Louis, Let me say that we do not sing during communion here in Williamsburg, so I am not trying to justify an ongoing practice. Having said that I am not sure your statement about a prohibition of doing two acts of worship at the same time is correct. Can we not sing and pray at the same time? What of songs such as “Lord, We Come Before Thee Now,” and other songs that are obvious prayers to the God of heaven? I am not jumping stiff-legged into the air over this, but I am not sure that such a strong prohibition can be made. We do many things that are not specifically mentioned in the New Testament, do we not? I know we have allowed for such things by the “necessary inference” part of an accepted hermeneutic, but there could be flaws when one is trying to make an “inference,” right? I really do appreciate your online GG and read it carefully during the course of the month. For Him, Bill Butterfield, Williamsburg, Virginia Your kind words respecting Gospel Gazette Online are appreciated very much. I assure you that I do not intend to be contentious, especially beyond what sound exegesis of God’s Word warrants. Perhaps the following observations will clarify matters somewhat. Singing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” according to Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, is to be directed both to fellow Christians and to God. That fact hardly confuses the biblical distinction between prayers and singing “psalms and hymns …

A correspondent writes, “There is a book out advocating tithes and offerings under the Christian Age or the New Covenant. Could you help me with Malachi 3:8, 10, which speaks of tithes and offerings.” There is much in the Old Testament about tithing, beginning with Genesis 14:20 and ending with Malachi 3:8, 10. The word “Malachi” means “My Messenger.” He was the prophet appointed to convey the “oracle of the word of Yahweh to Israel” about 436-420 B.C. He condemned the selfishness of the Jews in robbing God by keeping their tithes for themselves, and so were cheating themselves of God’s multiple blessings. If they would be liberal, God promised that he would “open for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you a blessing until there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10). However, the divine law for tithing, both in Patriarchy (Genesis 14:20) and in Judaism (Deuteronomy 14:22), came to an end when Jesus took it “out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14). Now “If you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law” of Moses (Galatians 5:18). In “the law of the Spirit” (Romans 8:2), in the “New Covenant” (Hebrews 8:8), in “the Christian Age,” in the New Testament books, there is not a word commanding tithing for Christians. But there is much about Christian liberality. The Corinthian Christians were taught to give, not by measured tithing, but as God prospered them (1 Corinthians …

A correspondent asks for an explanation of Matthew 5:20: “For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven.” The “scribes” in Jesus’ time “were the ‘scholars’ or men of letters (John 7:15), to whom belonged the professional study of the Mosaic Law” (Bible Dictionary, p. 106). The Pharisees “devoted themselves to the most scrupulous fulfillment of the Law as expounded by the scribes” (Bible Dictionary, p. 98). Righteousness (dikaiosune) is “uprightness,” “what is right,” “what God requires” (Greek-English Dictionary, p. 46). But the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was not “what God” required. They had “a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,” had “not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:3). As part of “the righteousness of God,” Christ came to establish “my kingdom,” a kingdom “not of this world” (John 18:36), a kingdom of “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). It was called both “the kingdom of heaven” and “the kingdom of God” and “my church” (Matthew 5:20; 12:28; 16:18). Accordingly, “the manifold wisdom of God” is made “known by the church” (Ephesians 3:10), “according to the eternal purpose which he [God] purposed in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 3:11). The scribes and the Pharisees and other Jews rejected the Christ, whom God sent from heaven not …

A question has come about the meaning of two Hebrew words found in our English versions (KJV, ASV, NASB, NEB, NRSV, NIV) left untranslated: “the Urim and the Thummim” (Exodus 28:30). God had commanded Moses to “make a breast-plate of judgment, the work of the skilful workman . . . of gold, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen . . . a span [9 inches, Webster] will be the length thereof, and a span will be the breadth thereof. And you will set in it settings of stones, four rows of stones: a row of sardius [ruby], topaz, and carbuncle [emerald] shall be the first row; and the second row an emerald [carbuncle], a sapphire, and a diamond [sardonyx]; and the third row a jacinth [amber] and agate, and an amethyst; and the fourth row a beryl [chalcedony], and an onyx [beryl], and a jasper; they will be inclosed in gold in their settings. And the stones will be according to the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names” (Exodus 28:15-21). “And you will put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim [the Lights and the Perfections]; and they will be upon Aaron’s heart, when he goes in before Jehovah [Yahweh]; and Aaron will bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before Jehovah [Yahweh] continually” (Exodus 28:30). There was “something in the high priest’s breastplate that gave an oracular response” (Robert Young, Analytical Concordance, p. 1018). …

A tiny, frail, land-bound maggot, able only to wiggle, somehow transforms itself into a skillful flying machine, complete with antennae, gyroscopes and wings (Rutherford Platt, “Those Remarkable ‘Two-Animal’ Animals,” Reader’s Digest, July, 1970). The pilot in that remarkable airship, flying faster than the eye can follow, executes a half-roll and lands upside down on the ceiling on six legs. From there, without the use of a runway, he can take off instantly. Helpless scientists can no more explain the change from larva to pupa to adult than they can explain the fly’s aeronautical ability. When they speak of inborn “blueprints” or of “instruction data from the DNA,” or of “the DNA code script” they are saying they have gone as far as they can, and have no answer without using the name “God.” Another example among thousands is the cicada, often called “the seventeen year locust.” Cicadas have various cycles, with the longest being seventeen years. Almost exactly on May 24 each seventeenth year, these insects climb out of a seventeen-year period spent some 18 inches below the frost line underground. When they emerge they are still encased in a protective subterranean suit resembling plastic. After shedding the transparent suit, wings, never before used, but now ready for a new life, are dried in the breeze. After mating, the female, equipped with a sharp blade, cuts under the bark of a twig, deposits her eggs, and then cuts the twigs three fourths through. As a result, the twig dies, falls to …

“Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars” (Isaiah 40:26, NASB). “Has the rain a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew?” (Job 38:28). The clearest of all reasons for the existence of deity is the fact that every effect must have a cause, which fact logically leads back to an uncaused cause. Plato cited three reasons for belief in “the Gods,” but the one listed “in the first place” was the very existence of “the earth and the sun and the stars and the universe.” The “Gods,” said he, “produce the sun, moon, and the stars” (Laws, Book 10, p. 453). Joseph Addison (1672-1719), adapting Psalm 19, followed Plato’s reasoning that the existence of the planetary bodies points to a maker of those bodies: The spacious firmament on high,With all the blue ethereal sky,And spangled heavens, a shining frame,Their great Oriental proclaim.The unwearied sun, from day to day,Does his Creator’s power display,And publishes to every landThe work of an Almighty hand. America’s astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, on July 20, 1969, collected 48.5 pounds of rocks from the moon’s surface, and brought them back to the earth. An analysis shows the presence of 16 earth elements in those lunar rocks, the principal ones being titanium, silicon, aluminum, iron, magnesium, calcium, sodium and potassium. Reason says that those stones had a maker, for of nothing, nothing is made (ex nihilo, nihil fit). The evidence obtained by the astronauts does not testify how …

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17): Whose gentle gifts all creatures share, . . .Thy gifts are strewn upon my wayLike sands upon the great seashore, . . .(“Father of Mercies,” F. W. Faber). Some of his gifts are absolutely free, while others in his wisdom await human obedience. I. UNCONDITIONAL GIFTS The first of the Father’s gifts, freely bestowed, is our marvelous physical universe. “The heavens tell of God’s glory, and the skies proclaim the works of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). Joseph Addison (1672-1719) wrote a meaningful poem, “The Creation,” which closes with the words “all the stars” are “forever singing as they shine, ‘The hand that made us is divine.’” His poem a Mr. Haydn set to music, and grateful human beings love to sing “The Spacious Firmament of High”: In reason’s ear they all rejoice,And utter forth a glorious voice,For ever singing as they shine,“The hand that made us is divine.” A Mr. Conrad Kocher was moved to write: For the beauty of the earth,For the beauty of the skies,For the love which from our birthOver and around us lies,Lord of all, to Thee we raiseThis our sacrifice of praise. Long before Addison or Haydn or Kocher the prophet Isaiah (B.C.759-690) exclaimed: “Lift your eyes and look to the heavens; who created these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls each by name; because of his great power and …

Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared (Hebrews 5:7, KJV). Two of Webster’s definitions of the verb “fear” are: to feel a painful apprehension of some impending evil; to be afraid of; to dread. “I will fear no evil, for thou art with me” (Psalm 23:4). to feel reverence for; to have a reverential awe of; to venerate. Oh! The fervency of Jesus’ prayer struggle: in the garden of Gethsemane, separating himself from his disciples, around midnight of Thursday, April 6, A.D.30, all alone, falling “on his face,” in such “agony” that his “sweat” was like “great drops of blood,” praying “with strong crying and tears, ‘O My Father, if it be possible let this cup [of death] pass away from me,’” and “heard in that he feared.” Certainly Jesus’ fear that caused his prayer to be heard in heaven was not Webster’s first definition (Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:44; Hebrews 5:7). Only a few hours before, in another prayer, Jesus had spoken to his Father of “the glory which I had with you before the world was” (John 17:5), and that he was looking forward after the cross to regain that glory: “O Father, glorify thou me with the glory which I had with you before the world was.” God’s law for everyone’s prayer, written by Moses, was “Thou shalt …

The Greek word magoi (Matthew 2:1), that is translated “wise men” (KJV, NKJV, ASV), “magi” (NASB, NIV), and “astrologers” (NEB), has a literal, unsavory meaning pointing to “one trained in astrology and dream interpretation,” to a “magician, sorcerer” (Barclay M. Newman, Jr., Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament, p. 110). The literal translation of Matthew’s magoi “were a priestly caste,” with the word, from “the 1st century A.D. onward,” applied “to magicians and soothsayers” (Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 14, p. 569). The literal meaning of magoi was used by Luke (mageuon) in describing Simon of Samaria, as one who “practiced magic in the city” and who gave out that he was “some great one” (Acts 8:9). The same literal meaning of a form of magoi Luke used to describe Elymas Bar-jesus of Paphos as a “sorcerer,” and Paul called him a “son of the devil” (Acts 13:6, 8-10). But the literal meaning of magoi (English, “magi”) as “sorcerers,” or “astrologers” (Matthew 2:1, NEB), is false in its meaning in Matthew 2:1-16). The magi of Matthew 2:1-16 were God-fearing devout men whom God miraculously directed by a star to find Jesus. Therefore, contextually, the magi of Matthew 2:1-16 are the “wise men” of the KJV, NKJV, ASV. The Encyclopedia Britannica (vol. 14, p. 570) ignores the context in Matthew 2:1-16 about the magi in that passage, declaring a “connection of the Magi with astrology.” Moreover, the lexicographer Joseph Henry Thayer does the same thing in declaring that the magi of Matthew 2:1-16 were “astrologers” (A …

“Man is the measure of all things” (Protagorus, Greek philosopher, 480-410 B.C.). Therefore, “we must save ourselves” (Humanist Manifesto II, p. 16). But “a man’s way is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). Of “making many books” of directions “there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh” (Ecclesiastes 12:12). Only one of those books is “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), that is, the holy Bible. Weariness is eliminated and certainty guaranteed by recourse to the one book that gives “to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3): Your word is a lamp for my feet, and a light for my path. . . . The opening of your words sheds light, giving understanding to simple people” (pethayim, “ignorant, inexperienced,” Davidson, Psalm 119:105, 130). Though “the mystery of religion” (1 Timothy 3:16), involving some things “unsearchable” and “untraceable” (Romans 11:33), such as the Trinity or graphic pictures in the book of Revelation, yet the plan of salvation is so simple that an honest sinner, after one lesson, instantly asks, “What hinders my being baptized?” (Acts 8:36). As regards “the way of holiness” Isaiah wrote that “wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err” (35:8). As regards “the Holy Way,” the NRSV in Isaiah 35:8, says: “no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.” As regards “God’s Sacred Highway,” the CEV, in a footnote to Isaiah 35:8, says: “And not even a fool …

Paul said, “I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to foreigners, both to the wise and the unwise” (Romans 1:14). Hugo also is a debtor, both to Paul and to hundreds of people, living and dead. Paul also recognized his debt to Jesus, expressing it this way: “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me. And the life I live in the flesh is in trusting the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Hugo also is a debtor to Jesus, as are all human beings. Every human being should say that the Son of God “loved me, and gave himself for me” as “an unblemished and spotless Lamb,” in the pouring out of his “precious blood” (Galatians 2:20; 1 Peter 1:19). Not only are all responsible human beings sinners (1 Kings 8:46; Romans 3:23), but in themselves, by their own resources, they cannot rid themselves of the guilt of sin, as Jeremiah admitted: “I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (10:23). All of us are helpless, but, thankfully, the supreme Helper saw our condition, and, moved by love, sent a book from heaven, a book of directions for all of us to reach the benefits of Jesus’ “precious blood” (1 Peter 1:19). Among the thousands of books in the Congressional Library in Washington, or in …

On one occasion Jesus “left Judea and went again into Galilee. However, he had to pass through Samaria” (John 4:3-4). He “came to the Samaritan city of Sychar” where “was Jacob’s well” (John 4:5-6). Jacob is believed to have had the well dug following his purchase of a “parcel of ground” near a city called Shechem (Genesis 33:18-20). Jacob himself drank from this well “along with his sons and their flocks” (John 4:12). Jacob’s well is ancient. Jacob was born in 1770 B.C. (Robert Young’s Concordance, p. 531), and he died 147 years later (1623 B.C., Genesis 47:28). If Jacob had the well dug say about 1700 B.C., then it was 1727 years old when Jesus was at the well in A.D. 27 (A Harmony of the Gospels, Steven and Burton, p. 40). The well has been and is a good supplier of excellent water for 3702 years (1700 B.C. plus 2002 A.D.). Tourists thrill at drinking from this historic watering place. On May 23, 1971, Harold and Joe Bryant and Gene Priest and Hugo McCord drank from a freshly drawn bucket of the cool water. A glass full of it our guide poured back into the well, and it was five seconds before we heard the water from the glass strike the water below (“125 feet,” said the guide). No doubt the well in Jacob’s day and in Jesus’ day was out in the open, but now a church building (Greek Catholic) covers the well, and a walled monastery surrounds …

I. Temples Made With Hands The first two of Webster’s definitions of a temple are: a place regarded by the ancients as a dwelling place for a god or gods; hence, a building for the worship of a god or gods. Any of three buildings for worshiping Jehovah, successively built in Jerusalem. The first of the three buildings was erected by Solomon. It was beautiful, requiring 7 years in the construction, 966-959 B.C. (1 Kings 6:38). It was costly: Solomon “overlaid the whole house with gold” (1 Kings 6:22). On the day of dedication the house was “filled with a cloud” and “the glory of Yahweh filled the house of God” (2 Chronicles 5:13-14). The Lord said to Solomon: “I have consecrated this house which you have built by putting my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually” (1 Kings 9:3). But the Lord’s promise to bless the temple “forever” and “perpetually” was not unconditional. If Solomon’s people failed to keep God’s commandments, “then [said the Lord] I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given to them, and the house which I have consecrated for my name,” and “this house will become a heap of ruins” (1 Kings 9:6-8). Sadly, the temple, that in 959 B.C. was dedicated, in 587 B.C. became “a heap of ruins”: Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had his soldiers to pillage and to burn Solomon’s beautiful and costly temple (2 Chronicles 36:19; Jeremiah 52:13). After …

He who knows “the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10) knew that man, created as free to make his own choices, would sin. “God is love” (1 John 4:8), but true love could not ignore that which is the opposite of the One who is “righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works” (Psalm 145:17). Sin-offerings of animals, even burnt sacrifices, would not remove man’s guilt. What could be done? One envisions a heavenly conference back in eternity producing the “plan of the ages” (prothesin ton aionon, Ephesians 3:11) in which not an animal but a human sacrifice was suggested, and God asked: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (cf. Isaiah 6:8). The One afterward called “Jesus” volunteered, saying, “Look! I come” (Psalm 40:7). God made it clear that Jesus did not have to go to the earth and become a human sacrifice, and Jesus responded: “I delight to do your will, O my God, and your law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8). That statement so pleased the Father that Jesus could afterward say: The Father loves me, because I lay down my life to take it again. No one takes it from me. I myself lay it down. I have authority both to lay it down and to take it again. This commandment I received from my Father (John 10:17-18). The words “God sent forth his Son” (Galatians 4:4), referring to Jesus, do not mean a son by God’s semen, for …

According to Thayer (p. 64), the first meaning of the Greek word apollumi is “to destroy, i.e., to put out of the way entirely, abolish, put an end to, ruin: Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34; 17:27, 29; Jude 5.” I failed to notice that Thayer also gives a “metaph” meaning, “to devote or give over to eternal misery: Matthew 10:28; James 4:12.” His statement means that my translation of Matthew 10:28 and James 4:12, with the word “destroy” is wrong: Fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of him who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28). There is one Lawgiver and Judge, the one able to save and destroy. Who are you to judge your neighbor? (James 4:12). Thayer’s metaphorical meaning of apollumi in Matthew 10:28 and James 4:12 would have this reading: Fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of him who can give over to eternal misery both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28). There is one Lawgiver and Judge, the one able to save and to give over to eternal misery. Who are you to judge your neighbor? Vine agrees with Thayer that lost people in hell have not been destroyed, writing that apollumi does not here mean “extinction, but ruin, loss, not of being but of well being.” Vine’s definition of apollumi fits what the father said about his prodigal son: “He was lost [apollumi], but …