I am filled with envy. I spent time in SEA and I'd go back at the drop of a hat.

No worries there. These kind of conversations require a lot of thinking, and for me, that takes time.

Agreed. It is the correct sequence.

So we will concentrate on the inspiration aspect, and we will leave the usage for another discussion.

But I would say that the usage question and the inspiration question are related and tied together. Views on one affect views on the other. I shall try to separate them for purposes of this point in the discussion.

This brings up the whole question of "inspiration" generally, from "This morning I felt inspired to jog 10k." to God dictating the 10 Commandments. Where does EGW fall in this continuum?

Well, I do believe she falls within it somewhere, at least in some of her writings. (That'll be a shock to many. :o)

SDA typically espouse the "thought" inspiration rather than "verbal" inspiration, and I would agree with this...mmmostly. I believe some parts of the Bible were dictated verbatum. But I think the majority of Scripture is "Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."

I DON'T think she is a "false prophet." I disagree with the position that says: "Well, she is either true or false. There's no other choice."

To me, there are several choices. I believe she was a godly woman sincerely trying to do God's will as she understood it. She was influenced by the times, society, and environment in which she lived. I believe she made mistakes, and I believe some of the stuff she wrote was just plain wrong. Period.

I also believe that some of what she wrote is very useful, bordering on inspired, but NEVER at a Scriptural level.

In both statements I must emphasize the word "some."

This post is getting way too long.

This question has caused me to think seriously about Biblical inspiration. First, I believe Scripture*. Period. However...

Much of Scripture is simply stories of what happened to people, especially in Genesis, Exodus, etc. and Moses just wrote it down. Or it is the record of the kings of Israel, or whatever.

So, are the events and doings of the people inspired, or the writing-down that is inspired...

In books like the major and minor prophets, Psalms, etc. I can see a better case for inspiration in the context of 2 Peter 1, but in other cases it seems to be just stories that we draw lessons from. The characters in the stories are doing good things and bad things, and we draw lessons from it. If this is the case a story of God's guiding and leading in the life of a missionary such as you, GC, could be considered as inspired as the story of Abraham going to Egypt, for example. The key here would be to give credit to God for His leading, blessing, etc.

What about things like lists of geneologies, descriptions of boundry markers, etc.? Are they inspired? If so, to what purpose? Perhaps they are "less inspired" than Jeremiah or Daniel. They are in Scripture simply because they were part of the oral tradition and laws and agreements which make up the Hebrew/Jewish heritage, and they really play no part in "divine inspiration."

As I said in an earlier post, in my opinion there are degrees of inspiration, and not all inspiration is to be considered equal.





(*Scripture says what it says; it is our interpretation of what Scripture says that is the significant thing. This is where the Holy Spirit guides.)

JAK, I don't think I could enjoy life if I wasn't 100% certain the entire Bible is inspired. "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." If Jesus left it to me to determine which parts of the Bible are less inspired I think it would turn me off. Having said that, there are parts of the Bible I don't relish as much as other parts. The long lists of names, for example, do not thrill me as much as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

So, JAK, am I understanding you correctly, that you also don't believe the Scriptures are completely inspired, as in the whole Bible?

If so, then I can understand why you would also question the inspiration of the writings of Ellen White.

Since we are in a discussion which seeks to understand another's point of view, a precise and accurate rendering of that view is necessary. I did not state nor mean that parts of the Bible are NOT inspired, but that parts are inspired to a lesser degree. All is inspired, but not all inspiration is equal.

Many people, Adventists included, generally agree with this concept, since they separate the "Law of God" from "Mosaic Law." (There is no support for this statement. It is personal opinion.)

While true, I'm not sure Jesus was commenting on the nature and level of Scriptural inspiration. In both incidences where this is mentioned (Deut. 83 and Matt. 4:4) it is in the context of food and hunger, God's ability to supply our needs, and His power to sustain us.

Second, one COULD say that not all Scripture "...proceeds from the mouth of God.", as some of it, as pointed out previously, is simply stories handed down by oral tradition. IF all Scripture proceeded from the mouth of God, (ie: God spoke it)we should be teaching verbal inspiration, which we don't.

Third, this statement, even if taken to refer to inspiration, does not rule out the possibility of varying levels of inspiration. It simply states that it all comes from the same source.

So before I accept this as a comment on the nature of Scriptural inspiration, you will have to connect the dots for me.

I need to know how you intend the above underlined words.

If you mean that some parts of Scripture are NOT inspired, this is NOT my view.

If you mean that ALL scripture has its origins from God, but some is more useful for our understanding of God and our understanding of the process of salvation, then I could agree with this.

Nor does 2 Timothy 3:16 state that all inspiration is equal, only that all of it has its origin in God and that all of it is useful.

My intent is not to say that the second commandment is valid but the fourth is not, for example.

It is more like: Matthew 11:28-30 "Come unto me, all you who labor..." is far more useful and instructive than Joshua 13:8-13 "The other half of Manasseh, the Reubenites and the Gadites had received the inheritance that Moses had given them east of the Jordan, as he, the servant of the LORD, had assigned it to them. It extended from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge, and from the town in the middle of the gorge, and included the whole plateau of Medeba as far as...(yawn)"

I was delayed over paperwork issues and ended up in a hotel for the night without being able to cross the border. So I have internet this morning, and a little time with it. Your post sheds some light on where you stand, but falls short of full clarity to me. Let's go through it a little at a time.


I have experienced thought inspiration once, so I know how that works. It was not a verbatim, word-for-word inspiration. In fact, I struggled to put the thoughts to their most accurate word representations. And I didn't like a few of the words I chose, but could come up with no better.

I agree that most of the Bible is written via thought inspiration. Some of it was word-for-word dictated. The Ten Commandments, for example, were written by God's own finger. But apparently only Moses read them in their original form, as they were placed inside the ark of the covenant where others, even the priests, never looked upon them. They are recorded in the Bible twice, with different wordings for each. This is informative.



I don't believe that inspiration is ever "just plain wrong." It might be helpful at this point to provide some statements that you feel fall into this category, and we can examine them.



Basically, it appears you believe in an "inspiration continuum" in which the level of inspiration can vary from "not at all" and/or "just plain wrong" all the way to "word-for-word dictated." Would this be an accurate representation of your view?

If so, how would one ever know for sure if something were sufficiently inspired to be of any usefulness to his or her spiritual life? How could one put faith into God's Word without being presumptuous?

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.