Research Questions

Scripture-first

• Can each author's central conclusion be established from Scripture alone?
• Does the New Testament identify an exclusive tithe channel?
• What is the relationship between direct support of gospel workers and Old Testament tithe?
• How should firstfruits, offerings, and tithe be distinguished?

Ellen White

• How does Ellen White distinguish normal practice from exceptional cases?
• Does her personal appropriation of tithe create a general right for all members?
• How should “circumstances alter cases” constrain generalization?
• How does the “lesser light / greater light” principle affect method?

Church authority

• What is the biblical scope of ecclesiastical authority?
• What role should individual conscience play when policy is disputed?
• What sanctions, if any, are appropriate when members conscientiously depart from denominational financial policy?

Vine-specific

• Is institutional entropy a useful explanatory model or an analogy carrying assumptions that need independent support?
• What evidentiary work does the COVID/slavery comparison perform?
• Is coordinated financial pressure a biblical/EGW principle, a prudential strategy, or neither?
• How strong is the evidence that denominational structure will largely disappear in the final crisis?

Method

For each claim ask: 1. What does the source explicitly say? 2. What principle is inferred? 3. What application is made? 4. How many additional assumptions are required? 5. Is the result presented as permission, prudence, or divine requirement?

Methodology critique (added 2026-08-15)

• How rigorous is the Hermeneutical Distance (HD) approach itself — is scoring an inference chain 0–5 a defensible discipline, or can it be subjective enough to mislead a reader who takes the number at face value? See Is Hermeneutical Distance Rigorous for a full treatment.
• Should the project apply the classical Hermeneutic Circle approach (Schleiermacher/Dilthey/ Heidegger/Gadamer — understanding as an iterative whole-part relationship, attentive to the interpreter's own pre-understanding) as a complement or corrective to HD scoring? Addressed in the same node, including whether a dedicated review process/agent for this makes sense.