Prophetic Inspiration

[Gregory Matthews]

A lot has been said in many posts that has been related to the inspiration of EGW and her writtings.  Some have wanted, it seems, to hang on ot every word that she wrote as inspired directly from God.  Others, it seems have not wanted to do so.

 

I got to thinking about Jeremiah, the Biblical prophet:

1)  He was an accomplished writer who got into the Biblical record more than 50 so-called chapters.

2)  Can we not assume that during his lifetime he wrote more material which did not make it into the Biblical record?

3)  Why?

4)  Do we assume that everything that Jeremiah wrote was inspired by God and worthy of being included in the Bible?

5) Do we not evaulvate EGW above that of the Biblical writers when we seem to assume that every word she wrote and spoke was inspisred by God and worthy of being included in the inspired writing.

 

NOTE:  I am asking questions.  I am not stating a personal belief.

 

[Rossw]

The problem is deciding what was inspired and what wasn't. If she was inaccurate she is no longer a prophet.

[Tom Wetmore]

If that is your standard, then we similarly must eliminate Biblical writers that lacked accuracy in what they wrote. The examples I noted previously are just a few.  Accuracy is not the test of the prophetic gift.  Truth is the test. And accuracy and truth are not the same thing. Nor is accuracy the test of truthfulness and honesty.  Witnesses to the very same event will not see and/or remember the same things.  They will honestly and truthfully tell different versions of the same story, that may or may not always seem terribly consistent.  The Truth may be somewhere in their accounts or a combination of their accounts or quite apart from what they truthfully recalled and thought they saw.

Again, what you are suggesting is not how inspiration works.  Essentially, what you are saying is that EGW was channeling God in all that she said and wrote; that whenever she opened her mouth it was God speaking and whenever she held a pen in her hand and put it to paper, it moved with no control by her what got written down, either because God took control of her hand and mind, or that he literally dictated every word that she wrote down. 

I think it would be good for you to visit the EGW Estate at the General Conference or one of the EGW study centers and examine some of her original manuscripts.  It is abundantly clear that what got published went through much the same drafting, editing, and rewriting process as that of pretty much any other writer.  If the inspiration that she was under, was essentially an accurate verbatim transcription of what God told her to write, why all the changes that were made in the process, not just by her, but also by her assistants? She signed off on the final (which somethimes also got further changes in subsequent editions or republications.) 

Here is how I personal evaluate things she has written.  If she writes, "God said to me" or as is quite common, "the angel said to me" and she puts it in quotes, than I take that as something that we really should consider as precisely dictated to her. We should understand her as accurately conveying that message.  When she prefaced something specifically as "I was shown", we can assume God showed her something in vision or that he pointed her to a specific source of information or even someone who could give her that information.   She would convey it in her own words within her perception and understanding of what she heard, saw, or read.  That may well have not always been a complete or totally accurate account of it.  But it still conveyed the point of truth needful for the message she felt inspired to give. And then there is a lot of practical advice given for a particular time, person, or situation.  That may or may not be still of value, although we might be able to derive some lesson, as we might from some stories in the Bible.

[Gregory Matthews]

The problem is deciding what was inspired and what wasn't. If she was inaccurate she is no longer a prophet.

The Bible is an inspired book.   Those who wrote it were inspired. 

1) Were the Biblical writers always accurate?

2)  When it says (Exodus 1:11) that the children of Israel built Rameses was that an accurate statement?  You have a huge dating problem if you do say so.

3) When a Biblical writer mentions the 4-corners of the Earth, is that accurate?  What about the sun moving around the Earth? 

Folks, the Bible is trustworthy, true and sufficient for our salvation.  But, that does not mean that it is accurate in every detail.  It is a book that is a mixture of the human and the divine.

We should not expect more of Ellen White than we can expect of the Bible and its prophets. 

 

[Rossw]

Are you using those examples as an effort to lessen the authority of the Bible even though there is perfectly logical Biblical explanations for those examples which would prove they aren't innaccurate per the context? 

Your making yourself look like a humanist Bible basher instead of a Christian...that's just the appearance here.

[CoAspen]

I don't believe I have ever seen a more aggressive form of FTU!!

[Rossw]

Then, this begs the question, what do we take as our authority if we deny the divine inspiration and authority of the Bible or even EGW?

[Rossw]

What is FTU?

[LifeHiscost]

3 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

But, that does not mean that it is accurate in every detail.  It is a book that is a mixture of the human and the divine.

We should not expect more of Ellen White than we can expect of the Bible and its prophets. 

 

The men used in the Word were Gods' spokespersons. If there were any thought expressed that did no come from Him, it was made plain.

…15From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.… 2 Timothy

And this above spoken when there was mainly only old testament verse available for followers of the Word. As to whether anyone wrote down something that was not inspired by the Holy Spirit, perhaps that's one reason why some place little trust in the Apostle Pauls' writings.

1Now regarding the questions you asked in your letter. Yes, it is good to abstain from sexual relations.^a 2But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.

3The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. 4The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.

5Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7But I wish everyone were single, just as I am. Yet each person has a special gift from God, of one kind or another.

8So I say to those who aren’t married and to widows—it’s better to stay unmarried, just as I am. 9But if they can’t control themselves, they should go ahead and marry. It’s better to marry than to burn with lust.

10But for those who are married, I have a command that comes not from me, but from the Lord.^b A wife must not leave her husband. 11But if she does leave him, let her remain single or else be reconciled to him. And the husband must not leave his wife.

12Now, I will speak to the rest of you, though I do not have a direct command from the Lord. If a Christian man^c has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to continue living with him, he must not leave her. 13And if a Christian woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to continue living with her, she must not leave him. 14For the Christian wife brings holiness to her marriage, and the Christian husband^d brings holiness to his marriage. Otherwise, your children would not be holy, but now they are holy. 15(But if the husband or wife who isn’t a believer insists on leaving, let them go. In such cases the Christian husband or wife^e is no longer bound to the other, for God has called you^f to live in peace.) 16Don’t you wives realize that your husbands might be saved because of you? And don’t you husbands realize that your wives might be saved because of you?

17Each of you should continue to live in whatever situation the Lord has placed you, and remain as you were when God first called you. This is my rule for all the churches.....1 Corinthians 7

God is Love!~Jesus saves!  Hope you all had a blessed and       

I

[Gregory Matthews]

Rossw asked for the meaning of FTU:

I have found on the Internet well over 40 meanings of FTU.  I guess that CoAspen is the only person who can tell us what was meant.

[Gregory Matthews]

Rossw stated/asked:

Are you using those examples as an effort to lessen the authority of the Bible even though there is perfectly logical Biblical explanations for those examples which would prove they aren't innaccurate per the context? 

Your making yourself look like a humanist Bible basher instead of a Christian...that's just the appearance here.

Rossw, the key to understanding what I had said lies in my following statement:

5) Do we not evaulvate EGW above that of the Biblical writers when we seem to assume that every word she wrote and spoke was inspisred by God and worthy of being included in the inspired writing.

My perception of the personal beliefs of some who post here is that they do elevate EGW above that of the Biblical writers in an assumption that every word she wrote was worthy to be considered inspired by God.

I will give an example, which comes from my actual knowledge, but not from a person who posted here.  EGW is known to have written to a woman and told her that she looked good in a red dress.  I personally know of that being considered an inspired statement that all women should wear  red dresses because God considers that all women look good in red. 

You are correct that all of my Biblical examples have a reasonable explanation.  However, the explanation for the statement about Ramses can only be obtained from an extra-Biblical source.  There is no other way to explain it.  There are those who post here who, as I understand them, who would never go to an extra-Biblical source to explain it. A refusal to go to an extra-Biblical source leaves one with a major problem as to the dating of the time of the Exodus.

 

 

[Gregory Matthews]

Rossw stated below:

With an occasional exception, I do not believe that the people generally posting here deny the divine inspiration and authority of the Bible.  As to those exceptions, those have generally made it plain as to what they consider to be their authority.

 

Then, this begs the question, what do we take as our authority if we deny the divine inspiration and authority of the Bible or even EGW?

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[Tom Wetmore]

13 hours ago, Rossw said:

Are you using those examples as an effort to lessen the authority of the Bible even though there is perfectly logical Biblical explanations for those examples which would prove they aren't innaccurate per the context? 

Your making yourself look like a humanist Bible basher instead of a Christian...that's just the appearance here.

Obviously missing the point... (Or is it an intentional misdirecting the point?)

The point is that by setting the definition and meaning of inspiration as completely error proof, free of all inaccuracies, your POV on inspiration sets Scripture up to be easily disqualified as inspired by God.  That impossible standard of inspiration removes the human element completely, as if all of Scripture was written entirely by the hand of God with no help at all from error prone, sin inflicted, humans.  That is not how Scripture or EGW defines it. 

As I said before the test of the prophetic gift is Truth, not accuracy.  You are confusing accuracy or inerrancy with Truth.  

[CoAspen]

Failure To Understand or more commonly MTP!

 

[Rossw]

So Greg, forgive me if I fail to understand you correctly but that is why we continue to discuss. If the inaccuracies you've given as examples are actually true(including red dress example) then how are they innaccurate? 

 

[Rossw]

51 minutes ago, Tom Wetmore said:

Obviously missing the point... (Or is it an intentional misdirecting the point?)

The point is that by setting the definition and meaning of inspiration as completely error proof, free of all inaccuracies, your POV on inspiration sets Scripture up to be easily disqualified as inspired by God.  That impossible standard of inspiration removes the human element completely, as if all of Scripture was written entirely by the hand of God with no help at all from error prone, sin inflicted, humans.  That is not how Scripture or EGW defines it. 

As I said before the test of the prophetic gift is Truth, not accuracy.  You are confusing accuracy or inerrancy with Truth.  

Explain how if the Bible is full of human inaccuracies how it can also be true?

You used an example from the other locked thread of multiple perspectives to a same event as proof of inaccuracies? Can you explain?

If a witness account is inaccurate can it also be truthful?

[Gregory Matthews]

Inspiration is a combination of the human and the divine.  It has to be in order for us humans to understand it.  EGW clearly understood this and so stated it. 

So, let us take my red dress example. To be brief,  Ellen White sent a woman a piece of red cloth, as well as some other material.  She told the woman that she looked good in red and she should have a dress made out of the red cloth.  This incident is recorded in the records of EGWs life and ministry.

1)  Should we teach that the statement of EGW to that woman was directly inspired by God?

2)  Should we  teach that God has told us through EGW, that all women look good in red and all women should wear a red dress at least sometimes?

NOTE:  I have personally come to know people who have believed and taught such.  I am not making this up.

For me, the resolution to this is in my understanding of inspiration, which you do not have to accept as truth.  When God provides us with a prophet, God does so for a specific purpose.  That purpose becomes the central message of that prophet.  God helps that prophet in communicating that central message in a manner that preserves that message that allow God's truth to be communicated to other humans. 

But, the preservation of that central message may not be extended to every other aspect of the prophets personal belief.  Daniel has a message from God in the O.T.  That message has been preserved for us in our time.  But, that does not mean that Daniel understood every aspect of that message in his time.  It does not mean that he understood everything that we understand today.  Living in the time of the N.T. and beyond to that of the Time of the End and of the Christian Church, we probably have God-given knowledge of our salvation that Daniel did not have.  It also does not mean that Daniel, in speaking of the common affairs of his life was inspired by God in everything that he said.

As I  have experienced, we should not elevate EGW above that which we can expect from a Biblical prophet.

In addition, we must individually decide as to what the reason and purpose was in giving this denomination the gift of EGW.   As so me would believe, was it to explain a Bible t hat  could not be otherwise understood?  No.  Not according to her.  according to her, the Bible was to be the test of her authority. 

I believe that God gave this denomination the gift of EGW to be a guide in our administrative development.  We would not be the denomination that we are today if it had not been for her.   However, we would have reached our doctrinal understanding of the fundamentals, without her.  God led us in fundamental doctrines..

 

[Tom Wetmore]

Consider this.  Were the parables that Jesus told, true stories?  Did he use those stories to convey what is the Truth?

Consider the child telling her version of what she saw when she saw mommy kissing Santa Claus underneath the mistletoe.  Was she conveying an accurate account of what had actually happened? Several layers of untrue and inaccuracy going on in that cute little Christmas song.  But it indeed reveals a serious point of learning the truth about Santa Claus.  

What details are essential to the point of a story?  What details are relevant?  And what details are not?  Is it really essential to the story that the act of God of "stopping the sun" to prolong the daylight for an important battle that the writer was wrong and should have said that God stopped the earth from spinning on its axis?  It was still the act of God intervening to give the Israelites the victory.  That was the point of the story.  Not that the writer understood our solar system and how it actually works.

Truthful is a synonym of honest.  It does not mean "accurate" or "correct".  One can honestly tell what they perceived and be quite incorrect.  I glanced out the window and saw something fly by outside.  To my eye it looked like a blue colored bird a bit larger than an American Robin. The only bird that is blue of that size around here is a Bluejay.  I truthfully and honestly commented that I just saw a Bluejay fly by outside my window.  What I did not see is two children playing catch in the yard with a rag doll in a blue dress outside my window.  Nothing I said was accurate.  But my witness account was truthful as to what I thought I saw. 

In court witnesses to the same event will almost always see and remember different details of what they saw or heard. And sometimes details may be in conflict without any witness being dishonest.  Cross examination may reveal honest explanations.  The person's memory was not precise because of the passage of time or their POV was such that they could not clearly see the whole scene and everything that happened. But cumulatively a thread of consistent details should emerge among the witnesses. In fact if 3 witnesses get on the stand and say exactly the same thing in the same words, it is suspicious that they got together to concoct the same story or were coached by someone that essentially gave them a "script" to recite.  

[Robert]

Everyone is making this overly complicated!  All this high-minded jabber jawing causes unbelief in the Scripture.  Confusion to what is truth sets the stage for one claiming infallibility on faith and morals. 

My two cents

[Gregory Matthews]

It actually tends to confirm a belief in the authority of Scripture.

Faith in God, is based in part on understanding  how God works in human life.

 

[Rossw]

2 hours ago, Robert said:

Everyone is making this overly complicated!  All this high-minded jabber jawing causes unbelief in the Scripture.  Confusion to what is truth sets the stage for one claiming infallibility on faith and morals. 

My two cents

To break it down we must know what truth is. Is truth in itself what a witness says? Or is the truth of a matter objective to the witness and the witness only describes what the truth is. The Gospels are a great example. They seem in some instances to conflict each other but are really just different perspectives of truth that is apart from themselves. 

Another example is Daniel prophetically describing empires as beasts. Is Daniel inaccurate for calling empires, beasts? No of course not. The truth isn't in the description but in the reality. The same can be said for parables in the new testament.

The claim has been made that the anti-WO group are to overly literal with the words in the Bible but I can assure you we know the difference between prophecy, parables, and literal narrative.

Did the prophets write outside of Scripture? I don't know but those aren't in the Canon and don't think God chose people who don't practice what they preach. What confusion would be caused if God chose those who contradict the message.

As far as the red dress issue, it is most obviously not a spiritual matter yet does not contradict either.

[Gregory Matthews]

The importance lies in the issue as to how one understands inspiration and EGW.  For some EGW advice to that woman was an inspired word from God.  to others, it was not.  It was  only the thoughts  of a good woman.

 

 

As far as the red dress issue, it is most obviously not a spiritual matter yet does not contradict either.

[Green Cochoa]

7 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

So, let us take my red dress example. To be brief,  Ellen White sent a woman a piece of red cloth, as well as some other material.  She told the woman that she looked good in red and she should have a dress made out of the red cloth.  This incident is recorded in the records of EGWs life and ministry.

1)  Should we teach that the statement of EGW to that woman was directly inspired by God?

2)  Should we  teach that God has told us through EGW, that all women look good in red and all women should wear a red dress at least sometimes?

NOTE:  I have personally come to know people who have believed and taught such.  I am not making this up.

That "incident" is not written in any of Mrs. White's writings.  I know, because I just spent a good hour looking at every single mention of the word "red," all 423 of them, on the 2010 published CD of her writings.  So it appears to be a classic "red herring."  The Bible speaks of "scripture" which means "writings" as being "inspired by God."  She didn't write and publish this, so it deserves no further attention.  She has given us her testimony with respect to her published writings--they are inspired by God.

[Green Cochoa]

8 hours ago, Rossw said:

Explain how if the Bible is full of human inaccuracies how it can also be true?

You used an example from the other locked thread of multiple perspectives to a same event as proof of inaccuracies? Can you explain?

If a witness account is inaccurate can it also be truthful?

Mrs. White once said "God does not send his light and his truth through impure channels."

She also said: 

The truth and the glory of God are inseparable; it is impossible for us, with the Bible within our reach, to honor God by erroneous opinions. Many claim that it matters not what one believes, if his life is only right. But the life is molded by the faith. If light and truth is within our reach, and we neglect to improve the privilege of hearing and seeing it, we virtually reject it; we are choosing darkness rather than light.  {GC 597.2}  
     

If erroneous opinions do not honor God, how could He call a supposedly error-filled book His Word and the Truth?  "Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.  Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar."  (Proverbs 30:5-6)

[Rossw]

If God chose a few people to deliver such an important message of truth through inspiration would it not also be likely God had influence on how the message was put down on record? I am also certain God had a part in inspiring and influencing translators also. When I put my faith in a "thus saith the Lord" view of the Bible it isn't a faith in the writers but in the message that came through them.