p. 2 | DEBATINGS by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 29, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 34.

DEBATINGS

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

The religion of Jesus Christ is a life to be lived, and not a theory to be debated upon. Christ did not debate with the devil in the temptation in the wilderness; he simply lived. There is no debating the question of actual life; and anything less than this is not worth debating about.

“You say you are alive,” someone says; “let us debate the question.”

“I refuse to debate such a question.”

“If you do not debate, people will think you are afraid.”

Suppose a man should, in order to “defend the truth,” get up and debate the question as to whether he is alive or not. Any one who would do that would show that his life is not of sufficient value to give him good sense.

The truth as it is in Jesus is the life of God, and the life of God lived in his own way. All that we have to do is to let him work in us, so that the injunction may be obeyed, “Do all things without murmurings and disputings; that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life.” Phil. 2: 14-16.

The word to us is, “Arise, shine”—not debate. The lighted gas jet is very quiet. We may argue with it all we please, that it has no light, nevertheless it shines, and by the power of its shining it silences all caviling. The sun shines, and men may rail at it all they wish, but it has not time to stop shining to go to arguing. The religion of Christ is the life of Christ, and it is the life that is the light. Let it spring up, and do not try to stop the flow. It is a fountain; do not be afraid of exhausting the supply. E. J. W.