p. 780 | Question Corner by Milton C. Wilcox

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 14, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 49.

Question Corner

By Milton C. Wilcox

CONDUCTED BY MILTON C. WILCOX Mountain View, California

Note.—This department is for the purpose of helping Bible students. Answers must of necessity be brief, often only suggestive, never exhaustive, never infallible except as they agree with the infallible Word. Such questions only will be answered as seem to the editors to minister to the mission of the paper. Questions of the same import cannot be answered repeatedly in the same volume. Name and address must be given, not for publication, but as evidence of good faith and to insure reply by letter if thought best. It is well always to inclose stamp, not stamped envelope, unless answer is desired by letter alone.

209 — Matt. 26: 16-21

Please explain Matt. 26: 16-21. O. H. S.

We do not know what our correspondent refers to in this text. It seems to be very plain. The sixteenth verse declares that from that time on—that is, from the time when Judas went to the chief priests—he sought opportunity to deliver Jesus to them. The next verse states that on the first day of unleavened bread, or on the first day of the Passover feast, the disciples came to Jesus, and wanted to know where they would eat the Passover together; and He gave them direction—told them to “go into the city to such a man,” and say to that man, “The Teacher saith, My time is at hand; I keep the Passover at thy house with My disciples.” It was a customary thing among the Jews. Those who were able, had rooms, and were willing that those rooms should be used. That was Eastern hospitality. The disciples went and found the man and the house. Other evangelists tell us that the house had a room ready, a large upper chamber. The nineteenth verse says that “the disciples did as Jesus appointed them; and they made ready the Passover.” The twentieth verse states that “when even was come”—that would be the same as our Thursday evening—“He was sitting at meat with the twelve disciples;” and while they were eating, He declared that one of them would betray Him.

This is the simple narrative. Perhaps our correspondent has given the wrong reference. This is the one, however, that he gave in his letter. The scripture is an interesting one, as it tells us the beginning of the last agony of Jesus.

210 — Smoking

What is there in the Bible against smoking? Where is it forbidden in the Bible? J. P. C.

Nowhere in so many words. The Bible could not, in the very nature of the case, forbid every wrong act that man can do. It would make so many volumes that no person could read them. God deals with great principles. He saves and cleanses us, that we may serve Him; and He gives us, in different places, these principles that will prove a stay and a guide to us if we have them in our hearts. Here is one of them, very comprehensive: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Cor. 10: 31. Let us measure the habit of smoking by this rule. Consider also:

1. Who will say that smoking has done him any good, or has made him better off than the man who does not smoke? Smokers and non-smokers work together continually, and we do not know where, other things being equal, the smoker has any advantage over the non-smoker.

2. Medical men have found, and have told us, again and again, that smoking is responsible for many diseases and abnormal conditions. It affects the heart; it affects the eyes; it affects the stomach and the liver; it affects the blood. Nicotine is a very active, virulent poison. Therefore it continually poisons the men who use tobacco. Thousands have demonstrated the evil of tobacco in their own lives, and have been greatly benefited when they ceased its use.

3. It is expensive. The writer has found, in his own experience, men who were paying more in an ordinary family for tobacco every week than they were paying for flour. How much better it would have been had this expense not been incurred, and the money had been used for other things, that would brighten the home; to pay for things that were really needed in the house, to say nothing of luxuries.

4. Tobacco is an enslaving habit. It grips the appetite of men more strongly than does whisky. I was once told by the superintendent of a mine, that if men who were in the habit of drinking whisky, could get none, they would still work for a month at a time, but it was impossible to hold on a job a tobacco user who was out of tobacco. Who wishes to enslave himself by such a habit as that?

5. It is a vile habit. We believe that even those who use tobacco are oftentimes disgusted when they see the evidences of its use upon the faces of others, or upon the floors of public buildings, in homes, and elsewhere. God wants a clean people. He tells us that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. He wants to dwell in us. Could we consistently ask Him to come in and dwell in us if we made first there the master tobacco?

Taking all these things into consideration—and much more might be said—surely every principle in God’s word pertaining to human duty is against the use of tobacco.

Some have felt that Deut. 29: 18, 19 referred to the use of tobacco. It seems to be comprehensive enough to do this, for certainly tobacco is what the margin indicates, “a poisonous herb.”

211 — “Be Not Carried Away”

Please explain Heb. 13: 9; Titus 3: 9; and 1 Tim. 2: 12. O. H. S.

Heb. 13: 9 presents an injunction which all Christians ought to heed: “Be not carried away by divers and strange teachings.” Stay by the great fundamentals that God has given us. Those teachings seem to show that man is established by what he eats and drinks. The apostle declares that the heart is established by God’s grace, not by food. The word “meats” comes from a word meaning food. Those who wholly occupy themselves in such things, he declares are “not profited.” The same thought is expressed in Rom. 14: 17; “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” The man whose heart is established by grace, will do all in his power to please God, and to eat and drink to God’s glory.

Titus 3: 9 warns us against giving time to unprofitable things, foolish questions, genealogies, and strifes, and fightings about the law. These are unprofitable and vain. We do not convince people by heated arguments or fighting. The only truly convinced ones are those converted by the love of God. Shun all these foolish questions.

1 Tim. 2: 12 is simply an injunction regarding church order; in which modest women would agree with devoted men; for no truly modest woman wants to teach or have lordship over a man. If she could do this, she would despise him. She might in a way sympathize with him as a mother. She certainly would not look up to him as a real help. He would not be to her the strength that God designed he should be, so the apostle did not want any one in the church who would be inconsistent in a well regulated home.