NICOLE STEVENSON | Co-Host, Former Adventist Podcast |
As an Adventist, I read my Bible—but I missed the point entirely. I treated it more like a “Magic 8 Ball” than as the Word of God given to reveal Himself and His glory. I believed the Bible was beautiful, historical, and trustworthy, but I made my life the context for everything I read. I expected the Spirit to infuse a personal message into every passage.
It’s no wonder I thought this way. During the elder meetings where I served as an elder at the local Adventist congregation, worship was often led by providing the elder board with a printed passage from The Message paraphrase. After a few minutes of quiet reflection, the question came: “What does this mean to you?” That became my approach to all of Scripture. “What does this mean to me? What is God saying to me today?”
As meaningful as this felt, it left me unchanged and dead in my sin. I was actively and purposefully distorting God’s Word as an act of “worship” with other leaders in my false religion. I was separated from God, following the spirit at work in the sons of disobedience, yet the practice made me feel more connected to my Adventist community as we reveled in our self-deceived “humility” and “wisdom”.
This narcissistic way of reading ensured I never questioned the theology I was born into. Believing that Adventists knew God best and that the Spirit gave me personal meanings, I never had to deal with Scripture’s actual context—the truths that would have exposed my false religion.
The Dissonance of Context
Occasionally I would read an entire New Testament letter, and context would force itself upon me. Many times, I stared at words that contradicted what I had been taught. I furrowed my brow, wishing I knew Adventist doctrine better so I could “answer” these apparent contradictions.
I thought, “No wonder Christians are happy. A shallow reading of the Bible leaves you thinking you’re saved and going to be with Jesus when you die.”
I thought, “No wonder Christians are happy. A shallow reading of the Bible leaves you thinking you’re saved and going to be with Jesus when you die.” I felt bad for them; they didn’t have the true interpretations of these passages that were “given” to Ellen G. White for God’s last day remnant.
I sometimes wondered why God allowed for parts of the Bible to seem to teach the gospel and the state of the dead the way the Christians understood them—salvation by grace, assurance of heaven upon death—without making the Sabbath and Sunday-keeping clearer. It seemed unfair. Still, I was grateful I’d been born into the “one true church,” because I knew I never would have figured out “God’s truth” apart from the prophetess and our leaders.
Whenever the Bible clashed with Adventist teaching, I did what I was taught: outsource the interpretation to “greater minds than mine.” I knew I would never read everything Ellen G. White wrote, or be able to understand the things our scholars debated in seminary and at the General Conference sessions (forget about the timeline charts for the second coming!). So I let my leaders explain the “real meaning” and dismissed the “simple” Christian interpretations as being ignorant of the fuller spiritual truths.
But God…
Measured against the truth of Scripture, my life as an Adventist was one of rebellion and unbelief. I suppressed God’s truth and trusted my religion instead of His Word. For years, I read Scripture through the lens of false teaching and refused to let it confront me. While I deeply regret that prolonged sinful suppression of God’s truth, I trust the wisdom of His timing in bringing me to faith.
Paul’s testimony in Galatians 1 echoes my own story: “But when He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal His Son to me…” (Gal. 1:15–16a). Just as God revealed His Son to Paul in His perfect time, He also brought me to faith exactly when it pleased Him.
None of us chooses the moment of new birth. As John writes: “But to all who did receive him…he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13). Salvation is always God’s initiative, His timing, His grace.
For me, that moment came at age thirty, as a young mother. When God opened my eyes through the plain reading of His Word, I finally believed the truth I had long resisted. It took 30 years, but from God’s perspective I was always His and He was working all things to bring me to the moment of my salvation. In Ephesians 1:3–7, Paul tells us that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world—redeemed, adopted, forgiven—all to the praise of His glory.
I was running a hell-bound race all dressed up for church. But God in His perfect timing brought me to Himself in faith. Ephesians 2:1–10 makes it clear: salvation comes when we are dead in sin and actively following the spirit of disobedience, but God, rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, makes us alive with Christ. By grace we are saved, through faith, which itself is God’s gift. Then, in love, He gives us work to do which He prepared for each of us in advance. While we may grieve over the time spent away from the Lord, we can trust Him to redeem those lost years according to His great and merciful plan for our lives.
The Bible Is About God, Not About Me
From that moment of my salvation, everything changed. The same Bible I had owned and read my whole life suddenly became a new book. It was no longer a mirror for my feelings but a window into the glory and truth of God! His Spirit stripped away lies and planted faith within me. Scripture began to confront me with authority. Rather than shaping God’s word to fit my image, His word began to transform me into His.
Scripture ceased to be a book about me and my path to God; I saw it as it was— a book about God and the salvation He extends to all who will believe— for the glory of His name.
Scripture ceased to be a book about me and my path to God; I saw it as it was— a book about God and the salvation He extends to all who will believe— for the glory of His name. Instead of asking, “What does this mean to me?” I began to ask, “What does this reveal about Him?” For the first time, I took my proper place in God’s story, seated with the church on the timeline of redemption, instead of trying to insert myself into every text and covenant.
The Sufficiency and Clarity of Scripture
As God dismantled my false religion, I saw this: if God’s Word says one thing and a tradition or teacher says another, Scripture wins every time. That is true when climbing out of a cult, and it is just as true for believers living within the Christian community.
God’s Word is clear. If we could understand the Bible only after attending seminary, God would have commanded us all to go. Instead, it is His purpose that we would know Him as He reveals Himself in His Word—and He has not failed to equip us to understand Him. Seminaries are a gracious gift of God, but they are not a new priesthood standing between God and His people. All believers have the Holy Spirit and can understand the Word of God when it is read in context with the normal rules of language and grammar.
Faithful teachers are also a gift, but their insights must be judged by Scripture. If they bring an “insight” that alters the meaning of a passage, or impose a doctrine rooted in tradition rather than contextual truth, they are outside the boundaries of Scripture. Anything that “expands” God’s Word beyond its context is deception.
Jesus said in John 8:31–32, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” In John 17:3 He prayed, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Eternal life is knowing God—and we know Him through His Word, which sanctifies (John 17:17).
Before His crucifixion, Jesus promised His disciples that the Spirit would bring His words to their remembrance so they could faithfully teach everything He had commanded. Those words are now recorded in Scripture. The Bible is trustworthy, sufficient, and clear: it contains everything we need for salvation and life with God.
God-Centered Reading Matters!
When we submit to Scripture in context and with the obedience of faith, we come to know God as He revealed Himself. When we allow God to speak for Himself and trust that He is clear and able to teach us by His Spirit, we find truth and freedom. In the pages of Scripture, God reveals His character, His love, His faithfulness, His mercy, His holiness, His justice, and His redemption.
He also reveals His plans. Jesus said in John 15:15, “No longer do I call you servants,for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” Jesus not only revealed the Father, and the Father not only glorified the Son, but our Triune God has revealed to us His final plan to restore all of creation to Himself. When we believe His word we can see His sovereignty even in the consummation of all things. We can trust the clear reading of the Bible.
God-centered reading guards us from false teachers, new religions, self-focused interpretations, and bad theology. It also shapes our worship. When we see God as He reveals Himself, we don’t beg for His presence—He has already promised never to leave us. We don’t plead for provision—He has already promised to provide. Instead, we worship with gratitude and confidence in His promises.
When we read to know God, we honor Him. We honor His authorial intent. We resist reshaping His words to suit our own needs. And when we heed His Word, we are transformed by it. The Bible is not about me. It is about God. And that is very good news, because when we see God in His Word, we not only know Him—we are changed by Him, to the praise of His glory. †
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