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Messenger of the Lord

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    Attitudes Make a Difference

    However, she recognized that there are problems in communication. “Minds of different education and thought receive different impressions of the same words.” Thus, “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. Yet to honest men, right-minded men, he [an author] can ... convey his meaning for all practical purposes.” But if the reader “is not honest and will not want to see and understand the truth, he will turn his words and language ... to suit his own purposes.” 12Selected Messages 1:19.MOL 374.2

    Ellen White lamented that some mistreated her writings as they did the Bible: “This is the way my writings are treated by those who wish to misunderstand and pervert them.... In the very same way that they treat the writings in my published articles and in my books, so do skeptics and infidels treat the Bible. They read it according to their desire to pervert, to misapply, to willfully wrest the utterances from their true meaning.” 13Ibid.MOL 374.3

    One problem that Jesus had with the religious leaders of His day was that they misused and abused the Old Testament and thus did not recognize Him as their Messiah. Ellen White noted that these leaders were “unaccustomed to accept God’s word exactly as it reads, or to allow it to be its own interpreter.” The Jewish leaders read the Old Testament “in the light of their maxims and traditions.... They turned with aversion from the truth of God to the traditions of men.” 14Ms 24, 1891, cited in Manuscript Releases 19:253.MOL 374.4

    One’s attitude in reading the Bible is fundamental to a correct understanding of what the Bible means. This is more important than trained scholarship. The Jewish leaders with their scholarship did not recognize Jesus. On many occasions Ellen White emphasized that “selfishness prevents us from beholding God. The self-seeking spirit judges of God as altogether such a one as itself. Until we have renounced this we cannot understand Him who is love.” 15The Desire of Ages, 302. “The perception and appreciation of truth, He said [John 7:17], depends less upon the mind than upon the heart. Truth must be received into the soul; it claims the homage of the will. If truth could be submitted to the reason alone, pride would be no hindrance in the way of its reception. But it is to be received through the work of grace in the heart; and its reception depends upon the renunciation of every sin that the Spirit of God reveals.” The Desire of Ages, 455. See also pp. 312, 313. She gave this promise: “Everyone who diligently and patiently searches the Scriptures that he may educate others, entering upon the work correctly and with an honest heart, laying his preconceived ideas, whatever they may have been, and his hereditary prejudice at the door of investigation, will gain true knowledge.” 16Ms 4, 1896, cited in Manuscript Releases 4:56. Jon Paulien, in beginning a list of hermeneutical principles, wrote: “Pray earnestly for a learning attitude and an openness to the leading of the Holy Spirit whenever you pick up the Bible for deep study. Without prayer and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, the work of even the finest scholar may go subtly astray. God’s ideas are not naturally mastered by secular minds. I have found the following prayer helpful: ‘Lord, help me find the truth on this subject, no matter what the cost.’ Knowing the truth will cost you something, but it is well worth the sacrifice to understand God’s mind.” What the Bible Says About the End-Time, p. 37. (See also Jon Paulien, “The Interpreter’s Use of the Writings of Ellen G. White,” Frank B. Holbrook, ed., Symposium on Revelation, Book 1, (Silver Spring, MD: Biblical Research Institute, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1992.)MOL 374.5

    In summary, Ellen White provided several suggestions as to how to study for truth:MOL 374.6

    • We should invite the Holy Spirit to help us in our study. 17Without the enlightenment of the Spirit, men will not be able to distinguish truth from error, and they will fall under the masterful temptations of Satan.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 411.

    • We must be willing to obey the truth. 18“Whenever men are not seeking, in word and deed to be in harmony with God, then however learned they may be, they are liable to err in their understanding of Scripture, and it is not safe to trust to their explanations.” Testimonies for the Church 5:705. “Belief is not an intellectual act; belief is a moral act whereby I deliberately commit myself.... Belief must be the will to believe.” Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, p. 265.

    • We must be open-minded, even prepared to surrender previously held opinions. 19“We cannot hold that a position once taken, an idea once advocated, is not, under any circumstances, to be relinquished. There is but One who is infallible.” Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 105.

    • We should expect to discover new truths. 20“In every age there is a new development of truth, a message of God to the people of that generation. The old truths are all essential; new truth is not independent of the old, but an unfolding of it. It is only as the old truths are understood that we can comprehend the new.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 127; “Although great and talented authors have made known wonderful truths, and have presented increased light to the people, still in our day we shall find new ideas.” The Review and Herald, June 3, 1890.

    • We should expect “new” light to harmonize with old truth. 21“One will arise, and still another, with new light, which contradicts the light that God has given under the demonstration of His Holy Spirit.... We are not to receive the words of those who come with a message that contradicts the special points of our faith. They gather together a mass of Scripture and pile it as proof around their asserted theories. This has been done over and over again during the past fifty years. And while the Scriptures are God’s Word, and are to be respected, the application of them, if such application moves one pillar of the foundation that God has sustained these fifty years, is a great mistake.” Selected Messages 1:161.

    • An interpretation may be wrong if it is accompanied by an unChristlike spirit. In the context of the 1888 General Conference session, Ellen White wrote to those who were still antagonistic to her and to Elders Jones and Waggoner: “These testimonies of the Spirit of God, the fruits of the Spirit of God, have no weight unless they are stamped with your ideas of the law in Galatians. I am afraid of you and I am afraid of your interpretation of any Scripture which has revealed itself in such an unChristlike spirit as you have manifested and has cost me so much unnecessary labor.... Let your caution be exercised in the line of fear lest you are committing the sin against the Holy Ghost.... I am afraid of any application of Scripture that needs such a spirit and bears such fruit as you have manifested.” 22Letter 83, 1890, cited in Manuscript Releases 9:330.

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