Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 11, 1905

1597.—Paying Tithes.

Should debts be paid before paying tithe, or should tithe be paid first? J. F.

The tithe is not a gift to God or His cause; it belongs to Him, and we have no right to use it for any purpose of our own. There may be an honest question as to what the tithe should be paid on; but having ascertained that, it should be paid without question. The basis is the income. Is it clear as to the income?

1598.—The 144,000. Rev. 14:1-5.

(1) Will the 144,000 of Revelation 14 sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel? Matt. 19:28; Luke 22:28-30. (2) Will the 144,000 be composed of men only? or does it include women and children? These questions are hard to decide. C. H.

1. The texts cited—Matt. 19:28; Luke 22:28-30—declare that the honor of judging the twelve tribes of Israel belongs to the apostles. Just what position the class above referred to will hold in that government we do not know.

2. The ancient method of numbering was to number males of certain age. So Israel was numbered of old. So those were numbered who were fed by the Saviour. The women and children of like experience and relation were included with the men, but not in the numbering. Thus it may be with the 144,000. But why try to decide questions of this character? We can leave, to great advantage, some of these things to the future and to God. We may know that only those will be among the 144,000 who deserve to be, and these will not be those who have striven for a certain place or position, but who have most earnestly sought to please God.

1599.—What Night Was It? Acts 20:7.

In Acts 20:7 did the translators of the King James Version take into consideration, that a Bible day was from sunset to sunset, and then give us the translation in an up-to-date term. Was the time that the disciples gathered together on Sunday night, or was it Saturday night? Can you tell me how I can find out? In verse 11 it says Paul departed at daybreak. This would be all right if the day was from midnight to midnight. Then it could be rightly said, as in verse 7, that he departed on the morrow. But if from sunset to sunset and he departed at daybreak, he did not go on the morrow, but on the first day of the week. Also the same confusion in John 20:19. How could the same day at evening be the first day of the week, unless they figured from midnight to midnight. Is this a mistake in translation. Please oblige an anxious enquirer. G. A. R.

1. We know no reason why the sense is not given in the common translations.

2. The time was Saturday night.

3. The morrow sometimes has reference to the light part of the same day. Judges 6:37, 38; 1 Sam. 19:10, 11. Sometimes it seems to be reckoned from the broad standpoint of the evening in general, covering a portion of two days, sometimes called “two evenings.” See Ex. 12:6, margin. That is, the evening began about 3 o’clock P. M., when the sun began rapidly to decline, and continued till in the night. The disciples may have come together to their meal, and doubtless did, before the first day wholly closed. The morrow was used, not technically, but generally, for the next light day. In fact, morning and morrow are from the same root.

4. So also in John 20:19, the evening is used in its broader sense, of lapping over the close of one day and the beginning of another. In either case there is nothing to show any sacredness of the day.