Question: Some members are using the policy of providing for the worship needs of all the members as a shield for their practice of trying to declare that the Hebrew festivals are required for Christians. Is this what was intended?
Answer: Certainly not. Church doctrine is that neither Saturday keeping nor keeping the seven annual festivals are required for salvation.
It is one thing to prefer a day and to meet on that day and to respect one another's preferences (the principle in Romans 14); it is quite another thing to insist that a particular day is required for salvation. To meet on Saturday or Sunday, or to prefer Saturday or Sunday, is fine. But to teach others that Saturday or Sunday are required for salvation is contrary to church doctrine.
We need to understand and bear with one another's differences in these choices of days, but we are not to bear with false doctrine that is contrary to the gospel.
The church has changed its former error regarding a day being the sign of who is a true Christian, and it cannot permit that error to be perpetuated. Church policy in this matter is based on Jesus' command that we love one another. We can meet on either Sunday or Saturday or both, but we cannot hold up any teaching that a day defines the true Christian or is required for salvation.
Question: Shouldn't we uphold the seven annual festivals to other Christians as a special blessing that allows us to better understand Christ?
Answer: The Bible does not uphold the festivals as having any sort of extra or special value to Christians.
Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 1999