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Daniel Steele
Daniel Steele (October 5, 1824 – December 2, 1914) was an American preacher, theologian, and scholar whose ministry significantly shaped the Methodist Holiness movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Windham, New York, to Perez Steele and Clarissa Brainerd, he graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in 1848, an M.A. in 1851, and a D.D. in 1868, serving as a mathematics tutor there from 1848 to 1850. Converted in 1842 at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, he joined the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1849 and was ordained, beginning a pastoral career that included churches in Massachusetts such as Fitchburg, Leominster, and Springfield until 1862. Steele’s preaching career expanded into academia when he became Professor of Ancient Languages at Genesee College in Lima, New York (1862–1869), acting as its president from 1869 to 1871, and later served as Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Syracuse University in 1871 after Genesee merged with it. From 1886 to 1893, he taught Doctrinal Theology at Boston University, preaching to students and congregations with an emphasis on entire sanctification, a doctrine he passionately defended in works like Love Enthroned (1875) and Milestone Papers (1878). Author of numerous books, including A Defense of Christian Perfection (1896), he remained unmarried and died at age 90 in Milton, Massachusetts, leaving a legacy as a key Holiness advocate and biblical interpreter.
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Daniel Steele discusses the dangers of redefining biblical terms to fit modern ideologies, using the example of changing 'cleansing' to 'empowering' to avoid the true meaning of sin removal through Jesus Christ. By altering key biblical concepts, Steele highlights the risk of misleading interpretations and the importance of preserving the original intent of Scripture to avoid doctrinal errors and confusion.
Cleansing Means Empowering
ANOTHER evil effect of letting the dust gather on his dictionary is found in his invention of an unheard-of definition of the word "cleansing." He says: "We would suggest that 'empowering' is a much better term to use, and one less liable to mislead." He says it translates into modern thought the Jewish meaning of cleansing. Let us read the new definition or translation in a few passages: "The blood of Jesus Christ empowers us from all sin;" "Let us empower ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit;" "Empower your hands, ye sinners;" "That he might sanctify and empower it [the Church] with the washing of water;" "Empower first that which is within the cup;" "Heal the sick, empower lepers;" "Immediately his leprosy was empowered." Having denied that there was "something brought into or added to man's nature at the fall of Adam which divine grace can instantaneously remove," and having said that depravity "is a disarrangement, that is all -- a change in the relative order of strength," he was forced to invent this absurd definition. But he should have gone on and read some new meaning into "destroy," that the body of sin might be destroyed; into "crucify," that the old man is crucified; into "mortify" or kill, when applied to uncleanness and covetousness ; and into "circumcise" in its spiritual meaning, in putting off (and laying aside) "the body of the flesh" by the circumcision of [procured by] Christ." You see that this opens a large field for a writer's powers of invention.
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Daniel Steele (October 5, 1824 – December 2, 1914) was an American preacher, theologian, and scholar whose ministry significantly shaped the Methodist Holiness movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Windham, New York, to Perez Steele and Clarissa Brainerd, he graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in 1848, an M.A. in 1851, and a D.D. in 1868, serving as a mathematics tutor there from 1848 to 1850. Converted in 1842 at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, he joined the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1849 and was ordained, beginning a pastoral career that included churches in Massachusetts such as Fitchburg, Leominster, and Springfield until 1862. Steele’s preaching career expanded into academia when he became Professor of Ancient Languages at Genesee College in Lima, New York (1862–1869), acting as its president from 1869 to 1871, and later served as Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Syracuse University in 1871 after Genesee merged with it. From 1886 to 1893, he taught Doctrinal Theology at Boston University, preaching to students and congregations with an emphasis on entire sanctification, a doctrine he passionately defended in works like Love Enthroned (1875) and Milestone Papers (1878). Author of numerous books, including A Defense of Christian Perfection (1896), he remained unmarried and died at age 90 in Milton, Massachusetts, leaving a legacy as a key Holiness advocate and biblical interpreter.