Stephen
Terry, Director
Motivation
and Preparation for Mission
Commentary
for the November 11, 2023, Sabbath School Lesson
"And
afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters
will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those
days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and
billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before
the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Joel 2:28-31, NIV.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church
is a mid-nineteenth century movement, growing out of disappointment with
William Miller's date setting for the Parousia in 1844 and incorporating as a
denomination in 1863 amid a civil war threatening to tear the United States
apart. During events that may have seemed apocalyptic at the time, it seemed
only natural to look for supernatural forces operating behind the scenes unfolding
around them. Into this End-Time milieu stepped a young woman and her evangelist
husband to providentially coalesce a fellowship of believers around distinctive
doctrines and the acceptance of that woman's prophetic gift as divine guidance
for the nascent movement. No other human being can be said to have contributed
more effort to the development of Seventh-day Adventism than Ellen White. Her
voice and writings guided the church from soon after the Great Disappointment
of 1844 until her death in 1915 while World War I was raging, another conflict
that must have seemed apocalyptic, especially with its global scope.
Her lifetime saw many detractors
who challenged her claimed inspiration as they still do to this day. Claims of
plagiarism and misrepresentation abound as do questions about her motivations
whenever she entered directly into the miasma of denominational politics. She
wrote voluminously about her perspectives on many different issues. Some of her
most challenging writings are found in her earlier works when she was
attempting to deal with the ever-present threat of the church to splinter off
into different factions like what the Apostle Paul dealt with in the Corinthian
Church that was splitting into factions that followed Apollos or Cephas.[i] Like
Paul, her rebukes were direct and strong. But as the church grew more unified
and dedicated to evangelizing the world, she began to focus more on the love of
God and his grace and blessings toward us. This growth can be seen over time in
the messages of the nine volumes of her "Testimonies to the Church."
Like the rest of us, Ellen did
not emerge from the womb perfect, and perfection eluded
her, as it does us, for her entire life. As it also is for us, Christ's righteousness
was her hope of heaven. Despite the vast trove of her published and unpublished
works, four books stand out for me as the epitome of her growth in her relationship
with Christ: "The Desire of Ages" on the life of Jesus, "Steps to Christ," "Christ's
Object Lessons" on Jesus' parables, and "Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings"
on the Sermon on the Mount. Despite obvious plagiarism of parts of these works
from other authors, they still portray an image of God that is liberating and
enlightening regarding God's character and the grace he extends to his
creation.
We may have expected too much
from Ellen. She stated she was not infallible.[ii]
But we have trouble with religious leadership. We want them to be infallible,
even perfect. To that end we spend no end of effort in pointing out their flaws
and foibles. Even in the secular world we see this every evening on the news as
gaffs by leaders are made issues of major concern during every news cycle.
There are no perfect people which is why we need Christ. But we continue to
demand perfection from each other as though it were possible to achieve. We
find it too easy to tear down one another as though that would somehow build us
up. But in the end, it drags the whole ship lower in the water until sinking
the vessel with all on board becomes a threatening possibility and passengers begin
to jump ship for fear of imminent doom. It is this unwillingness to recognize
the fallibility inherent in each of us that has drastically altered the course
of Seventh-day Adventism in the modern era.
Faced with the onslaught of
criticism of Ellen White, the church appears to have retrenched around the idea
that they will never again take the chance on a woman achieving such power
within the denomination. Despite well over half of the church being female,
they are relegated to supposed female pursuits, running sabbath schools,
leading singing, paying tithes and offerings, but never, never does the worldwide
church wish to allow them to be ordained, to baptize, or to form churches and
lead them. In my early years as a Seventh-day Adventist, over half a century
ago, this was never even mentioned to me as a possibility for women, only for males.
So, when I met a woman in El Paso, Texas from another denomination who shared
that she had been ordained and had raised up three churches, I was astonished.
She had a zeal for Jesus that I rarely see officially among my own
denomination. In some ways, we tend to be more Catholic than the Roman
Catholics. We haven't yet embraced celibacy, but we sure have accepted the
Catholic idea of gender specific clergy, not that that has spared either them
or us of horrific scandals committed by those clerics. This, of course, begs
the question, considering the sins festering among those who have been
ordained, does anyone really think women would do worse?
In a weird justification for
gender discrimination, some hold that in the absence of a proof text in the Bible
explicitly saying women are to be ordained, it cannot be allowed. But there are
no proof texts in the Bible saying we are to use automobiles, televisions, or
social media, something our Amish friends have made note of for generations.
Yet, we laugh at their primitive understanding while using the very same
argument to deny women ordination. Have we no shame in our hypocrisy?
The prophet Joel, who was quoted
by Peter at Pentecost in Acts, chapter 2, said God is no discerner of persons,
pouring out his spirit equally on both men and women, especially in apocalyptic
times. But we respond, "No, God! If you are going to do it like that, if you
are going to make women in any way equal spiritually to men, I will not allow
it!" Sadly, instead of a movement of destiny bringing hope and a future to all,
we have become all about control, specifically male control, of every aspect of
what it means to be an End-Times Remnant. We usurp the role of the Holy Spirit
in that we only allow that spirit to call whom we approve of. If the Spriit
only calls those with both X and Y chromosomes, we will allow it, but not any
other chromosomal presentation will be allowed access to the fullness of what
the Spirit may call them for.
But how do we reconcile that
with the embarrassment of Ellen White? It cannot be denied that her influence
built a global movement. Even though some would equate the pastoral ministry with
the Old Testament Aaronic Priesthood, it also cannot be denied that she
supported women in the pastorate.[iii]
How does one harmonize these two opposing positions into an understanding that
honors Ellen and maintains some sort of idea of pastors being priests? Is this
why we commission women but ordain men? What gymnastics we perform to maintain
an idea that is anachronistic ever since the time of the ante-Nicene church.
Peter made clear that the Aaronic priesthood had been replaced with a universal,
royal priesthood of believers where everyone is ordained to ministry.[iv]
According to the ordination service in the Old Testament, it has three elements:
blood, water, and oil. As Peter shared at Pentecost, every believer receives
all three: the blood of Jesus, the water of baptism, and the oil of the Holy
Spirit.[v] Is
then the repentance and baptism of women derived from some other means than men?
Do they receive some other spirit than the Holy Spirit? Does God stint women
and give them an inferior relationship to him?
The prophet Joel would have us believe
otherwise, especially if, as we often hear, we are living in the Time of the
End. Denial of the fullness of the Holy Spirit to women and their ability to
serve freely in the household of faith is a sure statement that we are not
living in the Time of the End, for the outpouring of the Spirit Joel prophesied
is from God, and who can resist him? Despite all her detractors, and her
frailty as a sinful human being, nothing prevented Ellen White from bringing to
fruition the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Who is greater, the one who founds a
church or those who serve in that church? It is time we stopped hindering the
full ministry of those who are only following the lead of the woman founder who
went before them. Instead of denying their call to fully ordained ministry, it
is time we recognized their motivation by the Holy Spirit and assisted them in
preparing for the great work ahead of us.