Month: April 2016

“We are not addressing here such peripheral discrepancies in the inspired writings as how many of Jacob’s family came to Egypt (see Gen. 46:27; Acts 7:14) or exactly which bell tolled to signal the start of the St. Bartholomew Massacre (see Arthur L. White, Ellen G. White: The Later Elmshaven Years, 1905-1915, pp. 330-331).”

I’ve had someone else who is generally seen as a strong “conservative” pastor tell me gravely that since Genesis says 70 people went to Egypt, and 75 are mentioned in Acts, that there is an obvious error in one of the places. That floored me, as I’m not used to conservative pastors asserting that there are errors in God’s word, so told him that the Bible was not only written for us in the 21st century, but for those of all ages. There are several possibilities to explain this seeming discrepancy, such as how they counted “going down to Egypt” had changed, or how they counted slaves in the family had changed, or maybe how they counted those still in the wombs of their mothers when traveling down to Egypt etc.

Anytime anyone gets up and asserts that there are errors in the Bible, they are doing the work of Satan. In this instance, if they believe that one of these places is in error, how can they say with certainty that BOTH places are not in error? Maybe the verses before and after it are in error? Maybe the whole Bible is in error? Once you roll the ball into Satan’s camp, how do you get it out again?

Kevin Paulson also quoted Selected Messages vol.1, p. 19-21, which is again, the exact same place the other conservative pastor quoted me around 10 years ago. In it, it says:

“It is not the words of the Bible that are inspired, but the men that were inspired.”

This, however, is contrary to all the Bible and most other writings with Ellen White’s name on the cover. I believe that coming from “Selected Messages”, the title alone should be enough to warn people that the contents may be massaged. She has told us to only take her published writings as her settled position, which is also another reason to not take what is in Selected Messages as her settled position (since it is not her published writings).

In contrast, Testimonies to the Church vol. 5 says:

“But it is Satan’s work to pervert the investigative powers of the mind. A certain pride is mingled with the consideration of Bible truth, so that men feel defeated and impatient if they cannot explain every portion of Scripture to their satisfaction. It is too humiliating to them to acknowledge that they do not understand the inspired words. They are unwilling to wait patiently until God shall see fit to reveal the truth to them. They feel that their unaided human wisdom is sufficient to enable them to comprehend the Scripture; and failing to do this, they virtually deny its authority. It is true that many theories and doctrines popularly supposed to be the teaching of the Bible have no foundation in Scripture and, indeed, are contrary to the whole tenor of inspiration. These things have been a cause of doubt and perplexity to many minds. They are not, however, chargeable to God’s word, but to man’s perversion of it. But the difficulties in the Bible do not reflect upon the wisdom of God; they will not cause the ruin of any who would not have been destroyed if no such difficulties had existed. Had there been no mysteries in the Bible for them to question, the same minds would, through their own lack of spiritual discernment, have found cause of stumbling in the plainest utterances of God.”