 |
The Question Box |
|
|
|
The Question Box |
|
Do you have a
question about anything in the Bible? Ask it at the
The Question Box
Our Evangelist or a former Elder of our congregation will try
their best to answer
your question by looking to the scriptures.
Not all questions have answers. Some will have to wait until we meet God in heaven.
Through questions comes learning -- for
the one asking and the one answering.
|
Question: 5/12/2011 |
About
how many people die on the flood Noah's time? |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
There is no way for us to
know with any certainty what the population of the earth was when
Noah and his family entered the ark. We can say, though, that all of
them except eight souls perished in the flood. (See 1 Peter 3:20)
How many might that have been?
Consider the following
from the generations listed in Genesis 5:
Shem, Ham, & Japheth (Noah's sons) were in the 11th named generation beginning with Adam. (How many generations might there have been in all? We just do not know.)
The average age of those
listed prior to Noah was 847 and ranged from 365 to 969 with most
being 800-950 at death. The ages of the fathers at the births of the
named sons ranged from 65 to 500; thus there were at least 435 years
of life during which each of these men might have been fathering
"sons and daughters" - but there were probably many more years than
this. For example, we know that Adam had children prior to Seth (and
Seth was born when Adam was 130). Before Seth was born, Cain and
Able had already reached adulthood. How old they were when Cain
killed Able is pure conjecture. Did any people father children after
the age of 500? We do not know. All this means that the population
of the earth would have increased rapidly during those centuries
before the flood.
In my lifetime of 71 years,
the population of the earth has nearly tripled. If the population
tripled every 70 years, it would have been approaching 2 trillion by
the time of the flood. Now, I do not believe there were that many
people. It is entirely possible, though, that the population
was close to what it is today - which is about 6.5 billion. Note
that I said possible, not that it was that many. If the
population only increased by 1% per year (double in about 70 years),
there would have been about 16 & 3/4 million people - which is
considerably less than 6.5 billion. If you split the difference
between those and increased by 2.5 times every 70 years, the total
would have been about 2.8 billion. That assumes 1656 years between
Adam and the flood.
These population numbers are
speculation. There are assumptions in them that may or may not be
valid. I believe you can see, though, that the pre-flood
civilization of earth would likely have been very populous. Could
the earth support that many people without the kinds of machinery we
have today? We do not know - nor do we know what the climate was
like in the years before the flood. There is reason to believe that
it was much milder than it is today - and it is possible it was a
sub-tropical climate all over the earth. That would make a higher
population possible without mechanization.
This is an interesting
speculation - but remember that it is just speculation. We really
have no way of knowing, and the secret things belong to God
(Deuteronomy 29:29).
An important thing to remember is that of all that vast number of people, only 8 were saved by water. The rest were destroyed by it. In 2 Peter 3, the apostle uses the example of the flood to warn us of a coming day of judgment of the earth by fire. We need to use what time we have to prepare to enter the new heavens and the new earth (where righteousness dwells - 2 Peter 3:13) by being "diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish, and at peace" (2 Peter 3:14). Respectfully yours, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 4/26/2011 |
If the celebration of Christmas is a pagan holyday, then it makes every Christian a pagan. I think that the Christian should celebrate more when Christ ascend to God than the Christmas since Christmas is not a Christian holyday, let me know if I'm right or wrong. My wife does not believe that God became flesh. Do you have any commentary that explains that? I have shown her a few verses but still she cannot understand. She still has the mentality of the Jehovah witness. I became a Christian 12 years ago and I'm glad because Christianity is the only true religion. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Congratulations on leaving the Jehovah's Witness cult for the freedom
that is in Christ! Not everything the Witnesses teach is false, but much
of it is a muddled attempt to rationalize the teachings of the
Scriptures. You ask specifically about one of the major errors of the
Witnesses: the nature of Christ. Was He "God in the flesh" or what?
When the angel told Joseph that Mary would have a son (Matthew
1:23), he quoted the prophecy from Isaiah 7:14. "Behold, the virgin
shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name
'Immanuel.'" Then, the angel (or Matthew) added these words: "which
means God with us." Jesus' name given by the prophet, Immanuel,
means "God with us." The Witnesses make much about the absence of
the Greek article in John 1:1 just before the last word for "God" -
"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God." - while it is present before the first time "God"
appears in this verse. In this, they are correct in the fact the
text does not have the article - but are incorrect in what they say
this means. Matthew 1:23 clearly says that the one conceived in
Mary's womb is Immanuel - and that this means "God with us." In this
verse, God does have the article, just exactly as it does for the
first word "God" in John 1:1.
Another text you can look at is 1 Timothy 3:16. There, the apostle
wrote:
And confessedly, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and was received up in glory. 1 Timothy 3:16 (English Majority Text Version) The English Majority Text is a careful compilation of the majority of the major translations. There is some difficulty in the Greek text in this verse, but the majority of the manuscripts have the word "God" while others omit it. Those that omit it are translated variously as He, Who, or "Which." The context of the verse establishes that the one Paul wrote of was Jesus.
The Witnesses say that the Word that became
flesh was a created being. To maintain this, however, they add to
the Scriptures in Colossians 1:16, which says:
for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. - Colossians 1:16 Revised Standard Version.
When Jesus called God His
Father, the Jews understood him to say that He was equal with God
(John 5:17-18). This is in conflict with the Witness contention that
the Son of God is by nature inferior to the Father. Paul, in
Philippians 2:5-8 said,
Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. - Philippians 2:5-8 ASV
Your second question about
the observance of Christmas is not as serious. You are right in
believing that the Scriptures do not give Christmas to us as a day
to observe the birth of Jesus. It is also true that Pagans had a
holiday near the end of December. In fact, the way many today
"observe" Christmas is too similar to the way the pagans conducted
themselves in their holiday! That is definitely wrong, as that is no
way for a child of God to behave. Yet, in Romans 14, Paul spoke
specifically of some who observed days while other Christians did
not observe them. He urged us not to look down on another who either
does or does not observe the days.
Paul definitely says we are not to judge one another in such things. Read the entire chapter to get the whole flavor of what he says.Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. - Romans 14:4-6 NIV
I wrote in
reply to a similar question that you can read
here on my blog at
http://committedtotruth.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/question/
There is also a longer series on my blog that you can find here or at http://committedtotruth.wordpress.com/twelve-days-of-christmas/
I trust that these
comments will be of some assistance to you.
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 9/25/2010 |
I heard from pastor Raul that Elisha did 17 miracles in the Old Testament. Where can I find them? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question. The ministry of Elisha is in 2 Kings, chapters 2 - 13. You will find his miracles there. I have not counted them, but your pastor could be about right. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 8/9/2010 |
Genesis 1:3-5 speaks of the separation of light and darkness with God calling them day and night. Then in Genesis v:14-16, God creates the sun and moon (to separate light and darkness; day and night). Verses 11 & 12 mention the creation of vegetation before the creation of the sun. What light is He speaking of in the first passage if the sun and moon have not yet been created? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
This is a question
that has puzzled many people. Some point to this to say how
ludicrous the Bible is. "How can there be light before there is a
sun," they ask.
Yet, the Scripture speaks clearly of
a time when we will no longer need the sun:
The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. - Revelation 21:23-25
The bigger question
for Genesis 1 on the first three days might be, "Where did the night
come from - if God provided the light?"
You might also
consider the use of light as a metaphor for good and darkness for
evil. If you think of it that way, on the very first day of creation
God made a distinction between good and evil. I do not offer this as
the answer, though, because later God saw that all He had created
was good. If "light" is good, and "darkness" is evil in this
chapter, it would be hard to say that "God saw all that he had made,
and it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). Of course, you could argue
that God did not make the darkness; He only made the light - and the
darkness is nothing but the absence of light. I do not recommend
this as an answer because I shy away from allegorical interpretation
unless the text demands it.
The real answer, of
course, is that God is not dependent on the sun to provide light,
even light in wave lengths conducive to plant growth.
I hope these very few
words (for me) will answer your question.
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 8/8/2010 |
Is it right for women to speak in church? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
This is a
question that has about as many different answers as there are
people answering the question. There are three passages of Scripture
usually used in discussing this question, here given in the order of
their appearance in Scripture:
As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. - 1 Corinthians 14:33b-35
As a casual reading of all three
shows, Paul seems to be inconsistent. Our problem is to determine
what Paul means by these passages. Without careful consideration of
the contexts, it is difficult (if not impossible) to know.
Take, for example, Galatians 3:28.
Does he mean there is absolute equality of the sexes when he says
there is neither male nor female in Christ? Some think he does. If
so, what does he mean when he says women are not allowed to speak in
the church nor to teach or to have authority over a man?
If Galatians 3:28 does not mean
absolute equality of the sexes, what does it mean? Certainly, there
are differences of circumstances in the other "equalities" in this
passage: slave/free and Jew/Greek. There are also differences of
circumstances between women and men. The question then becomes, "How
much of the difference is inherent and unchangeable - and how much
of the difference is due to the influence of surrounding culture?"
Most interpreters of Scripture
understand that surrounding culture does affect some
practices and commands we read in the Bible. Few American or Western
Civilization churches practice the holy kiss, yet it appears in
several passages as a command (see, for example, Romans 16:16 and
others). Most people understand Paul's instructions concerning women
wearing veils (1 Corinthians 11:2-16) with reference to the then
current culture in Corinth where unveiled women were looked at as
prostitutes.
Some look at "it is disgraceful
for a woman to speak in the church" (1 Cor 14:35) as a reference
to a surrounding culture in which women remained in their homes
except when in the company of their male family members - much as in
the Middle Eastern culture of today. In such a culture, it would
indeed be shameful for women to speak in the church. Is that a
correct understanding of what Paul says in the context? Many deny
that it is. I freely confess that I am not sure.
I do know that the other
"equalities" of Galatians 3:28 were regulated, to some degree, by
culture. For example in Titus 2:9-10, Paul wrote concerning slaves:
Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. [Emphasis added, JS]
Now, certainly there is much here
that would apply to employees as well as to slaves. But there were
free men in Paul's culture who worked for others as well. Yet, he
did not address them, at least not directly. For slaves to insist on
equality with their masters in Paul's day would have made the church
even more odious than 1st century Pagan & Jewish culture found it
anyway! It is interesting that he makes a similar comment about a
wife's subjection to her husband earlier in the chapter where he
says wives should be submissive to their husbands "that the word
of God not be reviled" (Titus 2:5). Would this same reason carry
over to his instruction that women learn in quietness and submission
in church?
In a similar way, Paul acted
differently when he was with Jewish people than when he was with
Gentiles. Why? Was he being a hypocrite? He explained himself in 1
Corinthians 9:19-22.
Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.
Now IF Paul's instructions about
women being silent and in subjection to men WERE culturally based,
our conduct today in the churches of America should be quite
different from what Paul said, understood literally (which is the
normal way we should understand the Scripture). In our culture, it
is more shameful for the church to forbid women to speak than for
them to be permitted to speak. But, as I said above, I confess that
I do not know to what extent (if any) we are to take these as
culturally based instructions.
One reason I do not know is
that in 1 Timothy 2:11-15, Paul goes back to Creation to argue his
point. In 1 Corinthians 14:34 he also says, "They are not allowed to
speak, but must be in submission, as the
Law says." The only place where the Law
addresses woman's subjection to man directly seems to be Genesis
3:16 where God told Eve her husband would "rule over you."
That is not in the form of a command, but of a statement. Was God
telling Eve that it was His will, that as a result of her sin, Adam
would become her Master? Or was He telling her that because of
opening the Pandora's Box of sin, one of the results would be that
women would be dominated by men throughout history? I have heard it
argued both ways.
So, there are many questions about
the three basic passages involved in answering your question.
Personally, I do not believe
there is an absolute command of silence for women in the church. If
there were, this would mean she could not open her mouth, even to
sing, to ask a question in a class, or to make a comment in a class.
We would also be left wondering about the sons
and daughters who would
prophesy when the Spirit came (see Acts 2:16-18). There are several
references to women acting as prophets in both testaments, so there
is a place for women to speak for God - though it may be that this
is not in the assembly of the church.
At one time,
I thought I knew exactly what God meant by what Paul has written.
Today, I am less sure that I understand all of the implications of
what is said in these texts.
I hope that this does not leave
you with more questions than enlightenment. I have tried to be as
honest as possible in answering your question. All I can say is that
I invite you to wrestle with these texts as I still do.
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 8/6/2010 |
Why did Aaron's rod stop budding? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
That's a good question
- but it is not one that for which God has given us an answer. So,
your guess might be as good as mine. My guess would be that
the need for it to bud had ended.
Aaron's rod budded to
show that God had chosen him and his descendants to be the priests
in Israel. The story is in Numbers16 and 17:1-11. There had just
been a revolt by Korah and others from the tribe of Levi along with
Dathan, Abiram, and On from the tribe of Reuben against Moses and
Aaron in Numbers 16. There were 250 men in all who said to Moses and
Aaron they were taking too much on themselves and that "the whole
community is holy.... Why then do you set yourselves above the
LORD's assembly?"
The next day, God
called Korah to bring a censor with incense before Him - and He
would show whom He had chosen to be priest. The text is not
completely clear, but it seems that Korah's followers took the
censors with incense - but fire from the Lord came out and consumed
them. Dathan and the other men from the tribe of Reuben refused to
take part in the above or to witness it. Moses and the elders of
Israel warned everyone to stand back from the tents of these men and
said:
If these men die a natural death and experience only what usually happens to men, then the LORD has not sent me. But if the LORD brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know that these men have treated the LORD with contempt. - Numbers 16:29-30
When Moses said this,
the earth opened and swallowed these men with their tents, their
families and their possessions.
In spite of this, the
next day the entire assembly of Israel had turned against Moses.
They said to him, "You have killed the LORD's people." They did not
explain how they thought Moses had caused the earth to open up and
swallow them - but that's what they said. I must say, though, that
if I really thought Moses could have done that himself, I would have
been very careful what I said to him, as I believe most sensible
people would.
God brought a plague
on the people then, in which many died (see 16:42-50).
Next, God told Moses
to have a representative from each tribe bring a rod. Each man was
to put his name on his rod. The rods were placed in the Tabernacle
in front of the Ark of the Covenant (i.e., "the testimony where I
meet with you"), and the rod that would sprout or bud would show
whom the LORD had chosen to be His priest.
The next day, when
they took the rods to examine them, Aaron's rod had "budded,
blossomed, and produced almonds" (17:8).
God did this to stop
the constant murmuring by the others against His chosen priest.
The Lord said to Moses, "Put back Aaron's staff in front of the Testimony, to be kept as a sign to the rebellious. This will put an end to their grumbling against me, so that they will not die. - Numbers 17:10
This is what Moses
did.
When did it stop
budding? The story does not say. It was kept, with its buds,
sprouts, blossoms, and almonds as a testimony to Israel. It was a
constant reminder to Israel that God had chosen Aaron and his family
to be His priests.
What happened to it?
We simply do not know. If we did, people would have been tempted to
worship it, as they later worshiped the brazen serpent Moses lifted
up in the wilderness. Eventually, Hezekiah destroyed that serpent,
saying "It is a piece of brass!" (See 2 Kings 18:4, Young's Literal
Translation. Most translations have
Nehushtan,
a Hebrew words that sounds
like "bronze" & "snake" and "unclean thing.")
The need for this rod
completely passed away with the priesthood of Aaron. When Jesus died
for our sins, the veil of the Temple was torn from top to bottom,
opening the way into the Most Holy Place where the Ark of the
Covenant had been kept. Jesus, as the High Priest forever after the
order of Melchizedek entered into Heaven, the ultimate and real Holy
of Holies where He made His sacrifice for our sins before the throne
of God. (See Hebrews 7:11-18; 8:1-6; & 9:11-15).
Did it last from the
time of Moses until after Jesus died? I do not know, but I doubt it
did.
The only 2 times the
staff is mentioned in the Bible after this is in Numbers 20:7-11
where God told them to take this staff from before His Presence and
speak to the rock to bring forth water. Hebrews 9:4 also mentions
that the Ark had contained the "jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had
budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant." There is no
indication in Hebrews, though, that the Ark was still present in the
Temple. No mention of the Ark being in the Temple is made after 2
Chronicles 35:3 when King Josiah instructed the Levites to "Put the
sacred ark in the temple that Solomon son of David king of Israel
built." A few years later, Nebuchadnezzar "carried to Babylon all
the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the
treasures of the king and his officials" (2 Chronicles 36:18). No
specific mention of the ark is made here or at the time of the
return (see Ezra 1:7-10). Some have speculated about what happened
to the ark, but we simply do not know. There are many theories and
claims, most of which have very little supporting real evidence.
I hope this will help
you in your quest for the truth of God. It is easy for our curiosity
to take the place of the real study of the Scriptures in a way that
will lead us into a deeper service to God. Perhaps that is why Moses
said:
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. - Deuteronomy 29:29 Respectfully yours, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 8/2/2010 |
Who comes first, the Evangelist or the Minister? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
This is
a question that rises of our man's tendency to establish
"official" titles and offices where God simply describes works
of service that people do according to their giftedness. Jesus
said to His disciples, as He rebuked the Pharisees:
They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, "Rabbi, Rabbi." But you, do not be called "Rabbi"; for One is your Teacher, the Christ," and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. - Matthew 23:6-12
When Jesus said,
in the passage above, that the greatest among you shall be your
servant, He used a word frequently translated as
ministry, and
sometimes as
deacon. Here
and in many other places, it is
servant. Being
a servant is at the heart of what being a disciple of Jesus is
all about. Jesus Himself came as a servant, and He teaches His
disciples to be servants as well (see Mark 10:42-45). He taught
this lesson when His disciples were tending to follow the
example of the Pharisees and find ways to be "greater" than
other disciples (see verses 35-42).
As
servants, ministers have many different kinds of service to
offer. No servant has all "gifts." No one person has all of the
giftedness needed in the body of Christ - and those who have
"humble" gifts, or those that are deemed "lesser gifts" by men,
are equally important (see 1 Corinthians 12:12-27). Paul's
concept of the church as the body of Christ is an important one,
which if we understood it completely would keep us from seeking
preeminence over one another.
One area of
ministry (service) is that of the evangelist. The word
evangelist is
a transliteration (i.e., an English spelling of a Greek word) of
a word that simply means to proclaim the good news. Thus, he is
a preacher of the gospel. We have come to distinguish between
Ministers and
Evangelists,
making
Ministers those
who preach to a particular congregation and
Evangelists those
who preach to the world outside the church. There is no such
distinction in the Scriptures. Both proclaim the good news - or
at least, they should!
Paul
used both of those words in writing to Timothy:
But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. - 2 Timothy 2:5
Timothy's ministry was to be an evangelist. Yet,
at the time Paul wrote to him, he was preaching the gospel in
the city of Ephesus and working with the church in that city
much as a "located preacher" might do in a particular
congregation today. what made him an evangelist? He served God
and man by preaching the gospel. It was not a "title" Paul gave
him - but a particular work of service in the kingdom that Paul
encouraged him to do. It was a work of service - but there were
other works of service equally important as we serve God and
others.
I trust
that these few remarks will be of some help to you in sorting
out how our continued desire to have positions of honor have
caused us to misapply words that simply describe works to be
done instead of offices to be filled.
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 8/2/2010 |
Luke 23:42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Luke 23:43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. This criminal that was crucified beside Jesus was not baptized but was saved by having faith in JESUS. He had not been baptized. How come you are telling that baptism is essential for salvation? As a Christian, I believe that being baptize is necessary in obedience to God, but not as a prerequisite to be saved.
Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question. This question has generated a lot of debate and confusion for nearly half a millennium. Until the Protestant Reformation, this was not an issue, nor is it one now except in the Reformed Theology of Calvin and Zwingli. Many people think the Churches of Christ are unique in our stance on baptism. Actually, we are in the historic tradition of the Church from the times of the apostles. Though many things about the teachings of various parts of historic Christianity about baptism have been different in different branches of the tradition, the necessity of baptism for salvation was a point of agreement. That changed when Zwingli divorced baptism and faith in the 16th century. Prior to that time, there was little question, for the word of the apostle is quite clear: (25) But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, (26) for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. (27) For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. – Galatians 3:25-27 (ESV) In the 20 or so translations I have on my computer, including all of the major translations, there is no significant variation from the English Standard Version quoted above. In the Greek, the word introducing verse 26 is the same as the word introducing verse 27. Here for has the significance of giving a reason, or so says Strong's Hebrew & Greek Dictionary. Using this definition, a paraphrase of this text would read:
Now, I will not enter into judging cases where people for some reason could not be baptized. God is the judge of all, and the judge of all the earth will do right. When Moses asked for God to show him His glory, He said: I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you My Name “the LORD.” And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. – Exodus 33:19 (ESV) Paul referenced this in Romans 9 as he discussed the sovereignty of God. (15) For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” (16) So then, it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. – Romans 9:15-16 (ESV) For all of us, salvation depends on the sovereign grace and mercy of God. If God chooses to save one who is not baptized, He may do so. However, God is not capricious in his sovereignty. He is faithful to Himself (cf. 2 Timothy 2:13). His sovereign grace will always work within his eternal purpose and will - which is that all men be saved and come a knowledge of the truth (cf. 1 Timothy 2:4). If God's interpretation of that purpose is greater than any man's understanding of it (as I am sure it is), let us not be as the Jews were who rebuked Jesus for eating with sinners. Let us rejoice that God has children born to Him of whom we know nothing! Yet, when I teach or preach, I must speak God's revealed word. There, He commanded that believers be baptized. When baptism and salvation (or a saving relationship) are in the same context, it is always in that sequence. See Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; 22:16; and 1 Peter 3:21. Paul gives the spiritual significance of baptism in Romans 6:1-7 as sharing in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. There is no merit in baptism apart from these, for as Paul also said in Colossians 2:12, in baptism we are buried and raised with Christ through “faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.” You see, there is much more involved in my convictions concerning baptism than “this disputed portion of Mark,” as you put it in your question. You used the thief on the cross as an example of one saved without baptism, as you state twice in your question. How do you know the thief was not baptized? Multitudes were baptized by John the Baptist, and Jesus made and baptized even more disciples than did John. To say the thief was not baptized is an assumption. It would also be an assumption to say that he was baptized. I prefer to base my understanding of Scripture on what it said, instead of assuming what cannot be known. I suggest that the only way any of us will be saved is like the thief on the cross. He died with Jesus, hanging on a cross beside Him. Paul, however, told us how we die with Jesus in Romans 6:1ff. Is baptism alone sufficient to save us? Of course, it is not! Neither is faith not mixed with obedience to the teachings of God. See Hebrews 3:12, 18-19; 4:2, 6 where unbelief and disobedience are synonymous, as are believing and obeying the word of God. This is what Scripture says, and I must speak as the oracles of God, regardless of what any man's opinion may be about these things. Thus, I do not promise salvation except as God promises it – but if God chooses to save some other than baptized believers, who am I to withstand God? That, however, must be God's choice – not mine. My opinion about baptism does not determine what God may or may not do – nor does yours. I hope these few thoughts will challenge you to study the Word of God more closely on these matters. Respectfully yours, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/22/2010 |
Are human deaths predestined by God? Just like a baby who was aborted before it was born, or a passenger plane or bus that got accident and all passengers die, is it predestined by God? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
This is a question that comes
naturally from the same sort of thinking that calls a natural disaster
"an act of God." While it is often true that God uses natural disasters
for His purposes, and that sometimes He may even cause them, we can
never say with certainty that God causes everything that happens. Could
God prevent such disasters by intervening in the affairs of this world?
Yes, He could - but would it be wise for Him to rescue us from the
uncertainties of life? [Christ] must reign until He
has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed
is death. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/22/2010 |
What is kingdom building? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
This is an expression many
people are using today, but not one found in the Bible itself. In one
sense, no one but God builds His kingdom. Yet, we are workers together
with Him. Thus, we also can participate in "kingdom building."
These are suggestive, not
exhaustive. From these, you can see that "kingdom building" is what
happens when you recognize the "reign of God" in your personal life. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/22/2010 |
Was Satan on Earth before God made man and was man the reason he betrayed God? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
The Bible does not tell us when Satan
began to stalk this planet. All we know is that he showed up in the
Garden of Eden at some point after Creation. How long after
Creation, we do not know, nor do we know how long he "tempted"
Mother Eve before she yielded. I do not believe that God would have
pronounced his creation "very good" if Satan were already haunting
it before God made man.
What we do know is that Satan's
rebellion against God apparently began in heaven, not on earth.
Having rebelled and led some of the angels astray, he also tempted
people to join his rebellion against God. By inducing the first pair
to want to become their own gods, he effectively took the earth for
himself. Today, he still claims to be the god of this age.
The Bible is the story of how God is
winning the earth back to His original purpose for it. When Jesus
returns again, the job will be complete in "the new heavens and the
new earth" where righteousness dwells. The picture in Revelation 21
is of a new Garden of Eden where the Tree of Life and the River of
the Water of Life will be there for our healing, and where we will
again have fellowship with God as in the beginning - only better.
When Jesus came the first time, it
was as the rightful ruler returning to claim His rightful place. By
overcoming death, He showed His power over Satan. He left His
disciples on earth as a "resistance force" who, with the help of the
Holy Spirit, continue His fight against the usurper. The Christian's
war is not against flesh and blood, but against Satan's forces of
darkness and evil (see Ephesians 6:12). This battle is not only
defensive (resisting temptation ourselves), but is also offensive
(as we take the battle to Satan to rescue others from his grip).
Those who serve in the "resistance"
today by supporting God's plan for them and the earth, will then
become immortal and incorruptible when the Lord returns the second
time. Others will experience the lake of fire, which is the second
death. Jesus, in His first coming, established a beachhead in the
territory overrun by the enemy. On His return, He will come as the
conqueror over sin, death, and the grave bringing eternal salvation
for all who have accepted and recognized Him as the rightful ruler
of the universe.
I trust these few remarks will help
with the answer to your question.
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/22/2010 |
Tell me about Deuterocanonical books; where? when? how? they are written. Are they written through the course of Holy Spirit? if not how they are one part of the Bible? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question. Again, this is an interesting question - and one that I must confess up front that I have limited expertise to answer. I can make a few observations, however, that may be of some help to you. The deutero-canonical books (or second-canon) are books sometimes included as part of the Old Testament but rejected by many scholars and churches. These books, mostly written in Greek, were never part of the Hebrew Old Testament, but are in late manuscripts of the Septuagint (LXX). This was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament) begun about 250 BC when many Jews living in Egypt no longer spoke Hebrew, but instead conversed and did business in Greek. This was the translation used by the early church. When the New Testament quotes the Old Testament, it is usually from the LXX. I do not know just how early the deutero-canonical books were included in copies of the LXX. By A.D. 350, when the earliest existing Manuscripts of the entire Bible were made, the LXX Old Testament included the deutero-canonical books. My impression is that the early copies, first century A.D. and earlier, did not have those books. Some have suggested that Greek-speaking Christians who had little familiarity with the Old Testament included these books because they dealt with Biblical (Old Testament) themes. These books, also known as The Apocryphal Books, were written between 200 B.C. and the birth of Jesus. The usual listing of these books include: 1 & 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, some additions to Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach), Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, some additions to Daniel (Prayer of Azariah), Prayer of Manassesh, and 1 & 2 Maccabees. I have read these, but my knowledge of their content is limited. Some of these books are pseudepigrapha. That is, they purport to have as authors someone who was long dead when they were written. Some of them are histories of portions of the story of the Jews, particularly Esdras and Maccabees. Esdras covers material from 2 Chronicles and Ezra, with some amplification. Some are wisdom literature; some are heroic stories. Some of the books are almost like fairy tales with angels and evil spirits taking the roles of the fairies and wicked witches. As to why these books should not be in the Bible, consider this. In Romans 3:1-2, Paul asked and answered a question -- What advantage does the Jew have? His answer was that God entrusted the Jews with the "Oracles of God." Yet, the Jews never had the deutero-canonical books that are supposed to be part of the Old Testament Scriptures. Hence, we can conclude that these books, as valuable as they may be for some purposes, are not part of the canon of Scripture. Those churches that do "accept" them mostly do so as "a second-class canon," hence the name, deutero-canonical. They are recognized as having some value, but are not generally accepted as part of the Scriptures. I hope these few thoughts will be of some assistance to you. Respectfully yours, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/22/2010 |
Follow Up Question From The Below Question. God bless you! for your fast response. But the Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims about the Ark of the Covenant. What do you say about this? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
The ark of the covenant was an
elaborate box located in the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle that
Moses had built while Israel was at Mount Sinai. A full description of
this ark is in Exodus 25:10-22. Inside the ark were three items: the ten
commandments written by the finger of God and given to Moses on Mt.
Sinai, a pot of the manna with which God fed Israel while they were in
the wilderness, and Aaron's rod that budded to show that God had chosen
him as the high priest. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/17/2010 |
Which one is the first religion Catholic or Orthodox? If one come first how? when? where? the second emerge? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
This is a
very interesting question - for each of these Churches claim to be
original. And, in fact, each of them trace their origin back to the
church in the New Testament. What has happened over the many
generations and centuries, is that little changes and differences
have multiplied until there were great differences - at least they
are great in the eyes of those who hold the different ideas and
practices.
To find
truth, we must go back to the purity of the gospel as we see it in
the New Testament. It is like a stream that begins high in the
mountains. As it flows down the mountain, it picks up dirt and other
impurities. The closer we can get to the source of the stream, the
purer the water will be. The purest gospel water is that which we
find in the teachings of Jesus and His apostles.
Both the
Catholic and the Orthodox churches claim that their bishops are
direct successors of the apostles. Yet, in teaching and practice
they have developed their own differing traditions. Now traditions
of men may be harmless - but they can also become like the
traditions of the Jews in the time when Jesus was on earth.
Sometimes traditions of men set aside the commandments of God. See
how Jesus dealt with this in Matthew 15:1-9.
Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"
Is there
anything wrong with washing your hands before you eat? Not at all!
In fact, it is a good practice for good health. The Pharisees,
though, had an elaborate ritual of washing to purify themselves
before God, lest they sit down to eat while they were "unclean" from
casual contact with Gentiles. The procedures for this purification
were spelled out for them, first in their oral tradition handed down
through the generations and later (after the time of Jesus) written
down in the Talmud. The Law as found in the Old Testament Scriptures
said nothing about washing your hands before you eat.
Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'"
Jesus
ignored the issue of washing hands before eating. Instead, He talked
about the fact they had judged His disciples by the tradition of the
elders instead of by the commandments of God. They, by tradition,
sometimes canceled God's Word. This is what was dangerous. In fact,
Jesus said that this made their worship vain, or empty. Why? Because
while they worshiped God, they ignored what God had actually said
for their tradition handed down by the elders.
When a
Church makes its tradition equal to or greater than what God has
actually said, they corrupt the purity of the gospel for their
tradition. Most of the differences, not only between the Catholic
and the Orthodox churches but among all of the Protestant churches
as well, are based on traditions about the teaching and practices
they hold. They seldom differ on what the Bible actually says,
though sometimes there are different understandings about what the
Bible means by what it says. The differences are mostly over what
the Bible does not say.
There may be
something that comes up that the Bible does not talk about. Then men
decide that they need to make a decision about what to do. And this
is true. Next, however, they also decide that everyone must do what
they decide. When that happens, men over-reach and begin to become
lawgivers instead of simply obeying God.
Over
hundreds of years in different parts of the world, different
traditions developed in understanding and practice. Eventually,
these differences became so great that the Catholic and Orthodox
churches separated about 1,000 years ago. The Catholic tradition
involved having a Pope over that entire church; so it maintained
(supposedly) a common faith and practice. The Orthodox have bishops
or Patriarchs over each country or region. Thus, they may have more
differences from country to country than do the Catholics.
The Bible
says nothing about popes or patriarchs. Instead, each local
congregation of Christians was led by its own elders that were also
known as bishops or pastors.
The word
"overseer" in this translation is often translated
bishop.
The word for "be
shepherds" is
a verb form of the word for
pastor.
You can see a similar combination of words in Titus 1:6-8 where
Paul instructed Titus to appoint elders in every city, but as he
described the men to appoint he explained that an elder must be
this way because the overseer (or bishop) is entrusted with
God's work.
What is
the solution for us to live by? Take the Word of God and follow
it. Where there are differences, don't insist on our own way
when it is a "disputable matter." In Romans 14:1 - 15:7 Paul
instructs us how to live peaceably with each other in the
righteousness, peace, and joy of the Kingdom of God through the
Holy Spirit. When we will follow this teaching, the disputes
between different churches or individuals within a single
congregation who all claim to be servants of Jesus will
disappear.
I trust
these few paragraphs will be of some help to you.
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/16/2010 |
Was Luke Jew or Gentile? Please support your answer with the Word of God. Thanks! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
Luke was a
Gentile. Colossians 4:10-15 lists several of Paul's co-workers at
the time he wrote the book of Colossians.
(10) My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him.) (11) Jesus, who is called Justus, also sends greetings. These are the only Jews among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have proved a comfort to me. (12) Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. (13) I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea, and Hierapolis. (14) Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings. Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.
Luke is
named only three times in the New Testament, all by Paul. In
addition to here, he is named in 2 Timothy 4:11 ("Only Luke is with
me.") and in Philemon 1:23-24 ("Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in
Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. And so do Mark, Aristarchus,
Demas and Luke, my fellow workers."). Except for omitting "Jesus,
who is called Justus" these are the same as those he names in
Colossians 4:10-14 above. This is another indicator that Colossians
and Philemon were written at the same time. Colossians was a letter
to the church at Colosee and Philemon was a private letter to one of
the members of that congregation about a run-away slave whom Paul
was sending back as a Christian brother.
I should also note
that "Jesus, who is called Justus" was not our Lord.
Jesus was
a fairly common name among Jews. Perhaps that is why Paul added that
he is called Justus - or that may be to prevent any misunderstanding
that he was speaking of our Lord.
I hope that
these few lines will be of some assistance to you.
Respectfully
yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/15/2010 |
Did Jesus mention another book that was not included in the Bible? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
I am not
aware of any books Jesus mentioned, other than those that are in the
Bible.
Some other
books are mentioned, but not any that I know of Jesus mentioning.
For example,
Paul quoted from some Pagan poets in his sermon at the Areopagus
(Mars Hill) in Athens (see Acts 17:28), though he did not name the
particular book. Jude also quoted from the Book of Enoch, a book
written between the testaments (see Jude 14). There were several
books mentioned in the Old Testament that are not in the Bible.
The fact a
book is mentioned or even quoted in the Bible does not mean that
book deserves a place in the Bible. Not every old book deserves to
be in the Bible. Even as early as Solomon, he wrote that "of the
making of many books, there is no end" (see Ecclesiastes 12:12).
There is some indication that the writers of the Old Testament,
especially, drew on other written documents in writing the history
of the Jewish peoples. They did this, of course, while guided by the
Holy Spirit (cf. 2 Peter 1:20-21).
I trust that
these few words will be of some assistance to you.
Respectfully
yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/13/2010 |
Where is the Ark of the Covenant? 2. Has God ordered us to make a similar Ark? 3. Is it according to the New Testament that some churches, like the Orthodox, use this or a similar Ark? Are they Biblically (especially New Testament) supported? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question. The ark of the covenant was an elaborate box located in the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle that Moses had built while Israel was at Mount Sinai. A full description of this ark is in Exodus 25:10-22. Inside the ark were three items: the ten commandments written by the finger of God and given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, a pot of the manna with which God fed Israel while they were in the wilderness, and Aaron's rod that budded to show that God had chosen him as the high priest. The lid of the ark was called "the mercy seat" or, as in the NIV, "an atonement cover." This is where the high priest would sprinkle the blood of the atonement sacrifice when he entered the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement (see Leviticus 16:14ff). It was here that the priest made atonement for himself and the people each year. When Solomon built a Temple to replace the Tabernacle, the ark of the covenant was transferred there. After the armies of Nebuchadnazer destroyed the Temple, they took the ark of the covenant to Babylon along with "all the articles from the Temple of God, both large and small" (2 Chronicles 36:18). What happened to the ark after that is not clear. Was it among the articles Cyrus sent back to Jerusalem when he allowed the Jews to return? If so, it is not included in the list of Temple items in Ezra 1:7-11. The imagination of men has run wild about the ark and where it is. That, however, is of little consequence to us, for our mercy seat is in heaven itself. Hebrews 9:11-14 describes how Jesus, as our High Priest, has entered into heaven to make atonement for our sins. Unlike Aaron, the first high priest in Israel, Jesus had no sins of His own. Interestingly, the three items placed in the ark of the covenant in the wilderness have significance for us in Jesus. The tables of stone were also known as "The Covenant." Our covenant is written, not on tablets of stone, but on our hearts (Hebrews 8:8-13; 2 Corinthians 3:7-18). Jesus spoke of Himself as "the bread [i.e., the manna] that has come down from heaven" (John 6:31-33). Aaron's rod that budded were his (and his descendants') credentials as the priests of God. Jesus' credentials as our priest are described in Hebrews 5:1-10 as He was designated by God to be our high priest forever, based not on his ancestry (as were the high priests after Aaron), but on "the power of an indestructible life" (Hebrews 7:16). So the physical ark of the covenant has no significance for us, except as a foreshadowing of the real atonement made in heaven by Jesus. God has not told us to make replicas of this ark to use in our worship. We do partake of the "blood of the covenant" as a part of the Lord's Supper as we remember the Christ who is our atoning sacrifice and eternal high priest. As far as the practice of the Orthodox Church (I presume you mean the Eastern branch of Catholicism, a branch that does not accept the Pope of Roman Catholicism), I have no direct knowledge. They, along with the Roman Catholic Church, adapt many of the rituals of the Mosaic Covenant to Christian usage. There is little in the New Testament about "rituals" for Christian worship. (I have written elsewhere about this here. Perhaps that is one reasons denominations are so diverse in their worship practice. Respectfully yours, Jerry Starling |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/12/2010 |
Can you help me know how to pray? Are there Biblical procedures for us to use when we pray to God? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question. I know of few churches that actively try to teach people how to pray. Nearly all teach that we ought to pray, but few actually try to help people learn how to pray. Yet, we read this in the gospel: One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When He finished, one of His disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. - Luke 11:1. John the Baptist had taught his disciples to pray; Jesus' disciples asked for similar instruction. I commend you for seeking help in learning to pray.
We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place [i.e., heaven where God is] by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. - Hebrews 10:19-22 Praying in Jesus' name is to pray with assurance God will hear us because of our relationship to Jesus. James 1:5-6 tells us that we should also ask in faith that God will hear and answer our prayers. We can have this confidence because Jesus has promised. When Jesus' disciples asked for Him to teach them how to pray, He gave them what is sometimes called "The Lord's Prayer." You can read this in Luke 11:1-4 and in Matthew 6:9-13. This is a "model prayer" that can give us guidance even if we do not repeat the actual words of this prayer. Most people learn to pray by listening to others pray. This is a good method to learn (and the only way many churches teach how to pray). I would like to recommend that you read the prayers in the Bible and learn from them. In addition to the Lord's Prayer (above), many other passages contain prayers that can guide us in our prayers. I have written on three prayers in the book of Ephesians in a series I did several months ago. These were on Ephesians 1:15-23, Ephesians 3:14-21, and Ephesians 6:19-20. These prayers show the great spiritual depth of the Apostle Paul who either prayer or requested these prayers. The Book of Psalms in the Old Testament is full of prayers (some that shock us when we think about what some of those writers asked God to do). These prayers were set to music and sung by the people of Israel at various times through their year. We can also profit from these prayers. Some said that if we want to know how to pray, we must know the Psalms. Some people like to "pray the Psalms." Here is a sample of how that might be. Open your Bible to Psalm 1, read the Psalm carefully and prayerfully - and apply it to yourself something like this:
This is the first three verses of the Psalm adapted to oneself in prayer. Try these things and see if your prayer life does not improve. If you are like most people, you will quickly find favorite passages that you like to "pray". One of mine is Psalm 23, as it is for many people. This method of praying will help you to grow in your spiritual comprehension and bring you closer to God.
You can do the same
thing with many of the great hymns of the church. There are also
some good books that contain prayers. Some denominations have even
developed prayer books that have prayers for each time of the year.
Some of these have some excellent thoughts, though I do not like to
use these as "canned prayers." Nevertheless, many of these have some
things that can be helpful as you seek to learn to pray for
effectively.
When that happens to us, we need to remember the words of Paul to the Romans:
I think this was probably the case with the tax collector of whom Jesus spoke who went up to the Temple to pray at the same time a Pharisee was there. Here is what He had to say:
This may be the only man who ever prayed and thanked God that he was not justified before God when he thanked God he was not like the tax collector praying nearby him. How tragic it would be if our prayers ended as did his! Respectfully yours, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/6/2010 |
Was the first baby born in the Bible (Cain) considered an accident? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
No, he was not. The Bible says, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/2/2010 |
Why did God wait 25 years before giving Abraham a son? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
The only honest answer I can give
you is that I just do not know why God waited to bless Abraham and Sarah
with the birth of Isaac. I do not know because God has not revealed it -
at least not to my knowledge. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 7/2/2010 |
When the resurrection will happen - Will those resurrected come to life in the clothes they were buried in ? Or will they be naked like the birth of a baby ? If someone had an illness before death - will the illness continue or will the people become healthy ? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
You are not the first to ask
questions such as this, and ultimately we have to admit that we do not
know everything about what the resurrection body will be like. The
people in Corinth asked this question, apparently to embarrass those who
believed in the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:35ff).
Respectfully yours, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 6/29/2010 |
What does it mean to stay with your own tribe? Also where in the Bible does it say this? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
The only thing in the Bible that is
even remotely related to your question occurred during the time Moses
was leading the Israelites in the wilderness. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 6/9/2010 |
Why is Hebrews 1:5 written in question marks? Was the writer did not know about it or was the Holy Spirit revealing to him to write that way? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question. Ultimately, everything in the Scripture is written with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So, yes, the author wrote those questions under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Here is the verse in
question, Hebrews 1:5, in various translations:
These questions are not asking for information. They are asked to make a point. These are called rhetorical questions. They are questions that have an implied answer. In this case, the context demands the answer, "None." The verse just before this says:For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son? - King James Version The next verse follows by continuing to show the superiority of the Christ over the angelsSo he [i.e., the Christ, the Son of God - see verses 1-3] became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
When Hebrews 1:5 asks,
"To which of the angels did God ever say, 'You are my Son; today I
have become your Father?,'" in this context the only answer possible
is that God never said that to a mere angel.
The paraphrase Good News Bible puts it this
way:
This is not proper translation. It is a paraphrase, but it does give the actual meaning of what the writer is saying. Sometimes though, to make the meaning very clear to people who, for one reason or another, have a limited vocabulary or understanding of English this type of presentation of the text is helpful. This could be useful for people who have English as a second language or who because of deafness have a limited vocabulary. Deaf people tend to take statements very literally and do not necessarily understand things like rhetorical questions such as these.For God never said to any of his angels, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father." Nor did God say about any angel, "I will be his Father, and he will be my Son." - Hebrews 1:5
Looking at the context
of the verse, though, should make it clear to everyone that the
author is using these questions to make a point, not to ask for
information. This is true, even though the author wrote under the
guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 5/24/2010 |
Do you have to speak in tongues to go to heaven? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
The short, quick answer is, "No, you
do not 'have to speak in tongues to go to heaven.'"
Corinth was a church where confusion
reigned. Part, but not all, of that confusion was because many of
the members of that congregation elevated speaking in tongues to
something it was never meant to be. They seemed to be boasting of
the ability to speak in tongues and disrupting the assembly of the
church to "show off" their gift. By doing so, they exalted
themselves instead of Christ.
In Paul's first epistle to them, he
dealt with speaking in tongues in two chapters (12 & 14), wrapped
around a plea to them to "desire earnestly the more excellent gift."
While he did not forbid them to speak in tongues, he did strongly
discourage them. In chapter 13, he even said that tongues would
cease.
Whereas today, many say that speaking
in tongues is the sign of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, there
is nothing in the Bible to suggest that. Instead, in 1 Corinthians
14, Paul said that tongues are a sign for unbelievers. When the
assembled crowd on Pentecost, who did not believe in Jesus, heard
those who had received the Spirit glorifying God in their own
languages, they marveled and wondered what was happening. This
opened the door for Peter to preach the good news to these
unbelievers, and three thousand of them received his message and
were baptized that day.
Similarly, when God through the
Spirit sent Peter to the home of Cornelius (Acts 10 & 11), when that
Gentile assembly began speaking in tongues, the Jews accompanying
him (who did not believe the gospel was for Gentiles as well as
Jews) were astonished. Peter, who had already received a vision from
God on this matter, asked them, "Who can forbid water that these
should not be baptized?" When he returned to Jerusalem, the church
called on Peter to explain himself. He had gone to Gentiles; he had
eaten with them; he had baptized them. What was he thinking? These
disciples of Jesus obviously did not believe Gentiles had any part
in the good news of Jesus. When Peter explained that God had given
the Gentiles the gift of tongues, the assembled church rejoiced that
God had granted repentance unto life even to the Gentiles.
In each of those instances,
unbelievers were convinced by the sign. No where, though, does
Scripture call speaking in tongues the sign of the baptism of the
Holy Spirit. Yes, it was one of the spiritual gifts - but it was not
"the more excellent gift."
In fact, in in 1 Corinthians 12:13,
Paul wrote that we all are baptized by (literally "in") one Spirit."
Later, toward the end of the chapter, he asked a series of
rhetorical questions, all of which should be answered, "No." One of
these was, "Do all speak in tongues?" It was just after this series
of questions that he said he wanted to show them a more excellent
way - the way of love.
When people boasted over others
because of tongues, they were not walking in love. They were not
following the greatest commands of our Lord: to love God with all
our being and to love ones neighbor as you love yourself.
Too much focus on things such as
speaking in tongues tends to turn us away from truly following
Jesus. Hence, Paul played tongues down as an important spiritual
gift. In fact, in chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians he elevated the
message spoken above the experience of speaking in tongues, for he
commanded them not to speak in tongues if there were no interpreter
present. He said he would rather speak 5 intelligible words than
10,000 words in a tongue no one could understand. Why the
difference? Five words you understand can edify you; "God loves you;
love Him" can edify you. Ten thousand words you do not understand do
not build you up - except perhaps in your own eyes.
In my own experience I have seen the
truth in what Paul taught. I have seen people who speak in tongues
look at others as "inferior" Christians because they do not share
that experience. Today, some are even teaching that unless you speak
in tongues, you do not have the Holy Spirit and you are not going to
heaven. This is exactly the kind of thing Paul was fighting against
in the Corinthian congregation of God's church.
The true evidence of the presence of
the Spirit is in the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians
5:22-24. When we walk in the Spirit, we demonstrate that we are
children of God as we glorify Him in our lives.
I hope these few words will be of
some encouragement to you in your walk with Jesus.
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 5/16/2010 |
I have friends in a Pentecostal church who can can read minds etc. Is this Biblical? I thought that kind of thing was forbidden. Also can a Christian use Bach's flower remedies? I have been told that they are demonic. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your questions. First, is mind-reading Biblical?
I know of nothing in the Scripture
that would suggest mind-reading is one of the gifts of the Holy
Spirit - unless it would be the gift of "distinguishing between
spirits" (1 Corinthians 12:10). I have understood this, not to be
mind-reading, but to be discerning whether a "spirit" is from God or
from the Devil. We are urged to "test the every spirit to see if it
is of God" (1 John 4:19). We test spirits by the tests Moses gave
for false prophets and that Jesus gave for fruit-inspection:
1. Does the prophet speak
in the name of the Lord?
You can see these things
discussed in the Scripture in Deuteronomy 13:1-5 & 18:21-22 as
well as in Matthew 7:15-21. The fruit of the Spirit, that should
be in a man following the Holy Spirit of God, is described in
Galatians 5:22-24. A contrast between the fruit of God's Spirit
and the fruit of other spirits appears in James 3:13-18.
Contrary to teaching mind-reading,
the Bible says:
We cannot know the mind of God unless
God reveals it to us. We cannot know what a man is thinking unless
he reveals it to us by telling us what is on his mind.
Showmen who claim to
be able to read minds use tricks and codes of various kinds to
narrow things down to where they can say things that make it appear
they are reading minds - but they are not. They work with an
accomplice who feeds them the information in coded format.
Second, are Bach's
flower remedies demonic?
I had never heard of
Bach's flower remedies until I received your question. With a little
research, I learned some of the claims made for these "remedies"
that are made by boiling flower petals in water, allowing sunlight
to pass through the water and then diluting this "essence" many
times and possibly mixing it with brandy.
Wikipedia reports, "Vendors
claim that the remedies contain "energetic" nature of the flower and
that this can be transmitted to the user." In this, the claims
appear to be similar to those made for the concoctions used by
witches to cast spells, though for a beneficial purpose. As such, it
would tend to have a similar theoretical foundation as some
demon-inspired things: that is that certain physical elements have
power over a person's spirit.
Is this
Biblical? Paul wrote of eating meat offered to idols as being
offered to demons. Worshipers of the idols, or demons, would eat the
meat in worship to those idols. Paul did not want the Corinthians to
be participants in such worship (see 1 Corinthians 10:18-20).
Yet, as he
continued in this context, he said, "Eat anything sold in the meat
market without raising questions of conscience, for 'the earth is
the Lord's, and everything in it'" (1 Corinthians 10:25-26). In
other words, when you go to the market, you do not need to ask if
what you are buying had been sacrificed to an idol.
On the other
hand, if you are dining with some one who tells you that the food he
is serving has been offered in an idol-temple, then you should
abstain - not because you think an idol is anything, but because of
the conscience of the man who offers it to you thinking that in
eating it, you are worshiping the idol. See 1 Corinthians 10:27-30.
There is really
nothing it the Bach's flower remedies that make them sinful. If
someone thinks, though, that these crushed flowers give them some
spiritual power
that does not come from their fellowship with God,
then to whom do they attribute this power? If it is not from God,
then it is from the devil - and we need to avoid that.
The problem
here is not in the flowers - but in the user's attitude toward the
flowers that would make their use into a form of sorcery. See
Deuteronomy 18:9-13 for God's warning to Israel against such things.
My wife
often buys flavored waters - peach, cherry, lime, etc. These partake
of the flavor of the fruit, which she enjoys. As such, these
flavored waters are harmless. If, however, she began to think that
these waters possessed some "spiritual power" that would make her a
stronger or better person than she could be without them, that would
be a different story.
I believe
the same thing could be said of the use of Bach's flower remedies.
Ask, "What are they remedying? How are they remedying it?" The
answer you give should tell you if you are looking to these to do
what God should be doing for you. If you are using them as a
substitute for God, then to you they are demonic.
I hope that
these few thoughts will be of some help to you as you pursue your
walk with God.
Respectfully
yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 5/13/2010 |
Good day. My wife brought something to my attention recently that I failed to notice in my readings. She noticed that in Genesis 1:27 it says that God created man in His own image and even gave them instructions to be fruitful and multiply and to take dominion over the livings things . Then later on in Genesis 2:7,8 it teaches us that God specifically created a man named Adam. Are these Scripture two different accounts of two different creations? If not, it appears that they are out of order with God creating "people" first then Adam specifically. Please explain. May God bless you and your house. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
What we have
in Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 is an account of the overall creation of the
heavens and the earth. In Genesis 2:4ff is a second account of more
details of the creation of the first man and woman.
The Hebrew word for
human being is 'âdâm,
which you can see is the same as
Adam.
In Genesis 5:1-2 at the beginning of the genealogies, we read:
Adam is
both the generic name for the human race (much as we used to say
"mankind" until we had to be gender-specific!) and the individual
name of the first man. After all, if there is only one person, he
does not need a name other than the one that specifies him as
opposed to the other creatures God had formed.
When the Adam's mate
was created, he called her Woman, because she was taken out of Man
(Genesis 2:23). As far as I can tell in the tools available to me,
there is no relationship between this word (in the Hebrew) and Adam,
the word for Man. It is a word used to refer to the female of any
species. Later the Man named the Woman
Eve because,
he said, "she would become the mother of all the living." (Genesis
3:20).
Eve is
from a Hebrew word meaning
life-giver.
So, in Genesis 1:27,
the first mention of the creation of the man and the woman, God
speaks of both as
man because
both are human beings. He spoke of the male and the female to say
that both genders were created. However, in Genesis 2:23 (except for
the first use of man in this verse) when he spoke of Man and
Woman, the Hebrew words used are different. They refer to "a human
male" or "a human female."
Adam,
as used in Genesis 1:27; 2:20, 21, 22, and the first instance in
2:23 as well as in Genesis 5:1-2, refers to a human being or to the
entire human race. It is also used as the proper name for the first
human male.
Does all of
this confuse you? Don't worry. Adam and Eve were the first human
pair whom God created. There are two different accounts of their
creation, one in the general account of creation (Genesis 1) and the
other when the Scripture pays particular attention to the creation
of Man as a creature needing a "helper suitable for him," a creature
he called "Woman."
Notice that
before God gave Adam his wife, He brought all of the animals before
him for him to name. In this process, Adam was looking for his mate
- but there was none suitable for him. When Adam realized his own
uniqueness and his loneliness, God gave him a mate, formed from his
own rib.
I hope these rambling
thoughts may be of some help to you. As you may have guessed, I do
not know Hebrew. My information on the meaning of the Hebrew words
comes from
Strong's Concordance,
which identifies Hebrew words and gives them a phonetic spelling in
English plus basic definitions.
Respectfully
yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 5/6/2010 |
Where in the Bible does it say God is married to the backslider? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
In several passages in
the Old Testament, the nations of Israel and Judah
(originally the single kingdom of Israel, ruled by Saul,
David, and Solomon - but divided after the end of
Solomon's rule) are spoken of as being married to the
LORD.
For example, in Isaiah
54:5, the prophet wrote:
These nations became backsliders - so God was married to a backsliding people. In their backsliding, they became guilty of "adultery" with the gods of the nations around them by worshipping idols.
Because of this adultery,
God gave a certificate of divorce to Israel when they
were carried away into Assyrian Captivity (see Isaiah
50:1). So, in a sense, God's "wife" not only committed
adultery, but He divorced her.
Ezekiel chapter 23 tells
the story of the two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah, who
went into adulterous affairs. These sisters were Israel
and Judah. This chapter is quite graphic in describing
the adultery of these sisters who were married to the
LORD.
The first three chapters
of Hosea tell the story of the prophet and his wife,
Gomer. This story is an allegory of God and Israel.
Gomer took strange lovers and eventually even left
Hosea. In chapter 3, God told Hosea to again show his
love to her. She had left him, but he found her for sale
as a slave and bought her for 15 shekels of silver and
some barley grain. He told her, "You are to live with me
many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate
with any man, and I will live with you" (v. 3).
This is an illustration
of how God's love continued to reach out for His people,
even though they had sinned against Him.
In the New Testament,
this idea continues as Jesus is married (actually,
betrothed in the present time) to His church (see 2
Corinthians 11:2-3). This marriage is consummated in
Revelation 19:6-9 with the Wedding Supper of the Lamb of
God. Also in Revelation 21:1-2, the new Jerusalem comes
down out of heaven "prepared as a bride beautifully
dressed for her husband."
By this time, though, all
of the backsliding is over. God's people are purified
and made holy in the blood of the Lamb - and "Now the
dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them.
They will be His people, and God Himself will be their
God" (Revelation 21:3).
I hope these few words
will help answer your question.
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 5/2/2010 |
How does God want us to behave in any given situation? What Bible verses support it? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
When I was in undergraduate school
more than 50 years ago, the preacher at the church I attended made an
observation I have never forgotten. He said something to this effect:
"Most of us have little difficulty knowing what God wants us to do. We
have difficulty doing what we know He wants us to do." |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 4/25/2010 |
Are we as Christians, still forbidden to eat pork? I just watched a preacher say on T.V., that we should not eat meat forbidden by God. I thought that was done away with and all meat was fit for consumption. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
It is interesting to
me that many people still measure their spirituality by how much and
what they "forbid." Consider the following warnings against this
mind-set, especially with regard to eating meat.
Perhaps one of the clearest and most telling passages dealing with your question is from the lips of Jesus himself - or in Mark's comment upon it, depending on which Manuscript evidence you follow. Yet, this is an issue that has troubled the church from the earliest times. People simply have a difficult time accepting that God places no restrictions on them when it comes to food. (In your question you said, "I thought that... all meat was fit for consumption. There are no restrictions by God on what meat we eat, but our own cultural biases might make some meats "unfit for consumption" to us. For example, I have read of some Japanese or Chinese restaurants being shut down by the authorities because they served dog or cat. God has nothing against these, but the dietary habits of the American people certainly do!) Paul's position on eating meat is that it's o.k. to eat it and also o.k. to abstain - but do not make an issue of it either way. Do not "judge" one another either for eating or not eating any particular food. However, and this is a BIG "however," if eating meat causes a weak brother to offend his own conscience, or if it makes an unbeliever less likely to listen to you present the good news to him, then you should let HIS conscience be your guide. Otherwise, you are not acting in love. This does not mean that in the church we have to be bound by the conscience of the most scrupulous member. That brother is not going to be tempted to eat because you eat. Paul speaks of the weak brother who, because of your example, may be tempted to eat what his conscience says is not permitted. If you insist on eating, you wound him. This means there is room in the family of God for people at different levels of understanding and growth - as long as none of them attempt to impose their personal convictions on everyone else. When we attempt to impose something as a condition of having God's favor which He has not commanded for us, then we fall from grace and are apostate. The particular issue here is circumcision, not eating meat. The principle, however, is the same. When we revive the law, we are bound to keep the whole Law - and no man but Jesus has ever done that! This means we are separated from Jesus and fallen from grace.
It is ironic that
trusting in obedience to a command God has not given separates
us from Christ and from the salvation He offers to us by
trusting Him.
I hope these thoughts are of some help to you in pursuing your walk with God. Respectfully yours, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 4/22/2010 |
In First Corinthians 13:13 it talks about FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE. Can you tell me if faith represent JESUS, hope the HOLY SPIRIT, and love GOD? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question. I do not see anything in the text or its context to suggest that Faith, Hope, and Love represent anything other than Faith, Hope, and Love. I am glad you asked this question, however, because it gives me an incentive to write about how some people "read" the Bible looking for such "representations." This is known as the "allegorical" method of interpretation. Now, it is true that there are some allegories in the Bible. One example of this is in Galatians 4:21-31. There, the apostle made an allegorical interpretation of the story of Isaac and Ishmael found in Genesis 21:1-10. In Galatians, he briefly related the story, said that it was an allegory (or symbolic), and explained the allegory. In 1 Corinthians 13:13 there is nothing like this in the verse or its context. To say that each of these represents a different member of the Godhead is to read something into the text instead of reading the text to see what it has to say to us. This might not be bad, except for one thing. When we begin to assign "meanings" to the text that the Scripture does not state or strongly imply, we are apt to make the Bible mean what we want it to mean instead of what it actually says. There are times when the text demands an allegorical meaning. For example, one time someone told Jesus that Herod was looking for Him.
Now the Bible does talk about the faith of Jesus and about His faithfulness. It also teaches us that our hope is in Him and that He is the supreme example of love. I know of nothing that speaks directly of the faith of the Holy Spirit, though in a very real sense He is the source of our faith. Romans 5:5 says the Holy Spirit pours the love of God into our hearts and that this is the reason hope does not disappoint us. In other words, the Holy Spirit is involved in both our love for others and in the hope we have, as well as in giving us our faith through the Word of God. Scripture also speaks of the faithfulness (or faith) God shows to us, of the love He has for us, and of the hope that we have in Him who raised Jesus from the dead. In other words, each member of the Godhead is involved in Faith, Hope, and Love. There is no reason to assign just one of these three things that remain when so much else is ceasing to each member of the Godhead. I hope these few words will be of help to you, not only with 1 Corinthians 13:13, but with all of your reading of the Bible. Normally, we need to understand the words of the text in their usual sense. Only if the text itself demands that we look for a different meaning do we need to look beyond the text - and even then we should (1) be very cautious and (2) keep our understanding in line with other clear passages in the Bible. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 4/15/2010 |
Where in the Bible does Jesus state that He has come for all people not just the Jews? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
Limiting this answer
to words from Jesus Himself, one passage that clearly states the
gospel is for all people, not just the Jews is in the Great
Commission itself. Consider the following four accounts of the Great
Commission:
In Matthew the word for nations is ethnos. This is the Greek root of our word ethnic. Literally, Jesus said to make disciples of all enthnic groups. This includes every human being.Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." - Matthew 28:18-19 All of these statements come from the lips of Jesus Himself. In all of them, He was telling His disciples that they were to carry the good news, the gospel, to all the nations, of all the world, to all creatures, but beginning at Jerusalem. From Jerusalem, He told them to go to Judea (the province around Jerusalem) and Samaria (the next province north of Jerusalem) and to the ends of the earth.
You might also
want to consider Luke 4:14-30. This is the account of how Jesus
returned to Nazareth "in
the power of the Holy Spirit" just
after His baptism and Temptation in the Wilderness of Judea. He
entered the synagogue in Nazareth and stood up to read the
Scripture for the day. He read:
To release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. - Isaiah 61:1-2
After reading, He
sat down and said "Today
this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." The
amazing thing is that the next verse says, "All
spoke well of Him and were amazed at the gracious words that
came from His lips." This
was in spite of the things He claimed for Himself in the
fulfillment of that prophecy! This was virtually a public
declaration that He was the long-promised Messiah.Yet, as He
continued, He said:
No prophet is accepted in His hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed - only Naaman the Syrian.
He did
not use the word "Gentile" in this passage in Luke. Yet, that
was the import of what He had to say. The people certainly
understood what He meant - and they did not like it a bit.
The
Jewish prejudice against the Gentile was so strong that even
after Jesus spoke so clearly about preaching to all the nations
in the Great Commission, the apostles did not take the
initiative to tell the good news to any except to Jews and
proselytes (i.e., Gentiles who had "converted" to become
Jewish). It was only when a special vision and direct command
from God came to Peter (see Acts 10) that they went to the
Gentiles. Even then, many wanted to demand that the Gentile
converts to Christ also convert to Judaism.
Another
text from the lips of the Lord Himself is in Acts 22. Here Paul
had been taken into custody by the Romans when the Jews were
having a riot trying to kill him at the end of chapter 21. Paul
asked the Roman officer for permission to speak to the crowd,
which he granted. After telling his own story of how he had
persecuted the church but had seen Jesus on the Road to
Damascus, he told of how he returned to Jerusalem. There, he
tried to preach to his former associates among the leaders of
the Jews, but they were rejecting him. In a trance, he saw the
Lord speaking to him, telling him to quickly leave Jerusalem
because they would not accept his message about Jesus. Paul
objected that they knew how zealous he had been against the name
of Jesus and how he had participated in killing many, including
Stephen. But the Lord told him, "Go! will send you far away to
the Gentiles" (Acts 22:21).
This
last remark where Paul told the Jews Jesus had said he was
sending him to the Gentiles reignited the riot. But our point
here is that Jesus sent Paul specifically to the Gentile
nations.
I think
these few passages will show you that Jesus Himself intended His
message to be for all the world, not just the Jews. But this was
not something new. Even as far back as when God called Abraham,
one of the promises to him was that all nations would be blessed
through him and his seed (see Genesis 12:1-3; 22:18). The
prophets repeated this message of hope to the nations. See for
example Isaiah 61:1-2 that Jesus quoted in Luke 4 (see above).
See also Isaiah 9:1-2, which the gospel of Matthew quoted
(4:12-16) to explain why Jesus returned to Galilee for the focus
of His ministry.
I trust
these thoughts will help you to understand that from the very
beginning, God's purposes included all nations - not just the
Jews. The Jews played an important role in God's plan. Jesus
Himself was a Jew. God's eternal plan for mankind though always
included all the nations.
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 4/15/2010 |
Our pastor said that Abraham was Gentile he became Jew after he was circumcised? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
I assume
your question is whether or not the Pastor is correct. Actually, he
is partly right and partly wrong.
Yes, Abraham
was a Gentile. God called him from among the pagan nations. Joshua
referred to this in his farewell to the people of Israel.
The forefathers here were the family of Abraham, whom God called Abraham to leave. The River was the Euphrates River, which ran through Ur, the city in which Abraham had lived. Joshua is challenging the nation of Israel to live up to the Covenant God made with Abraham when He called him. He said he and his family would serve the LORD - and the people also responded with vigor: "We will serve the LORD!"
Abraham came
from a pagan, Gentile family, and was serving God before he was
circumcised.
However, Abraham was
neither a Jew nor an Israelite. The name "Jew"
comes from the name "Judah."
Judah
was
a great-grandson of Abraham, born after Abraham had died.
Judah
was the
beginning of the tribe of
Judah,
which was the tribe of King David and later of Jesus. All Israelites
came to be known as "Jews" because of the prominence of that tribe.
In fact, the country of the Jews was known as
Judea
in the time of
Jesus, a name that also came from
Judah.
In the same way,
Abraham was not an Israelite.
Israel is
the name God gave to Abraham's grandson, Jacob (again, after Abraham
was dead). The
Israelites
were the descendants
of
Israel. One
of the Twelve Tribes of Israel was the tribe of
Judah,
who eventually gave their name to all of the nation.
So, Abraham
was the Father of the nation of Israel and the Father of the Jews -
but he himself was neither Israelite not Jew. Those designations
came later.
In fact, the
Covenant God made with Abraham that called him out of his pagan
background came more than a decade before Abraham was circumcised.
Circumcision was a sign of that covenant. All of Abraham's children
were circumcised, not just the children of Isaac, the father of
Jacob. Both Abraham and Isaac were the fathers of other nations than
Israel. Some of those other nations, in particular the Arab nations
who descend from Ishmael (a son of Abraham through a concubine,
Hagar) still practice circumcision today. They, however, have
nothing to do with the Jews. Indeed, they hate them very much.
In the New
Testament, Paul makes the point that all who believe (trust) God are
the children of Abraham, whether they are circumcised or not.
All who trust God for their salvation today are also children of Abraham because they share his faith in God.
I hope these
few lines help clarify the position of Abraham as our father in the
faith of God.
Respectfully
yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 4/9/2010 |
After the rapture and Jesus meets us in the sky will we live eternal life on earth or in the outer most part of the universe? Are there really 3 levels of heaven? Thanks | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
I will take your last
question first. Paul spoke of being "caught up into the third
heaven" (2 Corinthians 12:1-4), as least most students of the Bible
believe the man he is speaking of here is himself.
The Jewish concept of
the three heavens was that the first heaven is the atmosphere around
us where the birds fly. The second heaven is where the planets, the
sun, and the stars are - that is, outer space or the universe. The
third heaven is where God is. Note that this third heaven is not in
this physical universe at all, for God lived before he created the
universe (Genesis 1:1). Actually, God inhabits all three of these
heavens. The Lord's Prayer begins, "Our Father, which art in
heaven...." The word heaven there is plural in the Greek. The
literal translation would be, "Our Father, the in-the-heavens-One".
When you think of heaven this way, God is right here around us
constantly - in the very atmosphere in which we live and which we
breathe, though we see Him only with the eye of faith!
Your other question, about where we
will live in eternity, really has only one answer that counts: We
will live with God. Peter wrote about this:
Note three things from this passage:
In Revelation 21:1-4 we can read:
This agrees very closely with what Peter had said. The emphasis here is on the Holy City coming down out of heaven from God - but God comes with the city. He will live with His people and be with them. He will wipe every tear from every eye - and when God wipes our tears away, there will be no more mourning or crying or pain!
Putting the two
passages together, the present earth and heavens will be destroyed.
There will be a new heaven and a new earth. Righteousness dwells in
this new heaven and earth. In this new heaven and earth, the Holy
City, the New Jerusalem, comes down out of heaven - and God makes
His dwelling with men.
Will this be on the
earth as we know it? No, it will not. This earth, indeed this
universe, will be melted with fervent heat and the works in it will
be burned up. Will it be a cleansed and renewed earth? I think it
quite likely. We will be changed when the Lord comes - and so will
the earth. (See, for example, Romans 8:18-22.) Just as we do not
know what kind of body we will have (except that it is a "spiritual
body" - which is not the same thing as a
phantom or
ghost), we do not know what the earth will be like. We do know it
will be new in kind, not just another of the same kind. We
also know it will be the home of righteousness.
The rest of the
description of that new heaven and new earth in Revelation 22:1-5
lets us see that the curse of sin has been fully removed, not only
from mankind but also from the new earth. The Tree of Life is there
on both sides of the River of the Water of Life that flows from the
throne of God. That tree will give its fruit in all seasons - and
its leaves are for the healing of all.
Perhaps you can think
of the "rapture" when we meet the Lord in the air as Him taking us
away from the earth to safety while the earth is destroyed (1
Thessalonians 4:13ff & 1 Corinthians 15:50-54). At that time, we are
changed and God brings us back (as the bride of Christ) our our new
home in the renewed earth restored to Eden's glory. This gives me a
way of "picturing" what the Scripture says - but please do not make
an "idol" of this picture. It is a way of looking at what the Bible
says pictorially, but if that's not exactly the way things happen
when He comes, I'll be glad to see Him anyway!
I hope these few
thoughts will help you as you anticipate that great time of renewal
and rejoicing!
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 4/7/2010 |
What sin doesn't lead to death? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
Your question comes
from 1 John 5:16.
The simple answer to
your question is that it is the sin that is forgiven. When sin is
forgiven, it no longer leads to death. One of the themes of 1 John
is assurance of continued acceptance by God, even when we fall into
occasional sin.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin. - 1 John 1:7
To walk in the light is not to avoid
all sin, for John immediately says, "If we claim to be without
sin, we deceive ourselves." He later said:
I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. - 1 John 2:1
Jesus spoke of an
unforgivable sin - the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. He said
this because the scribes from Jerusalem who had come to "check Him
out" said, "He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he
is driving out demons" (Mark 3:22, 30).
Hebrews 6:4-6 speaks
of some whom it is impossible to bring back to repentance. I
remember a visit I had with a former Bible teacher who had turned
away from serving God. After talking with him about how God had
loved him so much He gave His Son for us, and pleading with him to
return to the Lord, I asked him, "Can't you feel His Spirit striving
with you right now?" This erstwhile brother paused (for what seemed
an eternity) before he answered, "No."
Here was a man who had
grieved the Spirit (see Ephesians 4:30) to the point that he had
quenched the Spirit that God had given to him when he came to the
Lord as His son (see Galatians 4:6 & 1 Thessalonians 5:19).
When does that time
occur? I do not know. I am also sure that some whom we cannot bring
to repentance, God can. In fact, when it comes down to it, it is
only God who brings any of us to repentance by His goodness (see
Romans 2:4). When, however, we continually and habitually disregard
His goodness or even attribute His goodness to the power of the
prince of demons, a time comes when even God gives up on us.
A time came in the
life of the Kingdom of Judah, just before God sent them away into
Babylonian Captivity for a 70-year exile, that He told Jeremiah not
to pray for this people any more.
When we become hardened as Judah was, God no longer listens to prayers on our behalf. It took the Captivity to get them to forsake the worship of other gods. Jeremiah's tears and pleading with them and to God for them were useless. They had sinned a sin that is unto death.Do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. But am I the one they are provoking? declares the LORD. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame. - Jeremiah 7:16-19
Until then, keep
praying for all who sin that they may be led by God's Spirit into a
nobler life that is more and more like that of Jesus.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 4/7/2010 |
My 12 year old granddaughter wants to know this answer. "If Jesus died for our sins, why is it wrong for us to sin now, for something he died for?" I need another answer. Thanks. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
That is a very
perceptive question from a 12-year old. You must be very proud
of her, but also sometimes bewildered as I suspect she has a
questioning mind that does not accept easy answers.
Actually, this
question is not very different from the one Paul answered in
Romans 6:1ff. There, he had just spoken of the greatness of
God's grace in the end of chapter 5.
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Just as your
granddaughter's mother never washed her face while she was sitting
in a mud puddle, so Jesus does not "wash" us and leave us in the sin
that destroys our lives and separates us from God and from Jesus. He
wants to be with us and in us so we can be close friends and lovers.
When we deliberately go back into sin, it is like having your mother
wash your face and you running back to jump in the mud puddle again
to spite her.
In fact, Peter says it
almost that way:
Sin will not condemn her if she is in Jesus - unless she deliberately turns her back on Him and turns away from Him to go back to the old sinful life. If she does that, she will grieve the Holy Spirit our Lord gives her when she becomes His (see Ephesians 4:30) - and may even "quench the Spirit's fire" (1 Thessalonians 5:19). If that happens, she has turned her back on the only sacrifice for sin there is (see Hebrews 10:26 & 6:4-6).
I hope that these
suggestions will give you some ideas for how to answer your
granddaughter's question in a way she can understand. If she can
grasp these truths, she will be far ahead of many adult Christians
who still do not understand how they can be in Christ and be freed
from the penalty and practice of sin. We sing about it in the grand
old hymn,
Rock of Ages where
we sing, "Be of sin the double cure, save from wrath and make me
pure." Saving us from wrath is the forgiveness of sin; making me
pure is helping us grow so that we do not continue to sin.
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: 4/3/2010 |
I hear on the radio that is two section in hell according to this pastor he said that the poor man (lazaro) and the rich king when they die one went to the basom of habraham and the rich went to the other side of hell then when Christ rise from the dead He went ot the batton of the hearth to get does that believed in God can you give some inf on this mater. thanks | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Answer: |
Thank you for your question.
You are asking about
something that the Bible does not give specific information about,
although several hints are there. There is also confusion introduced
by our English translations.
The King James
Translation (which I suspect you are using) translates three
different Greek words and one Hebrew word as hell. The Hebrew word,
sheol,
is in the Old Testament 65 times where it is
hell
and
grave (each
31 times) and
pit (3
times). The three Greek words the New Testament translates as
hell are
gehenna (12
times),
hades (10
times, plus 1 where
hades is
translated as
grave,
and
tartaros (1
time).
The Old Testament
translation into Greek uses the Greek word
hades (at
least most of the time) for
sheol.
If all of this is a bit confusing to you, do not feel like the lone
ranger. You are not alone.
Men have developed
many theories to try to explain all of these texts, one of which you
heard being discussed by the preacher on the radio. It sounds as if
he took most of his description of "hell" from the story of the rich
man and Lazarus Jesus told in Luke 16:19-31. This may well be a
parable Jesus told to convict the Pharisees, who loved money and
were sneering at Jesus for saying "You cannot serve both God and
Money" (Luke 16:13-14). If it is a parable (not a description of a
real place), the point is not to tell us details about
hades
but to make
the point the Pharisees needed to hear about their love for money
while they ignored the poor people like Lazarus.
Whether this
preacher's theory about the passage is true is not as important as
it is for us to trust God to know how to judge the world with
justice. Taken literally, this story could lead us to think all poor
people will go to heaven while all rich people will go to hell, but
I do not know anyone who believes that.
You do not have to
understand all of what the Bible says about hell to follow Jesus. I
confess to you that at one time I thought I knew just what would
happen when you die. I have come to be less certain of my own
understanding - but more confident in God who judges all men
rightly. I trust God to do what is right. Let me encourage you to do
the same.
By the way, I noticed
that you have enrolled in our Bible Correspondence Course. Let me
congratulate you and thank you for doing this. I believe it will
help you to understand the Bible much better and much more clearly.
It is a fairly comprehensive and systematic study of the Bible that
I believe you will enjoy very much. You will have opportunity to ask
questions of your study helper as you go along.
I hope these few words
will help you to focus on the main thing - following Jesus - even
though I realize I have not really answered your question. The
reason I have not answered it is that I am not as sure of the answer
as I once was when I thought I knew just what the Bible taught about
this. As I have learned more, I have become less certain of my
earlier conclusions (that were not mine so much as something someone
taught me when I was younger).
Respectfully yours,
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Do you have a
question about anything in the Bible? Ask it at the
The Question Box
Our Evangelist or a former Elder of our congregation will try
their best to answer
your question by looking to the scriptures.
Not all questions have answers. Some will have to wait until we meet God in heaven.
Through questions comes learning -- for
the one asking and the one answering.
|
The Question Box |
|
