Question Corner by Milton C. Wilcox

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 16, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 11.

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, only 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 can not 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 Name and address must be given, not for publication, but as evidence of good faith and to insure reply by letter if thought best.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.

95—Missionary Baptist Church

1. Have we any Bible proof that the Missionary Baptist Church is the oldest church? Can it be proved by Bible or history that they can trace their belief further back than any other denomination? 2. Are not the Catholics ahead of them in this respect? 3. Have we any Bible proof that Jesus' being baptized of John the Baptist makes Jesus a member of the Missionary Baptist Church? 4. Does John get his name “John the Baptist” simply because he baptized with water, or was he really a member of the Missionary Baptist Church? L. M. B.

We hardly believe that our Missionary Baptist friends would affirm all these claims in their fullest sense. There is no denomination on the earth that can say they trace their origin back as far as that, unless it is the Jews. Of course they have been a nation of themselves all the way through.

John the Baptist was the forerunner of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is called “John the Baptist,” or “John the Baptizer,” simply because he baptized those who accepted his message. John did not organize any church. He had his followers, and those who accepted his message, but we have no account whatever that he organized any church. When he baptized Jesus, he did not baptize Him into any church; for our Lord Himself was the very Founder of the Christian church. It is built upon the Rock Christ Jesus. (See the little tract “The Foundation Rock of the Church,” Apples of Gold No. 99, price one cent.)

That church founded by our Lord Himself continued from that time forward. The Roman Catholic Church, of course, contends that they began with Peter, and that Peter was the first bishop of the church. There is no proof of this, either Scriptural or historical. The true church of the Lord Jesus Christ is the church that meets the conditions God lays down in His word. They are the true “called-out ones”—those who have obeyed the call of God—called out according to the conditions of His word.

The great apostasy that developed into the Roman Catholic Church began even in the apostle Paul’s day. It grew apace, and the Catholic Church as an ecclesiastical body could be said to begin about the time of Constantine. Previous to that time there was far less of apostasy in the church. Some of those who were true to their conceptions of truth were persecuted by the apostate church just as soon as the apostate church could command power to do it. Many of them went into the wilderness, driven into mountain fastnesses, scattered here and there throughout Christendom. Among these were the Waldenses, the Albigenses, and others. Some of these baptized—continued the form of baptism; others lost much of the teachings of the Lord in their wandering, while still holding faith in God and in His word.

Among those who early came out of the apostasy of the Dark Ages were the Baptists, who have been able to trace Baptist believers, or Christians who held to immersion, back through the centuries; and it is doubtless a fact that the Lord had true followers who believed in immersion during all those dark and fearful times, but they were not organized into a Missionary Baptist Church, or into any other particular Baptist Church. They were faithful followers of God, whom the Lord counted His church in the wilderness.

The really important thing is not that we shall belong to this denomination or that denomination, but, Do we meet in our own lives God’s call? “Church” comes from ekklesia, and the ekklesia is composed of those who are legitimately and properly called out. God’s called-out ones constitute His church—those who are called out according to the truth that is given in His word.

96—THE TIME OF PEACE, ISA. 11:7

Will you please explain? Does it mean that these animals are to be in the new earth? E. R. D.

The passage includes verses 6 to 8. In these verses we are told that “the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’s den.”

It does not seem to us that all these literal things are demanded in the new earth. The prophet is using the very strongest figures it was possible for him to use to show the completeness of peace and the effect of righteousness in the kingdom of God restored. Among the evidences of sin in this world is the antagonism between the members of the brute creation. There have been developed, in consequence of sin, the carnivorous beasts that prey upon other beasts with unsparing cruelty. Nothing of that kind will be seen in God’s kingdom restored. Though the little child were there, it could play on the hole of the asp—now one of the most poisonous of serpents. Though the little child were there, it could put its hand on the adder’s den, and there would be nothing there to harm or destroy in any way.

Another thing: The prophecies of the Old Testament are oftentimes double. God would have brought about all those beautiful conditions in Israel at that time if Israel had been faithful to Him; but they failed, and now more blessed conditions will be fulfilled in the new earth. The strongest use we could make of such passages as Isa. 11:6-9 is, that conditions there will be absolutely peaceful, and all things dwell there absolutely harmless.

97—UNEQUALLY YOKED TOGETHER

Will you please explain 1 Cor. 7:14? One of the questions that I have in regard to it is the matter of eating and drinking. What is the wife’s duty in such a case? Should she control her children in respect to those things which she feels are not good for them, or should she for the sake of peace yield? Wife.

The scripture and context read as follows: “But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace. For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?” 1 Cor. 7:12-16.

First of all, there is a solemn and weighty responsibility that rests upon the Christian in such a union as this. It is a responsibility that must not be lightly regarded or ignored. The believing one should have one dominant desire and object in life, and that is, to save, if possible, the one who is unbelieving. To do that, he or she ought to be willing to compromise in everything where principle is not involved and character is not marred.

In the matter of eating and drinking what conscience forbade, it seems as though there could be no question between reasonable people. If a believing husband felt that he could not eat or drink that which the unbelieving wife did, she certainly ought not to object, and vice versa.

Regarding the children, the case would be different, because the children themselves might not know what would be best for them, and must depend to a greater or less extent upon their parents’ guidance. And here is where the difficulty many times would arise in the training of the children. The unbelieving father might demand that they should eat the same unwholesome things he eats. What shall a mother do? It is utterly impossible for the SIGNS OF THE TIMES to tell her. She knows the conditions, knows the circumstances, knows more or less of the disposition with which she has to deal, knows the children. What she could do is this: She could teach her children what is best. That certainly is the privilege of the mother preeminently. But if the father’s will and the rest of the home itself were involved, it would be much better not to compel or seek to compel acquiescence. In fact, this would probably be impossible in many cases. She could not compel the children to do as she thought they ought to do; and the only way she could do would be to yield, and teach the children aright, and endeavor to control them morally.

If the question were carried so far that it meant wrong to the children and wrong to her, then the privilege is left her to depart and leave the husband to himself. These are things that must not be decided by what somebody else may say.

We would say to the one who is making these inquiries, and to others similarly situated, that there is an ear that is open to our prayers. There is One who is willing to guide; One who is willing to forgive and cover all mistakes; One who is able to pierce the hard heart of the unbelieving ones; One who is able to give such wisdom as only God can give. Let the believing ones go to Christ, and find in Him guidance. But whatever may come, let them not lose their Christianity or their hold upon the Saviour. On the other hand, let them do everything in their power to make home pleasant and more than pleasant for the unbelieving ones.

In the matter of food, let the wife study how she can make the best kind of foods, the most palatable for the unbelieving husband. Let her so seek to do this that he shall come to prefer her way of living rather than his own. Let neither of them try to compel by argument or force what he or she may think to be right. Let them indulge in as little argument as possible, but let each seek to win the other.