May 18th, 2025 :: Sabbath-School Review

By Derek West

This lesson made a special twist.  It showed why we no longer mandate vegetarianism as a tenant of doctrine.   We learned that Jacob’s reward for his work was cattle with abnormal skin patterns: ring straked, speckle, and grizzled. This exemplifies and symbolized the transition that the Church must now undergo. 

Therefore, the Lord’s compulsion for Jacob to leave his uncle’s ranch was an appeal for the saints to mature in their doctrinal teachings.  This they must do, as the metaphor suggest, to scrub away their doctrinal imperfections. 

The example of Jesus and the ten lepers was used to enforce the point: Leprosy is an unacceptable affliction for health and, as a metaphor, for doctrine.  Thus the Lord’s appeal to Jacob was that he must leave the ranch because all the cattle that he earned for wages were spotty.  The call to leave was a call for purification. 

An illustration of Adventist doctrinal inconsistencies was the doctrine of vegetarianism.  It had value for the saints yesterday; however, today there is a call to advance higher in spiritual growth.  This appeal by antitypical Jacob has met with resistance.  A reply to a letter from an antagonist to this new advance provided an extensive answer to show why Vegetarianism was legitimately emphasized yesterday; meanwhile, today we have changed that speckled doctrine in favor of a clean meat diet as defined in Lev 11. 

Your comments are appreciated.

Derek