Ivey,
There is a whole lot there I would want an explanation on including:
~We believe that the gift of Sabbath rest is an experience of God's eternal presence with His people.
~freedom of thought under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
~Every member of the church has the right to participate in the decision making process of the church.
~We believe that Jesus Christ, in His life and teachings as recorded in the Bible, is the supreme interpreter of God's will for mankind.
~We believe that mankind was created in the image of God and is therefore the noblest work of creation We believe that human beings have moral responsibility and are created to enjoy both divine and human fellowship as children of God.
~We believe that sin is disobedience to God and failure to live according to His will. Because of sin all people have separated themselves from God. We believe that because we are sinners, we are in need of a Savior.
~We believe in baptism by immersion as a symbol of death to sin, a pledge to a new life in Him.
~We believe that the Lord's Supper commemorates the suffering and death of our Redeemer until He comes, and is a symbol of union in Christ and a pledge of renewed allegiance to our risen Lord.
Overall, my quick observation is that the primacy this group places on the Sabbath is in my view unbalanced at best. You could chose so many doctrines as the primary charactaristic to describe a church (virgin birth,crucifixion, etc.) why the Sabbath so central?
I believe based on reading their information that its because that they perceive themselves somehow to be the unique people of God. The key quote for this is "To be without a covenant is to be without a church." So in other words, all of our churches without covenants are not true churches.
The whole idea of this type of covenant in my view is flawed. Men are covenant breakers, not keepers. To make a covenant to do all those things for God is ridiculous and equates to law keeping, which we are free from. God does not want us to measure sprituality by how well we keep the rules we invent, although it sure makes us feel better to have clearly defined rules.
"Covenant" sounds like such a cool biblical word but it just means promise. So, what I'm finding throughout this literature is a whole lot of promises these guys are making to God. I don't see that in scripture.
As believers, we are free from the letter of the law. We still keep God's moral laws as best we can to maintain fellowship, not relationship. Our relationship is settled, but we can be "closer" to God in the sense of submitting to His control and being aware of His presence more acutely.
They are right that the Sabbath is Saturday, but we are not obligated to keep the Sabbath. For something to be normative in the church today it should be not only practiced by the apostles but expounded on in the epistles. The early church did meet once a week on Sunday, the Lord's day, but that was not the sabbath. The early church did not keep the jewish Sabbath.
I can even tell you that these people do not keep the sabbath the way the Jews did or do. I have an orthodox jewish rabbi as a father in law, he won't get in a car or turn on a light during Shavice. Very different from what these guys do I'm sure. If they want to keep the law they may as well go all the way.
