By Margie Littell and Colleen Tinker
One of the most profound ways we see God’s great love to us is in understanding that He has given us His eternal word. As Adventists, however, we learned to use God’s word in ways that supported our beliefs. We learned to “proof text” instead of studying contextually, reading whole chapters and whole books at a time.
When we proof text, we remove God’s words from the context He gave, and we can make them mean something different from what He actually said. One of the most horrifying Adventist proof texts comes from Isaiah 28:10: “For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.”
Adventism uses this passage to support the proof-text method of Bible “study”. In fact, Ellen White endorsed this method, and Adventists quote these words to validate their use of out-of-context proof-texts to support their doctrines.
When we study God word together, however, let us agree not to use misdirection—in other words, we need to agree not to misuse God’s word to make it endorse something He does not say. Proof-texting misuses Scripture, and the way Adventists use this “line upon line, here a little, there a little” passage misdirects people away from truth.
In context
Let us look at this passage in context:
“To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message?
Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast? For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.”
For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people, to whom he has said,
“This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear.
And the word of the LORD will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken (Is. 28:9–13).
In context, Isaiah is predicting Israel’s imminent captivity by the terrifying Assyrians. Because of their hundreds of years of persistent apostasy, God will exile Israel as the terms of His covenant with them had said He would if they persisted in rebellion. Isaiah is warning the people, and he is describing their mockery of God’s words to them.
In the verses preceding the passage above, Isaiah has been describing the drunken rebellion of Israel’s priests and prophets, and now, in verse 9, he asks (based on the corrupt worldliness of those who were supposed to speak for God), “To whom will He teach knowledge, and to whom will He explain the message?”
Since the priests and prophets were deaf and blind to God’s word, who could God speak to? Since the leaders of Israel are unable to hear or understand, is God going to reveal His directions to babies?
Verse 10 records the sarcastic response of Israel to Isaiah’s desperation. Drunk with rebellion and sin, they mock God (and this fact is emphasized in the original Hebrew monosyllables that mimic the babbling of a young child). They say, in essence, “God doesn’t make sense! He just babbles to us, “Order on order, Line on line, a little here, a little there…”
Then, in verses 11–13, Isaiah delivers the horrible truth: God has offered them rest, but they wouldn’t receive it. Now He is going to give them the ultimate punishment. They will not merely be exiled, but they will be unable to hear or understand His word. Instead, they will hear gibberish. They will hear disjointed phrases that will make no sense to them, and they will “stumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive.”
In fact, Paul quotes from this passage in 1 Corinthians 14:21 when he exhorts that unruly church to “be mature” in their thinking. He writes,
In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord “ (1 Corinthians 14:21).
Paul’s point is that the babble of the Assyrians’ foreign language was a sign to the unbelieving Israelites that judgment was coming. They had refused to listen to God or to believe Him, and now He was sending them into captivity where God’s word to them would no longer be His care and and instruction, but His message to them would be the confusion of words that made no sense to them.
Their time of hearing and understanding was past. God’s word to them now was the babble of a language they could not understand. God was judging them, and they would no longer hear the plain word of prophecy and teaching from Torah.
So what?
The passage that Ellen White and all of Adventism uses to validate their proof-texting is actually a judgment. Far from being a passage that prescribes an approved method of Bible study, this passage is an accusation of apostate Israel for refusing to hear and obey God’s word.
Furthermore, this “Here a little, there a little” passage is God’s message that their mockery of His word will result in their hearing only the unintelligible (to them) babble of their enemies. He will no longer protect them from danger and send messages offering rest. Now He is sending the cruel foreigners whose language will be God’s word to His apostate people.
They will not hear God’s appeals to them; they will only hear sounds that mean nothing.
Ironically, Ellen White taught Adventists to misuse God’s word by applying God’s judgment on Israel as a method of Bible study. The prophet who claimed to speak for God but who misdirected her people away from the finished work of Christ taught her people to validate their proof-texting by quoting a judgment.
Yet even today God still calls His people. The misdirection of proof-texting does not have to determine one’s eternal destiny. The author of Hebrews says this:
For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage he said,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 4:4–7).
Hear Him today—the full appeal of His offer of rest. Believe, and enter His rest today. I promise you that when you do, God’s word will never seem fractured or confusing again. †
- Jesus Broke the Sabbath and Declared Himself God - February 22, 2024
- God Told Daniel the Future - January 18, 2024
- A New Covenant Needs New Words - November 23, 2023
A marginal note in some editions of the NIV patently explains the sense Adventists have so egregiously failed to grasp: “Hebrew / sav lasav sav lasav / kav lakav kav lakav (probably meaningless sounds mimicking the prophet’s words); also in verse 13”. In fact, it’s more than “probable”. It is certain. Only a drunkard would say something like that.