Understanding Ellen White

Ellen White’s orientation toward Scripture

The second key focus of Ellen White’s life was the Bible. ¹⁴ It played a foundational and central role in her personal experience and ministry. Not only did she use Scripture, her writings are full of Scripture and point almost continuously to the Word of God. UEGW ix.7

During the early months following her first vision, it was Scripture that the Holy Spirit used to help her when she doubted her own experience. She wrote: UEGW ix.8

While at family prayers one morning, the power of God began to rest upon me, and the thought rushed into my mind that it was mesmerism [hypnotism], and I resisted it. Immediately I was struck dumb and for a few moments was lost to everything around me. . . . A card was held up before me, on which were written in letters of gold the chapter and verse of fifty texts of Scripture. After I came out of vision, I beckoned for a slate, and wrote upon it that I was dumb, also what I had seen, and that I wished the large Bible. I took the Bible and readily turned to all the texts that I had seen on the card. I was unable to speak all day. ¹⁵ UEGW ix.9

These texts were indelibly imprinted on her mind and are recorded in her book Early Writings. During her early experience, she also held Bibles in vision on various occasions. Her prophetic ministry was to uplift the Word of God. This was also her last message to the entire Seventh-day Adventist Church at the 1909 General Conference Session. One who was there that day described how she closed her sermon. “Mrs. White spoke a few words of good cheer and farewell, and then turned to the pulpit, where lay a Bible. She opened the book, and held it out with hands that trembled with age. And she said: ‘Brethren and sisters, I commend unto you this Book.’ Without another word, she closed the book, and walked from that platform.” ¹⁶ UEGW x.1

She understood that her special role as a modern prophet was to testify to the centrality the Bible. She was a prophet to point Seventh-day Adventists and the world to Scripture. She wrote: UEGW x.2

I have a work of great responsibility to do—to impart by pen and voice the instruction given me, not alone to Seventh-day Adventists, but to the world. I have published many books, large and small, and some of these have been translated into several languages. This is my work—to open the Scriptures to others as God has opened them to me. ¹⁷ UEGW x.3

Steps to Christ was first published by Fleming H. Revell, a non-Adventist Christian publishing house. ¹⁸ It was her intention that her writing would lead people to the Bible and Jesus whether they thought of her as a prophetic voice or not. UEGW x.4

It is vital to understand Ellen White’s personal experience in relation to the Bible. She earnestly studied the Bible and committed much of it to memory. She did not give merely a token acknowledgment to Scripture. Both her personal and public writings are centered on the Bible and contain almost continual allusions, references, and quotations to it. The theological and lifestyle standards she promoted were invariably linked to Scripture. UEGW x.5

If these two principles—her passion for the love of God in Christ and her orientation toward Scripture—are correctly understood and integrated in looking at Ellen White’s life and experience, then the other issues addressed in this book will have a proper context. UEGW x.6