Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

“Quakers”  

The founding members of the Religious Society of Friends saw clearly the dangers and excesses of organized religion.  Friends have a mature grasp on the nature of truth – that it is ever advancing.  Thus, they reject creeds since such statements of belief tend to close the mind to further revelations of truth.  The various religious movements who collectively make up the Religious Society of Friends have a rather wide variety of beliefs, but the one belief that is paramount is the priesthood of all believers.  While Friends have, in many ways, very mature spiritual insight, the beliefs they hold are sometimes taken too far and what, in moderation was truth, becomes error when carried to extreme.  Following are some of the points where the beliefs of Friends stray from the path of truth.

• Friends, more than almost any other denomination, understand the importance of a direct and personal relationship with Yahuwah through His Son, Yahushua.  This understanding has greatly influenced every other belief they hold dear, including their understanding of “continuing revelation” (or, the continual advancement of revealed truth.)  Even their worship services were traditionally centered around the giving of one’s personal testimony of his or her inner revelations.  Sadly, many Friends emphasize this to the point of making one’s personal inner light superior to Scripture.
  
  Yahuwah delights to hold intimate communion with His earth-bound children.  He has promised to send His Spirit to lead all who are willing to follow into His pure truth.  However, inner revelation alone is not Heaven’s designated way for revealing further truth.  The Bible warns: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?  I, Yahuwah, search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”  (Jeremiah 17:9-10)
  
  Yahuwah will take the individual where he is and lead him, but His ordained method is to have all new ideas and concepts submitted first to Scripture.  The Holy Bible is the great standard by which all new beliefs must be compared.
  

  From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in the Annointed Yahushua.  All scripture is given by inspiration of Yah, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of Yahuwah may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.  (2 Timothy 3:15-17)

  Scripture is given to verify personal experience, not the other way around.  Any witness born that contradicts Scripture is to be rejected for truth will never contradict itself.

• Friends were among the first, if not the first, to reject the use of pagan terminology for the days of the week and the months of the year, instead using the Biblical terminology of First Day, Second Day, etc.  For the same reason, Friends correctly abstain from observation of the pagan holidays of Christmas and Easter.  However, setting aside First Day for Meeting still does not honor the One they love because the calendar used for counting to First Day, etc., is a solar papal calendar, adapted from a solar pagan calendar.  Only the luni-solar calendar of Scripture is Heaven’s ordained method of time-keeping to be used for calculating all of Yahuwah’s holy convocations.

• Some Friends are non-Sabbatarians, arguing that what should not be done on First Day, should not be done at any time.  However, Yahuwah’s directive is clear: the command to abstain from work on the seventh-day Sabbath [lunar Sabbath] includes the command to work the other six days.  Thus, Yahuwah Himself differentiated between the days of the week.

While Friends have a unique understanding of advancing truth and the importance of an individual relationship with the Almighty, these and other beliefs become incorrect when taken to the extreme of supplanting the witness of Scripture with ones personal thoughts, feelings and impressions.  Yahuwah invites all Friends to return to a careful study of His Word and lay aside every error that is not supported by Scripture.