QUES. 7. – Is there nothing to be learned from the fact that Christ did not commence His public ministry until He was thirty years of age? and is there no significance in this other fact that He fasted forty days, and that the number forty occurs repeatedly in Scripture ?

ANS. – Surely there are lessons to be learned from these facts. Thirty years was the God-appointed age for the Levites to enter upon their service (Num. 4:8); it was at that age our Lord was presented to Israel and entered upon His ministry (Luke 3:23).

A man is not fully formed until about thirty, and our Saviour, though God as well as Man, never used His deity to shield Himself from youth's lessons of patience on its way to manhood. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." Such an example, prayerfully considered, would check impatience in Christian young men who may be in danger of too much haste to enter public ministry. Nothing is more dangerous to a Christian young man of manifest gift than to push himself forward in ministry before reaching his years of manhood. He is apt to be admired and petted because of his youth and precociousness, and this may mar his life even in after-years. We do not say this to discourage young men, but only to gather profit from our Lord's example.

As to the number forty, it is unquestionably one that has special instruction, being, as it is, linked with our Lord's history and that of others. The "Numerical Bible " gives substantial help in this line. A 10 cent, pamphlet, "The Witness of Arithmetic to Christ," is an extract from it; to be had of our publishers

QUES. 8.-Would you kindly explain 1 John 5 :16?

ANS.-" Life" and "death " here are only as to the body, in relation to the government of God-having to do with time-with this life, not eternity. 1 Cor. 11 :30-32 is of the same character. The expression in that passage, "and many sleep" (that is, have died), shows there had been none in the assembly at Corinth able to perform the service mentioned in the passage about which you inquire. They came behind in no gift (1 Cor. 1:7), but gift is not all that is required for service of this kind. It takes the love of a true shepherd-one who values Christ's sheep by what Christ had to suffer to get them-to seek an erring brother and lead him out of the wrong he is in.

The chief difficulty of the passage may be how to discern what is sin unto death from what is not that. The true shepherd-heart knows, however, that all sin finally leads there. He will not wait therefore till the end if he perceives it in its beginnings. Love will urge him at once to wash the offender's feet.

The same difficulty appears in verse 14 of the same chapter, "If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us." etc. How can we be sure of His will ? There is no rule for this ; it depends on our slate of soul. It is only in communion with God, in abiding in Christ, in the heavenly sphere where He is gone and where grace has put us in Him (Eph. 2 :4-6), that we acquire the necessary discernment to judge with God. His Word fills us with His mind if we too can say, '' Thy words were found and I did eat them," and, filled with His mind, all is simple and natural.
This brings the thought, How important that we watch jealously against whatever may interfere with a holy state of soul.

QUES. 9.-The passage in Luke 18 :19 puzzles me. Will you kindly help? The Lord objects to being called good by saying God alone is that. But was He not Himself God? And does not Scripture itself call various men good?

ANS.-The Lord's objection to being called "good," is because the "ruler" who approaches Him looks at Him as a mere man like himself. He is testing this young man. Only God is essentially good, as was manifested in Jesus. When good is found elsewhere, it is only derived. The source of it is in God.

QUES. 10.-Kindly explain Matt. 24:22. In what sense are " days to be shortened ? "

ANS.-In the sense that "the great tribulation " which the Lord had just predicted, and which is yet to come upon the Jewish people, will not be allowed of God to go on till all the faithful ones who refuse the Antichrist are put to death. The enemy would lengthen it till he has accomplished his desire to destroy them utterly, but God will say, Enough, and the persecution must cease. Then will be fulfilled the promise of verses 29-31.

QUES. 11.-What does 2 Cor. 5 :3 mean? Is one thus spoken of a saved man or not ?

ANS.- To be found "naked" in Scripture means, we believe, being lost. To be ''unclothed" is to be out of the body. To be "clothed" is the resurrection state.

There was a low state at Corinth ; so, while the apostle ever maintained the truth of the grace of God intact, he puts before the conscience the solemn fact that not profession but possession of Christ can avail in that day-he expresses doubt as to the state of some among them. While establishing the true and sincere in the grace of God, he seeks to arouse the untrue or self-deceived.

QUES. 12.-Are the tree of life in the midst of the garden of Eden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, mentioned in Genesis 2:9, two different trees?

ANS.-Most assuredly they are. They are both mentioned in the verse to which you refer as distinct and separate. The tree of life illustrates Christ; the other, man's responsibility, under which he broke down and incurred death. At that tree, as he put forth his hand after the forbidden fruit, he said to God, as it were, I will no more be subject to you. He became a rebel, and this is the very essence of sin. His only hope now is in the other tree- the tree of life.

QUES. 13.-Is there more than one word in the original for our word baptize, or baptism ? And is the original word equivalent to our word dip or immerse?

ANS.-The one original word for "baptize," "were baptized," "shall baptize," "to be baptized," "am baptized," and other similar English forms of the verb is baptize.

For our word baptism, the one original word is baptisma.
As to its meaning being the equivalent of dip or immerse, he who says so must be wiser than the translators, for they found such difficulty in the translation of the word that they did not translate it at all; they only Anglicized it, that is, gave it an English form; and translators in other tongues have done the same. Had they been satisfied that the Greek word was equivalent to our word dip, or immerse, they would no doubt have so rendered it. Nor have revisers of the various translations made any change. In Mark 7:4 they give it as "the washing of cups, and pots ; " in Hebrew 9:10 as "meats and drinks and divers washings." They call the forerunner of our Lord, John the Baptist. To call him John the Dipper, or Immerser, would be unwarranted liberty, which only Baptist extremists would dare to take. No one who reads the word of God without prejudice can fail to see that John and others baptized by immersion, and the doctrine attached to Baptism shows its form to be immersion, but to make Immersion and Baptism equivalent terms is a very different thing, and is not true.