Steps to Christ

Steps to Christ is the most widely circulated work by the American religious writer Ellen G. White (1827–1915), a leading figure in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It was first published in 1892 by the Fleming H. Revell Company of Chicago. The book is brief, running to about twelve chapters (the first edition had twelve, with a later opening chapter on God's love added), and centers on one question: how a person can enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. In sequence it discusses God's love for humanity, repentance, confession, consecration, faith and acceptance, growth in Christ, and prayer and doubt. The title comes from the account in Genesis 28 of Jacob's dream of a ladder connecting heaven and earth, each rung of which symbolizes one stage in the relationship between a person and Christ along the path of salvation. The book was written in the atmosphere of intense debate over justification by faith that followed the 1888 General Conference session in Minneapolis. White believed the church of the time overemphasized the law and that a simple book was needed to help ordinary believers and evangelists understand what salvation means. Her assistant Marian Davis compiled the manuscript from White's previously published books, periodical articles, and addresses, and in 1891 it was circulated among church leaders at a meeting in Harbor Springs, Michigan. The first edition was reprinted seven times within a year; the copyright later passed to the church's publishing agency, and the book has been translated into about 160 languages. One of the most widely distributed religious books in the world, it has also been issued under titles such as Happiness Digest, The Road to Redemption, and The Path to Peace. Its tone is plain and its audience ordinary readers; it sets out the starting point and the steps of the way of salvation rather than arguing theology, and is therefore often used for personal devotion and given away in evangelism.