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WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
WORLD HEADQUARTERS
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
President and Pastor
January 31, 1974
Dear Brethren in God's Church:
A surprising report has just been submitted to me by Mr.
Raymond F. McNair, Senior Editor of The PLAIN TRUTH.
It had come to my attention that a growing uncertainty
was occurring among some in the Church over the matter of counting
the day of Pentecost. More than a quarter century ago, when the
Headquarters was still in Eugene, Oregon, a woman member stirred
up dissension, trying to divide the Church over this issue. I
carefully went into every argument she presented. All were false.
It has been stirred up by some since, at least twice. In
every case the gainsayers were WRONG.
This matter has been carefully researched by the Church,
and by myself personally at least three times, before now. Some,
even back in the days when the Headquarters was at Eugene, Oregon,
had insisted that a day "from" today is still today. The way
they counted, seven days from a Sabbath is the following Friday.
To count seven days from a Sabbath they insisted on numbering that
Sabbath number one. Two days from Sabbath, in their count, was
Sunday. Of course that is ridiculous. God's Church has always,
and rightly, rejected every such argument. There were other
arguments, ALL FALSE!
God's Church cannot and will not be carried about here
and there by every wind of doctrine, into false doctrines. On
the other hand, God's Church always has, and always will, correct
any errors when PROVED. Often I have said, as Abraham Lincoln
said, "I shall adopt new views, so often as they are PROVED to be
TRUE views." God commands, "PROVE all things; hold fast that which
is good" (I Thessalonians 5:21).
We could not BE The Church of GOD if we did otherwise.
The VERY FACT that in past years errors, on discovery, have been
corrected, is one (and ONLY one) of the evidences this IS the very
CHURCH OF GOD!
Day before yesterday I had lunch with my son, Garner Ted.
There had been wide-scale meetings here once again going in-depth
into a scholarly and technical study of every phase of the
question. He said Mr. McNair had come up with something NEW that I
ought to see.
Now, after all these careful reexaminations of all the
Scriptural evidences, Mr. McNair, and several others who have
taken part in this most recent technical research, feel SOMETHING