Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 6, 1896

No. 259. A Matter of Eating. Rom. 14:2.

Please explain Rom. 14:2: “For one believeth that he may eat all things; another, who is weak, eateth herbs.”

W. C. T.

With this verse should be taken into connection verses 1, 3, and 4. The question under discussion is that of faith. One man’s faith was so broad he could eat all things; but another man, differently educated, confined his diet to herbs, vegetables; for the original word refers to plants cultivated. The lesson is that he who eats should not regard with contempt his brother, neither should the one who ate herbs judge or condemn him whose faith allowed a broader diet. Let neither pride himself in his virtue or condemn his brother. To God alone is each responsible. The mere doing or not doing of a particular thing is not salvation, but “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Verse 17. But the true servant of God will eat and drink to God’s glory (1 Cor. 10:31), and will not cause his brother to stumble (Rom. 14:15, 21).

No. 260. Three Days and Nights. Matt. 12:40.

Please explain Matt. 12:40, as it is generally understood that Christ was only two nights in the earth.

F. H. S.

Jesus was to be in “the heart of the earth” three days and three nights, as Jonah was in the great fish. Counting parts of days as whole days, a common mode in the Bible, and this was true of Jesus from the time he was yielded to the Roman power, till his resurrection. The heart of the earth may mean the powers of earth. At the time he was thus delivered, Jesus said, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” Luke 22:53; John 12:27. It is a purely arbitrary interpretation to say “the heart of the earth” means the grave. When Jesus was delivered into the hands of his enemies, he was in the power of the rulers of earth. The three days may cover all—the betrayal, the persecution, the crucifixion, the burial, to the resurrection. Compare Matt. 16:21; Luke 24:20, 21.

No. 261. 1 Cor. 5:9-13.

WILL you please explain 1 Cor. 5:9-13?

The passage in question reads as follows:—

“I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators; yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.”

The scripture does not refer to individual judgment upon individuals; but the united action of a church, guided by the Spirit of the Lord, and acting in his name. All these sins must be sufficiently manifest by actual deed that a church standing in the counsel of God may act clearly and unitedly. Covetousness is often manifested in what might not be called stealing in criminal law, but which would be as wicked in the sight of God, overreaching, grasping, oppressively exacting. A church should take cognizance of such a course. 1 Thess. 4:6. An idolater might be one who actually worshiped idols, or indicated his condition of heart as manifestly some other way. No child of God should refuse to come to the Lord’s table on account of others’ sins. It is not the one person, but the church through its divinely ordained course, that is to deal in all such matters. A church that does not do this well deserves the reproof of 1 Cor. 5:1-6.