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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER
16,
1986
PAGE
9
fact--that the Sinai peninsula westward to the Nile was not part of the
land of Canaan promised to Abraham. Any modern Bible dictionary may be
consulted on this historic subject, as also any Bible atlas covering the
period of Solomon's reign, during which the border of Israel was the
"River
of
Egypt," but not the Nile.
0
"Ending Your Financial Worries"
No significant substantive changes were made in the new edition.
However, since the booklet was written more than a quarter century ago,
several stylistic changes appear in the drophead and on pages
1-3.
For
example, in the drophead such expressions as "average Americ-an" and
"most Americans" are deleted, as is the 'reference to "the war in
Vietnam.
"
On page
8
the sentences: "We are the wealthiest nation on earth. We
are the wealthiest nation of all history
..."
are deleted as other,
smaller nations have a significantly larger per capita annual income
than does the United States.
Also on page 8 the sentences in the short second paragraph under the
subhead now read: "One of those prophets is Malachi. Listen to his
teaching! He quotes God, who
is
speaking to
us
today...." The words
"New Testament" that appeared before the word "teaching" have been
edited out as the original text offered no explanation as to how a
Hebrew prophet of the fifth century B.C. could be a New Testament
prophet.
Rather than add material to explain that the New Testament Church is
built on Old Testament prophets and the apostles--an explanation that
would distract the reader--it was deemed better simply to delete the two
words. Elsewhere in our literature it
is
explained why Malachi's
message is for
"us
today."
0
"The Incredible Human Potential"
The following edits appear in the new edition: On page
5
(page numbers
refer to the paperback edition) the expression "the lost century" has
been rephrased. It now reads "an obscure period in the history of the
true Church." The reason
is
that certain of John's letters and the book
of Revelation come from the period after A.D.
7 0 .
In them is very
significant information that would make "the lost century" hardly
appropriate. It was also the lifetime of Polycarp of Smyrna, who died
in
A.D.
155.
Under the subhead on page
5 ,
the first sentence now reads: "By about
A.D.
50..."
rather than "By about A.D. 58"--an older erroneous date
that the author later abandoned. The simple round figure of the nearest
decade was deemed better usage. The last line on the page begins: "To
the Thessalonians, in A.D. 51, Paul wrote..." instead of "about A.D.
5 4 . . . . "
The earlier wording was not in keeping with the information
available to students at Ambassador College and was based on outdated
information printed in some older Bible margins.