The Pentecost Festival Weekend in 2018 will be held over
3 different weekends (owing to calendar differences):
May 19-20 May 26-27 June 23-24
Only festival sites that are understood to have an ‘open attendance’ policy
are listed here (but please check in advance).
CANADA
Westbridge, British Columbia Venue: Rendell Creek Ranch
His Truth Seekers Ministry May 25-27 Festival Info
Morriston, Ontario Venue: Puslinch Community Centre
Church of God International May 18-20 Festival Info – Schedule
ISRAEL
Jerusalem June 22-24 Festival & Package Tour Info
Congregation of YHWH (Jerusalem)
UNITED KINGDOM
Nottingham, England Venue: CoY, 27A Carlton Road.
Congregation of Yahweh May 19-20 Festival Info
UNITED STATES
Angola, Indiana Venue: Potawatomi Inn, Pokagon State Park
United Church of God May 18-20 Festival Info
Gilbertsville, Kentucky Venue: Kentucky Dam Village State Park
Intercontinental Church of God May 19-20 Festival Info
Rocheport, Missouri Venue: YAIM – free campground.
Yahweh’s Assembly in Messiah May 26-27 Festival Info
Polson, Montana June 22-24
YHWH is 1 Festival Info
Pie Town, New Mexico Venue: TRI, 39 Cedar Drive.
TRI Ministries May 26-27 E-mail for more info
Norman, Oklahoma Venue: NCED Hotel & Conference Center
Lion and Lamb Ministries May 25-27 Festival Info
Roseburg, Oregon Venue : Lighted Way Ministries
Lighted Way Ministries – see Upcoming Events May 26-27
Knoxville, Tennessee Venue/Visitor Info: Big Ridge State Park
7th Day Church of God June 23-24 Festival Info
Counting 50 Days to Pentecost
In 1974 Herbert Armstrong was persuaded to change the day of Pentecost from Monday to Sunday. He had formerly determined that Monday was the correct day, because:
“In ENGLISH, 50 days FROM a Sunday can be counted NO OTHER WAY than that ONE day FROM Sunday is Monday, and 50 days FROM Sunday always falls on a Monday.”
If, as Leviticus 23:15-16 states, the count begins and ends on a Sunday – wave sheaf Sunday is the 1st day, and the Sunday of the 7th week is the 50th day. This is known as ordinal or inclusive counting, which is used in almost all the world – but Herbert Armstrong was unaware of it.
Charles Dorothy mailed to all ministers “a packet of Pentecost material representing some of the combined labors of our doctrinal team, especially Mr. Raymond McNair, Dr. Robert Kuhn and myself – as well as various other researchers, notably Mr. Lester Grabbe and Mr. Lawson Briggs.”
WCG’s doctrinal team set out various technical grammatical arguments to show that counting in the Hebrew text is inclusive. Some refused to accept these arguments. The Bethel Church of God and Church of God the Eternal continue to observe Pentecost on Monday.
The fact is that in biblical times everyone counted inclusively. We are all familiar with numbers in Latin: M=1000, C=100, L=50, X=10 etc., but Greek and Hebrew also used letters to denote numbers. There was no letter in these languages to represent ‘0’, as counting was inclusive.
The inclusive counting of days in Hebrew is demonstrated most clearly in 1 Samuel 20.
DAY 1 (daytime) v.18 Then Jonathan said to David, “Tomorrow is the New Moon; and you will be missed, because your seat will be empty. 19 And when you have stayed three days, go down quickly and come to the place where you hid on the day of the deed.”
DAY 2 (evening) v.24 … And when the New Moon had come, the king sat down to eat the feast. 25 … but David’s place was empty. 26 Nevertheless Saul did not say anything that day …
DAY 3 (evening) v.27 And it happened the next day, the second day of the month, that David’s place was empty. And Saul said to Jonathan his son, “Why has the son of Jesse not come to eat, either yesterday or today?” … 30 Then Saul’s anger was aroused against Jonathan … 33 Then Saul cast a spear at him to kill him, by which Jonathan knew that it was determined by his father to kill David.
DAY 3 (morning) v.35 And so it was, in the morning, that Jonathan went out into the field at the time appointed with David.
The time appointed was three days, but it would be two days using exclusive counting.
Inclusive counting in the Greek text is clearly shown in Acts 10.
DAY 1 v.1 There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment … 3 About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius!” … 5 Now send men to Joppa, and send for Simon whose surname is Peter.
DAY 2 v.9 The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray 21 Then Peter went down to the men who had been sent to him from Cornelius … 22 And they said, “Cornelius the centurion, a just man, one who fears God and has a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews, was divinely instructed by a holy angel to summon you to his house, and to hear words from you.” 23 Then he invited them in and lodged them.
DAY 3 On the next day Peter went away with them, and some brethren from Joppa accompanied him.
DAY 4 v.24 And the following day they entered Caesarea. Now Cornelius was waiting for them … 30 So Cornelius said, “Four days ago I was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your alms are remembered in the sight of God. 32 Send therefore to Joppa and call Simon here, whose surname is Peter.”
Four days ago – but it would be three days using exclusive counting.
Have you ever wondered why, when counting years from BC to AD, you have to remember to add one year, because there’s no year 0?
AD – “Anno Domini” – counting years from the birth of Christ – was devised by a Catholic monk Dionysius Exiguus in 525AD. The English monk and historian Bede used AD dating in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731, and referred to years before AD in Latin, but became known simply as “Before Christ” – BC.
Counting was still at this time always inclusive – because the number zero had not yet been invented!
In the Liber Abaci (1202), the Italian mathematician Fibonacci introduced the western world to the Modus Indorum (method of the Indians) – the Hindu-Arabic numeric system, 0-9. He demonstrated the practical use and value of these numerals in banking and accounting, converting weights and measures, and various other applications.
There was now a symbol representing a transition between plus and minus values, a “break-even” point between profit and loss. He likened this symbol to a zephyr (west wind) – zefiro in Italian, which was then contracted to zero.
This new method of exclusive counting was popular in business and science, but only began to have a wide impact with the advent of the industrial revolution, when it quickly became the standard way of counting, so that today many people are unaware that we ever counted any differently.
