[All questions to this department will be answered which to the editors will seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. The same question can not be answered repeatedly in the same volume. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. It is well always to enclose a stamp for reply.]
2372.—The Wife and Family Worship.
Please tell me what is a wife's duty regarding family worship where the husband is not a professed Christian. Should she conduct family worship if he is willing, and return thanks at meals if her husband wishes her so to do? Could you suggest a short form of blessing or thanks at table which would also be comprehensive or appropriate?
READER.
We certainly see no objection whatever to a wife's holding family prayers if her husband has no objection, or asking a blessing at the table if he so desires. We knew one woman who was converted while her husband was not. She took up family worship as a duty, to which he had no objection. By and by he joined her in the reading of the Bible, and a little later on prayed with her, and afterward became a Christian. No wife, however, ought to demand such things, and our correspondent seems to be the farthest from this. As to the duty, we must leave that with the individuals themselves. We see no sacrifice of propriety, however, when a wife does this. She might by request induce her husband to read the Scripture for her; one who believes in prayer in that way would, after awhile, if he had a consistent life before him, unite with her in the worship of God.
As to returning thanks at meals, it is the custom in England, and now and then we find it in the United States, for each member of the family to give thanks in turn; sometimes all join together in giving thanks at meals. Some of the old hymn-books give the song-prayers used on such occasions. We do not like to give a form of prayer; we would prefer the individuals to compose their own form. This, however, it seems to us ought to be comprehended in such an offering of the lips: Thanks to God for His fatherly kindness and care, for the provision which He makes for our maintenance of life, the food which He supplies from day to day, asking Him to sanctify that food to His glory and our good, and to remember with us, and give us hearts to remember, those who are deprived of such blessings; and all in the Master's name.
The apostle talks of dying, and if so, how can he be with Christ?
H. D. L.
The passage is as follows: "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor; yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better." It will be noticed that the apostle had three things in mind: the dying, the living in the flesh, and the departing and being with Christ. It would magnify Christ should he die or should he live (verse 20); therefore he could not decide between these two; but there was a thing which he preferred to either of the two, and that was to be with Christ.
The query then rises, when are the children of God with Christ? Let the same apostle speak. 1 Thess. 4: 16, "For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." The words of Jesus are to the same import in Matt. 16: 27; 25: 31, that it is not until the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead that the children of God go to be with Him.
For this the apostle longed. The word "de-parting" may be applied to various things, for it is used in Luke 12: 36 of Christ's returning: "And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when He will return from the wedding." The word "return" comes from the same root as "depart." It was for the second coming of Christ, for the resurrection and the translation, that the apostle Paul longed, and which to him was preferable to either dying or living.
2374.—The First Peopling of the Earth. Gen. 2: 11-14.
Do you understand that the earth was first peopled between the Caspian and Black Seas to the south according to Holinan's Map No. 1? According to the A.R.V., it would seem that Havilah was Ethiopia, and that Pison was either one branch of the Nile or perhaps the whole river.
To our mind no one can tell from present conditions in this world where the Garden of Eden was located. True, there are the names of several streams which we find later on in the world's history. Those may have been the original names of those streams. They have meanings beyond the names. For instance, Pison means to spread, dispersive; Gihon, to issue, to gush forth; etc. Some of these same names may have been given to later streams, either on the supposition that they were the original ones or to perpetuate the names. The first names as given in Genesis were those of the characters of the streams; the names as applied to the streams this side of the Flood may have been given for the meaning of the name or the supposition that they were the same rivers, as before stated. Why we do not believe that the location of the Garden of Eden can be determined is, first, that there is no locality presenting the characteristics described in Genesis 2, and this is shown from the fact that there is no agreement among those who have investigated the matter thoroly. Secondly, the Apostle Peter expressly tells us in referring to the world before the Flood, the cosmos, the arrangement, "the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." We have, it seems to us, almost every reason to believe not only from what the Lord says thru Peter, but from what we find in the earth itself, that its conformation was altogether different than at present. On some of the highest mountains and table-lands we find the fossils of marine shell-fish.
2375.—Lamech.
H. C. M.—There is nothing in the Scriptures which would indicate that Lamech killed Cain. All that we know about him at all is given to us in Gen. 4: 19-24. That record seems to indicate that Lamech had slain a young man, purely in self-defense: "I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt." And then follows his prophecy that if the Lord would avenge any one for slaying Cain, seven-fold, surely He would avenge seventyfold one who slew Lamech, who slew in self-defense. The A.R.V. has it, "I have slain a man for wounding me, and a young man for bruising me."
2376.—The Garden of Eden.
What is the meaning of verses 10 to 14 of the second chapter of Genesis?
H. C. M.
These verses simply tell us of the four rivers that were in the Garden of Eden. The thought is that they arose from one place, from one great fountain, and from there spread out into the four streams, flowing thru the land and watering it, something similar to the irrigating systems of to-day, large at the source rather than at the mouth. The rivers of to-day drain the land of its richness and pour it out into the great salt sea. The primal rivers of earth drew their supply from the fountain of life and sent it out into all the world, percolating and watering the soil rather than washing it away. We have no means of identifying those rivers with anything that exists at the present time. At the time of the Flood, "the world that then was," the cosmos, the arrangement which then existed, "being overflowed with water, perished." 2 Peter 3: 6.
Concerning the expression in Gen. 1: 2, "And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep," do you understand that it was vacancy, nothingness, or the organization of matter?
H. J. F.
To us it seems as tho the matter of which the earth was made was in existence, as stated in the first verse, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth;" but it was in the condition expressed in the second verse, waste and void, empty, dark. "Waste and void" does not mean vacancy or nothingness, for the earth could not be said to be the earth if that were the case. It was without the organized form that appeared later. It was chaos instead of cosmos. The six days which God wrought brought the beautiful cosmos, or arrangement, which He pronounced "very good," out of the chaos which was waste and void. Is there not a difference between creating and making?
Please explain the latter part of Gen. 3: 15.
H. C. M.
The whole verse reads, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." The words are spoken to the serpent prophetically, of the representatives of both the serpent and the woman. While Satan, thru the serpent, had triumphed over the woman, there would come a time when the seed of the woman should triumph over the serpent, and that Seed would finally bruise Satan's head, or utterly destroy him. That Seed of the woman is Christ, and that bruising of the serpent's head is the utter destruction of Satan at last. Heb. 2: 14. The bruising of the heel is the persecution of God's children and of Christ at the instigation of Satan thru his agents.
2379.—Genealogy of Jesus.
The genealogy of Mary the mother of Jesus is puzzling to us. How could Christ come of the line of David when Joseph was not His father?
B. S.
One of the genealogies gives the royal line, the heirship in law, and must of necessity give it thru Joseph, who was the legal father of Jesus. This is given in Matthew 1. Joseph was a descendant of David thru the royal line. Luke gives the literal blood descent thru Mary, but as it was not the custom to count the genealogy thru the female, the genealogy is given as thru Joseph. Heli, the father of Joseph, was probably his father-in-law, the real father of Mary.
Please explain Gen. 1: 28. It looks as tho the earth had been peopled before Adam, God telling them to replenish or repeople it.
S. S.
"Replenish" means in English "to fill again." The original word, however, from which it comes, does not necessarily mean this. It comes from the Hebrew mala, meaning to fill or to be filled, and is rendered filled, confirm, consecrate, being at an end, satisfy, etc.
It is utterly impossible in this department to comply with any such request as the one before us, "Please explain Isaiah 35." Such questions are altogether too indefinite, and we can not use our Inquirers' Department for an extended commentary on long passages of scripture. Inquirers must state the special points on which they desire light and help; if we can give it, we will.