While I was a book editor at the Pacific Press, I eliminated from manuscripts the expression Spirit of Prophecy as applied to Ellen G. White or to her writings, and I continue to refrain from this usage in all personal discourse.

Here are the reasons.

In 1 Samuel, we find Hannah in the temple desperately crying out to God about her barrenness after years of ridicule from her husband’s fertile wife, Penninah. As the story unfolds, God responds to her cries. He opens her womb and liberates her from the social consequences of her infertility—her disconnection from the life of her people—while providing a great prophet to Israel.

Seventh-day Adventists, historically, have been guided through several major theological crises by the messages of Ellen White. We probably would not have survived the movement’s first fifty years without her. And without her, the blip called Seventh-day Adventists would have been a mere footnote in someone’s doctoral dissertation today.

The drift of this study guide, as with the whole quarter, is more on defending Ellen White’s writings than helping us to understand the nature of biblical prophecy. Any charge against her integrity is offset by pointing out similar problems within the ministry of the Old Testament prophets. She said some very unpopular things, but so did Micaiah the prophet (1 Kings 22:10–18).