Thursday: Divine Message and Human Imperfections
Daily Lesson for Thursday 5th of November 2026
What does Paul say about God’s treasure in 2 Corinthians 4:7?
Paul writes of God’s treasure as being entrusted to “earthen vessels” (human beings), so that God’s power might be shown in contrast to our own weaknesses. Scripture reveals that just as God’s messengers were not supernaturally preserved from failings in their personal lives (Moses, Elijah, David, Jonah, and Peter, for example), so their writings were not exempt from the imperfections of human understanding and communication.
“The union of the divine and the human, manifest in Christ, exists also in the Bible. The truths revealed are all ‘given by inspiration of God;’ yet they are expressed in the words of men and are adapted to human needs.”—Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 747.
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
The humanity of God’s messengers is not overridden by their divine calling to communicate the treasures of truth, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:7. Nor does it appear that the Holy Spirit saw fit to prevent His messengers from making statements and writing words that we today find hard to harmonize or to explain. However few these verses are, it takes a very narrow mind to stumble over them. As Bible-believing Christians, we are to surrender to the Word of God to the degree that we understand it and trust the Lord, despite what we don’t understand.
Some discrepancies may be attributed to inconsequential mistakes by later copyists or to conflicting sources (records) that the inspired authors relied upon. When considering problematic passages, we need to ask ourselves if we fully understand the meaning of the writer’s words and whether further study might solve the difficulty.
Even if we are not able to resolve every seeming mistake or discrepancy, we find that they are inconsequential to the essence of the message being presented. We can have confidence that the divine truths of Scripture are faithfully revealed despite the imperfections of God’s messengers.
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Why do you think God chose to use fallible human beings rather than sinless angels as His primary messengers? |
It is truly amazing that a holy, perfect, and Almighty God chose to include feeble, imperfect beings in His plan to save mankind (2 Corinthians 4:7). The union of the divine and the human, manifest in Christ, also appears in the Bible. The truths revealed are all ‘given by inspiration of God, yet they are expressed in the words of men and are adapted to human needs. God’s decision to use imperfect human beings and His decision to communicate divine truth through human language is truly remarkable. God still values human beings in spite of our fallen state. This is demonstrated by deliberately involving imperfect human beings in His redemptive purposes. The greatest lesson for us today: we must never confuse the divine treasure with the imperfect human vessel carrying it.
God communicated His divine messages through various human authors, he used everyday language, cultural and regional contexts, individual experiences, and distinct personalities without removing the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit. As much as these messengers were chosen by God, they remained human beings with personal weaknesses and imperfections. Moses, called to lead Israel out of Egypt, struggled with anger and struck the rock presumptuously (Numbers 20:7–12). Elijah, who boldly confronted the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, later experienced deep discouragement and asked God to take his life (1 Kings 19:4). Jonah preached repentance to Nineveh but struggled with prejudice and anger when God extended mercy to its people (Jonah 4:1–3). Similarly, Peter, who boldly confessed Jesus as the Messiah, later denied Him three times under pressure (Matthew 26:69–75). These examples demonstrate that God did not require human messengers to be flawless before using them to communicate His divine purposes.
Human imperfections, therefore, do not invalidate the divine origin or authority of the message. Rather, they reveal that Scripture communicates God’s truth through imperfect human instruments who remain dependent on His grace and guidance. The apostle Paul captures this relationship when he records God’s assurance: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Thus, while the biblical writers contributed their individual personalities, expressions, experiences, and literary styles, the Holy Spirit guided their communication so that the divine message was faithfully conveyed. The human authors were not made perfect; instead, God’s power worked through their limitations, demonstrating that the authority of Scripture rests not on the perfection of its human writers but on the faithfulness of the God who inspired them.
In 1910 the printing plates used to print the 1888 version of The Great Controversy needed replacing, and a new set of plates were about to produced. What happened next provides an interesting insight into how people perceived inspiration. Ron Greybill provides an interesting account of what happened in his book “Visions and Revisions”. I will preface my remarks by saying this book is not a criticsm of Ellen White, but it essentially documents the process of inspiration. Willie White (Ellen White’s son) asked W W Prescott to review the manuscript and suggest edits. Prescott was the editor of the Review and Herald at the time and was probably the most academically qualified church official at the time. He was also a very strong supporter of Ellen White and her ministry.
Prescott suggested over 100 changes and ultimately over 50 of them were accepted. Most of the changes were punctuation and word order changes. Some changes fixed factual errors. For instance, Ellen White said in the 1888 version that the Waldenses were the first people to obtain a translation of the Scriptures. Prescott cited a source that said the first Bible in the language of the people was the Gothic (Wulfila) Bible for the East German people. The 1911 version changed the wording to say that the Waldenses were among the first. I could give other examples, but this would make the comment too long.
The tension of course, is that those who held a verbal inspiration view felt that this sort of editing, should not be done. Some took the view that if Ellen White was wrong, then she was not inspired.
Interestingly, Ellen White was alive at the time and Willie White showed her some of the edits. She was happy with what she saw but she did not want to be bothered with a lot of detail. She was quite old and frail at the time. It should also be noted that Ellen White made no claim to be theologically or historically inerrant, and warned against using her work to prove points.
The revision of the Great Controversy went to press in 1911 and is the current version we use today.
There is much more that I could add to this story and I have thought of giving a fuller account of it and the subsequent 1919 Bible conference. However, at this point, I would like to conclude the comment with the notion that Prophets are imperfect people just like us. It is easy to find these imperfections but sometimes we look for them as an excuse to dismiss their message.
I used to start my science classes with the observation that some of what I was teaching my students was wrong. The problem being that I did not know which bits, and part of the learning process was to find those bits and deal with them. The bits may be wrong but we have to get the process right.
Wow. This was so enlightening and helpful to learn and understand. I’ve always struggled with those who question Bible’s legitimacy due to those small discrepancies, as pointed out in the lesson. And what you said here in the comment was incredibly helpful for me to learn, although I’ve been an SDA 26 years. It would be very valuable for many if you could indeed write fuller account and of the 1919 Bible conference. You have so much knowledge to share, and for many of us, it would be an opportunity to learn things we might otherwise never take the time to explore or discover amid the busyness of everyday life. Please give it some thought! I truly believe you have a lot to offer.
Thank you, Maurice, for your honesty and transparency about this important subject.
I believe God’s choice of human messengers was deliberate and profoundly meaningful.
God wanted His message communicated not merely by those who could describe His power, but also by those who had personally experienced His grace. Angels can proclaim God’s holiness and glory, but human beings can testify to what it means to be forgiven, restored, transformed, and sustained by divine grace.
Consider Moses, David, Elijah, Jonah, and Peter.
Their lives remind us that divine calling does not mean human perfection. Rather, it demonstrates God’s ability to accomplish His purposes through imperfect people.
This also teaches us something important about inspiration. The authority of God’s Word does not rest on the perfection of its human writers but on the divine Source of its message. God did not have to eliminate their personalities, backgrounds, vocabulary, or human limitations to communicate His truth through them.
There is a distinction between the perfection of the divine Source and the humanity of the instruments He chose to use.
Perhaps one of the greatest lessons is that God never intended His work to depend on human perfection. He intended to demonstrate that His power is sufficient to accomplish His purposes despite human weakness. Thus the glory belongs to God, not the messenger.
The question asked is ” Why do you think God chose to use fallible human beings rather than sinless angels as His primary messengers ?” I am humbly suggesting the following reasons.
(1) There exists at least a psychological link between a Messenger and his message. To a very significant extent the Messenger gives credibility to his message. For example a “born again” Christian who can truthfully declare – ” the things I used to do I do them no more. Which angel sent from heaven can with finesse truly make such a statement ?
(2) For reasons of authenticity. If for example , an angel had authored the book entitled the Great Controversy. The question would arise – which angel? – what is his name? – how can this be verified?
(3) There would exist serious communication challenges to such a being who cannot be truly touched by the feelings of our infirmities nor tempted in all points as we are tempted.
(4) There would also exist serious challenges for us to believe that we could arrive at the standard of holy living when those who are communicating to us ” have never done this and have never bin there”
(5) They could never be examples or mentors to us in our quest for holiness. We can truly say – they are from another world. Note to the Editor. I typed from my phone. Please assist me, especially with my paragraphing. Thanks.
To me, the short answer is that God chose to use fallible human beings because that’s all that were available. Certainly God could have used angels to write the books of the Bible, but I believe that he deliberately chose humans because they are recipients of the salvation provided at Calvary. They can directly relate to the human experience of redemption. Angels can’t.
It reminds me of the line of the hymn from the classic Christian hymn “Holy, Holy, Is What the Angels Sing” (often remembered as “The Song of Redemption”), written by Johnson Oatman, Jr..
The full chorus goes:
In the song, the writer reflects on how angels praise God with the traditional cry of “Holy, holy”, yet stand in quiet awe when redeemed humans sing of personal rescue, grace, and triumph through trials because angels have never experienced human salvation themselves.
Angels have been claimed to bring direct revelation from God in the establishment of several religions, (i.e. Islam, Mormonism, and others) however upon scrutiny if the messages claimed to have been received were in direct contradiction to the Gospel as another, or different gospel, the Apostle Paul addressed this concern of another gospel, in Galatians 1:8-9 pronouncing a curse upon those messengers. Even more current or “progressive revelation” that doesn’t square with past revealed scripture must be rejected. God doesn’t contradict himself or his Divinely revealed Word.
” So their writings were not exempt from the imperfections of human understanding and communication.”
Is the lesson writer meaning there are” imperfections in scripture” 🤷🤷🤷🤷????
It believe so, and I’m happy to see that you read carefully!
The same “flaws” are evident in Scripture as in the writings of Ellen White. For instance, accounts of the same events in the Chronicles and the books of Kings don’t always agree on the number of soldiers involved. The discrepancies have nothing to do with salvation, because God ensured that His truth was communicated. But the discrepancies are real.
Peter said that some of the things Paul wrote are difficult to understand. I agree – especially when Paul appears to contradict himself.
I see it this way: Three honest people describing the same auto accident will give different details because they saw the event from different viewpoints. Such differences are also evident in the Bible, and they are not always easy to explain. Paul said different things at different places because the local culture was different. Sometimes these statements appear contradictory and can be seen as “flaws.”
I have been guilty of similar “flaws” in raising our boys. For instance, our oldest son is a perfectionist, and he would get stuck in jobs because he wanted them to be perfect. This is what I told him in private: “Don’t worry about getting things perfect. It’s better to get the work done than to try to get it perfect.”
Our second son is happy-go-lucky and not worried about details. He always finished his tasks very quickly. This is the kind of thing I told him in private: “Anything you do is worth doing well. Do your best to get it right.” In fact, I would ask him to redo some things because he did them too carelessly.
Notice I said, “In private.” I literally had to send one of them away when dealing with the other. My counsel to the two boys was contradictory. But it was right for each one. That same sort of context explains the contradictions in Paul’s writings. Bible writers didn’t have the luxury of sending some of us away while dealing with others. So we have to prayerfully study to understand what applies to us. Jesus said that the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, would guide us into all truth, and we can depend on Him.
Am finding it hard to accept that ” there are imperfections/ errors in scripture itself” seriously 😒 with the fact that it was divine inspired, ” How can the holy spirit contradict itself because it was the source of everything they wrote??????? 🤷🤷🤷.
If they are errors as said , then doubt araises on the claims of divine inspiration on certain literature 😞.
Would agree with the errors in different translations/ translaters maybe.
The inference is that the Holy Spirit did not write the Bible but rather men wrote it after being moved by the Holy Spirit. Thus we have inconsistencies because people see the same thing differently. The Bible is remarkably consistent given that it was compiled over several milennia. But there are some inconsistencies, and we have to live with those. Perhaps the best-known inconsistency is David’s census of Israel: 2 Sam 24 attributes it to the Lord, and 1 Chron 21 attributes it to Satan. Clearly the two statements appear to be in opposition to one another. I have my own ideas on how to handle this sort of difference but to be fair, in terms of the really important stuff in the Bible, this one is relatively minor. It does not change my view of importance of God’s big pcture ideas.
“Why do you think God chose to use fallible human beings rather than sinless angels as His primary messengers?”
The Answer:
It is because He wants us to do His will. It is His pleasure to make us willing to to be made willing and to keep us willing. It is God’s hearts desire for us to be called His people. How can we be called His people if we shy away from telling others what a wounderfull Lord we serve. We have to experience His love to tell others a wounderfull Saviour is Jesus my Lord a wounderfull Saviour to me. He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock and covered me there with His hand. Believeth it or not. It is true. If we allow Him to live out our lives within us from day to day, than we can say He is mine and I am His. The Holy Spirit is witness with our spirit that we are God’s children. Why God even said that when we turn to Him we are called sons and daughters of Him.
Philippians 2:13.
Romans 8:16.
Leviticus 26:12.
Hebrews 7:25.
If we are to be sons and daughters of our Father in heaven for eternity as ambassadors of our King of kings. We must get into the groove of service for our Father.
Q Why do you think God chose to use fallible human beings rather than sinless angels as His primary messengers?
1 Timothy 1:15 “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” Sometimes I feel like Paul, chief of the sinners. How can he work through someone like me? God does not wait for us to become worthy before He works through us. He works through us because we surrender to him. Our testimony can reach souls, that otherwise might be lost. I pray we never stop surrendering to him.
I think God used people because we can understand our own languages and believe God.
If God used Angels, we would have feared God without loving Him and without getting testimonies of other human beings.
Would you relate more to an extraterrestrial than to a fellow human? The answer is the same: Why would God use imperfect people to communicate His will? Every single human being can develop a relationship with God; that means anyone can become a prophet. It’s a matter of accepting His offer of friendship.