QUES. 12.-Will you please give us some light on Lk. 16:8, 9. What is making "friends of the mammon of unrighteousness?" When are the disciples of Christ to fail? and how are "friends of the mammon of unrighteousness" to receive us "into everlasting habitations?"

ANS.-A brief word as to the connections of this passage will be useful. In the 15th chapter the wondrous .grace of God to sinners is shown in three parables-the Shepherd seeking lost sheep; the Spirit, under the type of a woman, sweeping the house to find lost silver; the Father receiving back to His bosom and into His house the unworthy but repentant child that had spent his all in riotous living. All this showed God's heart toward man. Then in the 16th chapter, in a wide sweep, man's responsibility is shown, as set in a place of privilege.

The unjust steward shows what man has done-appropriating to his own purposes what God had entrusted to him from the beginning; but death comes as the appointed and of his stewardship (vers. 1, 2).

Seeing he could not continue, the unjust steward makes provision for the future (vers. 3-7). In this he showed Himself more wise than God's people, "the children of light," usually are (ver. 8).

Seeing that we, as children of Adam, cannot continue here on earth, let us learn a lesson from the unjust .steward's wisdom:let us, "children of light," use the present opportunities in view of the future (ver. 9). The use we now make of earthly possessions (which will soon pass out of our hands) is a sure index of where our heart really is. To "lay up treasure in heaven" is now our opportunity. And while eternal life is the gift of God, given us here and now, we are taught also of "an abundant entrance" in the home of life; or, saved "as through the fire," with loss of all but life. See 1 Cor. 3:13-15 and 2 Pet. 1:10,11.

Therefore, "the mammon of unrighteousness" are earthly things, belonging to God, who made them, but appropriated by man.

"Making friends" by their means is to so use them now that we shall find the fruit of it awaiting us in heaven.

The time when we "fail" is when, at death, we give up our stewardship.

QUES. 13.-Please answer in Help and Food the following:Does the 15th chapter of John apply to the people of God only? and are the cut off branches the same as in 1 Cor. 11:30, or does it take in the profession?

ANS.-Read the parable of the vine in Isaiah 5:1-7. Israel having utterly failed as God's witness upon earth, our Lord in John 15 takes Israel's forfeited place as the true Vine in whom God is glorified. His disciples' are the branches in whom the strength, the life, of the Vine is to be manifested-"without Me (apart from Me) ye can do nothing." But disciples may be so in name, and not in fact. When Jesus said, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you, "many of his disciples when they had heard this, said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it?" and "from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with Him" (John 6:53, 60,66). These are the fruitless branches, outwardly attached to Him, who continue for a time, until testing comes by which the true and the unreal are manifested. "If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered… and cast into the fire" in God's due time. See also 1 John 2:19.

As to 1 Cor. 11:30 it is another matter entirely, as verse 32 shows. They were dishonoring the Lord, even at His table; at the breaking of bread (vers. 17-22), and as Lord over His own house He had come in discipline among them. "Holiness becometh thy house, O Lord, for ever," therefore He disciplines His own, "that we should not be condemned with the world" in the coming day.

QUES. 14.-Please answer for me and others the following questions in Help and Food:

1.-Did any one preach the gospel of the grace of God before Paul came on the scene?

2.-Can any but believers believe anything about the things of God?

3.-Should we not preach repentance to sinners?

ANS.-How strange that anyone reading the New Testament should question or deny any of these three points. Who ever preached the gospel of God's love and grace more blessedly than that contained in John 3:14-18 and the 15th chap, of Luke?-and that was before the Cross. And after, was not the gospel of God's grace preached by Peter with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven at Pentecost (Acts 2), by Philip in Samaria, and to the eunuch from Ethiopia (Acts 8), and to the Gentiles by Peter (Acts 10:43-38)? Paul's ministry indeed gave a new and exalted character to the gospel, establishing it on the righteousness of God through the propitiation made by His beloved Son upon the cross (Rom. 1:16,17), and bringing the believer into the New Creation of which Christ is the Head (2 Cor. 5:17-21). While this is true, it is subverting the truth to say that the gospel of God's grace was not preached before Paul.

Questioning or denying the 2nd and 3rd points are not of faith, but from the reasonings of man's mind. Our Lord commanded to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," and "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations," and that those who believe not shall be condemned (Mark 16:15,16; Luke 24:47). Both to Jews and Gentiles Paul preached "repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ;" upon the Athenians he urged that "God now commands all men, every where to repent," because He is going to judge the world in righteousness (Acts 17:30; 20:21). God does not judge men for what they cannot do, and are not responsible for. See also what is said in John 20:30,31, "These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might, have life through His name."

Passage after passage might be added, and I have enlarged the answer on this line because for some time already erroneous teaching has been given out among "Brethren" on this subject, destroying man's responsibility to God, which man's conscience knows to be true. An honest consideration of the passages quoted should deliver those who have been led astray.