Dear Pastor ___________,

Thank you for contacting the Ellen G. White Estate. I will be glad to try to help you with your questions. There are two items that you should read regarding the matter of pork. The first is chapter 24 in Herbert E. Douglass's book Messenger of the Lord. Perhaps you do not have the book, but you can read it on our web site, www.WhiteEstate.org. On the main menu at the left of the home page, click on "Online Books," and then scroll down and click on the link to Messenger of the Lord. Then you can navigate from there to chapter 24, "Health Principles 1: Emergence of a Health Message." The second item is a White Estate document about clean and unclean meats in our history. You can find it at this location: http://www.whi teestate.org/issues/clean-uncl.html.

It may surprise you to learn that in the 19^th century we had no doctrine of clean and unclean meats based on Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14. Our pioneers thought that these instructions were part of the ceremonial law, and they knew from the New Testament that Christians were not under obligation to observe the ceremonial law. They believed that if we took this part of the ceremonial law and taught that we were obliged to keep it, it would oblige us to keep all of the ceremonial law. They knew that this could not be. It was not until around the turn of the 20^th century that we began to have consensus in the church that these instructions were not ceremonial but were for our health and well being, physically as well as spiritually. As far as I know, Mrs. White never had a vision about this issue. The only instruction she had on any part of it was that we should not eat the flesh of the pig. This came in her 1863 health reform vision. But it was not tied to Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14. I believe that God in His mercy gave her a warning against the most common and perhaps most dangerous of the unclean foods, but He waited for His church to do their homework in Bible study to get the theology of it. He does not appear to want us to avoid that step, so He does not use the spiritual gifts to reveal these things to us. This is how it was with the Sabbath and with the correct time to begin its observance. He did not give Mrs. White a vision about the Sabbath until April, 1847, about seven months after she and her new husband James had begun to keep it around the time of their marriage in August, 1846. They had started to keep it as a result of seeing the Bible evidence that Joseph Bates put into his pamphlet on the Sabbath. Following Bates's example, thought, they began the Sabbath at 6 p.m. each Friday and ended it at 6 p.m. on Sabbath, rather than at sunset. God did not give Mrs. White a vision explaining sundown. Rather, He waited until J. N. Andrews had studied the matter out thoroughly and presented his results to a conference of believers in 1855. Then, when almost everyone accepted the sunset position (except Joseph Bates and Ellen White), God gave a vision supporting the sunset time, and this brought unity to the believers. James White later wrote about this experience:

"The question naturally arises, If the visions are given to correct the erring, why did she [Mrs. White] not sooner see the error of the six o'clock time? For one, I have ever been thankful that God corrected the error in His own good time, and did not suffer an unhappy division to exist among us upon the point. But, dear reader, the work of the Lord upon this point is in perfect harmony with His manifestations to us on others, and in harmony with the correct position upon spiritual gifts.

"It does not appear to be the desire of the Lord to teach His people by the gifts of the Spirit on the Bible questions until His servants have diligently searched His word. When this was done upon the subject of time to commence the Sabbath, and most were established, and some were in danger of being out of harmony with the body on this subject, then, yes, then was the very time for God to magnify His goodness in the manifestation of the gift of His Spirit in the accomplishment of its proper work.

"The Sacred Scriptures are given us as the rule of faith and duty, and we are commanded to search them. If we fail to understand and fully obey the truths in consequence of not searching the Scriptures as we should, or a want of consecration and spiritual discernment, and God in mercy in His own time corrects us by some manifestation of the gifts of His Holy Spirit, instead of murmuring that He did not do it before, let us humbly acknowledge His mercy and praise Him for His infinite goodness in condescending to correct us at all.

"Let the gifts have their proper place in the church. God has never set them in the very front, and commanded us to look to them to lead us in the path of truth, and the way to heaven. His word He has magnified. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are man's lamp to light up his path to the kingdom. Follow that, but if you err from Bible truth, and are in danger of being lost, it may be that God will in the time of His choice correct you, and bring you back to the Bible and save you." James White, in the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Feb. 25, 1868, p. 168, col. 2.

I hope this may be helpful to you. Thank you for the work you are doing. God bless!

William Fagal
Associate Director
Ellen G. White Estate
12501 Old Columbia Pike
Silver Spring, MD 20904-6600 U.S.A.
Phone: 301 680-6550
FAX: 301 680-6559
http://www.WhiteEstate.org