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Thiking Big
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May 28  Thinking Big

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Where there is no vision, the people perish. Prov. 29:18.

Small thinking leads to small results. Most Sabbatarian Adventists in the 1850s thought small. But James Whtie's strategic place in Adventism had given him a scope of vision that not only separated him from the reasoning processes of many of his fellow believers but had transformed his own thinking.

Beyond his pointing out the confused, Babylonish state of Sabbatarian Adventism that demanded structure and his growing understanding of the immensity of Adventist mission, by 1859 White had discarded the biblical literalism of his earlier days when he believed that the Bible must explicitly spell out each of that system which is not opposed to be Bible, and is approved by sound sense."

Thus he had come to a new hermenuetic. James had shifted from a principle of Bible interpretation that held that the only thing Scripture allowed were those it explicitly mentioned to a hermeneutic that approved of anything that did not contradict the Bible.

That trasformation in thinking was essential to the creative steps in church organization that he would advocate in the 1860s.

That revised hermeneutic, however, put him in opposition to those who maintained a literalistic approach to the Bible that demanded that it explicitly spell something out before the church could accept it.

To answer that mentality, Whtie noted that nowhere in the Bible did it say that Christians should have a weekly periodical, a steam-powered press, build places of worship, or publish books. He went on to say that the "living church of God" needed to move forward with prayer and common sense.

Jaems White was a big thinker. He may not have started out that way, but as he grasped the task ahead of the chruch, his vision forced him to think large and creatively.

For that we can praise God. Without great thinkers such as James Whtie, Seventh-day Adventism would have never advanced beyond the northeastern corner of the United States.

God is still calling for big thinkers to spur His work on. And He is asking each of us to think bigger thoughts of what we can do for His work on earth.

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Christ asks for an unreserved consecration, for undivided service. He demands the heart, the mind, the soul, the strength. Self is not to be cherished. He who lives to himself is not a Christian(COL 49).
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