John, did you read the articles or did you dismiss them when you saw it was Mr Bacchiocchi who was the author?

I'm sorry my replies weren't more direct Thomas. Regarding Dr. B's suggestion that prophethood was not a criteria for selecting the books of the NT, if that is what he said, what I meant to answer was that whatever criteria was used, God had a hand in ensuring that only inspired writings were allowed into the canon, and if inspired, then given though the prophetic gift. John, Paul and Peter would be among the prophets. Matthew, Mark, James and Jude, as apostles also had the prophetic gift. Is Luke counted among the prophets? Maybe not, but I think it's safe to say his writing was prophetically inspired. An inspired writing is always, in my view, prophetically inspired and I think this agrees with the scripture.

But what do you think of my comments about the role of gifts as foundational to the authority of scripture and the church? Today we seem tied to the view that crippled the church in 1888 which is to improperly place the gifts of ministry and administration above prophecy and apostleship. So long as the SOP and scripture is allowed to be overruled by policy created by men and committees, in many cases gifted administrators, but uninspired in their counsels, the church will take the wrong course of action. The Protestant Reformation came about when for the first time in many centuries the prophetic word was placed above the counsels of fallible men. Isn’t it time we sought the same source of rejuvenating life and nourished fellowships that have the same high regard for the prophetic word that was taught by the reformers.

Mark

I agree with you that all scripture is inspired, wether it be by prophecy or apostleship. If luke and Mark where prophets, we dont know but what we are told that Luke was thaught by Paul and Mark by Peter so their right of authorship is by these two men who each was called in person by Jesus.

The proper order of the gifts mentioned? Seems apostleship is always mentioned first in when counted. I spoke with a man who is in the serbian orthodox church who told me that the orthodox churches are lead by a council of elders who make the decisions after meeting and praying much. It seemed like a biblical thing to do.

What I, and probably the protestant reformers, would question in what you wrote is mentioning SOP (in the adventist definition of the word I assume) in a thought you say is built upon the reformation ideals. Maybe I am missinformed, but, whatever divine leading either of the reformers knew they had they are still known for preaching sola scriptua(siq?). SOP (with the adventist definition) in my view does not fit within the concept of scripture alone.

/Thomas

(edited for more proper words)

I have to concede one other point to you Thomas. There are many Christians, non-Adventists, who have well-ordered lives. They appear to be getting along fine without her. But if they only adopted her health emphasis they would, on average, add some years to their lives and better quality in terms of health. If they adopted the whole package and put the testimonies into practise as well, I believe the benefits would be exponential.

EGW referred to herself as the lesser light in reference to her writings, leading to the greater light in reference to the Bible.

Mark
You wrote that the reason Ellens writings are important are becourse we are too unfamiliar with the bible itself. There is probably much truth in many of us being all too unfamiliar with the bible, however, do you think people who are neglecting their bibles are thorough students of Ellens books? And if a person is a careful student of Ellen while being an negligent student of the bible, dont you see a problem with that? Surely Ellen didnt intend her writings to be a substitute for poor bible reading habbits?
And if we then consider Ellens writings as the bible, dont we then come into the situation where God would be reasoning something like "they dont study the testament of my dealings with israel nor do they study what my Son Jesus thaught as they should, I must send them a third testament and maybe they will read that." Is this really where you want to go?

/Thomas

It's true. I've met Adventists who read the SOP and neglect the Bible. That's a problem with some. Usually though, those who study her carefully also study the Bible carefully and compare the two. Those who are not careful students in general use her writings as a short cut and are not careful with them.

It's true too that in past generations they only had parts of the Bible. That supports the idea that the truth is progressive and we need to keep in step with it.