Sunday" first came out in 1951. Ashley and Seiglie have had decades to correct this error. They just refuse to. It's not like they didn't have a Strong's Concordance! Or Bible dictionaries, or commentaries, or the internet, or experts in Greek, or...

Read our article “The Two Sabbaths of Matthew 28” for more. 

Pointing you at this article allows me to skip rebutting the rest of their misinformation and go straight on to … well, more ridiculous misinformation about another topic. Why do I do this to myself?

ANCIENT EVIDENCE?

In the final section, Ashley and Seiglie promise us evidence of a Wednesday crucifixion and a Saturday resurrection hidden in arcane documents you’ve never heard of (unless you've read Herbert Armstrong's booklet "Plain Truth About Easter" which is apparently where they got both of these sources). They then proceed to deliver a nothing burger.

First, they mention the Didascalia Apostolorum.

The document is real, it claims to be from the Apostles but it really isn't, and it does show a Tuesday evening Last Supper. They are only interested in a Tuesday Last Supper because they are looking for support for a Wednesday crucifixion. Alas, it is quite clear about the Friday crucifixion.
Just because Armstrongism and the Didascalia both have a Tuesday evening Lord's Supper doesn't mean anything. They are very different otherwise. The authors get no support here.

What's more, the Didascalia was written in the 200s. Ashley and Seiglie just quoted from a document that exonerates Constantine. He is innocent of the charges of inventing the Friday-Sunday timeline.
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea for Ashley and Seiglie to refer to the Didascalia after all!

Next, they quote from Epiphanius of Salamis.

Epiphanius is known to have read the Didascalia Apostolorum. I would venture a guess that Ashley and Seiglie happened across Epiphanius while reading about the Didascalia. Epiphanius believed the Didascalia to be genuine. That's why he was quoting it. Since he's quoting the Didascalia, Epiphanus isn't really a second source apart from the Didascalia, is he? No, he isn't.

Ashley and Seiglie wouldn’t mention either the Didascalia or Epiphanus if they didn’t think there was some way of spinning it to their benefit. And so they do. They say:

“Nonetheless, the document demonstrates that Passover was then understood by some to have been on Tuesday evening, which would place the crucifixion on the next day, Wednesday.”

No. It doesn’t place the crucifixion on Wednesday at all. It ends the paragraph with these words, “…they crucified Him on the same Friday.”

Does it support the idea that some people believed the Last Supper was on Tuesday? Yes. Does that fact provide any support for a Wednesday crucifixion? No.
If you’re going to reference a source, you can’t just yank out the parts you like and change the rest. The Didascalia, in chapter XXI, goes into a good amount of detail about the timeline between the Tuesday Last Supper and the Friday crucifixion. It doesn’t support Ashley and Seiglie at all. The authors don’t seem to care what the Didascalia says. What they do here is presumptuous.

This is exactly what they did with the Bible commentaries they mentioned in their article. The commentaries agree with them in one point, that sabbaton can be plural, but completely disagree with their conclusion, yet they cite the commentaries anyway as if everyone is in harmony.
But it gets worse.

Feeling they've demonstrated the crucifixion was on a Wednesday - which they have not done - Ashley and Seiglie add two more references. These last two are intended to demonstrate that there were some people who believed Jesus rose on Saturday. They mention Socrates of Constantinople and Gregory of Tours. When I checked, I honestly don’t know where they got this idea that these sources support them.

I cannot find the provided quote from Gregory of Tours. They didn't give the name of the writing. In his “History of the Franks” Book I chapter 18, Gregory only says, “The day of the Lord's resurrection is the first, not the seventh.” (Meaning the Lord was resurrected on Sunday not Saturday.) He doesn’t mention anyone believing it was on the seventh. Might be possible some did. People believe crazy things (like sabbaton can mean an annual holy day and a weekly sabbath two days apart). But I can't find where he say so.

As for Socrates of Constantinople, Ashley and Seiglie straight up butcher what he says.
In his book "Ecclesiastical History" chapter XXII, Socrates is referring to the account of the Quartodeciman Controversy recoded by Eusebius. Socrates is paraphrasing Eusebius.

Ashley and Seiglie look at the quote, they see the word “sabbath”, and they conclude it means the weekly Sabbath. But that isn’t what Socrates means when he uses that word.
To understand why not, you must understand that Socrates is talking about the differences over Pascha, and summarizing Eusebius’ account.
The issue being discussed wasn’t about when Jesus was resurrected. It was about when people were honoring the Last Supper. The word sabbath here does not refer to Saturday or to a resurrection on Saturday. It refers to a remembrance of the Lord's Supper.

Read it for yourself:

“In Asia Minor most people kept the fourteenth day of the moon, disregarding the sabbath: yet they never separated from those who did otherwise, until Victor, bishop of Rome, influenced by too ardent a zeal, fulminated a sentence of excommunication against the Quartodecimans in Asia. Wherefore also Irenæus, bishop of Lyons in France, severely censured Victor by letter for his immoderate heat; telling him that although the ancients differed in their celebration of Easter, they did not desist from intercommunion. Also that Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who afterwards suffered martyrdom under Gordian, continued to communicate with Anicetus bishop of Rome, although he himself, according to the usage of his native Smyrna, kept Easter on the fourteenth day of the moon, as Eusebius attests in the fifth book of his Ecclesiastical History. While therefore some in Asia Minor observed the day above-mentioned, others in the East kept that feast on the sabbath indeed, but differed as regards the month.”
-Socrates of Constantinople, "Ecclesiastical History", book V, chapter XXII

Do you see there how it says "fourteenth day of the moon"? The fourteenth of Nissan is Passover. That is not the day on which Jesus was resurrected. Ashley and Seiglie know this. So, how can they use this to conclude He was resurrected on the Sabbath? They cannot.

From the context, nothing I've read in this book or any other leads me to believe Socrates was referring to the weekly Sabbath. When the weekly Sabbath is mentioned in relation to Pascha, it is in reference to strict fasting and a vigil in remembrance of the entombment, not the Pascha itself. No one regularly observed the Lord's Supper on Saturday.

Wait just a minute. This is the same mistake Herbert Armstrong made in his booklet "Plain Truth About Easter" (see 1973 version, pages 20-21). Funny, Socrates and the Didascalia were his two cited sources as well. Isn't that a strange coincidence?
They are just copying off of Armstrong this whole time. I thought Armstrong was irrelevant these days? I do recommend allowing him to be.

I can't tell you how many articles and booklets have been written to condemn Sunday observance which reference this very same Quartodeciman Controversy. Armstrongist material since the start have condemned mainstream Christianity as pagans for not being like the Quartodecimani. Socrates says the Quartodeciman side disregarded the sabbath. If Socrates uses sabbath to mean Saturday (which he does not), then guess what - Socrates undermines everything Armstrongist literature said in favor of the wonderful law-keeping Quartodecimani.
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea for Ashley and Seiglie to refer to Socrates after all!

Ashley and Seiglie never read through their source until they understood it. They just trusted Armstrong. They were so ideologically committed to a conclusion decided in advance, they couldn't see the source material literally says the opposite of what they were claiming.

For all the promise of Wednesday crucifixions and Saturday resurrections, they managed to come up with naught. All we got was more false history, more cherry picking, and more misquoting, and more redefining words, just like we used to get from Herman Hoeh.

HOW NOT TO DO RESEARCH

Have you noticed what these authors have been doing this entire time?
They have a pre-existing ideological commitment. Maybe it's to 'three days and three nights' being 72-hours exactly. Maybe it's to a Wednesday crucifixion. They start with the conclusion, then they go looking for evidence. Is it any wonder they only accept evidence they think supports their conclusion?

Mind you, they didn't start with a hypothesis then set off to see if the evidence supports it. No. They started with a conclusion and went to see if they can cherry pick something to support it. They were so committed that they went out in search of people who understood the Lord's Supper was on a Tuesday, then didn't care when the source utterly contradicted everything else they had to say. Because, to them, a Tuesday Passover demands a Wednesday crucifixion, even if what they are reading specifically says otherwise. They were so ideologically committed that they saw the word sabbath in Socrates of Constantinople and concluded it had to mean weekly Sabbath, even though the source wasn't even talking about Saturday, or the resurrection for that matter, and literally contradicts their point. As if there is no way that word could mean anything else. They were so ideologically committed that they redefined the word sabbaton. If you know the larger story that I don't even didn't get into here, then you know they in fact redefined sabbaton twice! And not just sabbaton, but prosabbaton as well (MAR. 15: 42). The word prosabbaton was the  name for Friday.

If they read the Didascalia and Socrates and the Greek dictionary this way, you can be certain they read the Bible this way.

They are ministers in the system, though. They get paid to have this conclusion. If they don't tow the line they are out of a job. But for you and I, is that how we should research? No.

If we genuinely search for truth, what we should do is be intellectually neutral and unbiased arbiters in that search for truth. Let the material say what it says. Let the truth be what it is. Truth can take care of itself. It doesn't need us to protect it.
I have always liked the definition of truth as "reality as it actually is." Truth is reality as it actually is. If we try to force reality to be one thing or the other, what is that called? Error, delusion, or worse, deception. If we do that, are we really looking for truth in the first place? This is why you see me using the phrase intellectual honesty. Being honest with the evidence.
When evidence is flat out ignored, when definitions of words are changed, when a source is used to come to a conclusion specifically denied by that very source - they pointed out that it disagreed with them for crying out loud - is that being intellectually honest?
Is that reality as it actually is?
Is that God's truth?
No. It isn't.

The best advice I can offer is to do the opposite of what your gut tells you and try to prove yourself wrong. Yes, be your own critic. Before I write a single word, I read and reread the source until I believe I understand what the author was saying. I try my best to understand the source as the author intended. Just like when I read Matthew 28 I try to understand it as the ancient Hebrews would have, not the way I want things to be. Then I mull the possible meanings over in my head until I think I understand. Then I try to poke holes in my conclusions and prove myself wrong. I do that until I can't poke any more holes. That way, I get as close to the truth as I can.
Sometimes you get what you want. Sometimes you don't. And sometimes the best conclusion you can come to is - I don't know. The answer can be uncertain. So, let it!

If you do these things, at least you will end up far closer to the truth than otherwise.

These authors could be fine people, with families and folks who love them. I don't know. I've never met them. My article is not about who they are as people. This article is about what they've written and the methods they've used. (Or is it about Herbert Armstrong's ideas and methods? They are the same, after all. I thought he wasn't relevant anymore.)
They've written a propaganda piece. They have access to all this history, sure enough. Rather than quote it accurately, learning what was meant to be understood, they twisted it beyond recognition because they had an agenda to satisfy.

If they do this to history books, do you think maybe they do the same thing to the Bible? Do you think they only treat this one subject in this way?

CONCLUSION

Why! Why do I do this to myself??

I could have left well enough alone, but no. I just had to go and look into that Palantir. I had hope! But now none. I am sorely disappointed to see that not only have things not improved in the Armstrongist splinter churches, but they've somehow managed to degrade just that much farther.

The Church of God splinter group articles on the last days of Jesus' life are, well, not so good. They don't understand what sign Jesus gave. They don't understand how Hebrews counted time. They don't understand the proper definition of Greek words like sabbaton or prosabbaton or paraskeue. They don't understand ancient documents when they read them.
Is it really honest to purposefully make a mess of things then complain how everything is a mess? "I redefined, and obfuscated, and misrepresented, and cherry picked, now things don't make sense. Why!?"
It's not that things can't add up, it's that when we try to force an answer from bad math it won't add up. It's not that they can't understand, it's that they refuse to understand.

I started out looking for hope. I couldn't find a single ray of hope in any of this, except possibly that the piece seemed to lack any heart. How is that a ray of hope? Because it means they don't really love what they're dishing out anymore. Maybe there's an end to this tunnel after all.

I want to share with you the reason this blog has so many articles on the holidays. It's not because we are stuck on holiday topics. It's because these fields are always so ripe with examples like the ones in today's article. Few other topics make it so easy to demonstrate the rank ideological bias in Armstrongism. Every time they write an article on holidays it has this same kind of thing like we saw today. We just grab that low-hanging fruit.

Dear reader, beloved by God, I plead with you to read our articles on this topic. We have a Categories page with articles on every topic you need. If you only read one thing on this topic, at least read our Easter FAQ. It could have saved you, and Scott Ashley and Mario Seiglie - and me - quite a bit of headache.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have one more article on the topic to write. Better get to it.

************

It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

************

Help Us Help You

Hello, dear reader. I bet you didn't expect to see any more posts here. I sure didn't! But, I think I have a good reason.

With Seeker passing away, I started wondering what kind of legacy did she leave behind. I have believed in this blog since before I joined it back in 2009. But there is always room for improvement. I would like to know if any improvements could be made.

Bearing in mind the point of this blog is investigating the Churches of God (ie. Armstrongism) from a Christ-centered perspective...
Is this blog being helpful to people looking for answers? Could we do something differently and be even better? Is there something we've missed that you would like more answers about? Have we said something that throws you off and we could re-phrase it to make it more accessible?

Please be aware that you can use the Search bar over on the right and down just a little >>>
And don't forget we have a Categories page and a FAQ page, created to help you find answers more easily.

If you have found any help or comfort here, please reach out, in a comment or preferably by email, and let us know. Share your experiences and suggestions with us. Perhaps you can help us to help you. And others!

God bless you and thank you for visiting!!

************

It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

************