ur future is what beckons us and challenges us. And we must walk into that future without distancing ourselves from the ‘wall’ at our backs. We must feel its support constantly,” Seventh-day Adventist world church president Jan Paulsen said during a July 8 message at a gathering of 240 Adventist theologians and scholars in Izmir, Turkey.
He spoke on the second day of the 10-day Second International Bible Conference on the role of theology in the modern church. The conference takes place at a resort near the Aegean Sea, not far from where the apostle Paul preached to Jesus’ followers 2,000 years earlier.
“We’re here to learn from each other,” said Angel Manuel Rodríguez, director of the church’s Biblical Research Institute, in remarks opening the event on July 7. He said the group was also there to “reaffirm our commitment to the mission of the Adventist Church,” with lectures that “aim at the practical dimension.”
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The event is meeting under the theme, “The Nature, Mission, and the Unity of the Seventh-day Adventist Church,” and is sponsored by the Biblical Research Institute, the Adventist Theological Society, and the Horn Archeological Institute at Andrews University, in Berrien Springs, Michigan.
Along with 12 plenary sessions, there will be more than 100 specialized presentations in study groups on a variety of Biblical topics ranging from a discussion on the “Rabbinic Exegesis of Deuteronomy 24:1 and Adventist Hermeneutics” to “Sanctuary and the Character of God” to “The Seventh-day Adventist Theologian and Ordination,” as well as topics relating to Adventist ecclesiology.
The presenters come from seminaries in Europe, Africa, Asia, Central and South America, as well as the United States. The event will also take the participants to the seven churches identified in the book of Revelation (chapters 2 and 3), ancient Troy, and the island of Patmos.
“We are here in one of the most important eras in world history and the history of the church,” said Ulrich Frikart, president of the church’s Euro-Africa region, which includes Turkey. “We are here on prophetic ground.”
Visits to key places in early Christianity during the conference will bring attendees face-to-face with traditions, but Paulsen said that while we appreciate and lean upon the “wall” of tradition, teachings, and policies the church has built up, our focus must be on what he called “the openness which lies before us,” and not on the past.
“Jesus Christ must be the unequivocally identified and acknowledged guide into the future,” Paulsen said. “Any ‘brand’ of Seventh-day Adventism that does not have Jesus Christ at its center, recognizable and affirmed, should not be allowed space within our community.”
To read Pastor Paulsen's complete address, click here. —Adventist News Network/AR.
