The North Pacific Union Gleaner for 1980
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NORTH PACIFIC UNION CONFERENCE crease of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year." (Deut. My Conviction Is: 14:22.) We are to pay tithe on the in- crease. This means we will tithe the gain or profit on something we have sold and Tithing Is a Test of Our Love wages we have earned. To explain further: If a woman makes a dress and sells it for twenty dollars, and the mate- By Jeff Strode rial and thread cost twelve dollars, the profit or increase is eight dollars. Tithe God claims as His one-tenth of our Lord of hosts." (Hag. 2:8.) "Know ye on eight dollars is eighty cents. possessions. God has no need of our that the Lord He is God: it is He that "For where your treasure is, there gifts, because everything belongs to hath made us, and not we ourselves; we will your heart be also." (Matt. 6:21.) Him. But He asks a portion of our in- are His people, and the sheep of His Our relationship to money is one of the come to remind us of our stewardship pasture." (Ps. 100:3.) We now know key ways of finding out where our and to test our love for Him. Just as that God owns us and all our money. priorities are. We must remember that tribute money paid to Caesar was rec- We need to know how much of His money is not the root of all evil, but the ognition of his authority, so the holy money God asks us to give back to Him. love of money is. (1 Tim. 6:10.) tithe is an acknowledgment of God's "All the tithe of the land, whether of the Tithing can do one of two things for Lordship. Christ said, "Render there- seed of the land, or of the fruit of the us. The first way will make us a robber. fore unto Caesar the things which are tree, is the Lord's: it is holy unto the "Will a man rob God? Yet ye have Caesar's; and unto God the things that Lord." (Lev. 27:30.) Tithe means one- robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have are God's." (Matt. 22:21.) we robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings. The next thing we have to resolve is, Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have What does God own? "The silver is robbed Me, even this whole nation.— mine, and the gold is mine, saith the (Mal. 3:8, 9.) God also warns us in Luke 12:15 to Jeff Strode is a senior class member at beware of covetousness. For a man's Portland Adventist Academy, and is life does not consist of his possessions. also student body president. He wrote The second way will make us content. this short piece as a recent class as- God will provide our needs. "Every signment in a writing course he is taking Jeff Strode man according as he purposeth in his at .Mount Hood Community College. heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver." (2 Cor. 9:7) And He rewards tenth; that is, for every ten parts of them accordingly. God tells us to test money, one part is to be given back to Him in Malachi 3:10, 11: "Bring ye all God. It also says the tithe is holy, for it the tithes into the storehouse, that there belongs to God. may be meat in Mine house, and prove How do we know what to pay tithe Me now herewith, saith the Lord of on? "Thou shalt truly tithe all the in- hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, LEANERNORTH PACIFIC UNION CONFERENCE that there shall not be room enough to (USPS 394-560) receive it. And I will rebuke the de- vourer for your sakes, and he shall not CORRECTION: It has come to our Address all correspondence to: destroy the fruits of your ground; GLEANER, attention that on page 13 of the April neither shall your vine cast her fruit be- North Pacific Union Conference 7 GLEANER, the short article on P.O. Box 16677, Portland, OR 97216 fore the time in the field, saith the Lord the Mount Ellis Academy stove in- (503) 255-7300 of hosts.' dustry contained an error. The story May 19, 1980 Vol. 75, Number 10 indicated that Woodcutters' rent was Editor, Morten Juberg paid by the academy: not so, writes Assistant Editor, Ed Schwisow Published by the North Pacific Union Vern Biloff. Woodcutters pays its Conference of Seventh-day Adventists own rent to the academy. Please Note—Every reasonable effort is made to screen both editorial and adver- tising materials and to avoid error in this About the Cover publication. But the North Pacific Union Conference GLEANER does not accept Tom and Pat Leeson, who reside in Port Angeles, Wash., are free-lance responsibility for categorical or typo- nature photographers whose pictures have appeared on the GLEANER graphical errors, nor for advertisers' before. claims. Litho U.SA. CP29247 The eruption of Mount St. Helens in the Cascade Range has drawn a great Second-class postage paid at College deal of attention from geologists around the world. It also has provided an Place, Washington. Published semi- monthly at Color Press. Subscription, $6 opportunity for photographers to capture a once-in-a-lifetime event. By no per year. means has the task of getting such a picture been easy because Washington POSTMASTERS: Send form 3579 to weather has not been cooperative. Many of the violent eruptions have taken North Pacific Union GLEANER, P.O. Box place under heavy cloud cover. We congratulate the Leesons on this fine 397, College Place, Washington 99324. photograph of Mount St. Helens. GLEANER May 19, 1980 page 2 But the power of God was being shown in a different way in the back of General Conference Report the auditorium. Mrs. Carmen Paredes, former director of the department of elementary education in Guatemala, sat in a wheelchair listening in rapt atten- tion. Her husband and Mrs. Stanley Folkenberg from Spokane sat next to GC Session Brings Together her. Eighteen months ago, Mrs. Paredes People From Around the Globe suffered a massive brain concussion from a broadside automobile collision. The accident left her paralyzed on one By Morten Juberg side and with a speech impediment. The impediment gradually disappeared but the paralysis remained. Editor's Note: The following report handclapping. Not that everyone, par- She had received Bible studies before was filed by GLEANER editor Morten ticularly the program chairmen, have the accident but had chosen not to fol- Juberg and shares an on-the-spot per- been happy with the response. But they low the call of God. But the accident spective of General Conference 1980 as couldn't restrain it. changed her life and she was baptized it dress' to a close. From the newsroom, Beginning with the opening meeting Juberg wrote of his impressions as the when President Neal C. Wilson spoke, climactic final weekend of the General visitors and delegates alike showed Conference session began Friday, April their overwhelming delight and ap- 25. proval with clapping that rang through the arena. It continued unabated Seventh-day Adventists come in all through the session, subsiding slightly shapes, sizes and colors. If you have when disapproving comments were any doubt about this, attend a General made from the podium. Conference session. Something else happened on the As one walks down the corridors be- opening Saturday night that hasn't tween meetings, there is a babble of taken place at recent GC sessions, at many tongues. After all, the delegates least not in public. This was the dra- and visitors have come from 190 coun- matic healing of a visitor from tries around the globe. Guatemala. First, a bit of the back- The visitors range from a sophisti- ground of the Saturday night program. cated college president to a former The Ministerial Association pre- headhunter; from a cowboy-booted sented a program, "The Worth of a Wyomingite to a Samoan pastor who Soul." To all who attended, it packed a would much rather be barefooted than tremendous appeal. It dramatized the bound in shoes. entrance of individuals entering heaven. They have all come to the 53rd Gen- The blind threw aside their white eral Conference session held in the canes and the bedridden leaped with joy spacious Dallas Convention Center. Of- in their new strength. Families, sepa- ficial delegates number about 2,000, but rated by death, were united again. Neal C. Wilson, General Conference presi- the crowd during the week has been in There were few dry eyes in the audience dent, wears a lei presented to him by the excess of 10,000 and triple that number during the program. Hawaiian delegation. are expected for the closing Sabbath. The meetings are being moved from the arena to the large Grand Hall. In many respects, this session has been quite different from the last two or three meetings. Some of the conven- tions in the past have been marked by tensions which have spilled over into demonstrations. This session has been remarkably free from these. There have been some Texas offshoot groups dis- tributing literature each evening but this is their privilege. It has always been hard to channel the enthusiasm of Adventists into the more subdued response of "amens." During this session, the exuberance of the dele- gates has been manifested in hearty tii.rt' On the opening day of the session, a parade of costumed delegates wound its way from the Convention Center to Friendship Square near downtown Dallas where a large crowd gathered to hear a musical program.