Debby Stickfort

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Priscilla Van Der Hart

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Is going to the doctor a sign of a lack of faith?

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  I speak in tongues more than you all - A biblical exploration about the gift of tongues. Two pitfalls are pointed out: The dangerous error of counterfeiting the truth and the chilling error of a dead orthodoxy.

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David Jones

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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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It has been said there are two orders of apostles, one of the Lord’s earthly ministry (Matthew 10;" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 10; Mark 3.;" TARGET="_blank">Mark 3.; Luke 9)," TARGET="_blank">Luke 9), and another of His heavenly (Ephesians 4:11)." TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 4:11). Please define the difference, if any?

Of course, Pentecost made a great difference to all believers. They had “life” before, now they had it “more abundantly” (see John io. xo). Before, they had been individual believers united in a common love and fealty to the same Master. Now their relationship both to Him and to one another had become profoundly modified. During the Lord’s ministry, if we except the special mission in Matthew 10," TARGET="_blank">Matthew 10, when they received a special enduement of power (v. i), and a unique commission (v. 6), the apostles came little into prominence. It was the Lord who led and worked; they followed and learned of Him. Now they became perpetually “endued with power from on high,” subject to the leading of the Holy Spirit. They were now united to Christ as members of His Body, and for the first time were indwelt by that Spirit. But that the eleven apostles of the Lord’s earthly ministry remained, or ever were, a different apostolic order to Paul, and perhaps two or three others mentioned in the Acts has, I believe, no scriptural authority whatever. We know that the eleven apostles of the original twelve, and Matthias, all passed through Pentecost, and Paul was no doubt Spirit-baptised later at his conversion. Pentecost certainly meant for the twelve a vast accession of apostolic power, so that it is quite permissible to view them as given by the risen Christ. “He gave some apostles,” though they existed before potentially as apostles. They all became partakers of Ephesian standing and blessing. Now, as he had advised them, the sphere of their action was greatly widened, for they were sent “to preach the gospel to every creature.” It seems to me entirely gratuitous and mistaken to assume that Peter and his ten fellow-apostles were not in the will of God in the appointment of Matthias. No hint of this is given in the passage or subsequently. The Lord had given them “Holy Spirit” (John 20:22)" TARGET="_blank">John 20:22) to carry them over the interval between His resurrection and Pentecost—the true “giving of the Holy Spirit.” They appointed him on the authority of the Scriptures, after prayerful exercise before God, appealing to Him to dispose the lot, and Matthias is recognised in Acts 2:14" TARGET="_blank">Acts 2:14 as completing the original member of the apostles. Not only so, but Paul himself did not acknowledge any difference. He recognised the twelve as “those who were apostles before him” (Galatians 1:17)," TARGET="_blank">Galatians 1:17), and if he insists on his having received his call and gospel from the Lord Himself, it was only to claim equality with the others, but in no way superiority. Some attach great importance to his word, “My gospel,” but this proves nothing, as he tells us in Galatians 1:6-9," TARGET="_blank">Galatians 1:6-9, that there was only one true gospel, and in chap. 2. 2, that on his return to Jerusalem he checked the gospel he had been preaching with that of the apostles there, lest he had in any way deviated from the true gospel, which was theirs, before it was his. “In conference,” he is able to affirm, “they added nothing to me,” though they recognised that his special mission was to the Gentiles. So clear is this in this chapter that these mistaken teachers have imagined a theory to account for it that Paul got under Jewish influence at Jerusalem (by that right hand of fellowship given to him by Peter and James and John), and was absolutely switched off his true character of testimony. Certainly this would be strange, considering that in the same context he tells us that he openly withstood his fellow-apostle for Judaising at Antioch. That such a theory should be necessary to uphold their position, is surely enough to demonstrate its unsoundness.

W.H.

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The word “Angel” means “messenger” meaning that their job is the identity.  Angels take on many forms to accomplish their specific mission.

Hebrews 1:14" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 1:14 tells us that they are spirit beings, but Hebrews 13:2" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 13:2 says that some have entertained angels unaware of their guests’ true identity.  That leads us to believe that angels appear as normal human beings.  Abraham met with two men for a meal in Genesis 18:1-19" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 18:1-19 who were actually angels.

However, at other times angels appeared in radiant glory and said “do not be afraid” like the case of Joseph in Matthew 1:20." TARGET="_blank">Matthew 1:20.  Zacharias was struck dimb in Luke 1:12." TARGET="_blank">Luke 1:12. The shepherds were afraid of the angels who came from heaven to announce the birth of Christ in Luke 2:9." TARGET="_blank">Luke 2:9.  

In Isaiah 6:1-10," TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 6:1-10, the Lord is seen in His full glory in the temple.  Seriphim fly around the throne using two wings to fly, two wings to cover their feet and two wings to cover their faces.

There is a variety of appearances for angels.  They have the ability to change their appearance.  Even Satan himself has the capability to appear as an angel of light 2 Corinthians 11:14." TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 11:14.

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The question of women serving as church leaders is one of the most read debated questions in Bible-believing churches.  In business, government, sports, science and other fields, women have proved themselves able and intelligent in every way.  Why do some churches retain old ideas then and keep them out of the preaching role?  The answer is that a church is not guided on the same principles as other areas of society.  While some church groups may feel free to treat the Bible as only one several of their sources of authority, the Holy Scriptures should the main purpose of a church is to put into practice the word of God (1 Timothy 3:15)." TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 3:15).  The question of whether women should preach is not a question of personal preference or ability, but whether it is in line with the teaching of the Bible.

Relevant scriptures

Some relevant scriptures in regards to this question include 1 Timothy 2:11-14," TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 2:11-14, 1 Timothy 3:1-13." TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 3:1-13.  The way we understand these words from God will guide us.  A similar question in regards to women in the church is to the question of the silence of women.  These scriptures are 1 Corinthians 11:5;" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 11:5; 1 Corinthians 14:34-35" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and are answered in the question “Should women speak in the church?”

1 Timothy 2" TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 2 – Authority is male

 1 Timothy 2:11-14" TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 2:11-14  Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.  (12)  I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.  (13)  For Adam was formed first, then Eve;  (14)  and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

 While in a church gathering, there are distinct roles given to men and women as a result of (1) creation “Adam was formed first, then Eve” and (2) the results of the fall “the woman was deceived and became a transgressor”.  Teaching the scriptures, according to this passage, is a male role.  Exercising authority over man is also not permitted for women.  This would include leadership roles and public teaching roles in the church.

Having stated the clearest interpretation of this passage, it should be noted that there are attempts to nullify this primary meaning by applying other interpretations.

 Women had a lack of education?

The first objection to this statement in 1 Timothy 2" TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 2 is that women were not capable in their culture to teach the scriptures to men because of their limited experience, education and lack of opportunities from centuries of male-dominated traditions.  However the verse does not say “due to lack of education, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority”.  Formal education did not factor into Christ’s decision to choose the disciples / apostles and it was not a factor in excluding women either. 

Only for the wives?

Another argument against this passage is to say that the passage only applies to women who are married.  Some translations of the passage say “wives” rather than “women” in general.  However, the passage is teaching about men and women. The references to men and women in the surrounding verses make clear sense for both married and single people.  For example in 1 Timothy 2:8" TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 2:8 “I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.” Are only husbands to lift up holy hands in prayer?  A second example in 1 Timothy 2:9" TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 2:9  say “likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire”.  Are only wives to dress modestly? Of course not.  The passage is talking to people both married and single.

Examples of women ministers

Another argument used against this scripture is the mention of women who served as deaconesses in the Bible.  Service is a godly work for both men and women.  However, the service of godly women would not have contradicted Holy Scripture in that of taking a leadership role or in public teaching of men.  One example of woman who served was the couple Aquilla and Pricilla.  In Acts 18," TARGET="_blank">Acts 18, they work as tent makers with Paul.  At the end of the chapter, in verse 26, Apollos was invited to their house to learn more of the way of God.  This threesome Bible study resulted in that Apollos became a better public teacher.

Act 18:26" TARGET="_blank">Act 18:26  “He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately.”

The women mentioned in Romans 16" TARGET="_blank">Romans 16 are referred to as “servants” and “helpers” and “workers” including Phoebe, Pricilla, Mary and Junia.  It is not necessary to think of these women as part of any special religious class of leadership. Any sister who serves can be a “deaconess” or “servant” or “worker” without being a teacher or exercising authority over a man. 

1 Timothy 3:1-13" TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 3:1-13  and Titus 1:5-9" TARGET="_blank">Titus 1:5-9 – Elders and Deacons are Men of Respect

Among the list of requirements for both elders and deacons in the assembly is the reference to a man with his family: “husband of one wife and his children are believers”. The words “he” and “his” are mentioned eight times in 1 Timothy 3." TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 3.  The leaders of the church are required to be male. 

Conclusion

The scriptures are the church’s operating manual.  The question of women leadership in the church therefore is not to be based on questions of ability or fairness or from trends in politics or business.  1 Timothy and Titus teach that God has put men in position of authority.  The Bible also does not restrict women from teaching or service, but it is not to be in the context of authority over the man.

Shad Sluiter

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To create a Bible word search puzzle or other similar bible word puzzle, choose one of the following programs:

You may also want to choose a Bible word search puzzle from one of the 350 Sunday school worksheets .  Each worksheet contains a Bible word search puzzle as well as a crossword puzzle, quizzes, a coloring page and other activities will help you prepare for next week's Sunday school lesson.

Some of the other items available for Sunday school teachers include printable Bible craft ideas for making 3d paper models, mini story books and power power lessons. For an example of what kind of projects you can use see the 3D Tabernacle model and other teaching materials at Sunday School Activities

You can also get a weekly lesson idea in your inbox.  Click here to subscribe to the weekly Sunday school projects . 

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How are we to reconcile the truth that Christ is God and Christ is Man, in one Person, or rightly to estimate what belongs to each?

Again, how could our Lord be tempted in all points, like as we are, sin apart, if, as we believe, sin had no appeal to Him, as it has to us?

It is noticeable that when our Lord affirms that “no one knoweth the Father save the Son,” He at once adds, “and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” Why did He not, when affirming as he had just done, that “no one knoweth the Son but the Father” add “and he to whomsoever the Father will reveal Him”? Is it not that there are mysteries in the Union of the two Perfect Natures, Divine and human, in the One Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Father nowhere promises ever fully to reveal? Not only are they too deep for us (we do not even understand our own tripartite being), but it is unnecessary for us thus to analyse His Being. One thing we aught never to forget, our Lord was not a dual personality, that is two Persons, Divine and human, but ONE DIVINE Personality, in equal relation to His two perfect natures. “The Word was God. . . the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1, 14)." TARGET="_blank">John 1:1, 14).

The Modernists, and alas, they have their representatives everywhere to-day, will not brook to be told that there are things their highest powers cannot grasp, and they so attempt to reconcile what has never been out of harmony, and explain what they ought rather to believe.

To some persons a glib bad answer, seems preferable to saying “I do not know.” As we read the Gospels under the influence of the Holy Spirit, it is not like chemists, with our test- tubes and reactives analysing all the mysteries of Christ, or like physiologists with our instruments dissecting His Personality, but as disciples and as worshippers.

The human sympathy of Christ is not a mere theory, which we must make real to ourselves by a certain manipulation of His Person to satisfy the logical deductions of some shallow minds, but a blessed reality, which He makes true in our experience when we embrace Him by faith. The effect of this wrought by the Spirit in our souls, will not be some philosophical demonstration that after all “He is altogether such an one as ourselves—sin apart,” but the adoring cry of Thomas, “My Lord and my God.” The question of the temptation of our Lord is not after all so far beyond our grasp, if we remember that temptation is used in two distinct senses in the New Testament: of allurement—’ ‘Every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of His own lust and enticed” (James 1:14)," TARGET="_blank">James 1:14), and of testing —“He was tempted (or tested) in all points,” according to the similitude, “apart from sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)." TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 4:15).

When we read that “God did tempt Abraham” (Genesis 22:1)" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 22:1) it was in this latter sense. He put him to the test. So Christ was tested by Satan in the wilderness, and proved to be the Son of God; but He was never tempted in the sense of being “drawn away of lust and enticed,” for He had none—He was “holy, harmless and undefiled” (Hebrews 7:26)." TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 7:26). “He did no sin” (1 Peter 2:22);" TARGET="_blank">1 Peter 2:22); “He knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21);" TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 5:21); “In Him is no sin” (1 John 3:5)." TARGET="_blank">1 John 3:5).

I am sadly Convinced that the attempts of modernist teachers to emphasise the humanity of our Lord, on the plea of establishing His power of sympathy with us, is for the most part quite unreal; for, taken as a class, they are a self-sufficient, self-satisfied type of man; but rather, unconsciously to themselves it may be, and we trust it is, they “cast Him down from His excellency,” through undermining His Divinity.

W.H.

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Why do so many preachers speak of “the destroying angel,” in Exodus 12" TARGET="_blank">Exodus 12?

It seems due to a mistaken idea of what took place on the Passover night, based on a careless reading of the whole passage. Exodus 11:1" TARGET="_blank">Exodus 11:1 speaks of “one plague more.” Exodus 12:13" TARGET="_blank">Exodus 12:13 refers to “the plague” and ver. 23 to “the destroyer,” but there is no such agent mentioned, either in Exodus, Heb. Ix, or elsewhere in Scripture, as “the destroying angel,” in connection with the deliverance from Egypt. Moses says in chap. II.4—”Thus saith the Lord, about midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt”; see, too, ch. 12. ia: “I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land . . . I will excute judgment”; and v. 23: “For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians, and when He seeth the blood. . . the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you.” God is Light and God is Love—God is at once “Avenger” and “Redeemer,” and neither work does He entrust to an angel, however exalted. It was God vindicating His holy claims against sin, who passed through the land in judgment; it was God who intervened in mercy wherever He saw the blood of His own providing, sprinkled. The two words for “passing through” (‘abar), and “passing over” (paali), are quite distinct. This latter is found again in Isaiah 3" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 3’. : “As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also He will deliver it and passing over (paal) He will preserve it.” That is, He will interpose between the enemy, who, it may be suggested, will then be attacking Jerusalem from the air, and His people.

W.H.

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HOUSEHOLD BAPTISM
Are those who teach what is known as “household baptism” justified in using the crossing of the Red Sea, referred to in  1 Corinthians 10" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 10: as a type of Christian baptism, and in asserting that,  as undoubtedly infants were carried across the Red Sea by their  mothers, they therefore were baptised unto Moses, and so infants  now should be baptised? 

Certainly these friends must be hard put to it to find authority for  their practice of baptising households to-day, if they have to go back  to this far off Old Testament event to justify it. We are asked, moreover,  to believe that had Moses and the elders held Believer’s Baptism, they  would have been obliged cruelly to leave all the infants on the west bank  of the Red Sea to the mercy of the pursuing Egyptians, on the plea that  such were not fit subjects for baptism. I remember one well-known  clergyman in Brighton (the “Reverend” H. B.), who wrote a tract to  justify the sprinkling of infants, and he built his argument on the  probability of the wind sprinkling the Israelitish infants, as they were  carried through the Red Sea. It seems hard to believe that fancy could  go further. We may be sure that no-one from Moses to the youngest  Israelitish mother had the slightest idea that a figure of Christian  baptism was being carried out during the crossing of the Red Sea. 

But if for the sake of argument, all who shared in the crossing were  baptised, then this was true of “the mixed multitude” and of the flocks  and the herds. Perhaps those who christen bells and ships rely on this  passage. We see, however, from Numbers 4" TARGET="_blank">Numbers 4 that the children did not  count, but only those of Israel who were numbered “from twenty years  old and upward,” for in verses 29 and 33 a difference is made between  those who were numbered (v. 29) and their children (v. 33). Whereas  the former (except Caleb and Joshua) would be excluded for good, all  the children would be brought in when their fathers’ carcases were wasted  in the wilderness. We may be sure that the infants no more shared in  the baptism of the Red Sea, than in the daily eating of the manna and  drinking from the rock that followed them. No doubt it is legitimate  to see in the crossing of the Red Sea a figure of the death and resurrection  of Christ and of believers’ association with Him, but it is not,  properly speaking, a figure of Christian baptism, for that would be a  case of a figure representing a figure. Rather what is set forth is what has already taken place for all believers, namely, their baptism in the Spirit. Christi n baptism is in no way in view in 1 Cor 10" TARGET="_blank">1 Cor 10 and it is a great mistake to think that wherever the slightly different word, “baptismos” that occurs in our Authorised (e.g., Mark 7:4, 8;" TARGET="_blank">Mark 7:4, 8; Hebrews 6: 2;" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 6: 2; Hebrews 9:10)," TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 9:10), The reference clearly is to the ceremonial purifications of the Levitical service.

William Hoste

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