Melchizedek

QUESTION: Who was Melchizedek?

ANSWER: There have been many guesses, such as Shem, an angel, a Power, or influence of god; but the most judicious of moderns allege that he was an eminent descendant of Ham, discharging the functions of both priest and king. From the absence of any account of the origin of his priestly and regal offices, he is a good type of Christ's priesthood. See your Bible Dictionary.

— Steele's Answers pp. 248, 249.

On Divorce and Remarriage

QUESTION: Is it wrong for an innocent woman to marry again, whose husband procured her divorce by hiring a man to criminate her with false testimony? (2) For imaginary crime?

ANSWER: I believe that the innocent party to a marriage dissolved for the only cause allowed by Christ may marry again. In the sight of the human court this woman was the guilty party, but in the sight of God she is innocent. (2) If the court granted the divorce for a suspected crime when the wife was perfectly true to her nuptial vows, this case is like the first so far as regards her right to re-marry.

— Steele's Answers p. 248.

Where is Hell?

QUESTION: Can hell be in the sun?

ANSWER: It can be anywhere there is a free moral agent persistently resisting the pressure of God's infinite and unchanging love till he has lost all capacity to respond thereto. Remorse is hell. Whether hell is a place as well as a state, I know not, and hope I never shall know. From the figurative language of Christ and his apostles nothing more with certainty can be inferred than that they meant to denote great and unending miseries.

— Steele's Answers pp. 247, 248.

What Hindered the Israelites?

QUESTION: What hindered the march of the Israelites straight from Mt. Sinai the first year of their journey?

ANSWER: "Unbelief" (Heb. 4:6), "disobedience" (R. V.).

— Steele's Answers p. 247.

The Role of the Pastor (Ephesians 4:13)

QUESTION: Explain Eph. 4:13, "And he gave * * * some to be pastors * * * till we all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

ANSWER:  Notice (1) the end and aim of the pastor is perfection of manhood of every believer, as evinced in the ideal of which Jesus Christ is the standard. (2) By the oneness of faith and knowledge; not two unities but one, faith merging into certain knowledge (epignosis). (3) "Attain" is in the aorist tense denoting a definite point reached, not at death, but in this life as the following verses plainly show. (4) Christ is at once the source of this perfection and the standard. We find in him a sufficiency for becoming as perfect in our measure as Christ is in his. "In him are ye made full" (Col. 2:10, R. V.).

— Steele's Answers p. 247.

New Converts in Unspiritual Churches

It is a great mistake to bring a young convert into an unspiritual and worldly church. It is like laying a newborn babe on the breast of a dead mother for nutriment and growth. Hence we deprecate the promotion of conversions to increase the membership of a dead church. It is like enlarging a graveyard. A healthful revival always begins, not outside of the church, but within it. Zion must herself travail before living children are born. Some unwise pastors, in their eagerness to swell the number of church members, try to awaken sinners over the heads of a slumbering church, whom they dislike to awaken lest they should be displeased. Men awakened suddenly are usually not kindly disposed toward those who arouse them.

It Is Better Farther On

The doctrine of the immediate contact of God's Spirit with my spirit, without the medium of symbol or sacrament or absolving priest, does not rest upon one, two or three cardinal proof texts, but upon a wide variety of scriptural proofs, such as the communion of the Holy Spirit, the revelation of Christ within the soul, the knowledge of God, the strengthened form of the Greek epignosis, clear, certain, thorough and perfect knowledge of Christ, a favorite term with both Paul and Peter, together with plerophoria, full assurance, excluding all doubt. Count up the many times in John's first Epistle in which he says "we know," and add the stronger words, "ye all know," instead of "ye know all things" (I John ii. 20), found in the Revised Version margin and the text of Westcott and Hort, and our reader will see the broad basis on which this doctrine stands.

The direct witness of the Spirit is intermittent in most young Christians. Before the fulness of the Spirit is received there are only occasional gleams of light through the rifted clouds, followed by sunless intervals when doubts distract and harass the soul. The cry of such Christians when seeking the abiding witness, the indwelling Comforter, is voiced by Charles Wesley, who alone among all the versifiers of the eighteenth century gave due prominence to the Holy Spirit; "the author," says James Montgomery, "of a great number of the best hymns in the English or any other language." The superiority of the permanent to the transient witness of the Spirit is thus finely expressed:

"O that the Comforter would Come!

Nor visit as a transient guest,

But fix in me His constant home,

And take possession of my breast,

And make my soul His loved abode,

The temple of indwelling God."

This alternation of experience from sunshine to shadow affords occasion for the temptation to cast away our confidence in Christ and to abandon His service. Many yield to this suggestion of Satan and go back to the world instead of climbing to altitudes above the clouds. Some are told by stationary and retrograde Christians that they will never be so happy as they were when they first entered the kingdom of God. This dismal outlook upon the future intensifies the temptation with which they are wrestling. Hence It is not surprising that not a few young converts turn away from Jesus and walk no more with Him. They should have been told that in the normal Christian experience "it is better farther on." It is to be regretted that there are so few normal Christians who are at hand to give the discouraged convert this word of good cheer. Many professors of faith in Christ are living on so low a level amid the miasmas and fogs that they never have even a glimpse of the sunny spiritual uplands,

"Where dwells the Lord our Righteousness,

And keeps His own in perfect peace

And everlasting rest."

— The Gospel of the Comforter Chapter 16.

The Earnest of the Spirit

"Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." — 2 Corinthians 1:22 KJV

From its very beginning the normal regenerate life is a continuous progression in spirituality, arithmetical if not geometrical, receiving with its widening capacities richer gifts of the wisdom and holiness of God.

"New births of grace new raptures bring;

Triumphant the new song we sing,

The great Renewer bless.

Darkness and dread we leave behind,

New light, new glory still we find,

New realms divine possess."

With respect to the obligation which the earnest of the Spirit lays on its recipient, it has been well said that it is a lien upon the future service of the receiver. If the service be unperformed, the earnest will be withdrawn; whereas if the service be lovingly rendered with the whole might of the heart, the measure of the gift will be filled up even to the sanctification of the whole body, soul and spirit. The Church in its infancy as to the realization of spiritual blessing, as mankind is in babyhood in its appreciation of electricity to human utilities. To what surpassing altitudes will the individual believer and the Church as a whole be lifted when the gift of the Spirit is fully realized and appropriated.

"Spirit, who makest all things new,

Thou leadest onward; we pursue

The heavenly march sublime.

'Neath Thy renewing fires we glow,

And still from strength to strength we go,

From height to height we climb."

— The Gospel of the Comforter Chapter 16.

The Witness of the Spirit

This is the doctrine of assurance which Wesley did more to elucidate and to relieve of obscuring misapprehensions than any preceding theologian. He thus describes the direct witness of the Spirit as "an inward impression on the souls of believers, whereby the Spirit of God directly testifies to their spirit that they are children of God."

The indirect witness is an inference from the discerned presence of the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, etc., and it follows the direct witness in the order of time, "because," says Wesley, "in the nature of the thing, the testimony must precede the fruit which springs from it." The voice of the Spirit within the believer is to all who know God the most real of all realities. It is sometimes called a seal which secures, authenticates and appropriates.

The Devil, Demons, and Angels

QUESTION: (1) Is there more than one devil? (2) What is his origin? (3) Is there more than one archangel? (4) What does the name Gabriel signify? (5) What is a demon? (6) His origin? (7) Are the kingdoms of this world delivered to the devil as he claims (Luke 4:6)?

ANSWER: (1) The Greek diablos (devil), - Hebrew (Satan) denotes the one prince of demons. But in Paul's epistles to Timothy and Titus it is plural and translated in the R. V., "slanderers." Demons are fallen angels subject to the devil. In sixty-two places in the N. T. the R. V. simply transfers this word instead of incorrectly translating it "devils," as in the old version. This is a great improvement. (2) An apostatized being of a high angelic order. (3) It seems to be plural in Daniel 10:13, "Lo, Michael, one of the chief princes," etc. Seven is their number in Rev. 8:2 "And I saw the seven angels that stand before God." (4) God's hero, or the man  of  God. (6) Created by God. (7) No. The devil lied. He has usurped about all the political control of all nations; it was not given by God. This usurpation of so-called popular governments in modern times is easy when good men are too busy or too lazy to vote. When a city allows the saloon, the brothel, and the gambling hell to rule, it has as good a government as it deserves. Let every one when tempted remember that every promise of good which the devil makes is a false promise. It is our business to become sharp-sighted enough to detect his falsehoods and not to put our feet  into his trap for the sake of nibbling his poisoned bait.

— Steele's Answers pp. 245-247.

Getting the Mail on Sunday

QUESTION: Is it wrong for a Christian to open his P. O. box and get his Witness or other religious paper on Sunday?

ANSWER: I think it is wrong to require the postmaster to be in his office on the Lord's Day. If you can get your paper without this requirement, I see no evil in it.

— Steele's Answers p. 245.

Taking Children to Entertainments

QUESTION: Is it wrong to take children to see strenuous athletic contests, a street trapeze, or a man dive from a bridge or a logging contest for prizes?

ANSWER: It is wrong to give children low ideals. "Just as the twig is bent the tree is inclined."

— Steele's Answers p. 245.

Christ Our Sanctification

QUESTION: In what sense is Christ our sanctification as in I Cor. 1:30?

ANSWER: Not that his personal holiness is reckoned as ours, but that we are indebted to him for procuring the Paraclete (John 14:16), by whom we are sanctified (II Thess. 2:13; II Pet. 1:13).

— Steele's Answers p. 245.

King Asa

QUESTION: How could Asa have been perfect all his days in view of the bad conduct of which he was guilty in the latter part of his reign? See II. Chron. 15:17; 16:2, 10, 12.

ANSWER: No other answer can be given than that his apparent eclipse of faith was due to an eclipse of  intellect in the last years. In other words, that he was irresponsible because he was insane. That is my charitable explanation of the sudden change in his conduct. In that case God could pronounce his heart perfect while his head was awry. The commentators with great unanimity skip this verse.

— Steele's Answers pp. 244, 245.

The Ending of Mark

QUESTION: Did Mark write 16:9-20, the last fourteen verses of his Gospel?

ANSWER: No, they are not found in the two oldest manuscripts, and the 8th verse ends in Greek with gar 'for,' an ending as absurd as "and" in English. It seems that the original ending was torn off and some one has supplied an ending containing twenty-one words and expressions — some  of  them repeated — which are never elsewhere used by Mark. Its omission is a great relief to our missionaries in India, who are often challenged to prove their doctrine true by handling cobras and rattlesnakes and drinking deadly poisons. The different ending referred to in the R V. margin is this: "They concisely announced to Peter and his company all things that were commanded." After these things Jesus himself also through them sent forth, from the rising of the sun to its going down, the sacred and incorruptible proclamation of the eternal salvation."

— Steele's Answers p. 244.

Did the Cock Crow Twice or Three Times?

QUESTION: Harmonise Mark 14:72, "Before the cock crow twice," and Luke 22:61, "Before the cock crow thou wilt deny me thrice."

ANSWER: Dr. Robinson harmonises it thus: "The cock often crows irregularly about midnight, and again always and regularly about the third hour, which is named the cock-crowing. Mark speaks more definitely and Matthew more generally." There are other slight discrepancies relating to the persons who questioned Peter, for which I am thankful, since they prove that the two evangelists are independent witnesses and not drilled after the manner of perjury to utter exactly the same words. Of such testimonies judges and juries are justly suspicious. My theory of inspiration is that the Bible is the infallible directory to eternal life, and that such fly-specks as these minute differences do not in the least damage that directory. In this respect I do not believe, as Dr. Adam Clarke does not, in the absolute inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures, especially in respect to numbers.

— Steele's Answers pp. 243, 244.

How Could There Be Forgiveness Before Atonement?

QUESTION: How could Jesus forgive sins before atonement was made on Calvary?

ANSWER: There were two kinds of forgiveness, pretermission, passing over, by withholding penalty, as in Rom. 3:25, R V., and remission, letting sins go, as if they had not been committed, i. e., they are pardoned. The two Greek words are paresis and aphesis. In the former case the efficacy of the atonement is reflected back upon the sins of the truly penitent sinners of previous ages, who trusted in the mercy of God.

— Steele's Answers p. 243.

Trine Baptism

QUESTION: Was trine baptism practiced in the apostolic church?

ANSWER: There is no proof of it in the N. T., but it was so universal in the early Christian centuries that some infer its apostolic origin.

— Steele's Answers p. 242.

The Methodist Love Feast

QUESTION: Is the Methodist Love Feast scriptural?

ANSWER: It is a revival or restoration of the Agapae (Greek: "loves") spoken of in II Pet. 2:13, Jude 12, the abuse of which is severely censured by Paul (I Cor. 11:20-22). It was a feast after the Lord's Supper expressing and fostering mutual love. The wealthy members provided the banquet, of which all partook, the rich and the poor mingling together. It was grossly abused at Corinth, some eating gluttonously and others partaking of too much wine, thus neutralizing the beneficial effect of the proper celebration of Eucharist. Chrysostom says it was "a custom most beautiful and most beneficial; for it was a supporter of love, a solace of poverty, a moderator of wealth, and a discipline of humility." Because of irregularities it became obsolete after several centuries. It was revived by the Moravians, followed by the Wesleyans.

— Steele's Answers p. 242.

Endowment Plans

QUESTION: Is it wrong to be insured in a reliable company on the twenty years' endowment plan?

ANSWER: I fail to see any sin in it. Christ did not teach improvidence though the erroneous translation, "Take no thought for morrow," instead of, "Be not anxious for the morrow," as in the Revision, seems to make Christ teach a total disregard of the future. Faith and Worry cannot be happily married. Faith soon dies.

— Steele's Answers pp. 241, 242.

Taking Questions During the Sermon

QUESTION: Would it not add much interest to the hearers of sermons and greatly increase their number if they were permitted to interrupt the preacher by asking questions as Christ allowed his disciples and others to do, and as our missionaries in Asia do now allow in their street preaching?

ANSWER: It would probably increase the number of hearers, but diminish the number of preachers. None but the quick-witted, like the cosmopolitan evangelist, William Taylor, could stand it. Young preachers especially would be confused when there were fired at them such stock conundrums as "Where did Cain get his wife?" "Locate the Garden of Eden." "Explain the origin of sin." Then, again, the reverence of our public worship would be greatly damaged, if not destroyed, as it is in our Sunday schools. Yet it would have some advantages. It would promote extemporaneous preaching, banish the manuscript, and stop the mouths of those who sneeringly say; "The pulpit is the coward's castle."

— Steele's Answers p. 241.

The Unitarians

QUESTION: What do the Unitarians believe?

ANSWER: An easier question would be, What do they disbelieve! A wit has described their creed thus, "Deny the Deity of Jesus Christ and believe what you have a mind to." The very week in which I write this, Prof. Schmidt of Cornell University, in an address at the Unitarian Summer Meeting at Isles of Shoals, said, "Let us love and revere and follow Jesus, but let us convert every term of leadership so as to make it clearly understood that there is no one saviour, no one Christ, among men." Dr. Charming, the American founder, believed Christ was the highest created Being in the universe — his existence, virgin birth, vicarious atonement, miracles, resurrection and ascenion, which doctrines nearly all modern Unitarians deny. The doctrine of Christ's Deity protects all other distinctively Christian truths.

— Steele's Answers pp. 240, 241.

The Writing of the Gospels

QUESTION: (1) Which Gospel was first written? (2) Why were the Gospels not written earlier?

ANSWER; (1) Matthew first made a record of the sayings of Christ without any reference to their historical setting. This so-called Logia was probably written from memory not many years after the Ascension. It is now generally believed that Mark several years afterwards gave these sayings their historical setting under the guidance of Peter, between A. D. 60 and 65. This makes Mark's Gospel the oldest. (2) All the Oriental teachers taught extemporaneously, expecting their disciples to remember without the aid of notes. After the Ascension, it was not thought necessary to write the Gospel immediately because they supposed that Christ would return during the lifetime of his Apostles. But his delay convinced them of the necessity of writing the precious words of the Saviour, lest,  if left to tradition, they should be lost.

— Steele's Answers pp. 239, 240.

Should a Preacher Have a Fixed Salary?

QUESTION: Should a preacher have a fixed salary?

ANSWER: Yes, but not so fixed as to be incapable of increase when the cost of living is rapidly increasing, as in these days. Read I Cor. 9:4-16, in which Paul says, "They that wait upon the altar have their portion with the altar * * * they that proclaim the Gospel should live of the Gospel." The word "portion" seems to imply a fixed amount. The preacher should, as far as possible, be relieved of anxiety about material things that he may give all his time and strength to the spiritual interests of his flock. By the law of compensation the pastor, the soldier, the vintner, the shepherd, and the very oxen are entitled to their recompense.

— Steele's Answers p. 239.

Salvation and Baptism

QUESTION: Explain I Pet. 3:21, "which also after a true likeness (antitype) doth  now  save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

ANSWER: We are saved from sin which deluges the world and destroys all who are not in Christ, the ark, symbolized by baptism, "not indeed the bare outward sign, but the inward grace enabling us to seek successfully a conscience reconciled to God." "Answer" in the A. V. is "interrogation"; in the R. V., a craving, a seeking after earnestly.

— Steele's Answers pp. 238, 239.

Daily in the Jaws of Death

QUESTION: Explain (1) Rom. 8:36, "For thy sake we are killed all the day long" (2) I Cor. 15:31, "I die daily."

ANSWER: (1) This is a verbatim quotation from Ps. 44:22, meaning exposure to death continually for their rebellion, some daily falling a sacrifice to the persecuting spirit of their enemies. (2) "I die daily," "I am daily in the very jaws of death" (Wesley). If the dead believers in Christ are never to have a glorious resurrection, what good reason have I for my daily exposure to martyrdom? Sometimes we hear an ignoramus in the pulpit quote this text to prove that there must always be sin in Christians, an idea as irrelevant to Paul's argument for the resurrection as the man in the moon. In II Cor. 11:23 he demonstrates his superior apostleship thus, "in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in death oft." What stupidity in interpreting death in these three texts as a daily ineffectual cessation from sinning!

— Steele's Answers p. 238.