Connecting Columbia Union Seventh-day Adventists

November 2016

The words “rest” and “busy” are often used when speaking with Seventh-day Adventists about the Sabbath. Many recite from memory the Fourth Commandment and point to creation as our injunction to cease from regular “worldly” activity and rest from our labors (see Gen. 2:2; Ex. 20:8). But for many pastors, teachers and lay persons who work or volunteer at their local church, Sabbath is hardly a day of rest. And, for a few, it is another dreaded work day where they end up exhausted, wondering: Where was the blessing in that?

Before he saved dozens of wounded soldiers on the front lines during World War II, which earned him a Medal of Honor, Seventh-day Adventist combat medic Desmond Doss was called a misfit for refusing to carry a weapon, and commanders ostracized him for observing the Sabbath. Seventy years later, what is the military like for Adventists?