Tell us about yourself: education, occupation, family, etc. My name is Marcos David Torres. I grew up in New Jersey, am a US Army veteran, and currently serving as a pastor in Perth, Western Australia with my wife and two boys. I have a bachelor of theology from Southern Adventist University. And just for fun, Thai Green Coconut Curry is the greate
Question 1: Can you share a little about yourself and your background? How long have you been an Adventist? Well, I’m an African-American and I was born in Illinois so I’m from the Midwestern part of the United States. My dad is from the southside of Chicago, Illinois and my mom grew up on the westside of Chicago. My grandmother is from Detr
Introduction Attorney James Standish began his address by warning the audience that his presentation may be considered too controversial for some Adventists but he continued by proposing that Christianity as a faith cannot be simply lived out as “private piety” but that it must also impact the public square. Standish then pointed out
In the last article, we explored the power of presuppositions (preconceived ideas) and how they can either enhance or obscure our understanding of the world, including the Bible. We also established that: 1) we all have presuppositions 2) we can’t get rid of presuppositions. We also seem to born with a certain aversion toward correct
At this point in our series, we now understand how the Bible came into existence through the miracle of Revelation-Inspiration. We have also dealt with the issue of Ellen White, a modern non-canonical prophet for Seventh-day Adventists. We can now move on to the next phase of study which is to establish how to interpret the Bible (hermeneutics). RE
If you’ve been following along in this series you probably knew this day was coming. So far we have used the Bible alone to establish most of what we’ve covered so far. But alas it’s time to address the proverbial elephant in the room. What should we do with Ellen White? Recap In the last article, we covered the “tools of the trade” for Bibl
Recap For a series of this length, it is good to periodically include a recap or two. We’ve covered a lot of material so far and below is a brief synopsis. In part one of the series, we covered the importance of theology and why it is absolutely crucial to move away from simply professing belief in a list of doctrines to actually see the interconne
In our last article we covered the basic function of Biblical prophets and the Biblical tests that we can use to expose false prophets. So now that we can tell the difference between true and false prophets, we can return to our study of inspiration. What we want to do at this point as systematic Adventists (Adventists that see their faith as a sys
In the last article, we covered the basic aspects of inspiration work they appear in the Biblical text. As we continue this series we will consider the following questions: What are the qualifications to be a prophet and to write Scripture? How does the Holy Spirit supervise the work of prophets in the creation of Scripture? So, let’s go ahead and
The subject of inspiration is not a simple concept to grasp (and if you encounter someone who teaches that it is simple, then you can be sure they haven’t thought about the subject very deeply). What we will cover in this article and the next can be spiritually jarring and stretch your theological muscles to the limits. Nevertheless, because of the
