Basic Principles of Understanding Ellen G. White’s Writings

Thought or Verbal Inspiration

But Ellen White saw additional problems that could arise when one asks, How does the infinite, infallible God speak to finite, fallible men and women? How does a person, many years after the appearance of a prophet, understand his or her divinely inspired messages written hundreds, even thousands, of years before? BPUEGW 4.1

For some, it seems easier to believe that God dictated the words that the prophet faithfully recorded. For them, this method would avoid mistakes by eliminating human error. BPUEGW 4.2

For others, this dictation method not only ignores reality, it opens the door unnecessarily to an enormous list of problems that discredits what God has been trying to do. ¹ BPUEGW 4.3

Ellen White identified with those who accepted the concept of thought inspiration rather than verbal inspiration. She recognized that “the writers of the Bible had to express their ideas in human language. It was written by human men.... The Bible is not given to us in grand superhuman language.... Everything that is human is imperfect. Different meanings are expressed by the same word; there is not one word for each distinct idea.... The Bible is written by inspired men, but it is not God’s mode of thought and expression.... Inspiration acts not on the man’s words or his expressions but on the man himself, who, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, is imbued with thoughts. But the words receive the impress of the individual mind.... The divine mind and will is combined with the human mind and will; thus the utterances of the man are the word of God.” ² BPUEGW 4.4

What shall we make of this recognition of enormous diversity of expression and logic, as diverse as there are writers? How can later readers of these prophets find coherence and unity in what all declare to be “the word of the Lord”? The unity of the message is guaranteed by the one Author who inspired them all. Ellen White wrote: “The Creator of all ideas may impress different minds with the same thought, but each may express it in a different way, yet without contradiction.” ³ BPUEGW 4.5

Yet the unity of the Bible is not always apparent to the casual reader. “The illuminated soul sees a spiritual unity, one grand golden thread running through the whole, but it requires patience, thought, and prayer to trace out the precious golden thread.” ⁴ BPUEGW 4.6

Biblical scholars have compared the divine-human union in Jesus Christ with the divine-human union in the writing of the Bible. Ellen White endorsed this comparison: “The Bible is not given to us in grand superhuman language. Jesus, in order to reach man where he is, took humanity.” ⁵ “The Bible, with its God-given truths expressed in the language of men, presents a union of the divine and the human. Such a union existed in the nature of Christ, who was the Son of God and the Son of man. Thus it is true of the Bible, as it was of Christ, that ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’” (John 1:14). ⁶ BPUEGW 4.7

Jesus was born a Jew, not an African or a Norwegian. He probably was less than six feet tall. Humanly speaking, He was limited by the DNA of His genetic background. Nevertheless, He revealed the Word of God, His message, in its purest sense. ⁷ BPUEGW 4.8

The Bible as we know it today was written by limited “men who differed widely in rank and occupation, and in mental and spiritual endowments.” ⁸ The Author of the Bible spoke to various men who all had varying insights, some more limited than others. Yet each writer would grasp “those points that harmonize[d] with his experience or with his power of perception and appreciation.” When the written messages are finally put together, all these “different aspects of truth” are seen to be in “perfect harmony.” Together, limited as each writer may be, they “form a perfect whole.” These varied experiences and perceptions of its many writers present to later readers, in all places and in all times, the Word of the Lord “adapted to meet the wants of men in all the circumstances and experiences of life.” ⁹ BPUEGW 4.9

In a significant letter to a young physician, David Paulson, Ellen White tried to steer him away from a verbal-inspiration viewpoint. Dr. Paulson, a remarkable man of faith, had much to do with establishing Hinsdale Sanitarium and Hospital, Hinsdale, Illinois. She wrote: “In your letter you speak of your early training to have implicit faith in the testimonies and say, ‘I was led to conclude and most firmly believe that every word you ever spoke in public or private, that every letter you wrote under any and all circumstances, was as inspired as the Ten Commandments.’” BPUEGW 5.1

She continued: “My brother, you have studied my writings diligently, and you have never found that I have made any such claims, neither will you find that the pioneers in our cause ever made such claims. BPUEGW 5.2

“In my introduction to The Great Controversy you have no doubt read my statement regarding the Ten Commandments and the Bible, which should have helped you to a correct understanding of the matter under consideration.” She then quoted substantially from her own introduction to The Great Controversy and from an earlier pertinent statement found in volume 5 of the Testimonies. ¹⁰ BPUEGW 5.3

In summary, to understand the Bible and the writings of Ellen White, the important difference between thought revelation and verbal inspiration must be clear. Although verbal inspirationists (whether students of the Bible or the writings of Mrs. White) claim to enjoy greater security in possessing the exact word from God, they have great difficulty trying to explain what appear as “errors,” “contradictions,” or “discrepancies.” The false assumptions of verbal inspirationists have caused much of the confusion and loss of confidence among those who have tried to study inspired writings. BPUEGW 5.4

Those who believe in thought inspiration understand the prophet to be God’s “penman,” not His pen. God works through the mental processes of His messenger, inspiring the thoughts, but, under the guidance of the Spirit allowing the messenger to choose the way the thoughts are to be expressed. BPUEGW 5.5

Ellen White’s introduction to The Great Controversy has given us clear insight as to how prophets work. Recognizing that discrepancies may exist in the Bible and that “perfect order or apparent unity” may not be present at times, she concluded: “All the mistakes will not cause trouble to one soul, or cause any feet to stumble that would not manufacture difficulties from the plainest revealed truth.” ¹¹ BPUEGW 5.6