Seventh-day Adventists owe much to William Miller for their understanding of Bible prophecy. While his understanding of key passages (such as Daniel 8:14) was not perfect, Miller’s methodology was, nonetheless, important, because it paved the way for the birth of our last-day remnant movement.
Read Matthew 5:18, 2 Timothy 3:15–17, and Luke 24:27. What do these verses teach us about the way we ought to approach Bible prophecy?
In some ways, studying the Bible is not unlike assembling a large jigsaw puzzle. If you gather just two or three pieces together, it is nearly impossible to discern the entire picture. Perhaps in those two or three pieces, you can see a horse, and so you conclude that you are assembling a picture of horses. But a few more pieces reveal a chicken and a cow, and then once you have assembled hundreds of pieces, you can finally see that you have been working on a picture of a landscape, which includes a city, a farm, and a range of mountains in the distance.
One of the central ways in which some Christians err in their study of the Bible is that they treat the Scriptures as a loose collection of sayings or proverbs that they can use to address a specific situation. Some will turn to the simple study guide at the front of a Gideons Bible, where they can find helpful verses on a number of topics, and assume that it represents the sum total of the Bible’s teachings on a given subject.
Unfortunately, they take the same approach to prophecy, lifting an individual text out of its context and comparing it to current events instead of the rest of the Bible. This, in part, has led to the constant stream of modern books on prophecy that have to be updated every few years because they were wrong on what they said was going to happen—and when.
That’s why it’s so important not merely to select some specific texts on any given topic but instead to study carefully everything the Bible says about that topic and to take into consideration the context in which it says it, as well. It is very easy to pull a passage out of context and make it say whatever we want.
What has been your experience with those who use only certain selected texts to try to make their point about, say, the state of the dead? Or even the Sabbath? What is the best way to respond?
Supplemental EGW Notes
Endeavoring to lay aside all preconceived opinions, and dispensing with commentaries, [William Miller] compared scripture with scripture by the aid of the marginal references and the concordance. He pursued his study in a regular and methodical manner. . . . As he studied with earnest prayer for divine enlightenment, that which had before appeared dark to his understanding was made clear. . . .
With intense interest he studied the books of Daniel and the Revelation, employing the same principles of interpretation as in the other scriptures, and found, to his great joy, that the prophetic symbols could be understood. He saw that the prophecies, so far as they had been fulfilled, had been fulfilled literally; that all the various figures, metaphors, parables, similitudes, etc., were either explained in their immediate connection, or the terms in which they were expressed were defined in other scriptures, and when thus explained, were to be literally understood.—The Great Controversy, p. 320.
Jesus, the greatest teacher the world has ever seen, recognized the value of the Holy Scriptures, and expounded them to his disciples. After his resurrection, he drew near to two of them as they were on the way to Emmaus, talking, as they went, of the disappointed hopes occasioned by the death of the beloved Master. . . . Jesus said to them, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken; ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” And beginning at Moses and the prophets, “he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
Jesus reproved the disciples for not being acquainted with the scriptures that testified of the Messiah. Had they been familiar with the Scriptures, their faith would have been sustained in the hour of trial, and their hope would have remained unshaken; for the treatment Christ would receive at the hands of those he came to save was plainly stated in the prophecies.—“Value of Bible Study,” Signs of the Times, June 10, 1886, par. 9, 10.
Those who are engaged in proclaiming the third angel’s message are searching the Scriptures upon the same plan that Father Miller adopted. In the little book entitled “Views of the Prophecies and Prophetic Chronology,” Father Miller gives the following simple but intelligent and important rules for Bible study and interpretation:
“1. Every word must have its proper bearing on the subject presented in the Bible; 2. All Scripture is necessary, and may be understood by diligent application and study; 3. Nothing revealed in Scripture can or will be hid from those who ask in faith, not wavering; 4. To understand doctrine, bring all the scriptures together on the subject you wish to know, then let every word have its proper influence; and if you can form your theory without a contradiction, you cannot be in error; 5. Scripture must be its own expositor, since it is a rule of itself. If I depend on a teacher to expound to me, and he should guess at its meaning, or desire to have it so on account of his sectarian creed, or to be thought wise, then his guessing, desire, creed, or wisdom is my rule, and not the Bible.”—“Notes of Travel,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, November 25, 1884, par. 23, 24.
The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.