The Music of Glorybound

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How to Build a Learning Unit

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Grace Taufeek's Story - "...an ultrasound showed a mass around my spinal canal. I was confused, sad, mad, and scared as I was trying to realize what was really happening. I was quite scared – sometimes even to tears – but deep down, I always had a sense of peace..." (more)

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Becky MacLeod

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 Woollen and Linen

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Marriage and the Family

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Is Rahab of Jericho the same person as is mentioned in “Ruth” and Matthew 1:5" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 1:5?

Comparing the dates, this would seem impossible.

We certainly believe in their identity. Only one person of the name is known in the Old Testament (the “Rahab” of Psalm 87:4," TARGET="_blank">Psalm 87:4, etc., being a poetical designation for Egypt); and Matthew mentions a person of that name, living at the same epoch, as the well-known woman, without further description, as though everyone would know who was meant. This seems to point clearly to Rahab of Jericho. In the book of Ruth only three generations are given—Boaz, Obed and Jesse—between Salmon, the prince of Judah, who married Rahab, and David. The story of Ruth does not come chronologically after “Judges,” but as v. i of chap. i. tells us, is embedded in its history—”in the days when the judges ruled.” Salmon may have married Rahab many years after the taking of Jericho. The 450 years of the judges begin at the partition of the land and go on to Saul (Acts 13:20)." TARGET="_blank">Acts 13:20). Possibly Boaz was the son of the old age of Salmon and we know he was himself elderly when he married Ruth. There are still serious difficulties, but no doubt if we knew all, all would be plain. Perhaps the desire to find a second Rahab is due to a feeling as to her antecedents. The other women mentioned along with her in our Lord’s genealogy had all some disability. At least Rahab and Ruth were trophies of divine grace; and what are we to say of the wicked men in the genealogy, Rehoboam, Ahaz, Joram, Jehoiakim, etc.? Indeed, of the best of the links in the chain we must say, “All these once were sinners defiled in His sight.” Not one was worthy to be an ancestor of our Lord. But our Lord, though truly man by virgin birth, was completely detached from any inherited taint of the sin of Adam, by the fact of His miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit. He was “that Holy Thing” from His mother’s womb. He knew no sin, neither was sin in Him. Let go that, and Christianity must go at once, as far as we are concerned.

W.H.

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Is it scriptural to appoint Elders and Deacons in our assemblies by a system of voting amongst the brethren and sisters, the number of votes being counted up and determining the result?

Surely such a question only needs to be asked, to be answered in the negative, for what possible basis could be found for such proceedings in the Scriptures? If there be an instance or direction for such a thing in the New Testament, we do not know it, and should value the citation of chapter and verse.

The nearest approach to such a thing that could possibly be alleged would be the words of the apostles to the multitude of the disciples in Acts 6:3," TARGET="_blank">Acts 6:3, and yet even here, there is not a word about voting by the saints or even appointment by them—the word of the apostles was to the brethren: “Look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.”

It is to be noted that it was a question here of the appointment only of a certain kind of ministers, namely, managers of the daily distribution of monetary help to the widows in the assembly. They are usually called “deacons,” though the word is not actually used except in the substantival form, “diakonia,” in verses 1 and 4 (“ministration,” “ministry of the Word”). In verse 2 we have the verbal form, “diakonein”—to serve—(from a verb “diökein,” to pursue a course).

These seven were chosen to distribute the gifts of the saints to the needy widows, as the givers of the gifts had a right to a little part at least in looking out suitable men, to act as their almoners. But when it is a question of spiritual “deacons” (v. 4, “ministers of the Word”), such as evangelists, pastors and teachers, who are the gifts of the Risen Christ, only He, the Giver can “look out” and “appoint” such men.

As for elders, they come under a different category. They are quite distinct from deacons, it not being a question of exercising gift, in the technical sense, but of godly care, oversight, feeding and guiding the flock. In Acts 20" TARGET="_blank">Acts 20: Paul exhorts the elders, “Feed the flock of God, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers.”

We never read of a church appointing its elders, any more than of a flock appointing its shepherds. But we do read in Acts 14:20-23," TARGET="_blank">Acts 14:20-23, that when the Apostles Paul and Barnabas returned on their second visit to Lystra, Derbe, Iconium and Antioch, then and only then, “they ordained (or pointed out) elders in every church.” Why was this only on the second visit? were they not needed on the first? Surely, but it naturally took a little time for these men to come to the front, whom the Holy Ghost was fitting and calling to the work. The apostles, I take it, only recognised His work and endorsed it. In writing later to Timothy and Titus, the apostle gives the description of men called to the work of oversight or eldership. These chapters (x Tim. 3, and Titus i) form part of the sacred canon, and are to-day for the guidance of men, themselves leaders, who are to be on the look out for younger men, who are aspirants to eldership work, and encourage those who manifest the divine calling and qualification.

It seems clear, however, in all this that there is not the smallest precedent or direction for canvassing a church and registering the votes of the saints for certain men who are to take the place of “elders” and “deacons” of the church. Such a church will never fall “from its excellency,” it has already fallen. It has exchanged dependence on the Lord to give the needed gifts to His Church, for the carnal methods of a degenerate Christendom. May the Lord so encourage us all in the path of faith as that such devices of the flesh should not be so much as once named among us, as becometh saints!

W.H.

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EVOLUTION
Can a Christian believe in Evolution?

It is sad to think that anyone “naming the name of Christ” should forsake the clear testimony of God’s Word for the fable of “Evolution”— “Science falsely so-called.” The former declares that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1;" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 1:1; see also Hebrews 11:3)." TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 11:3). Later we read, “And God said, Let there be light, and there was light” (v. 3); “Let the waters bring forth abundantly” (v. 20); “Let the earth bring forth the living creature” (v. 24); “God created man in his own image” (v. 27); and in chap. 2. 7, we have the detailed account of this; “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.” Of course the most cursory reader of Gen. i, can see that God’s method in Creation was one of progression, from—the inorganic to the organic,— vegetation, fish, fowl, beasts, and lastly, man. We know, moreover, by experience of the things around us, that there is room within the species for the most wonderful variations (e.g., men, dogs, pigeons, etc.).

Ill-informed persons confuse this with “Evolution,” and they profess to be “evolutionists” because of such facts, which are undisputed. But “Evolution” properly so-called is supposed to account for the development of new species of plants or animals, either by mutation or by minute modification. Its teaching is that everything organic began with a cell (possibly more than one, but perhaps only one), and evolved by minute variations, into the myriads of “species” in the world, brought about by “natural selection,” securing “the survival of the fittest” during the course of “a struggle for existence.” Can anything be conceived more wildly improbable? It is only one more proof of “the Fall,” that otherwise sensible men can be found gullible enough to believe it. For such a process has never been proved to have taken place in nature.

Now, Science is something known, so that it is very unscientific to be an Evolutionist, seeing that evolu- tion is not something known; it has not even attained to the dignity of a theory, but is a mere hypothesis. The late Lord Kelvin, perhaps the greatest scientist since Newton, said in one of his last addresses, “I marvel at the undue haste with which teachers in our universities ‘ and preachers in our pulpits are restating truths in terms of Evolution, while Evolution itself remains an unproved hypothesis in the laboratories of Science” (my emphasis). Not only is Evolution a direct attack on the Creatorship of God, negativing the Scriptural account of the origin of things, but it denies the fall of man, and so inevitably the need of atonement and also, logically, the work of Christ. Shallow thinkers may profess to be able to believe the Scriptures and Evolution, but intelligent believers subject to the Word, and clear-headed agnostics, like Huxley, see clearly that the two are mutually incompatible. Evolutionists in the meanwhile continue to utter discordant cries hardly agreeing upon a single point, except that their pet hypothesis is true. Our choice simply lies between God as Creator and His Word for it, or everything its own creator and man’s word for it.

William Hoste

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