Is it wrong to buy a bicycle? Are taking selfies a sin? Can cosmetics really kill you? Continuing were we left off yesterday we practice finding the relevance of Ellen White statements for modern living. Bring a Bible, your smart phone or other gadget and be prepared to practice active reading!

GYCSE 2017: Rooted

<p>Is it wrong to buy a bicycle? Are taking selfies a sin? Can cosmetics really kill you? Continuing were we left off yesterday we practice finding the relevance of Ellen White statements for modern living. Bring a Bible, your smart phone or other gadget and be prepared to practice active reading!</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

GYC Southeast

EGW, the Bible, and Me

Chantal Klingbeil

Our great heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the privilege of being together this afternoon.

We pray for your spirit in a special way as we explore this wonderful gift.

Well, before we begin, perhaps you're wondering about the funny accent?

Or is it a real common accent around here?

The accent is kind of a South African accent, maybe a little watered down, because we left South Africa quite a while ago, but that's where the accent's from.

So every now and again I may say something that sounds real strange or pronounce a word in a way that you may not recognize it.

I'm not offended in the least if you just wave and say, huh?

And so we'll try it again, or we'll get someone to translate it.

I work for the White Estate at the general, well, we situated at the general conference.

Do all of you know what the LNG White Estate is?

You know, you're very brave because before I, well actually, When I was interviewing for the job, I was like, so what do you actually do?

White estate, Ellen White set up a trust to commit all of her documents to in her will.

She set up for the provision to have her documents, her publications looked after.

So that was the beginning of the Ellen G.

So we have all of her original manuscripts, about a hundred thousand manuscripts, pages, we have them in a great big fireproof vault down there.

So we have all of them now of course at all the study centers and branch offices, there are copies of everything that we have.

But we've got all the original documents.

We also have first editions of everything.

We have incoming mail, all the letters that were written to Ellen White that have been preserved.

And that's really interesting for getting context.

Do you still have the large Bible that she held?

As a child, they took us through the Ellen White estates back in DC, where I had my elementary school years.

And we would see everything else the LNY states could tell grade schoolers.

Yes, well we've still got the Bible, we've got it now in a nice glass display thing.

Well, we're in, yeah, we're actually Maryland.

We're sitting right, yeah, Old Columbia Pike.

We've got the big Bible, the 18 and a half pound Bible.

It's under its glass frame and we've got the same edition that people get to hold and that's always a great hit when they try to hold it with their left hand and see how far they get.

Let me just do a quick advert at this point.

If any of you are in Washington DC, the area, please come and visit us.

That is my sister-in-law, but I didn't tell her to say it.

OK, You can come again, because there's more displays now and more electronics.

I said we were working in groups, so turn to the person next to you and we'll start off with a real tough question.

Discuss with the person next to you, which is the doctrine that Ellen White's writings bring to Adventism?

Okay, which doctrine does Ellen White's writings bring to Adventism?

If you have more than 1 you have to sort it out with you and your partner.

Turn to the person next to you and which doctrine does Ellen White's writings bring to Adventism?

Which Doctrines do Ellen White's writings bring to Adventism?

Anyone Okay, you look like you're gonna have the right answer so I'm not gonna ask you immediately yes Okay, she says 1 of them being the health message.

The power of the Holy Spirit within the church?

Okay, I don't know if I'll call that a doctrine exactly but a very important aspect yes definitely yes All right it sounds like you wanted to give a similar answer.

We were discussing that as a result of Ellen White we don't have any doctrine.

She simply exposes the doctrine that were perhaps unlearned or misunderstood.

Alright, that was a very good warm up and so you better beware because there will be plenty of questions like this.

Ellen White brings no doctrine to Adventism.

Okay, our doctrines are founded on the Bible.

So, the very natural question would be, if we've got everything we need in the Bible, why do I need Ellen White?

EGW Unplugged

Tell the person next to you, tell the person next to you, what would your reaction be if you heard the following?

Now I'm not going to read it, so you need to read it, okay, if you can see.

Alright, if you hear that, what would your reaction be?

Alright, I didn't want to read that because my tone would give it away, right?

Because my tone would tell you probably a whole lot about this.

It's Christmas morning, and there's a little kid who's been begging for a dog all year and they have come into the living room and you smile at the little kid and you point to the room next door and you say there is a dog in the room.

That means, yeah, my gift is next door, what I've always wanted, this is a promise, this is happiness, this is joy.

If you come home and you are walking in your living room or whatever and suddenly you swing around and there is an intruder in your house.

And you back to your garage door that you have there, you put your hand on the door handle and you shout at the intruder, you say, there's a dog in the room, what is it?

It's a threat, you're threatening them because you're scared, okay?

You're threatening, It's like don't take a step closer because this what we assume is a very lethal dog in here.

Ellen White wrote a hundred thousand manuscript pages.

That's a whole lot more than your Bible, many times over.

Take something out of context, You can make it mean whatever you like.

Now we do a lot about how to read the Bible, but we do very little about how to read Ellen White.

And we are expecting our youth, we're expecting our teens, we're expecting our new church members to just read Ellen White.

Okay, we need to use the same hermeneutical principles that we use for Bible reading.

Let's just briefly look over what the biblical hermeneutic cycle looks like.

You need to understand what the word means.

If you're learning a new language you will often hear a word and you actually have to look the word up because you don't know what it means.

Just because Ellen White wrote in English doesn't mean that we now know all the words.

She writes about Jesus having intercourse with everyone he met.

Okay, yes, it doesn't mean the same thing.

So we can't assume that we know what words mean.

So you need to know the word, you need to look, if we go back to the Bible or to Ellen White, the phrase, in other words the context, above and below, look at the bigger unit.

We need to look at the book in the case of the Bible.

You don't read Revelation and Mark in the same way, Right?

You do not read Ellen White's sermons and her letters the same way.

They are different styles, written to a different audience.

And in the biblical context, you look at the overall theme of the Bible, which is what?

I would venture to say it's the great controversy theme.

And you'll find the exact same theme in Ellen White.

That is the overriding theme of all of her books on education, on health, on you name it.

The overriding theme is the great controversy theme.

Alright, very practically, looking at Ellen White then, what are the key words in the text?

Let's make sure that we're talking about the same thing.

If she's talking about cheese, Let's make sure that what I think of when I say cheese is the same thing that she said when she said cheese Okay, just for instance.

Let's make sure that we are Comparing apples with apples and not apples with pears all right So make sure we understand what the key words are.

Make sure we understand the immediate context.

You will find in all of Ellen White's writings that she enhances on a biblical principle.

If you find the principle you can make the application.

Now sometimes the principle is very, the biblical principle is very obvious and you will find it quickly.

Sometimes it's you're going to have to do a bit of digging and that's exciting.

But when you find that biblical principle you'll be ready to make the application.

This is what all the prophets do in the New Testament.

They enhance on the biblical principles of the Old Testament.

They pull out the principles, they contextualize them in a modern setting.

Jesus, Jesus takes talking about adultery, Jesus takes the Old Testament ruling about not committing adultery and he magnifies it.

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EGW, the Bible, and Me

EGW Unplugged

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EGW, the Bible, and Me

1h 15m

EGW Unplugged

32m

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