He was an energetic man in his 67th year, moving with quick, cat-like steps around his trailer-home as he showed me photographs of his children and grandchildren in which I had shown an interest. His full head of shoulder-length hair and long, thick beard were both white giving him the appearance of a patriarch.
Before his retirement everyone in our community knew him as Mick the Shoe-man, operating a little shoe repair store on a side street in the downtown area. He was a bit of a character, eccentric and one who made no bones about the fact that it was his religious duty to keep the Sabbath. His shop would close promptly as the sun set on Friday and although he missed the lucrative Saturday trade he claimed the Lord had blessed him more than he had ever dreamed because of his faithfulness in Sabbath-keeping. He was proud, even boastful, about his ability as a shoe repairman and certainly he was a master craftsman. When he moved his small shop to his home in a outlying area people would sometimes drive for many miles on Saturday to bring him their shoes for repair, but regardless of how far they had come, he would steadfastly refuse to accept anyone’s shoes on the Sabbath day.
I had driven out to his home that evening in response to an earlier request to see me. It had been a difficult week and I was tired. Knowing his reputation and his love for the Sabbath I had to admit to myself that it was not easy to visualize this man as a brother in Christ. I anticipated an argument and it seemed pointless. He had received a pamphlet on the Sabbath and had expressed his disagreement to others, but even at that, as he and his wife sat with me around the dining room table with our Bibles open, I was not prepared for his opening statement.
He had two pages in the pamphlet all marked up. With an accusing finger he jabbed at the pages, looked me right in the eye and said: “The man that wrote that is a LIAR!” His next statement did not help: “the Christadelphians don’t know what they are talking about — you make Seventh-Day Adventists (which church he had joined) look like second-class citizens.” He objected to our insistence that the breaking of bread was on the first day of the week in the New Testament and he particularly objected to the written statement that Seventh-Day Adventists made their servants work on the Sabbath day. He was a thorough man and had done his homework well. He turned quickly to all the New Testament references, quoted some accurately by memory and with rising voice, waving arms and a crescendo of emotion for nearly half an hour he tore the pamphlet apart.
My Bible was marked up for the Sabbath and I had come prepared to study it. But there was no point in arguing. I listened politely but inwardly thought: there goes the Sabbath study down the drain!
We had come into contact with them through a letter to the Editor in our local paper. A minister had written a column on the Devil and Satan and we had replied. After countering the minister’s points one by one we had then given the true Bible picture of the devil as being a synonym for human nature and had used all the traditional passages: Heb. 2:14, Mark 7:21, Rom. 7:14-20, Gal 5:24, etc. etc.
The day after publication this man had phoned. He and his wife had read the letter the previous evening — never before had they heard this concept of the Bible devil. They had looked up every scripture reference we had given, using Strong’s concordance, and he was excited at the new truth they had found. They wanted Bible study with us. As an incidental point, the minister replied to our letter and we responded, closing with a challenge to a public debate which the pastor did not accept.
Before my friend started his attack on our pamphlet he had read to me a letter of resignation from the 7th Day Adventist church, written after his contact with us. He had already begun to question some of their doctrine, and his new insight into the Bible devil finished them off!
After he finished his tirade against our pamphlet there was a moment’s silence. Then I looked at him and asked: “Are you finished?” He replied with a grin: “Yup, I just wanted to get that off my chest!” It seemed that it was about time we made some positive progress for that evening so then I said to him: “What do you want to study?” He looked at me, and then to my great surprise confessed: “the Sabbath!”
We spent an hour, beginning with the giving of the ten commandments in Exodus 20, making the point in passages like Ex. 31:13 and 17: “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever” and closing with Paul’s comments on the Law. We emphasized: Heb. 7:18, RSV “A former commandment is set aside, because of its weakness and uselessness”; Heb. 8:13, RSV: “In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete” and (AV) “Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.” We looked up 2 Cor. 3 and hammered it home: the law “written and engraven in stones” was vs 3: “a ministration of death,” vs 9: “a ministration of condemnation,” vs 11: “done away.” His wife conscientiously wrote down every passage we looked up, for later consideration.
When we had finished he sat in silence for a moment, then he said: “Well, I sure never saw that before!” Finally, his last question for the evening: “you mean we don’t have to keep the Sabbath?” “No, I said, “It’s been done away with and replaced by a better covenant in Christ”. They seemed to accept that. We closed the evening with a welcome pot of tea and fruit cake his wife had made. Then came the sixty-four dollar question: “Would you like to have a weekly study group in your home?” He was enthusiastic: “Certainly, there is nothing we’d love more.” And so we began yet another first-principle class around the Word of God.
I went home that night a happier and wiser brother: Never give a friend a pamphlet you have not read; never call down another man’s religion; never size up another individual and decide he won’t make suitable ground for the Word of God; don’t ever wonder if the time taken in writing a letter to the Editor is worth it— and make sure it is a positive letter, not simply negative — not only the things we don’t believe but the things we DO believe; and finally, as we all know, NEVER miss an opportunity to go and study the Word with anyone.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One