THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. LOVE

This trimester we'll have a conversation around the CHRISTIAN LIFE We want to look at both aspects of our faith: doctrine and experience.

The role of experience never should take away from the importance of correct biblical teaching.It's the TRUTH"the truth as it is in Jesus."

LET'S WALK THE WALK

Saturday.LOVE. Isaiah 53, Matt. 22:37-39, 1 Corinthians 13, 1 John 3 and 1 John 4.
http://www.ssnet.org/qrtrly/eng/09b/less01.html

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13, NIV).

1 Corinthians 13: 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

The Greek philosopher Sophocles said, “One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love.”

God is love. Whatever else God is, and whatever He has done, is doing, and will do—everything is a manifestation of His love.

This love is as comforting as it is difficult to comprehend. God’s love far exceeds what human beings usually label as love.

Sunday.LOVE, THE FABRIC OF LIFE. In order to live in any real sense of the word, we also need love. Life without love is a subhuman kind of existence. There is a built-in need in us to receive love.

We need the love of parents. We need the love of family and friends. We need to be part of a loving community.

But just as much as we need to receive love, we also need to give love. We are not truly human if we cannot love.

But let’s be clear: True love does not begin with us. The capacity for love is created in us by our Creator.

Genesis 1: 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

John 3: 16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Matthew 22: 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[a] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

1 Corinthians 13 Love 1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.

1 John 3:14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death

God’s love always precedes our love. Whatever else we say about love, this point is crucial.

True “love is not an impulse, but a divine principle, a permanent power. The unconsecrated heart cannot originate or produce it.

Only in the heart where Jesus reigns is it found. ‘We love him, because he first loved us.’ [1 John 4:19].

In the heart renewed by divine grace, love is the ruling principle of action.”—Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 551.

The famous British author C. S. Lewis uses the terms “Gift-love” and “Need-Love” to differentiate between God’s love and human forms of love.

While God wants our love more than anything else, He does not need our love in the same way in which we need love from Him and from fellow human beings.

“We [must] begin at the real beginning, with love as the Divine energy. This primal love is Gift-love. In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give.”—C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (London: HarperCollins, 1998), p. 121.

Our human love needs to be transformed by divine love, so that—--while we will continue to yearn for love from others—we will be able to give love in a truly Christlike manner.

How can we better manifest God’s love in our own lives?

Such beautiful Love:) May God fill your lives with love, so much love, that it overflows in the life of others. May you be a blessing to all

Monday.THE OLD TESTAMENT GOD. A GOD OF LOVE. It is often said that God’s love is clearly manifested only in the New Testament, while the “Old Testament God” is a God of justice and wrath. But careful study of the entire Bible shows that God does not have such a split personality.

Though God’s love was manifested in the fullest measure in Christ (as portrayed in the New Testament), the God of Old Testament times is just as much a God of supreme love. God does not change (James 1:17).

He does not gradually evolve from a God of wrath or a God of justice into a God of love. God’s love is eternal. The words to His Old Testament people apply to all times: “ ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’ ” (Jer. 31:3, NIV).

# God’s love in creation (Gen. 1:26–31, 2:21–25).
# Providing a solution for the sin problem (Gen. 3:15, 22:8, Isaiah 53).
# The gift of the Sabbath (Exod. 31:12–17).
# The continuous gift of prophecy (Amos 3:7).

It is true that we read about bloodshed and war. But never forget that God is consistently portrayed as the covenant God, who draws people to Himself and does not forsake them, in spite of the fact that they turn their backs on Him time and again.

Tuesday.THE NEW TESTAMENT GOD. A GOD OF LOVE. In His infinite wisdom God devised a plan to deal with the predicament of sin in the best possible way.

Being a holy God, He could not overlook the rebellion against His perfect law; being love, He could not stand back and let His creatures perish without doing His utmost to save them.

"God's holiness is his majestic purity that cannot tolerate moral evil. God's love is his outgoing, tenderhearted embrace of the sinner.

God's holiness is his separateness from what is unclean and profane. God's love is his willingness to identify with those who are unclean in order to help them. . . .

[But] God's wrath is provisional whereas his love is eternal."—Donald G. Bloesch, God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness, Love (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995), pp. 140-143.

2 Peter 3: 13Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

1 John 3: 1Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

2Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

3And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

THIS SUMMARIZE IT ALL FOR THE REST OF THE DAYS OF THE WEEK

1 Corinthians 13

Love

1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

THE QUALITIES OF LOVE

a) Positive qualities

 LOVE IS PATIENT (13.4)
Macrothumei = "patient", which corresponds to the term "slow to anger "of the Old Testament. Alphonse Maillot prefers the translation "love takes patience." This is not an innate virtue. It is a way of listening and watching others. It is
The father who awaits the prodigal son and refuses to believe that the
boy will never return.

LOVE is helpful (13.4)
Chresteuetaï = 'helpful', 'willing to help or attend. The term describes the situation of one who is animated by the Spirit of God, and shows its sensitivity towards those who are crossing difficulties.

It enjoys the TRUTH (13.6)
Literally: "he found his joy with the truth"(2 John 4, John 3 3.4). Here the truth is opposed to unfairness and represents virtue, justice and goodness. Love is primarily aimed at the advancement of truth and happiness of man (Phil 1.14-18).

It forgives ALL (13.7)
Panta stegei = "it covers everything". Love is forgiving and does not ever keep pointing to the fault of another.


IT BELIEVES ALL (13.7)
Panta pisteuei = "believes it all." This does not mean that those who love their neighbor are credulous to the point of absurdity. Paul wants to say here that by love the believer is prepared to deal with others without prejudice and without bias.

Hopes all things (13.7)
Panta elpizei = "hopes all things." Whatever the difficulties, and whatever the reasons to doubt the sincerity of
others, love continues to hope that things will change in the right direction.
Chr life. 1 - 3 Michel Mayeur

It supports all (13.7)
Panta upomenei = "it supports all. Alphonse Maillot says: "It must first think about the love God has for us: the Divine stubbornness, which from the beginning, supports us and we resist His impatience. And he knows that one day will come when, instead of, we will access to the stubbornness of love "
(The Church in the present, p. 232).

b) The negative qualities that are not of Love.

To the jealousy of the Corinthians (3.3), to their pride (3.21, 4.7, 5.6) at their unacceptable behavior (5.1,2; 6.12-20, 11.3-15), their egocentrism (10.24), Paul opposes a strong love:

IT IS NOT envious (13.4)
= Zèloï or "it does not get jealous." Some translate "it is not fanatical, overzealous. " Today there are still fanatics who believe in truth but are determined to compel others to share their views. They believe they share the "Jealousy" of God.

LOVE does not brag(13.4)
Or perpeseutaï = "does not seek its own glory." Paul wants to emphasize here that love is something serious and that authenticity needs to be effective.

IT DOES NOT swell up with pride (13.4)
Or phusioutaï = "it did not inflate." The apostle insists here on the sense of self-satisfaction that often marks those who are
aware of their superiority (8.1).

IT DOES NOTHING DISHONEST (13.5)
Ouk aschemonei = "there is no lack propriety," it does not behave in a dishonorable way. " In the Greek version (LXX) this word means to"be naked" (Ez 16.7,22). Love is never uncivil, brutal and never offends the sensitivity of others.

IT DOES NOT LOOK FOR ITS OWN INTERESTS ONLY(13.5)
Literally: "it does not seek its benefits."

IT DOES NOT GET irritated (13.5)
Or paroxunétaï = "it is not irritable." The term means a violent anger that can destroy.

IT DOES NOT MEDITATE EVIL (13.5)
Another possible translation: "It does not take account of evil," it does not frame evil. "

IT DOES NOT ENJOY OF INJUSTICE (13.6)
LITERALLY: "THERE IS NO PLEASURE IN INJUSTICE." THIS LAST TERM DESCRIBES ANYTHING THAT IS FOREIGN TO THE

MAJOR THEMES OF LOVE

What Are Ellen G. White's Writings All About?
Major Themes in Ellen G. White's Writings

The following seven themes are not the only ones that could have been chosen, but they are certainly among her most basic, and are prominent throughout her works.

The Love of God
The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan
Jesus Christ, His Sacrifice, His Heavenly Intercession, and Salvation Through Him
The Believer's Response--Love of God & Love of Neighbor
The Centrality of God's Word
The Third Angel's Message and Seventh-day Adventist Mission
The Second Advent

The Love of God

Perhaps the central and most comprehensive theme in the writings of Ellen White is that of the love of God. The phrase "God is love" provides the beginning and ending words in her five-volume treatment of the Conflict of the Ages, with more than 3,500 pages in between. It is the theme that undergirds and provides the context for all other themes in her writings. "Such love is without a parallel," she wrote in the first chapter of her classic book Steps to Christ. "The matchless love of God for a world that did not love Him! The thought has a subduing power upon the soul and brings the mind into captivity to the will of God. The more we study the divine character in the light of the cross, the more we see mercy, tenderness, and forgiveness blended with equity and justice, and the more clearly we discern innumerable evidences of a love that is infinite and a tender pity surpassing a mother's yearning sympathy for her wayward child" (Steps to Christ, p. 15).

The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan

Another integrating theme in Ellen White's writings is that of the great controversy, or struggle, between Christ and Satan. Ellen White emphasizes repeatedly that the focal point of the great controversy is Satan's aim to misrepresent the loving character of God--to portray God's law of love as an arbitrary law of selfishness. God's demonstration of His love in the ongoing conflict with Satan forms the focus of her five-volume Conflict of the Ages Series. The foremost demonstration of God's love was the sending of His Son Jesus Christ, who came not only to die for the human race, but to portray God's character of love in the face of Satan's accusations.

Jesus Christ, His Sacrifice, His Heavenly Intercession, and Salvation Through Him

The life of Jesus, His death on the cross, His ministry in applying the merits of His death in the heavenly sanctuary, and the acceptance of Christ's work by the believer through faith, stands as a great thematic cluster at the center of Ellen White's understanding of Christianity. For Ellen White, Jesus was not merely a good friend in time of need; He was a Saviour who died on the cross for each individual. Faith in Christ's salvation (or righteousness by faith) is a teaching that permeates Ellen White's writings. She uplifted a "faith in the ability of Christ to save us amply and fully and entirely" (The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, p. 217). "The sacrifice of Christ as an atonement for sin is the great truth around which all other truths cluster. In order to be rightly understood and appreciated, every truth in the Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, must be studied in the light that streams from the cross of Calvary. I present before you the great, grand monument of mercy and regeneration, salvation and redemption--the Son of God uplifted on the cross" (Gospel Workers, p. 315.)

The Believer's Response--Love of God & Love of Neighbor

Ellen White saw Christianity as affecting every part of a person's daily life. The core of practical Christianity is exhibiting Jesus' character (self-sacrificing love) rather than living by the principles of Satan's kingdom (self-seeking). It means not only the dropping of harmful habits and destructive ways of living, but incorporating the positive characteristics of Christ's character in service to God and to one another. "No one can love God and not love His children," she wrote. "Christ abiding in the soul exerts a transforming power, and the outward aspect bears witness to the peace and joy that reign within" (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 337).

The Centrality of God's Word

Parallel to Ellen White's emphasis of Christ, the living Word of God, was her concern with God's Written Word--the Scriptures. In her first book (1851) she wrote: "I recommend to you, dear reader, the Word of God as the rule of your faith and practice" (Early Writings, p. 78). Ellen White exalted the Bible throughout her ministry as the revealed will of God, providing knowledge leading to a saving relationship with Jesus. "In His Word," she declared, "God has committed to men the knowledge necessary for salvation. The Holy Scriptures are to be accepted as an authoritative, infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the revealer of doctrines, and the test of experience" (The Great Controversy, p. vii). Ellen White saw her function as pointing people to the Bible, "a lesser light to lead men and women to the greater light" (Colporteur Ministry, p. 125). She believed personal Bible study was of the utmost importance for every Christian, and especially so in the closing days of earth's history.

The Third Angel's Message and Seventh-day Adventist Mission

Ellen White saw Revelation 14:6-12, with its description of the messages of the three angels, as standing at the very heart of Seventh-day Adventist identity. The third angel's message (along with the first two) was not only to be global but to draw out and test human beings--creating "a people distinct and separate from the world, who refuse to worship the beast or his image, who bear God's sign, keeping holy His Sabbath--the seventh day" (Evangelism, p. 233). For Ellen White, the third angel's message combines law and gospel--the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus (Rev. 14:12). Not only were Ellen White's extensive writings on the law, Sabbath, righteousness by faith, the great controversy, and other topics directly related to the third angel's message, but so were her voluminous counsels on education, health, publishing, and the gospel ministry.

The Second Advent

The reality of the nearness of the second advent of Christ dominated Ellen White's life and shaped her writing career. Christ's return is seen as the climax of salvation, signaling the beginning of the end of the great controversy between good and evil, a supreme expression of God's love, the point of the three angels' messages, an incentive for living the Christian life, and demanding an urgency in preaching the gospel message to all the world in as short a time as possible.

[Condensed and adapted from Meeting Ellen White by George R. Knight, pages 109-127. Available from Adventist Book Centers: 1-800-765-6955 or Review and Herald Publishing Association, 55 W. Oak Ridge Drive, Hagerstown, MD 21740 U.S.A.]

http://www.whiteestate.org/issues/themes1.html

CONFIDENCE IN THE PROPHETIC GIFT

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• MARCH 21-27. Read: Ps. 41:9; Isa. 53:4-6; Matt. 23:28-31; John 5:39; Acts 10:9-16, 44-48; 17:11.18 minutes ago from web

• Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in ... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/dxsf9514 minutes ago from TwitterMail
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• MARCH 22. BIBLICAL AUTHORITY. Luke 24: 25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:1 minute ago from web

• Luke 24:27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.less than 5 seconds ago from web

• Acts 10:14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.less than 5 seconds ago from web

• Acts 10: 15 And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.less than 5 seconds ago from web

• Acts 10: 44 While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.less than 5 seconds ago from web

• 45And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished...because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.less than 5 seconds ago from web

• Acts 10: 47 Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?less than 5 seconds ago from web

• Acts 10: 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.less than 5 seconds ago from web

• The disciples experienced their great disappointment at the Crucifixion. They had hoped Jesus would redeem Israel;less than 5 seconds ago from web

• ...they were certain that He would set Himself up as their king, drive out the Romans, and establish God’s kingdom on earth.less than 5 seconds ago from web

When He had “opened their understanding,that they might comprehend the Scriptures”Luke 24:45, they saw He had come for a different purpose less than 5 seconds ago from web

• In other words, even with all those years of Jesus being in their midst, even with His plain te... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/cbacts

• Acts 1:6When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?less than 5 seconds ago from

• Daniel 8:14 (King James Version) 14And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.less than 5 seconds ago from web

• The early Advent believers had a disappointment because of William Miller’s mistaken view that the sanctuary in Daniel 8:14 was the earth less than 5 seconds ago from web

• They came to an understanding of the sanctuary truth in their study of Scripture and by God’s guidance through the ministry of Ellen White.less than 5 seconds ago from web


• However helpful the prophetic gift was, our pioneers based doctrines on the Bible without using the prophetic gift as a doctrinal authority.less than 5 seconds ago from web
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• MARCH 23. INTO THE WORD.Certain of our doctrines from the Bible, and working from that firm base, we can truly have confidence in the prophetic gift.

• Acts 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind...less than 5 seconds ago from web

• Acts 17: 11...and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. In other words, even Paul’s words weren’t good enough.less than 5 seconds ago from web

• They had to be confirmed by the Bible. Paul preached Christ from Scripture, showing that He was the promised Messiah,less than 5 seconds ago from web

• Those who heard him with an open mind where driven to study the Scriptures for themselves to see if these things were indeed so.less than 5 seconds ago from web

• Proverbs 2: 1My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;2So that t... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/d95va2

• Isa 34:16 Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail...for my mouth...and his spirit it hath gathered them.less than 5 seconds ago from web

• Mat.4:4But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God less than 5 seconds ago from web

• Rev.1:3Blessed is he that readeth..that hear the words of this prophecy..keep those things which are written therein:for the time is at hand less than 5 seconds ago from web

• “I recommend to you, dear reader, the Word of God as the rule of your faith and practice,” Ellen G. White wrote in Early Writings p. 78less than 5 seconds ago from web

• In the introduction to The Great Controversy Ellen White wrote, “In His word, God has committed to men the knowledge necessary for salvationless than 5 seconds ago from web

• ELLEN WHITE: Holy Scriptures are to be accepted as an authoritative, infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character..less than 5 seconds ago from web

• (Sriptures)..They are the standard of character, the revealer of doctrines, and the test of experience." Ellen White, Great Controversy,p 9.less than 5 seconds ago from web

• God “gave His word to men as a revelation of Himself.Every new truth discerned is a fresh disclosure of the character of its Author..E.Whiteless than 5 seconds ago from

The study of the Scriptures is the means divinely ordained to bring men into closer connection ... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/d62gyx1
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MARCH 24. Pointing to Jesus:"You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me" John 5:39
37 minutes ago from web

Isaiah 53:4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
35 minutes ago from web

Jesus said, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day” (John 8:56), “Moses .. . wrote about Me” John 5:46, and “David [called Me] Lord” (Matt. 22:45)
32 minutes ago from web

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor” Isa. 61:1,
31 minutes ago from web

“Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21, NKJV). Jesus was the central figure in Israel’s hope.
29 minutes ago from web

Matt.1:21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.26 minutes ago from web

Whatever may have been your past experience, however discouraging your present circumstances,... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/cwomhb
23 minutes ago from TwitterMail

“Put Christ into every sermon. Let the preciousness, mercy, and glory of Jesus Christ be dwelt upon until Christ is formed within, the h ...
22 minutes ago from web

I know my Saviour loves me, and I love my Jesus. I rest in His love, notwithstanding my imperfections E.W. Manuscript Releases,vol. 4,p. 245
19 minutes ago from web

...The exaltation of Christ is the great truth that all who labor in word and doctrine are to reveal.”—Selected Messages, book 1, p. 155.
17 minutes ago from web
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MARCH 25. THE BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS.Some people have elevated her writings to a level that is inappropriate, and so others have reacted to that..11 minutes ago from web

Matt.23:30And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
15 minutes ago from web

Others have a false understanding of how inspiration works, and because her writings do not fit that understanding, their fight went too far
8 minutes ago from web

Some speak, perhaps, out of ignorance; others, perhaps, from mean-spirited hostility. Fortunately, we aren’t to judge motives or hearts.
6 minutes ago from web

Some speak, perhaps, out of ignorance; others, perhaps, from mean-spirited hostility. Fortunately, we aren’t to judge motives or hearts.
6 minutes ago from web

We have “to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Pet. 3:15).
4 minutes ago from web
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MARCH 26. THE GIFT AND MIRACLES.Think about the ministry of Christ when He was here in the flesh. Time and again,Jesus performed miracle after miracle
about 1 hour ago from web

And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were t... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/ddrabc
about 1 hour ago from TwitterMail

Turning water into wine John 2:1–11, feeding the five thousand Matt. 14:14–21, healing the sick Matt. 4:24, or raising the dead John 11:1–45
about 1 hour ago from web

Luc 24: 23 And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.
about 1 hour ago from web

Luc 24:26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
about 1 hour ago from web

He pointed the two disciples to the Word of God and..worked to teach them the truth about His death and resurrection and what it all meant.
about 1 hour ago from web

Our belief in the manifestation of the gift should not rest on accounts of miracles and so forth. Though they might have a role...
about 1 hour ago from web

The ultimate test must always be the Word of God and how the gift harmonizes with the Bible. Miracles are fine...
about 1 hour ago from web

But Miracles are hardly the final test and mean nothing if the teachings are unbiblical.
about 1 hour ago from web

Yet, the gift speaks for itself and gives the best testimony and witness regarding itself. There’s little that we could add, with miracles
about 1 hour ago from web

1Cor.13:12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known
about 1 hour ago from web
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MARCH 27. Further Study: Read Ellen G. White, “Attitudes Toward the Testimonies,” pp. 40-48 in Selected Messages, book 1.
26 minutes ago from web

Opposition or indifference to the writings of Ellen G. White usually is the result of: (1) a fa... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/dd75hv
20 minutes ago from TwitterMail

Most opposition to the Spirit of Prophecy would disappear: (1) if people would stop using some ... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/ccxq5v
16 minutes ago from TwitterMail

Confidence in the Prophetic Gift

Confidence Confirmed by Personal Experiences
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Section Titles
Personal Acquaintance Began in 1878
Accepted Presidency, Assured of Counsel
A Sacred Experience
A Solemn Compact With God
My Chief Earthly Counselor
Another Major Episode


We have now tested the writings and teachings of Mrs. E. G. White by comparing them with the great fundamental truths of revelation as set forth by the Scriptures, and have found them to be in perfect harmony therewith. We have noted her recognition of the church as Christ's organized body on earth. We have observed how her messages have urged the church on to its present degree of success. We are confident that the thoughtful, reverent reader will recognize in these features that have been presented a masterful dignity and a wise generalship that are consonant with the claim that she was guided by a higher Intelligence in thus directing the church.

There remains in the field of evidence that should be presented in weighing the claims of Mrs. White to the prophetic gift, the narration of certain incidents illustrative of the practical working of the gift in guiding the church in her divine mission.

In other books or in periodical articles may be found many early incidents of Mrs. White's work,—incidents largely personal, and pertaining chiefly to the early days of her work when the cause was comparatively small. In relating a few of the many striking illustrations of the operation of the gift as manifested through Mrs. White, I shall confine myself to certain larger issues that have come within the range of my own experience, and which exerted a profound influence upon the major plans and policies of the administration and the welfare of the church.

Personal Acquaintance Began in 1878
[Top of Document]

As I approach this great and sacred endeavor, I feel constrained to make a statement regarding my personal acquaintance with Mrs. Ellen G. White during a period of twenty-three years of close association in the work in which we had mutual relationships.

[364]

This personal acquaintance and association began in the year 1878, when I was just beginning my work in the gospel ministry in the State of Texas. In the autumn of that year, Mrs. White, with her husband, came to our field to attend a general meeting of the new believers who had recently joined our ranks.

At the close of the meeting, they decided to remain for the winter. As they were alone and in rather poor health, it was arranged that my wife and I should join them in their rented home, to give them such service as we could. In this way we became members of their family, for the time. My wife superintended the household affairs, and I assisted Elder White in his writing and other activities. This was a valuable experience for us, and one never to be forgotten. We remained with them until they left Texas in the following summer.

In 1886, I was called to ministerial work in Australasia. In the autumn of 1891,—thirteen years after my first association with Mrs. White,—it was my privilege to meet her and her attendants at the port of Sydney, and to extend to them a truly heartfelt welcome to that mission field.

Accepted Presidency, Assured of Counsel
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A few weeks later, I was elected to the presidency of the newly organized Australian Conference, and continued in that office during the nine years of Mrs. White's residence in that field. This official responsibility kept me in unbroken association with her. Our mission field was vast. Our problems were heavy, and some of them very perplexing. It fell to my lot to promote evangelistic activities, to give counsel in the organization of churches and conferences, to superintend the erection of church buildings, and to foster many other phases of the gospel work.

Our membership increased encouragingly, and it became necessary to establish a training school for Christian workers, also church schools for the children of our believers. Then followed the erection of a sanitarium for the treatment of the sick, and the establishment of a factory for the manufacture of health foods.

I was young, and utterly inexperienced in most of these undertakings. As president, I was held more or less responsible for

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progress in all these endeavors. I needed counsel. This I sought at every important step from Mrs. White, and I was not disappointed I was also closely associated in committee and administrative work with her son, W. C. White. His counsel was very helpful to me; it was based on a longer experience than my own, and also upon his intimate knowledge of the many messages of counsel that had been given through his mother during past years, in meeting conditions similar to those we were facing.

It is hardly necessary to state that nearly nine years of such intimate association enabled me to gain a clear insight into the life of Mrs. White, and to reach a well-considered conclusion regarding her high claims to inspiration.

A Sacred Experience
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In 1900 we all returned to the United States, and in the spring attended the session of the General Conference held in Battle Creek, Michigan. At this Conference Mrs. White delivered many solemn messages regarding our work. Some were warnings of dangers we were facing. Others urged a great advance into the unentered parts of our world field. Important changes and improvements in administrative methods were called for. In fact, nothing less than a complete reorganization was demanded.

With those revolutionary changes outlined, I was overwhelmed with a sense of responsibility when I was unexpectedly called to the presidency of the General Conference. I could not have given the consent of my mind to accept the office, were it not for the invaluable experience I had gained under the counsels of Mrs. White during the years in Australia. I was also encouraged by the expectation that she would remain in this country, and that I might still have her counsel as it had been so freely given in the mission field.

In attempting to effect the sweeping changes, especially in organization, called for by the messages given at the General Conference, it was inevitable that conservative elements should be alarmed and disconcerted. It was only to be expected that in the distribution of responsibilities, some who had for years

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occupied positions of great prominence should find it difficult to relinquish a portion of the administrative power that had long been held by them. Added to these divisive factors, there was a still more serious cause for anxiety in certain new and subversive teachings that were being advocated by some men prominent in the ministry and in some official positions.

After two years of great perplexity and of increasing controversy with some of my brethren whose judgment differed from mine, we came to the time of the General Conference of 1903, with every prospect of facing debate and opposition over features both of organization and of doctrine. I had sought earnestly, as far as I knew, to act in harmony with the counsel of the Lord's messenger. But we were separated by two thousand miles, or more, and there had been so many weighty problems that called for immediate action that there had frequently been neither time nor opportunity to seek guidance through her counsel as often as I desired.

A Solemn Compact With God
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At this time I was weary and heartsick at the prospect. I was sorely tempted to lay down the responsibilities of leadership, and go to a country across the broad Atlantic where I might give the rest of my life to simple gospel ministry. But I did not want to run away from duty or to act rashly. I set aside the Sabbath day before the Conference in Oakland, California, for fasting and prayer, that I might know my duty. I trusted that thus I might receive light from the Lord.

This experience of prayer, and its sequel, is so personal and sacred to me that it is with great reluctance that I make it public. It seems fitting, however, to relate it here because of its profound influence upon my later relations to the controversial and administrative problems with which I had to deal. It also marked the beginning of an important era of wholehearted acceptance of the spirit of prophecy and of my deep interest in the subject.

After hours of agonizing prayer for some sign or evidence of my own personal acceptance with the Lord and of His support in the great conflict before me, the answer was given. The Lord

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came graciously near me, and gave me a most profound impression. Every doubt was removed from my mind. I knew that I must not run away from the work to which I had been called by my brethren, and that I must stand with them at my post of duty. I was deeply impressed that I must be as true as the needle to the pole to the counsels of the spirit of prophecy, that I must stand loyally by the Lord's servant, upholding her hands, and leading this denomination to recognize and appreciate her heaven-sent gift.

As distinctly as if audibly spoken, the words burned into my mind as a message from heaven, “If you will stand by My servant until her sun sets in a bright sky, I will stand by you to the last hour of the conflict.”

I then made my solemn promise to the Lord that I would be true to His cause, that I would do all in my power to prevent anything from arising in this denomination to dim the glory of the priceless gift and of the Lord's servant who had exercised this gift for so many years.

My Chief Earthly Counselor
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In reviewing the experiences of the years that followed, I am not unmindful of the help that came from the Lord in this direct answer to personal prayer for wisdom, courage, and victory. Nor am I forgetful of the great service rendered by the members of the various committees and boards with which I was associated. But beyond this we were often in sore need of the help God foreordained to give His church through His messenger to whom He imparted the prophetic gift. During fifteen out of the twenty-one years of my presidency of the General Conference, Mrs. White was my chief earthly counselor. My responsibilities were heavy all of the time. My dangers were great. Often my perplexities were bewildering and almost crushing.

Until nearly the close of her life, in 1915, Mrs. White continued to take an active part in all the major interests of the cause to which she had given unreserved devotion for seventy-one years. The great problems in both home and foreign lands

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which her messages urged upon me led to scores of personal interviews, and brought many messages of instruction and warning, and sometimes of needed reproof.

In this present year of our Lord 1935, Mrs. White has been at rest twenty years, while I have been toiling on. I had had twenty-three years of direct observation of her lifework. Since her death I have now had twenty additional years for thoughtful reflection and study of that life and its fruits. Now, at an advanced age, with the constraint of expressing only sober, honest truth, I can say that it is my deep conviction that Mrs. White's life far transcends the life of anyone I have ever known or with whom I have been associated. She was uniformly pleasant, cheerful, and courageous. She was never careless, flippant, or in any way cheap in conversation or manner of life. She was the personification of serious earnestness regarding the things of the kingdom. I never once heard her boast of the gracious gift God had bestowed upon her, or of the marvelous results of her endeavors. She did rejoice in the fruitage, but gave all the glory to Him who wrought through her.

I realize that these are grave statements, but they come from the deepest conviction and soundest judgment that I am capable of rendering. They are uttered in the sobering atmosphere of my last illness, as I face the Judge of all the earth, before whose presence I realize that I soon shall stand.

Another Major Episode
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Previous chapters have recorded some of the marvelous—yes, miraculous—providences that attended certain of the divine messages that came from her pen. But the experiences related in those chapters in nowise exhaust the issues of first magnitude wherein the prophetic voice has guided the denomination and its leaders, or saved them from losing their bearings. But other major episodes, not recorded here, have been largely outside the range of my own personal contact and observation.

I will allude, by way of illustration, to but one such. This will not be developed in these pages, for it occurred while I was

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serving in Australia, and I was not, therefore, a personal observer or a participant. In a great crisis that came over the principle of righteousness by faith in the latter part of the 80's and in the early 90's, the Lord's messenger took her stand almost alone by the side of those who brought this basic principle of Christian life and service to the forefront, amid either hesitancy or active opposition on the part of many. On the platform before large gatherings and in article after article in the Review and Herald, Mrs. White set forth clearly the issues involved. No other group of her written messages has so profoundly moved me, or so influenced my life in later years, as have those inspired messages from God. They tally fully with the teaching of the word, and they support the witness of evangelical truth through the ages. This experience is but one example out of a constant series of vital issues met during the full span of her witnessing.

THE BLESSINGS OF THE PROPHETIC GIFTS

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# THE BLESSINGS OF THE PROPHETIC GIFT. "Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets” Amos 3:7 9:36 PM Mar 16th from web

# All through biblical history, the Lord worked through the prophets in order to encourage, uplift, and warn God’s people.9:35 PM Mar 16th from web

# However unpopular their messages,however their motives were misunderstood, they all had one goal in mind: to bless and benefit God’s church.9:35 PM Mar 16th from web

# It was certainly no different with Ellen White and her prophetic gift. Let's look at the blessings of the prophetic gift to God’s people9:35 PM Mar 16th from web

# MISSION. All nations of the earth were to share in the blessings that He was to bestow on His people. Israel was to show forth His praise...9:32 PM Mar 16th from web

# Isaiah 43:21"This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise".They declare His glory among the nations and are a light9:32 PM Mar 16th from web

# Isaiah66:19..I will set a sign among them..I will send those that escape..unto the nations..they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles9:32 PM Mar 16th from web

# Isaiah 49:6...I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth9:28 PM Mar 16th from web

# Isaiah.44:8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid:have not I told thee..and have declared it? Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me?..9:27 PM Mar 16th from web

# Isaiah 44:8..Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any. 21 Remember..O Jacob..thou art my servant: I have formed thee..9:26 PM Mar 16th from web

# Isaiah 49:6...I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth9:25 PM Mar 16th from web

# Young men should prepare by becoming familiar with other languages,that God may use them as mediums to communicate His saving truth 2nations9:23 PM Mar 16th from web

# Your faith is limited,it is very small.Your conception of the work needs to be greatly enlarged.Life Sketches of Ellen G. White(204,208-209)9:22 PM Mar 16th from web

# Out of 229 countries of the world recognized by the United Nations, Seventh-day Adventists have established work in over two hundred of them9:21 PM Mar 16th from web

# The Christian church experienced two great periods of expansion in its history: the first-second centuries and the 19-20th centuries9:21 PM Mar 16th from web

# The 1rst period was time of its establishment in the first and second centuries;The second,during the nineteenth,called the century of mission9:21 PM Mar 16th from web

# Following the great revivals: within 100 years it increased from 18 percent of the world population in the year 1800 to 34 percent in 1900.9:20 PM Mar 16th from web

# Matthew 28:19-20 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.9:19 PM Mar 16th from web

# Mat.28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world9:18 PM Mar 16th from web

# EDUCATION.Genesis18:19..that he will command his children and his household..they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment9:15 PM Mar 16th from web

# Deut.6:7..thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest9:14 PM Mar 16th from web

# Deut. 6:24..the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive,9:13 PM Mar 16th from web

# Deut.6:25 And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as he hath commanded us.9:13 PM Mar 16th from web

# Hebrew children were taught what God had done for His people in the past,how they were to live in His presence,God’s promises for the future9:12 PM Mar 16th from web

# They also were taught the skills needed to be successful members of their community. It was a practical,spiritual and religious education.9:11 PM Mar 16th from web

# We need a school where..be taught at least the common branches of education..where they..learn..perfectly..truths of God's word..E.White9:11 PM Mar 16th from web

# HEALTH.If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord..and do what is right in His sight. .I will put none of the diseases on you..Exod. 15:269:09 PM Mar 16th from web

# Lev. 7:23-26Speak to the children of Israel,saying,Ye shall eat no manner of fat,of ox, or of sheep,or of goat..shall eat no manner of blood9:09 PM Mar 16th from web

# Leviticus11:2Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.9:08 PM Mar 16th from web

# In a vision in 1848,Ellen G. White was shown that tobacco, tea and coffee are harmful, but it took several years to convince the membership9:08 PM Mar 16th from web

# “I saw that it was a sacred duty to attend to our health, and arouse others to their duty.”—Selected Messages, book 3, p. 280.9:07 PM Mar 16th from web

# Medical science verified a high percentage of her health principles. . . while the sources they say she copied have few principles verified9:06 PM Mar 16th from web

# This difference shows that Mrs. White had health information that did not come from human sources available anywhere at the time she lived.9:06 PM Mar 16th from web

# Mat.28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world

PUBLISHING. In the Scripture,Moses was the first one to write down God’s words.The Bible is the most published and most read book in historyless than 5 seconds ago from web

Exodus 17:14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly..less than 5 seconds ago from web

Exodus 34:27And the LORD said unto Moses,Write thou these words:for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee.. Israelless than 5 seconds ago from web

Deuteronomy 31:24 And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,less than 5 seconds ago from web

Deut. 6: 8,9 ...and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. 9And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.less than 5 seconds ago from web

Deut.11:18Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul,and bind them for a sign upon your hand,that they may be..less than 5 seconds ago from web

Deut.6:4Hear,O Israel..our God is one Lord 5And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart..with all thy soul,and with all thy mightless than 5 seconds ago from web

I have a message for you...must begin to print a little paper and send it out to the people.Let it be small at first;but as the people readless than 5 seconds ago from web

They will send you means..it will be a success..small beginning..shown to me to be like streams of light that went clear round the world E.Wless than 5 seconds ago from
the web

How could that be? Jesus was coming soon. The number of Adventists were so few. There were no wealthy persons or great scholars among them.less than 5 seconds ago from web

The world was unbelieving. And yet here was a young woman who predicted that a work of publishing, to be started by her penniless husband,...less than 5 seconds ago from web

...would grow until it would encompass the globe? Today the SDA Church owns more than fifty publishing houses in two hundred twenty languages.less than 5 seconds ago from web

What has been the impact of the printed page in your own spiritual experience?Check references in "Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, p. 125."less than 5 seconds ago from web

THEOLOGY.Through biblical history,God has used the prophetic gift to protect us from theological errors.It was no different with Ellen White less than 5 second ago from web

Ellen white almost single-handedly led the church from a semi-Arian (a belief that Jesus was not God) to a Trinitarian position.less than 5 seconds ago from web

She was a great proponent of salvation by faith in Christ alone,without the deeds of the law.Her words continue to be guidance to the churchless than 5 seconds ago from web

•Exodus 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work less than 5 seconds ago from web

• Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea..all that is in them..rested the seventh day..the LORD blessed the sabbath day..less than 5 seconds ago from web

•Genesis7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life,in the second month,the seventeenth day of the month,the same day were all the fountains...less than 5 seconds ago from web

•Sabbath is a perpetual memorial of God's completed creative work.We'e on immovable biblical ground by adhering to a literal six-day Creationless than 5 seconds ago from web

• “I was then carried back to the creation..was shown that the first week,in which God performed the work of creation in six days and rested..less than 5 seconds ago from web

•...God performed the work of creation in six days and rested on the seventh day,was just like every other week.”Spiritual Gifts,vol. 3, p. 90less than 5 seconds ago from web

•Read E.White:Teaching and Healing "The Ministry of Healing",Source and Aim of True Education,Relation of Education to Redemption "Education"less than 5 seconds ago from web

How interesting that of all the things we teach (the state of the dead, etc.), only one can be verified scientifically: our health message.less than 5 seconds ago from web

As with the Bible,there are things about Ellen White’s writings we don’t understand.Let's focus on the greater picture,not just on problemsless than 5 seconds ago from web

THE BLESSING OF THE PROPHETIC GIFT

Believe in the Prophetic Gift

Section Titles

Paramount Need in the Last Days
Give Heed to the Heavenly Counsels
Israel's Failure to Remember
Prophetic Gift Inseparable From the Movement
Why Testimonies Are Rejected
Counsel to Our Remnant People
A Lesson for Our Time
“Believe His Prophets”


The welfare of the church as a whole, and of its individual members, is inseparably bound up with believing and heeding God's prophets. These, as we have seen, are His chosen messengers, His appointed spokesmen, to His church on earth. As we have also clearly shown, this plan of communication has been God's chosen, uniform, and beneficent provision for revealing His will to man, ever since the separation caused by sin. Through this means, God counsels and instructs, He cautions, entreats, and warns, as need may occasion and as divine love indicates. The presence of the prophet among men is not, therefore, something new or unusual, something strange or fantastic. God is the author of this provision, and wayfaring man is its beneficiary. It is as old as the human need, and as constant as the divine love that prompted and instituted it.

The vicissitudes of the church in all ages have been gauged by its allegiance or its disloyalty to the gift of prophecy, and its safety measured by its response to these heavenly leadings. Through the centuries spanning the patriarchal, Mosaic, and apostolic eras, we have seen this inviolable rule in operation, as revealed in the pages of Holy Writ.

Then after the death of the apostles, the tragic march of events in the Christian era begins, is told in blood and tears, and is blotched with drift and apostasy. Steadily the nominal Christian church veers from those foundation principles—the precepts and practices, the letter and the spirit—that characterized the apostolic church. The departure centered in perversion of the law and the gospel, though it permeated every truth of Christianity.

Tragic has been the lot of those who stood for the primitive faith. Hated and maligned, persecuted and isolated, they witnessed to the truth. But from time to time prophets—men and women—arose at the call of God, and denounced the iniquity

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of the disloyal. They encouraged the fidelity of the faithful, and guided and guarded the adherents of truth through the weary centuries.

Now in these divinely denominated “last days,” God's great plan of redemption and the mad course of the human race approach their climax together. Iniquity so abounds among men, human philosophy is so defiant, man's independence of God and of the provisions of redemption are so affronting in this supreme conflict between good and evil, that it was imperative for the gift of prophecy to be conspicuously manifest in the ranks of the remnant church.

Paramount Need in the Last Days
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If ever in the course of the race man needed divine guidance, it is surely in these last days, when all the forces of iniquity have broken loose to confuse and to ruin, when the secular world has gone materialist, and the religious world has turned to modernistic teachings. If ever in history the church needed to have divine guidance, that time was reached at the crisis hour of the advent movement, just following the disappointment of 1844, and throughout the decades following. Far-reaching were the issues; but adequate was God's guidance.

The last conflict comes over allegiance to God, and reaches its consummation in our day. The perfect law of God, with its Sabbath seal, is the object of Satan's hatred, and he would swing the world to his side in the conflict. The full salvation provided through faith in Christ is equally the object of his relentless attempts to deny His incarnation, His atoning death, His priestly ministry, and His imminent return in power and glory.

Satan's wrath is focused on God's remnant church, the supreme object of divine love and guidance. This church will finally stand as the sole defender of God's trampled law, to which are joined the full provisions of redemption. Not only is the church as a whole the object of the evil one's attack, but the individual member as well is harassed, because of maintaining the integrity of the law and the gospel. Through injecting

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doubt, carelessness, defiance, or repudiation, Satan likewise seeks to turn allegiance from the counsels of the gift of prophecy. Hence the three great issues at stake in this last hour are as clearly and sharply defined as inspiration can disclose them. But these have all become confused in the beliefs and practices among the masses of Christendom.

But now, in bringing this volume to a close, the question of individual and church relationship to God's gift stands forth as of supreme importance. My closing words are therefore a plea for the recognition and heeding of this divine provision for the counsel of the church. They are an appeal to the church to keep these matters ever in mind, and to follow them faithfully in practice.

Give Heed to the Heavenly Counsels
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Mark well, in retrospect, what this gift has meant to this people through the decades of the past. Mark well, how crisis after crisis has been met, and how issue after issue has been successfully faced. Time has vindicated the heavenly counsels in every instance. Consider, by way of impressive comparison and admonition, the days of Israel in the time of Moses, and then ponder our own times as a parallel. Here are the words of Israel's great leader of old:

“I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.” “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy life, and the length of thy days.” Deut. 30:15, 19, 20.

Realizing that he was soon to lay down his responsibilities, the aged patriarch, Moses, was giving his final charge to the people whom he had led for forty years, from Egypt to the borders of the Promised Land.

He had great hopes for the future of his beloved people. But knowing, by long experience, their frailties and their weakness

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at times under temptations and hardships, he also cherished grave fears that they might meet national disaster and defeat. Recognizing that their destiny for weal or woe was conditioned upon their relation to the instruction sent from God, he graphically, and at considerable length, set before them the blessings, temporal and spiritual, that would be theirs if they were obedient, and the curses that would be consequent upon their disobedience. (See Deuteronomy 27, 28.)

Israel's Failure to Remember
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When he counseled them to love the Lord God, and to obey His voice, he was thereby exhorting them to heed the messages of counsel and instruction that he, as God's messenger had delivered to them. Save for the Ten Commandments, all the laws and testimonies and statutes enjoined upon them had been spoken through Moses. That they should see or hear only the human instrument in nowise lessened the guilt of their rejection of these divine requirements. That is true also, not only of the generation that he personally addressed, but of the men and women of all time.

Moses made provision for these solemn adjurations ever to be kept in remembrance. Parents were to teach them to their children, speaking of them when they were sitting in the house or walking by the way, as well as in the evening and in the morning hours of worship. (Deut. 11:19, 20.) They were to be written for a memorial in a book, and placed in the side of the ark. Every seventh year they were to be taken out and publicly read before the concourse of pilgrims assembled at the Feast of Tabernacles. For this solemn rehearsal of the prophetic writings, they were to gather the men and the women, not forgetting the stranger who was within their gates. The children who were coming to years of understanding were especially mentioned. They were also to hear, and learn to fear the Lord. (See Deut. 31:9-13.)

In view of the failure of Israel of old thus to keep in remembrance the solemn messages that had come through God's chosen

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messenger, should not we “upon whom the ends of the world are come” see to it that the instruction that has been given to the remnant church shall be kept vividly in mind?

Prophetic Gift Inseparable From the Movement
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Drawing a present-day lesson from the directions of Moses (in Deut. 6:20-25) to rehearse to the children, as they came to the age of inquiry, the signs and wonders wrought in their deliverance from Egypt, Mrs. White wrote in 1882:

“Here are principles that we are not to regard with indifference. Those who have seen the truth and felt its importance, and have had an experience in the things of God, are to teach sound doctrine to their children. They should make them acquainted with the great pillars of our faith, the reasons why we are Seventh-day Adventists,—why we are called, as were the children of Israel, to be a peculiar people, a holy nation, separate and distinct from all other people on the face of the earth. These things should be explained to the children in simple language, easy to be understood; and as they grow in years, the lessons imparted should be suited to their increasing capacity, until the foundations of truth have been laid broad and deep.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. V, p. 330.

The story of the birth of the nation of Israel, of their deliverance from cruel bondage and their final entrance into Canaan, could not be told without relating the work of Moses as a prophet. Interwoven with every phase of the history were the messages that came from heaven through the great prophet of that period. He was the mouthpiece for Jehovah, making known His will, guiding them in their organization and in their movements; reproving their sins, rebuking their rebellion, and entreating them as a father.

It is likewise impossible today to tell our children “the reasons why we are Seventh-day Adventists” without familiarizing them with the prominent part played by the renewed gift of prophecy in the laying of a scriptural foundation, and building thereon, in guiding in the principles of organization, in fostering every cardinal feature of the advent movement, and in bearing messages of counsel and reproof, or of hope and courage.

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It is possible to believe nominally in the gift of prophecy, to accept the messages of former prophets, and yet reject and oppose a contemporary messenger chosen of God to give instruction to His people. In Christ's day the words of the ancient prophets were read every Sabbath in their synagogues, yet the religious leaders rejected John the Baptist, and crucified the Prophet who came direct from heaven,—the greatest who ever appeared on earth. The reason why they closed their ears against Heaven's messengers, together with the existence of modern Pharisaism, is well set forth in these words:

“The reproofs, the cautions, the corrections of the Lord, have been given to His church in all ages of the world. These warnings were despised and rejected in Christ's day by the self-righteous Pharisees, who claimed that they needed no such reproof, and were unjustly dealt with. They would not receive the word of the Lord through His servants, because it did not please their inclinations. Should the Lord give a vision right before this class of people in our day, pointing out their mistakes, rebuking their self-righteousness and condemning their sins, they would rise up in rebellion, like the inhabitants of Nazareth when Christ showed them their true condition.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. V, p. 689.

Why Testimonies Are Rejected
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It was Christ's rebuke of specific sins in their life that caused the Pharisees to reject His claim of being the Son of God. There is today, as there has always been in the past, a direct relation between the cherishing of some sin and a doubting of the messages of the Lord's chosen servant.

“Many who have backslidden from the truth assign as a reason for their course, that they do not have faith in the testimonies. Investigation reveals the fact that they had some sinful habit that God has condemned through the testimonies. The question now is, Will they yield their idol which God condemns, or will they continue in their wrong course of indulgence, and reject the light God has given them, reproving the very things in which they delight? The question to be settled with them is, Shall I deny myself, and receive as of God the testimonies which reprove my sins, or shall I reject the testimonies because they reprove my sins?”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. IV, p. 32.

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In the early part of this volume it is asserted, with corroborative evidence, that next to the gift of Christ to our world, the gift of prophecy is God's most precious bestowal upon the church. It is therefore certain that Satan, the great adversary of God and man, will have an intense hatred for every manifestation of the gift. Its possession by the remnant church is given in the Scriptures as the explanation of the dragon's wrath against her. Rev. 12:17. Knowing this, we shall not be surprised that the testimonies of God's Spirit are the object of bitter and ceaseless attack. The most subtle arguments that can be devised by a master mind trained in guile and sophistry will be presented as reasons why we should disbelieve them.

Counsel to Our Remnant People
[Top of Document]

I counsel you who may meet with objections to the claims of the testimonies given for the remnant, to regard a proper balance between the trivial and the great, between that which is difficult of understanding and that which is plain. Here are clear, guiding principles:

“You need not go in uncertainty and doubt. Satan is at hand to suggest a variety of doubts; but if you will open your eyes in faith, you will find sufficient evidence for belief. But God will never remove from any man all causes for doubts. Those who love to dwell in the atmosphere of doubt and questioning unbelief, can have the unenviable privilege. God gives sufficient evidence for the candid mind to believe; but he who turns from the weight of evidence because there are a few things which he cannot make plain to his finite understanding, will be left in the cold, chilling atmosphere of unbelief and questioning doubts, and will make shipwreck of faith.”—Id., pp. 232, 233.

“Those who train the mind to seize upon everything which they can use as a peg to hang a doubt upon, and suggest these thoughts to other minds, will always find occasion to doubt. They will question and criticize everything that arises in the unfolding of truth, criticize the work and position of others, criticize every branch of the work in which they have not themselves a part. They will feed upon the errors and mistakes and faults of others, ‘until,’ said the angel, ‘the Lord Jesus shall rise up from His mediatorial work in the heavenly sanctuary, and shall clothe Himself

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with the garments of vengeance, and surprise them at their unholy feast; and they will find themselves unprepared for the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ Their taste has been so perverted that they would be inclined to criticize even the table of the Lord in His kingdom.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. V, p. 690.

The words of Moses, linking blessing with obedience and disaster with disobedience, were predictive. They were spoken when Israel was just beginning her national history. The future of the nation was marked with the correlation of prosperity and obedience, and of ultimate captivity and destruction following persistent disobedience. The calamity came sooner in Israel, who rejected the counsels of all her prophets, than in Judah, whose day of doom was repeatedly postponed because of occasional reformations.

A Lesson for Our Time
[Top of Document]

The lesson is no less meaningful for our time. Our day of deliverance has been delayed because of our failure to measure up to the wholehearted consecration called for in the heavensent messages committed to us. We are still in this troubled world because we have not gone forward in faith, sacrifice, and earnestness to finish the work of God in the earth to which we have been most solemnly urged by God's servant. Had we fully heeded the admonitions and counsels that have come to us, we might now be enjoying the glories of heaven. This we have been clearly told:

“Had the purpose of God been carried out by His people in giving to the world the message of mercy, Christ would, ere this, have come to the earth, and the saints would have received their welcome into the city of God.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VI, p. 450.

“If every soldier of Christ had done his duty, if every watchman on the walls of Zion had given the trumpet a certain sound, the world might ere this have heard the message of warning. But the work is years behind. While men have slept, Satan has stolen a march upon us.”—Id., Vol. IX, p. 29.

Nothing could impress our hearts more, perhaps, than these solemn words. The coming of the Lord for which we have longed

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and prayed and labored for so many years, might now be an accomplished fact, and the people of God have entered upon their reward, had we only lived up to the high privileges and responsibilities that are ours by the favor of God.

“Believe His Prophets”
[Top of Document]

Through the words of Scripture, God has given every essential saving truth. He has marvelously preserved that word, and has so multiplied copies of it that everyone may now have it. The characteristics of our day are outlined in that word. The testimonies of God's Spirit, as given to the remnant church, are in harmony with that word, and lead us to that word. But in them is to be found that wealth of detail, needed by those who are living in “the time of the end,” those who must stand against the subtle and supreme wiles of Satan, and perfect a character befitting those who are to be translated. As the telescope reveals, but does not create, details unperceived by the unaided eye, so the reading of the messages sent us does not add to but rather magnifies the eternal word of God.

As we prayerfully and diligently study the counsel and instruction God has so graciously given to His remnant church, bringing our lives into conformity to the standard of character there revealed, and striving diligently to finish the work allotted to us, we shall thereby prove that we are “looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God.” 2 Peter 3: 12.

“Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper.” 2 Chron. 20:20.

THE END

INTERPRETING THE PROPHETIC WRITINGS

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# Pride and self-sufficiency. Of all sins it is the most hopeless, the most incurable. Peter's fall was not instantaneous, but gradual.less than 20 seconds ago from web

# (g)work together with people of experience;and(h)use common sense.“Nothing so offensive to God or so dangerous as pride and self-sufficiency4 minutes ago from web

# (e) be open-minded and willing to surrender previously held positions; (f) guard against extreme interpretations;7 minutes ago from web

# (c) look for principles that are universal and apply to all people,in all places..at all times;(d) be willing to obey the truths we discover7 minutes ago from web

# FURTHER.We need to (a) ask for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the study of His Word;(b) ensure that we use one or more good translations10 minutes ago from web

# We shouldn’t make meat & drink our religion. But God has given us wonderful counsel about diet that can have a positive impact on our health13 minutes ago from web

# When we look at the total body of what Ellen White has written on a given topic, a balanced picture emerges that is invaluable to Christians14 minutes ago from web

# ..who have feeble digestive organs can..use meat,if they cannot eat vegetables, fruit, or porridge.” E.W. Counsels on Diet and Foods,394-39516 minutes ago from web

# “A meat diet is not the most wholesome of diets, and yet I would not take the position that meat should be discarded by every one.."E. White19 minutes ago from web

# No..flesh meat should enter our stomachs..eating of flesh is unnatural.We are to return to God’s original purpose in the creation of man E.W20 minutes ago from web

# Our behavior will show if our faith is valid or not.“Vegetables, fruits, and grains should compose our diet.Not an ounce of flesh meat.."E.W22 minutes ago from web

# Paul says Abraham is justified by valid, or real, faith.James shows that Abraham’s faith was real because it produced good works (obedience)26 minutes ago from web

# Paul speaks about the valid faith that is followed by good deeds. James refers to the invalid faith that stops at the intellectual level;31 minutes ago from web

# Check Paul and James: (Eph. 2:8, 9; James 2:14-26) Rom. 3:21-28, Rom. 4:3, Gal. 3:6-12..11it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.32 minutes ago from web

# Galatians3:9So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham11But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God..34 minutes ago from web

# Romans 4:3 (King James Version) Romains4:3For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God,and it was counted unto him for righteousness38 minutes ago from web

# Ephe. 2:8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:it is the gift of God:9Not of works, lest any man should boast.39 minutes ago from web

# James is not arguing for good works as a requirement for salvation. Rather he insists that there are two kinds of faith, valid and invalid42 minutes ago from web

# James2:24..how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.26..body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead..44 minutes ago from web

# THE LARGER CONTEXT refers to what other texts say. It can refer to other chapters in a book, the whole book, or to the whole of Scriptureabout 1 hour ago from web

Your hope of salvation being what Jesus does for you, you then have assurance of salvation? However, if you are looking to self,no assurance
1 minute ago from web
We are never secure against temptations, but this does not mean that in Jesus we cannot have day-by-day assurance of salvation.
5 minutes ago from web
The immediate context makes it clear that she is addressing the issue of self-confidence and temptations after conversion.
7 minutes ago from web
“Never can we safely put confidence in self or feel, this side of heaven, that we are secure against temptation.”—Ellen White
8 minutes ago from web
In a secondary sense these verses point forward to the new heaven and the new earth to be ushered in at the close of the millennium.
13 minutes ago from web
However, it didn’t, and thus the prophecy, which was conditional, was not fulfilled. This “new heaven and new earth” never became a reality.
14 minutes ago from web
IMMEDIATE CONTEXT.Isaiah 65:17For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
17 minutes ago from web
How quick are you to judge the actions of others without getting more background information? How can you improve in this area?
21 minutes ago from web
Time and circumstances are important not just in the interpretation of inspired writings, but in all aspects of life.
23 minutes ago from web
Thus,exegetically,Jeremiah 4:23–26 refers to the destruction of Jerusalem.Symbolically,however, it also refers to the time of the millennium
about 2 hours ago from web
TIME AND PLACE. A biblical interpretation principle checks the times and circumstances when a particular text was written and by whom.
about 2 hours ago from web
That“God made man upright” is a quote from Ecc 7:29,but when Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes,he was referring to moral uprightness,not to posture
about 2 hours ago from web
...and self-possession, the courage and self-reliance, which an erect bearing so greatly tends to promote.”— Ellen White, Education, p. 198.
about 2 hours ago from web
God made man upright, and He desires him to possess not only the physical but the mental and moral benefit, the grace and dignity and...
about 2 hours ago from web
“Among the first things to be aimed at should be a correct position, both in sitting and in standing....Ellen G. White in Education
about 2 hours ago from web
A modern preacher, using the words of Mark 1:17, may call upon church members to follow Jesus because only He can make us fishers of men.
about 2 hours ago from web
Jesus said to them, “ Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men’ ” (NKJV), and immediately they left their nets and followed Him.about 2 hours ago from web
The kingdom that the preacher has in mind is no longer the kingdom of grace but the kingdom of glory Christ ushers in at His second coming.
about 2 hours ago from web
A preacher on Sabbath morning may tell the congregation, “All the time prophecies have been fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand.”
about 2 hours ago from web
The kingdom that Jesus was proclaiming at that time was the kingdom of grace, which He established at His first advent.
about 2 hours ago from web
Mark 1:15 (King James Version) 15And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.about 3 hours ago from web
HOMILETICS is the art of preaching. A preacher may use a text, away from its original

How reliable a guide is your conscience? Does following your conscience always guarantee that you will make a right decision?Justify answer less than 10 seconds ago from web

# Jews and Gentiles are sinners alike and are all saved the same way, not by any law keeping but only by Jesus’ death on the cross.less than a minute ago from web

# Scripture clearly says that “ ‘there is no one righteous, not even one’ ” (Rom. 3:10, NIV).1 minute ago from web

# Among the Gentiles, conscience performed the same function as the written law performed among the Jews.2 minutes ago from web

# Their works are evidence that the Holy Spirit has touched their hearts, and they are recognized as the children of God.”—Ellen G. White4 minutes ago from web

# Ignorant of the written law of God, some heathen heard His voice speaking to them in nature, and have done the things that the law required.4 minutes ago from web

# EXEGESIS is focused on the original meaning of a text and on what the author wanted to say, and what the text meant to the original reader5 minutes ago from web

# The principles for interpreting a decision of the United States Supreme Court (more authority) has are used on a decision by a lower court.8 minutes ago from web

# Principles for interpreting the Bible can be used on Ellen White’s writings. The authority of the Bible is above the Spirit of Prophecy.11 minutes ago from web

# “And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27, NKJV).13 minutes ago from web

# INTERPRETING THE PROPHETIC WRITINGS. Isa. 65:17; Mark 1:15; Rom. 2:14-16; Eph. 2:8, 9; James 2:14-26; 1 John 5:12, 13.14 minutes ago from web

SOME PRINCIPLES FOR CORRECTLY INTERPRETING THE WRITINGS OF ELLEN G. WHITE

Begin With a Healthy Outlook
Focus on the Central Issues
Account for Problems in Communication
Study All Available Information on a Topic
Avoid Extreme Interpretations
Take Time and Place Into Consideration
Study Each Statement in Its Literary Context
Recognize Ellen White's Understanding of the Ideal and the Real
Use Common Sense
Discover the Underlying Principles
Realize That Prophets Are Not Verbally Inspired, Nor Are They Infallible or Inerrant
Avoid Making the Counsels "Prove" Things They Were Never Intended to Prove
Make Sure Ellen White Said It

Begin With a Healthy Outlook

First, begin your study with a prayer for guidance and understanding. The Holy Spirit, who inspired the work of prophets across the ages, is the only one who is in a position to unlock the meaning in their writings.

Second, we need to approach our study with an open mind. Most of us realize that no person is free of bias, no one is completely open-minded. We also recognize that bias enters into every area of our lives. But that reality doesn't mean that we need to let our biases control us.

A third healthy mind-set in the reading of Ellen White is that of faith rather than doubt. As Mrs. White put it, "Many think it a virtue, a mark of intelligence in them, to be unbelieving and to question and quibble. Those who desire to doubt will have plenty of room. God does not propose to remove all occasion for unbelief. He gives evidence, which must be carefully investigated with a humble mind and a teachable spirit, and all should decide from the weight of evidence" (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 3, p. 255). "God gives sufficient evidence for the candid mind to believe; but he who turns from the weight of evidence because there are a few things which he cannot make plain to his finite understanding will be left in the cold, chilling atmosphere of unbelief and questioning doubts, and will make shipwreck of faith" (ibid., vol. 4, pp. 232, 233).

If individuals wait for all possibility of doubt to be removed, they will never believe. That is as true of the Bible as it is of Ellen White's writings. Our acceptance rests on faith rather than on absolute demonstration of flawlessness. Ellen White appears to be correct when she writes that "those who have most to say against the testimonies are generally those who have not read them, just as those who boast of their disbelief of the Bible are those who have little knowledge of its teachings" (Selected Messages, book 1, pp. 45, 46).

Focus on the Central Issues

A person can read inspired materials in at least two ways. One is to look for the central themes of an author; the other is to search for those things that are new and different. The first way leads to what can be thought of as a theology of the center, while the second produces a theology of the edges. Doing a theology of the edges may help a person arrive at "new light," but such light in the end may look more like darkness when examined in the context of the central and consistent teachings of the Bible.

What makes the teachings of many apostles of "new light" so impressive is their obvious sincerity and the fact that much of what they have to say may be needed truth. How can we tell when we are on center or chasing stray geese near the edges of what is really important? In her book Education, Ellen White wrote, "The Bible is its own expositor. Scripture is to be compared with scripture. The student should learn to view the Word as a whole, and to see the relation of its parts. He should gain a knowledge of its grand central theme, of God's original purpose for the world, of the rise of the great controversy, and of the work of redemption. He should understand the nature of the two principles that are contending for supremacy, and should learn to trace their working through the records of history and prophecy, to the great consummation. He should see how this controversy enters into every phase of human experience; how in every act of life he himself reveals the one or the other of the two antagonistic motives; and how, whether he will or not, he is even now deciding upon which side of the controversy he will be found" (p. 190; italics supplied).

A similar passage on the "grand central theme" of the Bible defines the central theme of Scripture even more precisely. "The central theme of the Bible," we read, "the theme about which every other in the whole book clusters, is the redemption plan, the restoration in the human soul of the image of God." "Viewed in the light" of the grand central theme of the Bible, "every topic has a new significance" (ibid., p. 125; italics supplied).

In such passages we find our marching orders for the reading of both the Bible and the writings of Ellen White. Read for the big picture; read for the grand central themes. The purpose of God's revelation to humanity is salvation. That salvation focuses on the cross of Christ and our relationship to God. All our reading takes place within that context, and those issues closest to the grand central theme are obviously of more importance than those near its edges.

It is our task as Christians to focus on the central issues of the Bible and Ellen White's writings rather than on marginal ones. If we do so, the marginal issues will fit into place in their proper perspective within the context of the "grand central theme" of God's revelation to His people.

Account for Problems in Communication

The process of communication is not as simple as we might at first suspect. The topic was certainly at the forefront of James White's thinking as he watched his wife struggle to lead the early Adventists down the path of reform. In 1868 he wrote that "What she may say to urge the tardy, is taken by the prompt to urge them over the mark. And what she may say to caution the prompt, zealous, incautious ones, is taken by the tardy as an excuse to remain too far behind" (Review and Herald, Mar. 17, 1868; italics supplied).

As we read Ellen White's writings we need to keep constantly before us the difficulty she faced in basic communication. Beyond the difficulty of varying personalities, but related to it, was the problem of the imprecision of the meaning of words and the fact that different people with different experiences interpret the same words differently.

"Human minds vary," Mrs. White penned in relation to Bible reading. "The minds of different education and thought receive different impressions of the same words, and it is difficult for one mind to give to one of a different temperament, education, and habits of thought by language exactly the same idea as that which is clear and distinct in his own mind. . . . The Bible must be given in the language of men. Everything that is human is imperfect. Different meanings are expressed by the same word; there is not one word for each distinct idea. The Bible was given for practical purposes.

"The stamps of minds are different. All do not understand expressions and statements alike. Some understand the statements of the Scriptures to suit their own particular minds and cases. Prepossessions, prejudices, and passions have a strong influence to darken the understanding and confuse the mind even in reading the words of Holy Writ" (Selected Messages, vol. 1, pp. 19, 20; italics supplied).

What Ellen White said about the problems of meanings and words in regard to the Bible also holds true for her own writings. Communication in a broken world is never easy, not even for God's prophets.

We need to keep the basic problems of communication in mind as we read the writings of Ellen White. At the very least, such facts ought to make us cautious in our reading so that we don't overly emphasize this or that particular idea that might come to our attention as we study God's counsel to His church. We will want to make sure that we have read widely what Ellen White has presented on a topic and studied those statements that may seem extreme in the light of those that might moderate or balance them. All such study, of course, should take place with the historical and literary context of each statement in mind.

Study All Available Information on a Topic

When we read the full range of counsel that Ellen White has on a topic, the picture is often quite different than when we are dealing with only a part of her material or with isolated quotations. Many times in her long ministry Ellen White had to deal with those who took only part of her counsel. "When it suits your purpose," she told the delegates of the 1891 General Conference session, "you treat the Testimonies as if you believed them, quoting from them to strengthen any statement you wish to have prevail. But how is it when light is given to correct your errors? Do you then accept the light? When the Testimonies speak contrary to your ideas, you treat them very lightly" (ibid., p. 43). It is important to listen to all the counsel.

Along this line we find two approaches to the Ellen G. White writings. One assembles all her pertinent material on the subject. The other selects from Mrs. White only those sentences, paragraphs, or more extensive materials that can be employed to support a particular emphasis. The only faithful approach is the first. One important step in being true to Ellen White's intent is to read widely in the available counsel on a topic.

But not only must we base our conclusion on the entire spectrum of her thought on a topic; our conclusion must harmonize with the overall tenor of the body of her writings. Not only bias, but also unsound premises, faulty reasoning, or other misuses of her material, can lead to false conclusions.

Avoid Extreme Interpretations

The history of the Christian church is laced with those who would place the most extreme interpretations on God's counsels and then define their fanaticism as "faithfulness." A leaning toward extremism seems to be a constituent part of fallen human nature. God has sought to correct that tendency through His prophets.

Even though balance typified Ellen White's writings, it does not always characterize those who read them. Ellen White had to deal with extremists throughout her ministry. In 1894 she pointed out that "there is a class of people who are always ready to go off on some tangent, who want to catch up something strange and wonderful and new; but God would have all move calmly, considerately, choosing our words in harmony with the solid truth for this time, which requires to be presented to the mind as free from that which is emotional as possible, while still bearing the intensity and solemnity that it is proper it should bear. We must guard against creating extremes, guard against encouraging those who would either be in the fire or in the water" (Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 227, 228).

Nearly four decades earlier Mrs. White had written that she "saw that many have taken advantage of what God has shown in regard to the sins and wrongs of others. They have taken the extreme meaning of what has been shown in vision, and then have pressed it until it has had a tendency to weaken the faith of many in what God has shown" (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 166).

Part of our task in reading Ellen White is to avoid extreme interpretations and to understand her message in its proper balance. That in turn means that we need to read the counsel from both ends of the spectrum on a given topic.

A case in point is her strong words about playing games. "In plunging into amusements, match games, pugilistic performances," she wrote, the students at Battle Creek College "declared to the world that Christ was not their leader in any of these things. All this called forth the warning from God." A powerful statement, it and others like it have led many to the conclusion that God frowns on all games and ball playing. But here, as on all extreme interpretations, one should use caution. After all, the very next sentence reads: "Now that which burdens me is the danger of going into extremes on the other side" (Fundamentals of Christian Education, p. 378).

As the following statements demonstrate, Ellen White did not hold for either extreme on the topic of ball playing and games. Speaking of parents and teachers, she wrote: "If they would gather the children close to them, and show that they love them, and would manifest an interest in all their efforts, and even in their sports, sometimes even being a child among children, they would make the children very happy, and would gain their love and win their confidence" (ibid., p. 18).

As we noted in the preceding section, it is important to read the full spectrum of what Ellen White wrote on a topic before arriving at conclusions. That means taking into consideration what appear to be conflicting statements that not only balance each other but may at times even appear to contradict each other. Of course, as shown in the next two sections, the historical and literary contexts generally hold the reason for Ellen White's extreme statements. When we understand the reason she said something a certain way, we can see how what appears to be contradictory bits of advice often balance each other out. With those understandings in place we will be ready to examine the underlying principles of the particular topic we are studying.

When we read the balancing and mediating passages on a topic, rather than merely those polar ones that reinforce our own biases, we come closer to Ellen White's true perspective. In order to avoid extreme interpretations, we need not only to read widely regarding what Mrs. White said on a topic, but we need also to come to grips with those statements that balance each other out at each end of the spectrum on a given subject.

Take Time and Place Into Consideration

We need to take the time and place of Ellen White's various counsels into consideration. She did not write them in a vacuum. Most of them met problems faced by specific individuals or groups in quite specific historic contexts.

For example, in the 1860s Ellen White suggested that women should shorten their skirts. Why? Because in her day skirts dragged on the ground. In the process they picked up the filth of a horse-and-buggy culture among other things. Such skirts also had other problems that Ellen White and contemporary reformers of her day repeatedly pointed out. Thus she could write that "one of fashion's wasteful and mischievous devices is the skirt that sweeps the ground. Uncleanly, uncomfortable, inconvenient, unhealthful--all this and more is true of the trailing skirt" (The Ministry of Healing, p. 291).

But what was true of her day is generally not true of ours. Of course, one can think of some traditional cultures that still mirror the conditions of the nineteenth century. In those cultures the counsel fits without adaptation. But we must adapt it for most cultures today.

Part of the needed adaptation is reflected in The Ministry of Healing quotation we read above. If the problem with trailing skirts was that they were unclean, uncomfortable, inconvenient, and unhealthful, then it seems safe to assume that some of the principles of correct dress in this case would be that it is clean, comfortable, convenient, and healthful. Such principles are universal, even though the idea of shortening one's skirt has roots in time and place. Further reading in the Bible and Ellen White furnishes other principles of dress that we can apply to our day. Modesty, for example, comes to mind.

It can't be too heavily emphasized that time and place are crucial factors for our understanding as we read Ellen White's writings. One way to use her writings improperly is to ignore the implications of time and place and thus seek to apply the letter of each and every counsel universally.

In Ellen White's writings such counsels as those urging schools to teach girls "to harness and drive a horse" so "they would be better fitted to meet the emergencies of life" (Education, pp. 216, 217); warning both young and old in 1894 to avoid the "bewitching influence" of the "bicycle craze" (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8, pp. 51, 52); and counseling an administrator in 1902 not to buy an automobile to transport patients from the railroad station to the sanitarium because it was a needless expense and would prove to be "a temptation to others to do the same thing" (Letter 158, 1902) are clearly conditioned by time and place. Other statements that may also be conditioned by time and place are not so obvious (especially in those areas we tend to feel strongly about), but we need to keep our eyes and mind open to the possibility.

Another aspect of the time and place issue in Ellen White's writing is that for many of her counsels the historical context is quite personal, since she wrote to an individual in his or her specific setting. Always remember that behind every counsel lies a specific situation with its own peculiarities and for an individual with his or her personal possibilities and problems. Their situation may or may not be parallel to ours. Thus the counsel may or may not be applicable to us in a given circumstance.

Study Each Statement in Its Literary Context

In the preceding section we noted that it is important to understand Ellen White's counsel in its original historical context. In this section we will examine the importance of reading her statements in their literary framework.

People have too often based their understandings of Mrs. White's teachings upon a fragment of a paragraph or upon an isolated statement entirely removed from its setting. Thus she writes that "many study the Scriptures for the purpose of proving their own ideas to be correct. They change the meaning of God's Word to suit their own opinions. And thus they do also with the testimonies that He sends. They quote half a sentence, leaving out the other half, which, if quoted, would show their reasoning to be false. God has a controversy with those who wrest the Scriptures, making them conform to their preconceived ideas" (Selected Messages, book 3, p. 82). Again she comments about those who by "separating . . . statements from their connection, and placing them beside human reasonings, make it appear that my writings uphold that which they condemn" (Letter 208, 1906).

Ellen White was repeatedly upset with those who pick out "a sentence here and there, taking it from its proper connection, and applying it according to their idea" (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 44). On another occasion she observed that "extracts" from her writings "may give a different impression than that which they would were they read in their original connection" (ibid., p. 58).

W. C. White, Ellen White's son, often had to deal with the problem of people using material out of its literary context. In 1904 he noted that "much misunderstanding has come from the misuse of isolated passages in the Testimonies, in cases where, if the whole Testimony or the whole paragraph had been read, an impression would have been made upon minds that was altogether different from the impression made by the use of selected sentences" (W. C. White to W. S. Sadler, Jan. 20, 1904).

The study of literary contexts is not an optional luxury on inspired statements--it is a crucial part of faithfully reading Ellen White's writings. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of studying Ellen White's articles and books in their contexts rather than merely reading topical compilations or selecting out quotations on this or that topic through the use of indexes or computer printouts. Such tools have their places, but we should use them in connection with broad reading that helps us to be more aware not only of the literary context of Ellen White's statements but also of the overall balance in her writings.

Recognize Ellen White's Understanding of the Ideal and the Real

Ellen White often found herself plagued by "those who," she claimed, "select from the testimonies the strongest expressions and, without bringing in or making any account of the circumstances under which the cautions and warnings are given, make them of force in every case. . . . Picking out some things in the testimonies they drive them upon every one, and disgust rather than win souls" (Selected Messages, book 3, pp. 285, 286).

Her observation not only highlights the fact that we need to take the historical context of Ellen White's statements into consideration when reading her counsel, but also indicates that she put some statements in stronger or more forceful language than others. That idea leads us to the concept of the ideal and the real in Mrs. White's writings.

When Ellen White is stating the ideal, she often uses her strongest language. It is as if she needs to speak loudly in order to be heard. One such statement appears in Fundamentals of Christian Education. "Never," she exhorted, "can the proper education be given to the youth in this country, or any other country, unless they are separated a wide distance from the cities" (p. 312; italics supplied).

Now, that is about as forceful a statement as she could have made. Not only is it adamant, but it appears to imply universality in terms of time and space. There is no stronger word than "never." In its strictest meaning it allows no exceptions. She uses the same sort of powerful, unbending language in terms of location--"in this country, or any other country." Once again a plain reading of the words permits no exceptions. We are dealing with what appears to be a universal prohibition regarding the building of schools in cities. But the statement is stronger than that. Such schools are not merely to be out of the cities, but "separated a wide distance" from them. Here is inflexible language that does not suggest any exceptions.

At this point it is important to examine the historical context in which she made the statement. According to the reference supplied in the book (p. 327), this counsel was first published in 1894. But by 1909 the Adventist work in large cities was increasing. And those cities had families who could not afford to send their children to rural institutions. As a result, Ellen White counseled the building of schools in the cities. So far as possible," we read, ". . . schools should be established outside the cities. But in the cities there are many children who could not attend schools away from the cities; and for the benefit of these, schools should be opened in the cities as well as in the country" (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9, p. 201; italics supplied).

By this time you may be asking yourself how the same woman could claim that proper education could "never" be given in Australia "or any other country, unless they [schools] are separated a wide distance from the cities" (Fundamentals of Christian Education, p. 312) and yet still advocate the establishment of schools in the cities.

The answer is that rural education for all children was the ideal that the church should aim at "so far as possible." But the truth is that the hard facts of life make such education impossible for some. Thus reality dictated a compromise if Christian education were to reach children from poorer families. Ellen White understood and accepted the tension between the ideal and the real.

Unfortunately, many of her readers fail to take that fact into consideration. They focus merely on Mrs. White's "strongest" statements, those that express the ideal, and ignore the moderating passages. As a result, as we noted above, "picking out some things in the testimonies they drive them upon everyone, and disgust rather than win souls" (Selected Messages, book 3, p. 286).

Ellen White has more balance than many of her so-called followers. Genuine followers must take into account her understanding of the tension between the ideal and the real in applying her counsel.

Ellen White had more flexibility in interpreting her writings than many have realized. She was not only concerned with contextual factors in applying counsel to different situations, but also had a distinct understanding of the difference between God's ideal plan and the reality of the human situation that at times necessitated modification of the ideal. For that reason it is important that we don't just operate on the "strongest expressions" in her writings and seek to "drive them upon everyone" (ibid., pp. 285, 286).

Use Common Sense

Seventh-day Adventists have been known to differ and even argue over some of Ellen White's counsel. That situation is especially true of those statements that seem so straightforward and clear. One such statement appears in volume 3 of the Testmonies: "Parents should be the only teachers of their children until they have reached eight or ten years of age" (p. 137; italics supplied).

That passage is an excellent candidate for inflexible interpretation. After all, it is quite categorical. It offers no conditions and hints at no exceptions. Containing no "ifs," "ands," "ors," or "buts" to modify its impact, it just plainly states as fact that "parents should be the only teachers of their children until they have reached eight or ten years of age." Mrs. White first published the statement in 1872. The fact that it reappeared in her writings in 1882 and 1913 undoubtedly had the effect of strengthening what appears to be its unconditional nature.

Interestingly enough, however, a struggle over that statement has provided us with perhaps the very best record we possess of how Mrs. White interpreted her own writings.

The Adventists living near the St. Helena Sanitarium in northern California had built a church school in 1902. The older children attended it, while some careless Adventist parents let their younger children run freely in the neighborhood without proper training and discipline. Some of the school board members believed that they should build a classroom for the younger children, but others held that it would be wrong to do so, because Ellen White had plainly stated that "parents should be the only teachers of their children until they have reached eight or ten years of age."

One faction on the board apparently felt that it was more important to give some help to the neglected children than to hold to the letter of the law. The other faction believed that it had an inflexible command, some "straight testimony" that it must obey. To put it mildly, the issue split the school board. An interview with Mrs. White was arranged.

Early in the interview Mrs. White reaffirmed her position that the family should ideally be the school for young children. "The home," she said, "is both a family church and a family school" (Selected Messages, book 3, p. 214). That is the ideal that one finds throughout her writings. The institutional church and school are there to supplement the work of a healthy family. That is the ideal.

But, as we discovered in the previous section, the ideal is not always the real. Or, to say it in other words, reality is often less than ideal. Thus Ellen White continued in the interview: "Mothers should be able to instruct their little ones wisely during the earlier years of childhood. If every mother were capable of doing this, and would take time to teach her children the lessons they should learn in early life, then all children could be kept in the home school until they are eight, or nine, or ten years old" (ibid., pp. 214, 215; italics supplied).

Here we begin to find Mrs. White dealing with a reality that modifies the categorical and unconditional nature of her statement on parents being the only teachers of their children until 8 or 10 years of age. The ideal is that mothers "should" be able to function as the best teachers. But realism intrudes when Ellen White uses such words as "if" and "then." She definitely implies that not all mothers are capable and that not all are willing. But "if" they are both capable and willing, "then all children could be kept in the home school."

During the interview she remarked that "God desires us to deal with these problems sensibly" (ibid., p. 215). Ellen White became quite stirred up with those readers who took an inflexible attitude toward her writings and sought to follow the letter of her message while missing the underlying principles. She evidenced disapproval of both the words and attitudes of her rigid interpreters when she declared: "My mind has been greatly stirred in regard to the idea, 'Why, Sister White has said so and so, and Sister White has said so and so; and therefore we are going right up to it.' " She then added that "God wants us all to have common sense, and He wants us to reason from common sense. Circumstances alter conditions. Circumstances change the relation of things" (ibid., p. 217; italics supplied).

Ellen White was anything but inflexible in interpreting her own writings, and it is a point of the first magnitude that we realize that fact. She had no doubt that the mindless use of her ideas could be harmful. Thus it is little wonder that she said that "God wants us all to have common sense" in using extracts from her writings, even when she phrased those extracts in the strongest and most unconditional language.

Discover the Underlying Principles

In July 1894 Ellen White sent a letter to the denomination's headquarters church in Battle Creek, Michigan, in which she condemned the purchase and riding of bicycles (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8, pp. 50-53). At first glance it appears strange that such an issue should be considered important enough for a prophet to deal with. It seems especially odd when we note that the bicycle issue had been specifically revealed in vision.

How should we apply such counsel today? Does it mean that Seventh-day Adventists should not own bicycles?

In answering that question we first need to examine the historical context. In 1894 the modern bicycle was just beginning to be manufactured, and a fad quickly developed to acquire bicycles, not for the purpose of economical transportation, but simply to be in style, to enter bicycle races, and to parade around town on them. In the evening such parading included the hanging of Japanese lanterns on the bicycles. Bicycling was the "in" thing--the thing to do if you were anything or anybody on the social scale.

Extracts from an article entitled "When All the World Went Wheeling" will help us get into the historical context of the bicycle counsel. "Toward the end of the last century," we read, "the American people were swept with a consuming passion which left them with little time or money for anything else. . . . What was this big new distraction? For an answer the merchants had only to look out the window and watch their erstwhile customers go whizzing by. America had discovered the bicycle, and everybody was making the most of the new freedom it brought. . . . The bicycle began as a rich man's toy. Society and celebrity went a wheel.

"The best early bicycle cost $150, an investment comparable to the cost of an automobile today. . . . Every member of the family wanted a 'wheel,' and entire family savings often were used up in supplying the demand" (Reader's Digest, December 1951).

In the light of the historical context, Ellen White's statement in 1894 regarding bicycles takes on a new significance. "There seemed to be," she wrote, "a bicycle craze. Money was spent to gratify an enthusiasm in this direction that might better, far better, have been invested in building houses of worship where they are greatly needed. . . . A bewitching influence seemed to be passing as a wave over our people. . . . Satan works with intensity of purpose to induce our people to invest their time and money in gratifying supposed wants. This is a species of idolatry. . . . While hundreds are starving for bread, while famine and pestilence are seen and felt, . . . shall those who profess to love and serve God act as did the people in the days of Noah, following the imagination of their hearts?

"There were some who were striving for the mastery, each trying to excel the other in the swift running of their bicycles. There was a spirit of strife and contention among them as to which should be the greatest. . . . Said my Guide: 'These things are an offense to God. Both near and afar off souls are perishing for the bread of life and the water of salvation.' When Satan is defeated in one line, he will be all ready with other schemes and plans which will appear attractive and needful, and which will absorb money and thought, and encourage selfishness, so that he can overcome those who are so easily led into a false and selfish indulgence."

"What burden," she asks, "do these persons carry for the advancement of the work of God? . . . Is this investment of means and this spinning of bicycles through the streets of Battle Creek giving evidence of the genuineness of your faith in the last solemn warning to be given to human beings standing on the very verge of the eternal world?" (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8, pp. 51, 52).

Her counsel on bicycles is obviously dated. Within a few years bicycles became quite inexpensive and were relegated to the realm of practical transportation for young people and those without means, even as the larger culture switched its focus and desires to the four-wheeled successor of the humble bicycle.

While it is true that some of the specifics of the counsel no longer apply, the principles on which the specific counsel rests remain quite applicable across time and space.

And what are some of those principles? First, that Christians are not to spend money on selfish gratification. Second, that Christians are not to strive for mastery over one another by doing things that generate a spirit of strife and contention. Third, that Christians should focus their primary values on the kingdom to come and on helping others during the present period of history. And fourth, that Satan will always have a scheme to derail Christians into the realm of selfish indulgence.

Those principles are unchangeable. They apply to every place and to every age of earthly history. Bicycles were merely the point of contact between the principles and the human situation in Battle Creek during 1894. The particulars of time and place change, but the universal principles remain constant.

Our responsibility as Christians is not only to read God's counsel to us, but to apply it faithfully to our personal lives. The Christian's task is to search out God's revelations and then seek to put them into practice in daily living without doing violence to the intent of their underlying principles. That takes personal dedication as well as sensitivity to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Realize That Prophets Are Not Verbally Inspired, Nor Are They Infallible or Inerrant

"I was led to conclude and most firmly believe that every word that you ever spoke in public or private, that every letter you wrote under any and all circumstances, was as inspired as the ten commandments. I held that view with absolute tenacity against innumerable objections raised to it by many who were occupying prominent positions in the [Adventist] cause," wrote Dr. David Paulson to Ellen White on April 19, 1906. Deeply concerned over the nature of Ellen White's inspiration, Paulson wondered whether he should continue to hold such a rigid view. In the process he raised the question of verbal inspiration and the related issues of infallibility and inerrancy. Since a correct understanding of such issues is of crucial importance in reading Ellen White and/or the Bible, we will examine each of them in this section.

Mrs. White replied to Paulson on June 14, 1906. "My brother," she penned, "you have studied my writings diligently, and you have never found that I have made any such claims [to verbal inspiration], neither will you find that the pioneers in our cause ever made such claims" for her writings. She went on to illustrate inspiration in her writings by referring to the inspiration of the Bible writers. Even though God had inspired the Biblical truths, they were "expressed in the words of men." She saw the Bible as representing "a union of the divine and the human." Thus "the testimony is conveyed through the imperfect expression of human language, yet it is the testimony of God" (Selected Messages, book 1, pp. 24-26).

Such sentiments represent Ellen White's consistent witness across time. "The Bible," she wrote in 1886, "is written by inspired men, but it is not God's mode of thought and expression. It is that of humanity. God, as a writer, is not represented. . . . The writers of the Bible were God's penmen, not His pen. . . .

"It is not the words of the Bible that are inspired, but the men that were inspired. Inspiration acts not on the man's words or his expressions but on the man himself, who, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, is imbued with thoughts. But the words receive the impress of the individual mind. The divine mind is diffused. The divine mind and will is combined with the human mind and will; thus the utterances of the man are the word of God" (ibid., p. 21).

We see the problematic nature of the issue of verbal inspiration illustrated in the life of D. M. Canright, at one time a leading minister in the denomination, but its foremost critic between 1887 and 1919. Canright bitterly opposed Ellen White. His 1919 book against her asserted that "every line she wrote, whether in articles, letters, testimonies or books, she claimed was dictated to her by the Holy Ghost, and hence must be infallible" (Life of Mrs. E. G. White, p. 9). We have seen above that Ellen White herself took just the opposite position, but that didn't stop the damage being done by those with a false theory of inspiration.

Before we go any further, perhaps we should define our terms. Webster's New World Dictionary describes "infallible" as "1. incapable of error; never wrong. 2. not liable to fail, go wrong, make a mistake, etc." It renders "inerrant" as "not erring, making no mistakes." It is essentially those definitions that many people import into the realm of the Bible and Ellen White's writings.

As to infallibility, Mrs. White plainly writes, "I never claimed it; God alone is infallible." Again she stated that "God and heaven alone are infallible" (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 37). While she claimed that "God's Word is infallible" (ibid., p. 416), we will see below that she did not mean that the Bible (or her writings) were free from error at all points.

To the contrary, in the introduction to The Great Controversy she sets forth her position quite concisely: "The Holy Scriptures are to be accepted as an authoritative, infallible revelation of His will" (p. vii). That is, she did not claim that the work of God's prophets is infallible in all its details, but that it is infallible in terms of revealing God's will to men and women. In a similar statement Ellen White commented that "His Word . . . is plain on every point essential to the salvation of the soul" (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 706).

W. C. White treats the same issue when he observes: "Where she has followed the description of historians or the exposition of Adventist writers, I believe that God has given her discernment to use that which is correct and in harmony with truth regarding all matters essential to salvation. If it should be found by faithful study that she has followed some expositions of prophecy which in some detail regarding dates we cannot harmonize with our understanding of secular history, it does not influence my confidence in her writings as a whole any more than my confidence in the Bible is influenced by the fact that I cannot harmonize many of the statements regarding chronology" (Selected Messages, book 3, pp. 449, 450; italics supplied).

In summary, it appears that Mrs. White's use of the term infallibility has to do with the Bible being completely trustworthy as a guide to salvation. She doesn't mix that idea with the concept that the Bible or her writings are free from all possible errors of a factual nature.

Thus the faithful reader's belief is not shaken if he or she discovers that Matthew attributed a Messianic prophecy, written centuries before Christ's birth, to Jeremiah when it was actually Zechariah who inferred that Christ would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (see Matt. 27:9, 10; Zech. 11:12, 13). Nor will one be dismayed over the fact that 1 Samuel 16:10, 11 lists David as the eighth son of Jesse, but 1 Chronicles 2:15 refers to him as the seventh. Neither will faith be affected because the prophet Nathan wholeheartedly approved of King David's building of the Temple but the next day had to backtrack and tell David that God didn't want him to build it (see 2 Sam. 7; 1 Chron. 17). Prophets make mistakes.

The same kind of factual errors can be discovered in Ellen White's writings as are found in the Bible. The writings of God's prophets are infallible as a guide to salvation, but they are not inerrant or without error. Part of the lesson is that we need to read for the central lessons of Scripture and Ellen White rather than the details.

What is important to remember at this point is that those who struggle over such problems as inerrancy and absolute infallibility are fighting a human-made problem. It is not anything that God ever claimed for the Bible or Ellen White ever claimed for the Bible or her writings. Inspiration for her had to do with the "practical purposes" (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 19) of human and divine relationships in the plan of salvation. We need to let God speak to us in His mode, rather than to superimpose our rules over God's prophets and then reject them if they don't live up to our expectations of what we think God should have done. Such an approach is a human invention that places our own authority over the Word of God. It makes us the judges of God and His Word. But such a position is not Biblical; nor is it according to the way Ellen White has counseled the church. We need to read God's Word and Mrs. White's writings for the purpose for which He gave them and not let our modern concerns and definitions of purpose and accuracy come between us and His prophets.

Avoid Making the Counsels "Prove" Things They Were Never Intended to Prove

In the previous section we noted that Ellen White did not claim verbal inspiration for her writings or the Bible, nor did she classify them as either inerrant or infallible in the sense of being free from factual mistakes. In spite of the efforts of Mrs. White and her son to move people away from too rigid a view of inspiration, many have continued on in that line. Down through the history of the denomination some have sought to use Ellen White's writings and the Bible for purposes for which God never intended them. Likewise, claims have been made for prophetic writings that transcend their purpose.

As a result, we find individuals who go to her writings to substantiate such things as historical facts and dates. Thus S. N. Haskell could write to Ellen White that he and his friends would "give more for one expression in your testimony than for all the histories you could stack between here and Calcutta" (S. N. Haskell to E. G. White, May 30, 1910).

Yet Ellen White never claimed that the Lord provided every historical detail in her works. To the contrary, she tells us that she generally went to the same sources available to us to get the historical facts that she used to fill out the outlines of the struggle between good and evil across the ages that she portrays so nicely in The Great Controversy. In regard to the writing of that volume, she wrote in its preface that "where a historian has so grouped together events as to afford, in brief, a comprehensive view of the subject, or has summarized details in a convenient manner, his words have been quoted; but in some instances no specific credit has been given, since the quotations are not given for the purpose of citing that writer as authority, but because his statement affords a ready and forcible presentation of the subject." Her purpose in such books as The Great Controversy was "not so much . . . to present new truths concerning the struggles of former times, as to bring out facts and principles which have a bearing on coming events" (p. xii).

That statement of purpose is crucial in understanding her use of history. Her intention was to trace the dynamics of the conflict between good and evil across time. That was her message. The historical facts merely enriched its tapestry. She was not seeking to provide incontrovertible historical data. In actuality, as she put it, the "facts" she used were "well known and universally acknowledged by the Protestant world" (ibid., p. xi).

What is true of Ellen White's use of facts in post-Biblical church history is also true of her practice when writing of the Biblical period. As a result, she could ask her sons that they request "Mary [Willie's wife] to find me some histories of the Bible that would give me the order of events. I have nothing and can find nothing in the library here" (E. G. White to W. C. White and J. E. White, Dec. 22, 1885).

"Regarding Mother's writings," W. C. White told Haskell, "she has never wished our brethren to treat them as authority on history. . . . When '[The Great] Controversy' was written, Mother never thought that the readers would take it as an authority on historical dates and use it to settle controversies, and she does not now feel that it ought to be used in that way." (W. C. White to S. N. Haskell, Oct. 31, 1912; italics supplied; cf. Selected Messages, book 3, pp. 446, 447.)

Twenty years later W. C. White wrote that "in our conversations with her [Ellen White] regarding the truthfulness and the accuracy of what she had quoted from historians, she expressed confidence in the historians from whom she had drawn, but never would consent to the course pursued by a few men who took her writings as a standard and endeavored by the use of them to prove the correctness of one historian as against the correctness of another. From this I gained the impression that the principal use of the passage quoted from historians was not to make a new history, not to correct errors in history, but to use valuable illustrations to make plain important spiritual truths" (W. C. White to L. E. Froom, Feb. 18, 1932).

Not only do we need to avoid using Ellen White to "prove" the details of history, but the same caution must be expressed in the realm of the details of science. In saying this I do not mean to imply that there is not a great deal of accuracy in the scientific inferences of Ellen White's writings--and the Bible's, for that matter--but that we must not seek to prove this and that scientific detail from them.

Let me illustrate. Some claim that John Calvin, the great sixteenth-century Reformer, resisted Copernicus's discovery that the earth rotated around the sun by quoting Psalm 93:1: "The world also is established; that it cannot be moved." In a similar vein, many have pointed out that the Bible talks about the four corners of the earth and the fact that the sun "comes up" and "goes down." In such cases, the Bible is merely making incidental remarks rather than setting forth scientific doctrine.

Remember that the Bible and Ellen White's writings are not intended to be divine encyclopedias for things scientific and historical. Rather they are to reveal our human hopelessness and then point us to the solution in salvation through Jesus. In the process, God's revelation provides a framework in which we can understand the bits and pieces of historical and scientific knowledge gained through other lines of study.

Make Sure Ellen White Said It

A fair number of statements are in circulation that apparently have been falsely attributed to Ellen White. How can we identify such statements? The first clue that they are apocryphal for those who are familiar with Ellen White's writings is that such statements are often out of harmony with the general tenor of her thought. That is, they seem strange when compared to the bulk of her ideas, appear to be out of place in her mouth. Strangeness, of course, is not proof that we are dealing with an apocryphal statement. It is merely an indication.

The safest way to test the authenticity of an Ellen White statement is to ask for the reference to its source. Once we know where it is found, we can check to see if Ellen White said it and also examine the wording and context to determine if it has been interpreted correctly.

The issue of supposed statements also came up in Mrs. White's lifetime. Her fullest treatment of the problem appears in volume 5 of Testimonies for the Church, pages 692 through 696. It can be examined profitably by all readers of Ellen White's writings:

"Beware," she says, "how you give credence to such reports" (p. 694). She concludes her discussion of the topic with the following words: "To all who have a desire for truth I would say: Do not give credence to unauthenticated reports as to what Sister White has done or said or written. If you desire to know what the Lord has revealed through her, read her published works. . . . Do not eagerly catch up and report rumors as to what she has said" (p. 696).

While we can no longer send supposed statements to Ellen White for her verification, we can contact the White Estate office at the General Conference headquarters or visit the nearest SDA-Ellen G. White Research Center to verify the authenticity of a statement or to inquire about other questions we might have.

[Condensed and adapted from George R. Knight, Reading Ellen White (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1997), pp. 43-123. Available from Adventist Book Centers: 1-800-765-6955 or Review and Herald Publishing Association: http://www.rhpa.org]