Adventist Teaching: Yes
Biblical Teaching: No
Ellen G. White, who the Adventist Church believes was divinely inspired and that she corrects inaccurate interpretations of scripture, claimed that Paul the Apostle, after his Damascus Road conversion, had to be taught by learned men in the Church for further knowledge and that this experience put Paul into a condition where he was now able to be taught by those ordained in the Church. This contradicts scripture.
Paul tells us in Galatians 1:11-12 that what He received was from Christ and not man. His Gospel was not of human origin. Jesus did not simply reveal himself to Paul on the Damascus Road, but also theology. He also explicitly says his immediate response after this was not to consult any human being (Galatians 1:16), so He didn’t go to Jerusalem to see who the Apostles even were, but to Arabia and later to Damascus (Galatians 1:17).
Three years later Paul went to Jerusalem and met Cephas—whom he stayed with for 15 days (Galatians 1:18). The only one of the Apostles he says he saw during this time was James, the Lord’s brother (Galatians 1:19) and that what he is writing isn’t a lie (Galatians 1:20). In his first three years preaching the Gospel, Paul hadn’t even met a single apostle.
He then says he went to Syria and Cilicia where he wasn’t even personally known by anyone. All they knew about him is that he used to be a persecutor of the Christian church who had a radical conversion (Galatians 1:22-23). He then explains that fourteen years after that, he again went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus (Galatians 2:1). It was at this time Paul revealed to them what the Lord Jesus had revealed to Him on the Damascus Road (Galatians 2:2).
He then says that the Apostles recognized Paul as legitimately commissioned by Christ to take the Gospel to the Gentiles (and Peter to the Jews) because the message that Paul claimed was revealed to him by Jesus didn’t contradict or conflict with what they had received from Christ (Galatians 2:6-9).
Paul was preaching the Gospel over the course of years before even meeting the Apostles. It was because the Apostles knew they hadn’t peached the Gospel to Paul that—when he came and told them what the message was—they knew it had to have come from Christ because it didn’t contradict what He had revealed to them. The Apostles were the leaders of the Church and it would have been them that would have had to have taught Paul.
Ellen White contradicts what the Bible says about the aftermath of Paul’s Damascus Road experience. She also said that “whatever contradicts God’s Word, we can be sure proceeds from Satan.” We’ll let you connect the dots.
