As Patient As God?

QUESTION: Must the wholly sanctified be as patient in their finite capacity as God himself in his infinity?

Ans. Yes. The command is, "Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect" in love. If your vessel be filled with love, God can be no more than full. He is the perfect infinite and every Christian is required to be a perfect finite. It is to be noted that the exact rendering of the Greek in the R. V., "Ye shall be perfect," is not promissory, but mandatory. Alford. here remarks, "No countenance is given in this verse to perfectibility in this life." Taking the word in its evangelical sense of a heart filled with pure love, Alford's remark is a fiat denial of Christ's plain command in Matt. 5:48. Such a denial is a very serious matter.

— Steele's Answers pp. 148, 149.

Is It Impossible to Restore Fallen Believers?

QUESTION: Explain the impossibility of renewing fallen believers, as stated in (1) Heb. 6:4-6 and (2) 10:26, 27.

ANSWER: The Hebrew Christian who apostatized to find favor with his Jewish kindred must abandon not only the practice of Christianity, but the theory also. Before restoration to the synagogue he must declare Jesus an accursed impostor, a malefactor, "a hanged man." So long as he is doing this he is crucifying the Son of God afresh, in the present tense, denoting continuousness, it is impossible for God, who respects free agency, to save him. In (2) the sinning willfully is another present tense. So long as willful sin continues the apostate can find in Judaism no effectual sacrifice, but, if he should turn to Christ, he will find that his sacrifice has not lost its virtue. So long as any man is abiding in a state of willing sin he is shutting the door of repentance behind him. God does not shut that door, the sinner shuts it himself, and he alone can open it. He is the first cause, the cause uncaused of all his moral acts. He is the creator of his own character and destiny.

— Steele's Answers p. 147, 148.

Restoration of All Things (Acts 3:21)

QUESTION: Explain Acts 3:21, "Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, whereof God. spake by the mouth of his holy prophets since the world began," or from of old, as the American Revised Version has it.

ANSWER: The difficulty is in the word "restoration" or "restitution," the original of which is used nowhere else in the N. T. I think it means the fulfillment of all the predictions respecting Christ; in the Old Testament. When a prediction is made, the prophet commits his veracity to the result, and the fulfillment makes it; good, restoring it to its unquestioned state, as many before that may have doubted the truthfulness of the prediction. In verse 18 Christ's sufferings are declared to be fulfillment of prophecy, and here his stay in heaven is a fulfillment of other predictions relating to the universal spread of the preached Gospel until the totality of the Gentiles — not as individuals, but nations, including the Jews — be brought in. Before such times shall have passed Christ comes not from heaven.

— Steele's Answers p. 147.

Church Entertainments

QUESTION: How can we best manage church entertainments?

ANSWER: The Question Box is not an expert in this matter. He never announced one, and never heard one announced from the pulpit till after his retirement from the active ministry. Then he attended one to see what it looked like. The new institution did not commend itself to him. He is sure that fun and frolic in the house of God are damaging to that spirit of reverence which should be cultivated in the young. I think it is Dr. J. M. Buckley who advises that a censor be appointed to supervise the program and eliminate improper readings and other objectionable performances. This would require of the pastor — for he ought to be the censor ­ eternal vigilance as the price of decency, and unusual courage and skill in the minister already sufficiently burdened.

— Steele's Answers p. 146, 147.

The Danger of Soft Drinks

QUESTION: Is it proper for Christians to indulge in soft drinks, such as "pop, ginger ale," and root beer?

ANSWER:  While these drinks may not be intoxicating, they may easily lead the drinker, and others through his example, to form a taste for the so-called hard liquors. If you would avoid being burned by the devil's fire, don't play with his matches and kindling wood.

— Steele's Answers p. 146.

When Did Christmas Festivities Originate?

QUESTION: I find nothing in the Bible about Christmas festivities. When and where did they originate?

ANSWER: Augustine (A. D. 354-430) considered the fast of Good Friday and the festivals Easter, Ascension and Whitsuntide (Pentecost) as the only holy days which had an apostolic origin. Christmas, he deemed to be of later origin and of less authority. This was because the day of Christ's birth was unknown. Neither did the Jews nor the great pagan nations make any record of the birth in a stable of a humble peasant babe. The various guesses were the 6th of January, the 20th of May, and the 20th or 21st of April. The 25th of December was conventionally chosen, I am sorry to say, because it was nearest to the pagan saturnalia to which the converts had been accustomed while heathens. Hence the purity of the day became sullied almost at the first by the revelry and unrestrained license of that period of seven days. The remedy is in joyful worship and in impressing upon the children especially, and all other receivers of gifts, that they are designed to remind them of God's great and unspeakable gift, of the world's Savior. If the gifts are of books, they should be such as relate to Christ. In this way the day may be rescued from follies and frivolities.

— Steele's Answers p. 145, 146.

Questions From John 11:1-12

QUESTION: Answer the following questions suggested by a study of John 11:1-12: (1) Did John the Baptist in prison doubt the Messiah-ship of Jesus? (2) Did Jesus imply that John was not in the kingdom of heaven? (3) What is meant by taking it by force?

ANSWER: (1) He did not doubt that Jesus was a prophet and a miracle-worker, but because he did not put on the crown, mount the throne and sway his kingly scepter for the deliverance of his forerunner from Herod's underground prison, he began to doubt that Jeans was the long-expected Messiah, the anointed King. He was shut up in darkness, which always tends to produce mental depression or the blues, such as his prototype Elijah had under the juniper tree after his long race to escape the threat of an angry queen (I Kings 19:4). John's faith in King Jesus suffered a partial eclipse, at whom he was in danger of being offended or stumbling. Hence the question, "Art then he that should come, or do we look for another?" (2) He was an Old Testament saint and accepted of God. though not technically in Christ's kingdom, which was not opened till Pentecost. He doubted the kingship of Christ and had in his mind the erroneous conception of a worldly kingdom. He failed to realize the spiritual nature of the Messiah's kingdom, known and enjoyed by the smallest real Christian. (3) The common interpretation that "the violent" are zealous Christians who conquer and win heaven by force of arms, I cannot adjust to the context, which is a description of John. Jesus rather apologizes for him, intimating that his mistake is an error of many, during the whole time of John's ministry, who had been clamoring impatiently for Christ to assume the scepter. The people together with John wished to hurry up the earthly reign of Christ, violently. They would take it by storm. This is the only exegesis that is in harmony with the context.

— Steele's Answers pp. 143-145.

Cleansing the Temple & Church Fund Raisers

QUESTION: Does Christ's cleansing the Temple apply to modern methods of supporting the Gospel by fairs, banquets and entertainments?

ANSWER: So far as these are resorted to to shift the support of Christian worship upon outsiders, so that the church members may hoard their money and become rich, they are a stench in the nostrils of God. The spirit of sacrifice must be in all acceptable worship.

— Steele's Answers p. 143.

Where Were the Money Changers?

QUESTION: In what part of the Temple did Christ find the money changers and those that sold animals suitable private enrichment?

ANSWER: Not in the holy of holies consecrated to the high priests only (and he could enter it only on the day of atonement), nor in the court of the priests sacred to them only, nor in the court of the women prohibited to all who were not Hebrews, but in the court of the Gentiles where none but "proselytes of righteousness," monotheistic, circumcised Gentiles, were permitted to enter. Here enterprising Jewish traders were doing a thriving business with the consent of the priests who shared their gains and were especially mad when Jesus touched their pocket nerve. They had turned the worship of Jehovah into the adoration of Mammon the almighty shekel for their own for sacrifice.

— Steele's Answers p. 143.

Was the Campaign Against the Saloons a Spititual Warfare?

QUESTION: Is the fight now going on, under the laws of many of our States against licensed saloon, led by the Anti­-Saloon League, a spiritual or carnal warfare?

ANSWER: The end aimed, at, the moral well-being of the people, and indirectly the spiritual salvation of myriads of young men, would rank it as a spiritual conflict. But the weapons, sheriffs, courts, fines and prisons, have a carnal aspect. There is in this a mixture of the carnal and the spiritual. Since the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the wicked, it is not only the right but the duty of all good men to assist in its execution. It is the duty of Christian men to use spiritual weapons against social wrongs so far as they are applicable; but if these are ineffectual, then they should resort to weapons of a carnal, or secular, nature. A very good maxim is moral suasion for the tippler and legal suasion for the vendor.

— Steele's Answers p 142.