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.

How Many Days Was Jesus in the Tomb?

QUESTION: Matt. 17:1 says, "After six days." Luke 9:28 says "about an eight days later." Harmonize this discrepancy.

ANSWER: Luke, by using the word "about," intimates that he is not speaking accurately in counting the fractions of two days, the first and the eighth, while both Matthew and Mark count only the whole days between the two events making only six. The Jews generally counted the fractions  as  whole days, so that Jesus was three days in the tomb, though only one whole day.

— Steele's Answers pp. 237, 238.

The Piano Tuner's Dilemma

QUESTION: I am a piano-tuner by occupation. Should I as a Christian refuse to tune the pianos used in ball-rooms and theaters?

ANSWER: In this wicked world there is scarcely any business which does not bring the Christian into evil associations which can be avoided only by "going out of the world," as Paul says in I Cor. 5:10. A poor day-laborer must either go out of the world or do the work, the evil use of which he is not responsible for, asking no questions for conscience sake. Yet he is to listen to the voice of conscience and heroically starve, if he should be required to take a direct and active part, such as that of the bartender, or the brewer, or distiller, or dance fiddler. Tuning the piano is one thing, but playing it for the dance is another.

— Steele's Answers p. 237.

Of Water and the Spirit

QUESTION: Does John 3:5 refer to water baptism: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God"?

ANSWER: It is figurative of the initial purification of regeneration, as the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire is figurative of the perfect cleansing in the entire sanctification of the believer. Fire is a more thorough purgative than water.

— Steele's Answers pp. 236, 237.

Perfected Holiness is a Progressive State

QUESTION: Can you give me light upon the following: I have read of and heard persons state that they received the blessing after making the consecration, and later they received the Blesser. Is it possible to have the blessing of a clean heart and not also have the Blesser who gives the clean heart?

ANSWER: The nominal experience of love made perfect is the incoming of the Comforter extinguishing the self-life, as light entering a room instantly banishes darkness. But others testify of a short interval between the conscious cleansing and the conscious fullness of the Spirit. It is also true that perfected holiness is a progressive state in which Christ manifests himself more and more wonderfully to the persevering believer whose love is attested by constant obedience. As they err who say; "I got it all when I was regenerated," so do they err  who say, "I got all that God has to give when I was wholly sanctified." The reader of the original of John 17:3 will note that eternal life lies not so much in the possession of a completed knowledge of Christ, gained once for all, as in a perpetually increasing apprehension of him: "and this is life eternal that they should be knowing (present tense denoting continuity) Thee, the only true God and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." I expect to be eternally striving after a growing knowledge of the Father through the Son. My happiness will consist in love ever increasing promoted by a gainful striving which will know no end. Don't be afraid you will exhaust God:

"Immortal Love forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never ebbing sea." — Whittier.

— Steele's Answers pp. 235, 236.