Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Religion, MA

First Advisor

Laurentiu Florentin Mot

Second Advisor

Zoltan Szallos-Farkas

Third Advisor

Felix Cortez

Abstract

The imminence of the Parousia influenced the mission of Seventh-day Adventist church in all its history. The problem of this thesis is the extent to which the expectancy of the soon Parousia influences the concept about and the attitude towards mission in the Seventh-day Adventist church. Is Parousia the main motivation for the mission of the church or not? If Parousia determines the mission, what are the aspects associated with it that should drive the church mostly?

This thesis has a multidisciplinary approach: exegetical, historical and systematical. The study examines how the Bible history presents the impact of expectation upon the life and actions of the people of God. Then, some relevant historical facts are presented - factors that influenced the appearance of Millerism, and, later, the development of mission in the organized Seventh-day Adventist church mission that is influenced by the expectation of the second coming of Jesus Christ. In the last part, the perspectives of the contemporary mission in Seventh-day Adventist church are presented, showing examples of extremism regarding the eschatological mission and showing, also, the possibilities of mission fields for cross-cultural mission. The expectancy of Parousia should offer a positive motivation for mission and the concept of the remnant should be seen in a larger spectrum. The views about sin, justification and sanctification, in eschatological background, are important in the manner in which they influence mission.

Subject Area

Second Advent, Seventh-day Adventists--Doctrines, Missions

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/theses/101/

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