So just because Conradi didn't want to accept the Health Reform, he found ways to reject the SOP and it led to a even greater impact on the church and its work in Europe. One man...much destruction of others faith and the work of the church...

"The Scriptures interpret themselves."


Jak--"That is a meaningless non-answer. What does that mean?

And, if we take that for our answer, then that makes YOU the interpreter of Scripture, because we are taking what you say as authoritative. This can get messy real fast.

So, which Scripture interprets which Scripture, and on what basis and who says so?

Everybody picks and chooses which Scripture they want to believe and which they don't."


GsLL-- This subject is very very important to know and understand, for if we don't understand how Scripture is to be understood, we may fall into "private interpretation" which is denied by Scripture Itself.

"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."(2 Peter 1:20-21)

"Affirmatively stated ALL Scripture (not merely a part of it) is inspired. Negatively stated, none of It is privately interpreted, for the reason that It did not come of men but of GOD. And It can be interpreted by men ONLY as and when God's Spirit decrees. Accordingly, every jot and title of Scripture and Its interpretation are of Inspiration, and thus wholly profitable to guide the man of God doctrinally, to reprove and to correct him, and righteously to instruct him, unto perfection of faith and works." (SC, vol. 8, no.1-12, p.2)

So we know that once men reject SOP, they are indirectly rejecting Scripture as well. For there is only ONE "Spirit of Truth"(John 16:13) that guides us. SOP, as we SDA know and believe is beautiful Truth illuminating the Bible.

We did a post that may help understand this more clearly called "Help I Can't See" Understanding Scripture

You must read EVERYTHING the Bible says about a given subject in order to reach a right conclusion about that subject. This was Jesus' method:

Mat 4:5-7 Then the Devil took Him up into the holy city and set Him upon a pinnacle of the Temple. And he said to Him, If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down. For it is written, "He shall give His angels charge concerning You, and in their hands they shall bear You up, lest at any time You dash Your foot against a stone." Jesus said to him, It is written again, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God."

Luke 24:27 Jesus then explained everything written about Himself in the Scriptures, beginning with the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets

In the second place, we must be guided by the Holy Spirit:

John 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth

Picking and choosing which Scriptures one wants to believe will only lead to destruction:

2 Peter 3:16 There are some things in them [the writings of Paul] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

As I have previously mentioned elsewhere, 2 Peter 1:20 is referring to the manner in which prophecy was given. It is NOT making a comment on how or who should interpret it.

Not that it makes any difference, because the question still remains of WHO SHOULD interpret it, all of which is pointless because I INTERPRET 2 Peter one way and you INTERPRET 2 Peter another way.

So you see that EVERYONE interprets. To say that Scripture is "not of any private interpretation" is meaninglessly stupid. It also means that each private individual must leave the interpretation of Scripture to someone else, something which we both know EGW speaks strongly against.

To say that Scripture interprets itself is equally fruitless, because my understanding of Scripture leads me to use text A to interpret text B in one way, while yours leads you to use text C to interpret text B in a totally different way.

Therefore, the argument that 2 Peter prohibits private interpretation fails on itself.

I see no one is willing to tackle this issue, and I suspect that the reason is that, if you really believed that Scripture is not of any "private interpretation", you would also have to give up participation on this forum, because EVERYBODY HERE is interpreting Scripture.

(Which is a GOOD thing.)

I don't believe it is a GOOD thing. Each one of us should be on guard that we do often interpret scriptures with our own understanding and without personal revelation from above. Even when comparing scriptures with scriptures are subjected to our own understanding and interpretation. On top of that, we often give a blind eye to the scriptures that contradict or challenge our interpretation.

We can speculate on an interpretation, however we shouldn't be calling it truth. It needs to be pondered upon and a thorough study should be conducted on a subject.

Nor should we, even upon personal revelations from above, want or encourage anyone else to swallow our interpretation without themselves having plenty of time to chew on the matter and receive their own personal revelation before swallowing any interpretation or “truth”.

This is based on the fundamental principle found in Lev 11 and that we all should be taught by the Holy Spirit personally (1Jn 2:27) and never by man. "But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him."

Teachings of man can comes from yourself or others or past teachings our church or our society has adopted. My understanding of this is we can read others thoughts or hear a brother share what Jesus may of taught him and etc…. Hearing from others is important for the Lord gives revelation not only to one, but to many members in the body that needs to be shared to one another. But whatever thoughts(or interpretation) you may have, or whoever you hear it from, or read, or even reading the pure word of God -- all needs to be chewed upon over time with the leading of the Holy Spirit and the Lord needs to established the matter by two witnesses. This is based on the law of unclean and clean spiritual foods found in Lev 11.


Lev 11: Law of Unclean and Clean Spiritual Foods

It is ironic that this discussion started with the supposition that the rejection of SOP for many is based on not following the health reform when we SDAs do not even understand the basic law of unclean and clean spiritual food found in Lev 11.

Paul says "the law is spiritual: but I am carnal" (Rom 7:14).

Lev 11 is not about what PHYSICAL foods to eat or not to eat, but about SPIRITUAL foods. For sure we have health benefits from reframing from unclean "flesh" and even more from abstaining from all flesh foods altogether. However, this law really talks and teaches us about what clean spiritual foods a child of God should eat and how to avoid the unclean spiritual foods and not swallow it for it defiles us. Swallowing unclean spiritual foods has a more serious effect on our life than eating pork. Actually, many of us are spiritual "pigs" or "chamels" by the way we eat our spiritual foods. I know I often am for I'm not always patient enough to wait for two witnesses or give it the meditation time.

Lev 11:3 says animals that chew their cuds(meditate) and stand on separate split hoofs(with two witnesses the matter are establish); these are the spiritual foods that are clean and we can swallow(accept).

As mentioned above, if you swallow food(even the pure word of God) without chewing it thoroughly (meditate upon it) or having it stand on two witnesses coming from the Lord; then it is unclean and you are defiled in the sight of the Lord.

In application, you can hear someone's study or read a book -- that is fine; but whatever is read or heard from man has to go through an extensive process of chewing and waiting on the Lord to establish the teaching with 2 witnesses. That's only when you can swallow it.

The fact the food was chewed (meditated with the guidance of the Holy Spirit) and stands of 2 separate witnesses(hoofs) from the Lord is what makes the food pure teachings(or interpretation) from the Lord and not from men. When you are taught by the Holy Spirit in this ways, that's when you become the living word of God yourself and are crumbling bread in the Lord’s hands that He can feed others with.

There's more that can be expounded on Lev 11 that teaches us how we can differentiate clean or unclean spiritual foods. But the above is the main one.


Heart Idols distorts the Word of God

A word of caution is given in Ezk 14:1-10. The Lord tells us if you come to him for answers (an interpretation or searching truth or for directions) with heart idols, "I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;" (Ezk 14:4). Meaning, he will feed your heart idols and everything you read or see, it will support your heart idols. We all have heart idols. Ezekiel shows that heart idols are teachings of men. Some we are aware of, others we are not. There's many things we think is truth but it never have been established by the Lord or was not really meditated upon long enough, nor was it studied in a thorough Bible study on the subject. So the key here, is to put everything aside and come to the Lord with nothing with open ears to hear what He has to say. What He says may contradict your pre-conceive ideas. It often does. Also, many of our interpretations or views needs refinements.

Heart idols will twist everything the Lord says: from His word in scriptures, His voice to you, or even mis-interpretating potential signs-witness He has given to you.


Interpretation will be according to the LAW

Besides those two principles above, another one is that the Holy Spirit will not teach anything (interpretation or revelation) against the Law of God(Is 8:20, Deut 13:1-5, Deut 18:15-22, Acts 17:11). AV Isa 8:20 "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, [it is] because [there is] no light in them." Meaning, the law is the Lord's righteous character defined with His ways and His plan of salvation put on paper. This is what the Lord is fulfilling today, in the future or in the past. The spiritual aspect of the law is what the Holy Spirit is teaching everyone and aims to write on each of our heart tablets once it is learned.

So even though you think you disagree with me you are actually agreeing, since you think people should "receive their own personal revelation" before they agree with what you say.



That's because there is NO SUCH LAW. I have rarely read such unsupported hog-wash. (I'd use a different word than hogwash but Daryl will censor it.) Creative, but absolute BS.







So now four times you have engaged in exactly what you (and others, to be fair) said one should not do, namely interpret Scripture.

Nor have you (or anyone else, to be fair again) answered the question of just who SHOULD interpret Scripture, if we are not allowed to come to our own conclusions.

Oh, are we agreeing? That’s great.

But really, the goal is not to agree with one another but to come in agreement with the Lord’s interpretation. Then this is the way we will be in agreement among each other.

Often we think we are in agreement with Him when in reality we differ quite widely. So how is the Lord going to teach us the truth if we are set in our pre-conceived ideas and seek comfort in others that have the same?

Teaching someone that think they already know and that cannot hear become a real big problem for the Lord to teach us His interpretation of scriptures. When an individual learns to hear the Lord’s voice and has learned to put all pre-conceived ideas aside when asking question -- only those can be taught by the Lord and receive the proper correction of their erronous interpretation or views that we often need.


I can only shared with you what I came to understand. I can be full of prunes or it may be truth or somewhere in between. The only way to know is to enquire with the Lord yourself. He is the only one that knows.

Dismissing something without verifying in scriptures and asking the Lord His opinion is fine for now and it has its place too. There's a time for everything and it could be not your time to learn this or that.


These I have chewed on for years and I have received my two witnesses from above on these to confirm these are true. I do know from experience the Lord confirms His word to us personally. But that’s my personal revelation. It is not yours and it cannot be yours by just taking my word for it. It is something that all must experience to know.

Again, I can be full of prunes or it can be the correct interpretation. Only the Holy Spirit knows the truth and can teach someone the correct interpretation.

Tell me Jak how can someone be taught by the Holy Spirit? How can someone know if the voice they hear is the Holy Spirit or just your own thoughts? Lastly, how and where do you get your interpretation of scriptures?

I cannot see any other way for someone to know the voice of the Lord apart from our own voice then by receiving a double witness to confirm His word personally spoken to us with an event or whatever else He will brings in our life that confirms without any doubts that it was Him that spoke.

The principle of double witness is all over the Bible and applied in different various things.



I could be wrong but it appears to me that you are not really looking for any answer or you already had one to start with.

A) We're way off topic. But since no one else is on this thread it doesn't really matter.

B) You have no idea what you are talking about, or what you are actually saying. You seem quite comfortable contradicting yourself repeatedly. This leads directly to "I have no idea what your position is or what you are trying to say."

C) You don't see the irony of a whole forum set up to debate and discuss Scripture, all the while claiming that Scripture is not of any "private interpretation"?

I'm trying to understand you. I would like to get to the bottom of this challenge you laid out.

I agree with Rosangela and another commenter that said any interpretation should comes from the Holy Spirit. Since I agree that's why I quoted 1Jn 2:27. I don't know if you agree with this or not, but I believe this is SDAs understanding and also most Christians. However this is often a cliche and the how to put this in application is where it gets gray.

So in an attempt to shed some light, I have brought out how to put this in application with 1) the double witness principle, 2) setting aside the heart idols 3) testing interpretation against the law(Is 8:20). You disagreed with this and saying it was my interpretation of some scriptures.

So the 3 questions I ask you in my previous post is a tentative to know what you understand. If you don't understand any of the questions, do let me know.

1. Tell me Jak how can someone be taught by the Holy Spirit? (1Jn 2:27)

2. How can someone know if the voice they hear is the Holy Spirit or just your own thoughts?

3. Lastly, how and where do you get your interpretation of scriptures?