NO EGW Compilations?

[skyblue888]

Not true. When I read the compilations as in the devotional compilations, every page is made of different quotations but they are related one to another because each page deals with a particular subject. They are not quotations that have nothing to do with each other!

Come on!

sky :)

[Gail]

If we never have a chance to meet on this earth, I'll be happy to share your friendship when we at last enter where we will have our great hunger for the Bread of Life fully satisfied.

I can't wait!! Thank you, LHC, for your very kind words!

[Gail]

I was going to mention that sometimes in time of need, one Bible verse will be located or remembered that will just fit the situation. It might not be in the exact context, either, but will bless just the same.

Just a pondering.

[ClubV12]

Much of the counsel WOULD indeed be lost because access to it would be and is extremely limited. Many of these quotes are from unpublished source material or letters, stuff "we" simply do not have ready access to.

As to repetition:

I like what the Trustee's have done with 4 of the 5 Conflict of the Ages series books. "Down Sizing" them and using modern language. They are much easier and quicker to read now, about half the size of the original. I've noticed that much of the repetition has been removed from the modern versions while the books still retain the basic message and beauty. I prefer the original Desire of Ages myself, but also appreciate the new "lite" version, "Humble Hero".

The basic idea behind a compilation is to gather quotes on a particular subject and assemble it into a book. As such, repetition is virtually gaurenteed. So which qoutes do you leave out or add in? Could YOU do a better job than the Trustees to make that call? Or, do you prefer to be a back seat driver and tell them they missed the turn off?

Indeed, many of these quotes would be lost without compilations. Bring them on!!! I can handle the heat, I will decide what parts are applicable to me, or YOU. Ha Ha

[Woody]

Quote:

"Much of the counsel WOULD indeed be lost because access to it would be and is extremely limited. Many of these quotes are from unpublished source material or letters, stuff "we" simply do not have ready access to."

If we don't have access to the orginal context ... we have no business reading it. And it should be tossed out.

[skyblue888]

We dont really need a context. What we have been told is that "The testimonies themselves will be the key that will explain the messages given, as scripture is explained by Scripture." 1 S.M.42.

Even if the statements are without context it is for us to find other statements dealing with the same topic and compare them since one statement explains another statement.

sky

[Gerr]

If we don't have access to the orginal context ... we have no business reading it. And it should be tossed out.

You would have to toss out much of what you know as garbage because you don't have the context for them. There are truths that can stand by themselves no matter in what context. For example:

1. 301. Those who sincerely desire truth will not be reluctant to lay open their positions for investigation and criticism, and will not be annoyed if their opinions and ideas are crossed

White, E. G. (1938; 2002). Counsels on Diet and Foods (187). Review and Herald Publishing Association; Review and Herald Publishing Association.

2. 305. The true fasting which should be recommended to all, is abstinence from every stimulating kind of food, and the proper use of wholesome, simple food, which God has provided in abundance. Men need to think less about what they shall eat and drink of temporal food, and much more in regard to the food from heaven, that will give tone and vitality to the whole religious experience. {CD 188.3}

3. 309. Intemperate eating is often the cause of sickness, and what nature most needs is to be relieved of the undue burden that has been placed upon her. In many cases of sickness, the very best remedy is for the patient to fast for a meal or two, that the overworked organs of digestion may have an opportunity to rest. A fruit diet for a few days has often brought great relief to brain workers. Many times a short period of entire abstinence from food, followed by simple, moderate eating, has led to recovery through nature’s own recuperative effort. An abstemious diet for a month or two would convince many sufferers that the path of self-denial is the path to health. {CD 189.3}

I took these quotes at random. What contexts do these statements need for anyone to get the message? Or are the statements too unpalatable for someone's stomach?

[Woody]

Those that don't think 'context' is important ... will surely find themselves lost in a maze of confusion.

[Gerr]

I didn't say that no context is needed in everything. What I said was that there are true statements that can stand by themselves, no matter in what context. When a statement is deemed controversial, then by ALL means, let's look at the context.

[Woody]

What do we do with ClubV's comments and points:

Quote:

"Much of the counsel WOULD indeed be lost because access to it would be and is extremely limited. Many of these quotes are from unpublished source material or letters, stuff "we" simply do not have ready access to."

[CoAspen]

Ah reken we jest get back to the 'god book'!

I have my mothers 3 volume set of the testimonies from the 40's that are so underlined and marked up with her comments, they are falling apart. Did she use them on us kids growing up, nope, it was always the Bible.

Years ago we had a group of young adults, pre kids, taht would meet once a week for 'study'. It was after spending some time in Child Guidance and noticing it was just a series of quotes from other books along with incomplete thoughts(out of original conext), not agreeing with her stance on how to treat kids, scene and not heard, lots of spanking, etc, etc, we quit and no longer would we study compilations.

Oh, we went back to Bible study!!

[Gail]

Years ago we had a group of young adults, pre kids, taht would meet once a week for 'study'. It was after spending some time in Child Guidance and noticing it was just a series of quotes from other books along with incomplete thoughts(out of original conext), not agreeing with her stance on how to treat kids, scene and not heard, lots of spanking, etc, etc, we quit and no longer would we study compilations.

Oh, we went back to Bible study!!

That was a lesson that really engraved the Bible permanently in your head as the true reference book, I'm sure! LOL

[phkrause]

Ah reken we jest get back to the 'god book'!

I have my mothers 3 volume set of the testimonies from the 40's that are so underlined and marked up with her comments, they are falling apart. Did she use them on us kids growing up, nope, it was always the Bible.

Years ago we had a group of young adults, pre kids, taht would meet once a week for 'study'. It was after spending some time in Child Guidance and noticing it was just a series of quotes from other books along with incomplete thoughts(out of original conext), not agreeing with her stance on how to treat kids, scene and not heard, lots of spanking, etc, etc, we quit and no longer would we study compilations.

Oh, we went back to Bible study!!

You make some great points CoAspen. But there are many who say the exact opposite. Its been said that you can't except her as a prophet and not be a fan of hers! But I don't believe that for one minute, because I can and I believe there are others who do the same. I do read her when I can, because as I've mentioned on many occasions I have a hard time with the way she writes or the way she says what she says. And besides she doesn't intimidate me at all, she actually makes me want to be a better person, let alone a Christian.

[Kevin H]

I love Selected Messages, especially the messages about how Inspiration works. I love Mind, Character and Personality. I love the compilation on the voice. I love "Letters to Young Lovers" I love "In Heavenly Places" Don't take these compilations away from me. There is a place for compilations. There is implied homework that we have to do with them. It is just the blindly use of every word as if they are a one size fits all that we can apply willie nillie that we have to be careful with.

Mrs. White's ministry had certan points that it was focused on at different times:

1. That they should not give up the 1844 expirence and see Millerism as a mistake, but to trust that God was indeed leading the movement.

2. The developement of the Church

3. The development of our health and educational system

4. The issues of the great controversy; the 3 aspects of the Godhead, the 3 deceptions of Satan, God's relationship with his creatures, how can Justice and Mercy be oned, the issues of freedom of conscience between the two extreams of enforced religion and existentialism and how these two are going to unite in the last days affecting the whole world including Protestantism. How Satan's 3 deceptions are fully answered by the 3 angels message. How while our nature cannot be perfected, how the character can be.

The other points were other points that people were asking her about. She would pick writings and paraphrase them to help set up these four purposes. She also used other's writings for a running narative to fill space from one point she saw as important to another, and we become enammered in this filler material. Things she said about what causes earthquakes, or her discription of how the stones were set on the high priest's breastplace was just from this filler material and is not central to her message. Frequently there are points that are in tension with each other so she would have things to say on both sides of the issue. Too often we take what she said on one side and just run with it believing that that one side was the whole issue.

She was focused on analogies and application for us today. She was not doing exegesis and while that was important, she told us that was our job to do, not hers. However we don't believe her and turn to her for our exegesis and in the 1920s started to call her an inspired commentary on the Bible. Mrs. White was a beakon holding us on the streight and narrow when other churches fell to either Modernism/Preterism or Fundmendalism/Dispensationalism. She kept us on the right path with the best knowlege availble in the late 1800s and early 1900 and pointed us in the direction to move in the future. Instead of moving forward to where she was pointing, we decided to set up camp where she and the pioneers fell and from the camp developed into a settled city (and wost than that, we tended to build a city a little behind where she fell, and off to the side and prefered some of the pastor's interpetation of her work rather than her interpetation of her work.) She tells us that she is not infailable. So we say "She's not infailable, it's just that she never made a mistake." She says that prophets are God's penmen, not his pen, yet we follow those who say that prophets are God's pen. She tells us that if we find something in her work that doe not agree with the Bible to follow the Bible. We turn that around into a challenge saying "I dare you to find something that does not agree with the Bible!!!!!" and have stopped studying the Bible so we don't know if a particular statement is in agreement with it or not. And instead of Bible study we hear about how the pioneers may have held two different views on a topic, like what is the meaning of the daily for example or who is the king of the north. We carry on their arguments instead of studying the Bible to learn if there may be a 3rd possibility that we have not come to yet and that both pioneer views may be wrong, because the Arcaheological or linguistic evidence to understand the text had not yet been discovered.

To Mrs. White the Law of God is Self Sacrificing love and our purpose is to love the world as Jesus has loved it. Things such as the Sabbath and health reform are tools for this. We turn the law into every piece of advice that she ever gave to anyone as applying to everyone in each and every situation, and we are to do it with an attitude of not loving the world. We focus on one side or another of the tension between character but not nature perfection and either make her a Wesylain duble santification perfectionist or take her non-perfection statements and make her a reformation theologan.

Thus we loose sight of her central structure and loose sight of the forest for the trees, and the compilations taken willie nillie have a danger of majoring in her miners and loosing sight of her self stated purpose.

If we go back to the purposes that Willie White, W. W. Prescott, A. G. Daniels and the Religion Department at Washington Missionary College was going for before they were fired or demoted in the 1922 (or 23?) General Conference, we can have faithful tools for all our study of Ellen White's work, whether it be a complete work or a compilation. We need a corporate repentance for that General Conference session and return to the work that these servents of God were trying to get us to do.

[CoAspen]

To often religion gets locked into strict black and white on issues that are not, but rather just issues. The Bible has been around longer than EGW and if a person chooses not to give her the same level of validity, than so be it. Why do SDA's make pronouncements about others experience with God when there is a disagreement? Is that why she wrote? Of course not! Should people who profess to love God and desire a relationship with him go around casting stones? What is our purpose in life, finger pointing or sounding the Good News?

This topic goes around an around continually in these forums with much condemnation, is that what God wants? Shades of the religion being taught in Christ day! What was His mission, to seek and save the lost! Everytime this battle is resumed people should stop, exam their own lives, think about what Christ did for them, and then ask, who am I to presume what is in the heart of others when we can only see the first layer of the person.

This is wasting time in our lives and the lives of others, soon the rocks will cry out with the Good News and when the cloud comes in the sky, we could be still be huddled around in circles with our self righteous robes....being left behind!

Whom do we focus on??

[Sonny]

even God wished he hadn't done some things the way He did. Such as making people.

You are reading into that one. God doesn't make mistakes....Everything He does is perfect for it is done within agape love.

[ClubV12]

I'm finding that often two statements that seemed opposed can both be true!

Like John's quote saying, "God wished he had not done some things the way He did."

And Sonny saying, "Everything God does is perfect, He never makes mistakes."

Both statements are true, for who can understand the mind of God? Actually both statements make perfect sense. God often speaks to us in terms that WE can understand, there is no confusion on His part.

Human minds often come to different conclusions on some deep point of understanding the depth of God's character. In many cases, you don't have to choose a side, who is right, who is wrong. They may both be right (or wrong)! Let every man be persuaded in his own heart.

[LifeHiscost]

I was going to mention that sometimes in time of need, one Bible verse will be located or remembered that will just fit the situation. It might not be in the exact context, either, but will bless just the same.

Just a pondering.

Indubitably. Good advice for all those who have been sold a bill of goods re: the need that one must know the context of all the scripture before experiencing the power of His command.

"But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say,

‘People...live...

...by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Matthew 4:4 NLT

God blesses!

[Gerr]

Yep, too often we think in terms of "either or" or black & white, when in fact both statements ay be be true.

[Gail]

I'm finding that often two statements that seemed opposed can both be true!

Like John's quote saying, "God wished he had not done some things the way He did."

And Sonny saying, "Everything God does is perfect, He never makes mistakes."

Both statements are true, for who can understand the mind of God? Actually both statements make perfect sense. God often speaks to us in terms that WE can understand, there is no confusion on His part.

Human minds often come to different conclusions on some deep point of understanding the depth of God's character. In many cases, you don't have to choose a side, who is right, who is wrong. They may both be right (or wrong)! Let every man be persuaded in his own heart.

Maybe that is why God can work through media that we don't understand. Maybe that is also why it blows our minds when it DOES happen!

God is just so much bigger than we realise...

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

Yep, too often we think in terms of "either or" or black & white, when in fact both statements may be be true.

*nods*

[John317]

even God wished he hadn't done some things the way He did. Such as making people.

Originally Posted By: Sonny

You are reading into that one. God doesn't make mistakes....Everything He does is perfect for it is done within agape love.

If you go back and read the context of my post, you will see-- or should see-- that it was made "tongue in cheek." Like most people are saying, both statements are actually true. The statement in Genesis 6 is made so that we can see how God felt. He was terribly disappointed by virtually all the people's choices to reject Him.

But yes, I do agree with you that God's ways are perfect and that He makes no mistakes.