Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 12
November 17, 1960
NUMBER 28, PAGE 6-7,14b

News And Views

(Charles A. Holt, Box 80, Florence, Alabama)

News Of Moves And Other Items

Roger M. Hendricks will move from Baton Rogue, Louisiana, to work with the Pendleton Park church in Harlingen, Texas....He will follow Earl Dale, who has been in the Valley for a number of years. Dale will work with the DeQueen church in Port Arthur....Everett Conn is leaving the West Washington church in Indianapolis, to work with a new congregation in Indianapolis, which will be known as the Southport church.... Joe Cox is leaving the work with Southend in Louisville. I understand that he will make Louisville his home and hold meetings ....Donald Townsley is moving from Lebanon, Kentucky to labor with the Southend church in Louisville....The Newbern Admonisher is the latest little paper to join the rapidly multiplying number of such publications. This printed, semi-monthly is edited by Connie Adams, P. O. Box 72, Newbern, Tennessee. The first issue looks good, and I predict that the paper will do good. I presume it is free to all who desire it. ...Glenn R. Sheumaker, Sr. has moved from Tampa, to Lakeland, Florida.... Walter Henderson has moved from Ocala Florida to Meridian, Mississippi.... By the time this is read, the presidential election will be over and we should know if the next president will be a Catholic. This is a matter of grave importance to every person. The question of whether a Catholic should be elected has raged hot and furious in many places. Mr. Kennedy and his advisers have played "the religious issue" as their "trump card." What effect this phase of the matter will have one way or the other will probably never be really known. It is Kennedy's greatest asset — and his inside backers know it. If he is not elected, we can expect to hear a loud clamor about religious intolerance and bigotry keeping him out. The Roman Catholic church will play this tune for all it is worth, in such a case, as they prepare for another attempt later on....Regardless of the outcome, "the religious issue" will not die — it is vital and all the recent attention given it will keep it boiling for years. In fact, things will never be the same along this line....Whatever the outcome we know that Christians can and do pray that God's will be done, and our task is the same regardless of the man elected....I share the fear of every informed Christian and American at the possibility of a Catholic president. But who knows, it may be the will of God and may well be the best thing that could happen to the Cause of Christ. Only God can judge in such matters. We must do our best and use our limited judgment in deciding such matters to the extent of our ability and opportunity; and then leave it all in the hands of God.... I notice that "A. R. Holton and Party" are to renew their Korean work. In one report Holton "emphasized the necessity for mission work" with these words: "To be a church of Christ, you can't leave off mission work. Mission work is the stuff of civilization. Reservoirs of good will have been built by missionaries around the world. The church needs to say, We want to have a part in the great effort to influence the world.' "This gives us a modern-day concept of missionary work and the part the missionary is to play. "Mission work is the stuff of civilization." Did you know that? Moreover, the missionaries should realize that they are to help build "reservoirs of good will." This is apparently Holton's idea. He has run around all over the world with no higher or more important goal in mind. Preaching the gospel and saving souls have become mere secondary works....In another report Holton gives this information: "We plan to continue the program started on the original mission grounds in Seoul. This program will consist of a feeding program to several hundred people, a public health nursing program under the direction of Mrs. Elizabeth Burton...." Did you realize that a "public health nursing program," was involved in doing mission work? You could not learn such from a study of the N.T. and observing the labors of the "Apostle Paul and Party"....Harry Pickup, Jr. is now working with the Boston Street church in Aurora, Colorado. He was with Castleberry in Fort Worth....Harold Fite has moved from Bridge City Texas to work with the Castleberry church in Fort Worth.... Dudley Ross Spears has left the Central church in Owensboro, Kentucky and is now with the church in Blytheville, Arkansas.

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Special For Young People

A college professor was teaching a class on young people's morals. He knew the necessity of impressing his lesson on the mind of each individual student.

The next morning before class the professor bought two dozen of the most beautiful roses he could find. There would be one for each boy, with one left over. He picked the very prettiest rose out of the bunch and passed it to every student, letting him smell of it and handle it. Then he took it and fluffed it up in his hands. He then put the handled rose back in the bouquet. He passed the bouquet around and let every boy take the rose he wanted.

In the end the handled, misused rose was left.

A boy may go out with a girl that's misused, but in the end he always desires to pick the one that is pure for his wife.

— Gospel Digest

A Point To Ponder

"Judge not, that ye be not judged." How often do we forget this commandment when we consider other religious doctrines? Everyone believes that his religious beliefs are right and acceptable to God. IF HE IS SINCERE IN HIS CONVICTIONS AND IS TRYING TO DO THE WILL OF GOD AS HE INTERPRETS IT, who are we to say he is lost?" COLLEGE CHRISTIAN, Texas Technological College Church of Christ Bible Chair).

A point to ponder, INDEED! This is the old denominational cry of "just so you are honest" coming from new quarters — a church of Christ Bible Chair. Brethren, do you find it hard to believe that from one who proposes to be a member of the Lord's church such suggestions should come? Is it not sufficient that sectarians are willing to throw truth out the window and compromise every divine revelation? If one is as sincere as it is possible for him to be, and misinterprets the Word of God he is WRONG AND LOST. The Bible so teaches and I am not wrong when I quote the Word of God. "Who are we to say he is lost?" We are just one who has obeyed the gospel of Christ — and who believes it is the one, and only, power of God to save, that it is complete, final and cannot be substituted for by a wrong, though sincere, interpretation of God's word. PLEASE — where is the authority for this sectarian born, church-sponsored, Bible Chair anyway? And if this is a sample of her works we can well do without her.

— Wright Randolph, The Messenger, Montebello, California

Important Announcement

The elders recommend that the following members be withdrawn from and that the members of the church do not fellowship them until they repent:

Brother and Sister Once A Week, Brother Rush Out,

Brother Gitthere Late, Brother Clock Watcher,

Sister Never Speak, and Brother and Sister Never Do-A-Thing.

Until these folks repent and do the first works, we shouldn't have anything to do with them. "Mark them and turn away from them." (Rom. 16:17)

— Adapted

Do You Want A Church?

Here is an ad that some of my preaching brethren who have become THE PASTOR might be interested in. You might pass it on to them for someone might be interested in this bargain.

Pensacola, Fla. "For sale: a church, including the congregation.

The only requirement, said the pastor, Mrs. Julia Henderson, is that the new owner must agree to be a 'real pastor' to the people who attend the non-denominational Lighthouse Gospel Tabernacle."

A classified advertisement said today the price for the church, including the congregation is "real reasonable."

Mrs. Henderson says she wants to travel and do evangelistic work in other areas. (Nashville Banner, 6-22-60)

When I first read this I laughed and laid it aside, and then I thought of the congregations of God's people who have "sold themselves" to a man provided he will be a 'real pastor" to them. It just "ain't" funny anymore.

— Dorris V. Rader, Chapel Hill, Tennessee


Unscriptural Pictures

I remember a number of years ago, I was talking with a Bible teacher who was very efficient in her teaching. She had been searching for a picture that would teach a lesson to her class. She said: "It is so hard to find pictures that are scriptural." I thought little of her remarks at the time, but as the years come and go, I find she had basis for that remark.

Too many of us today take little thought of error that is being taught in the pictures in our Bible story books that are in our own library.

In reading the story of Eve in the garden of Eden, many times she is shown eating an apple. Gen. 2:16, 17; "And the Lord commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Nothing is said of the fruit as being an apple.

Many times we see Noak's ark pictured with a multitude of windows and several doors. "A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof" (Gen. 6:16). How many windows and doors? Only one.

Another error is taught many times in the lesson on Ishmael when he was cast from his father's home by the enraged Sarah. Many pictures can be found of a baby under the bush where his mother had placed him and turned away to keep her eyes from her son as she said: "Let me not see the death of the child." (Gen 20:16)

The error taught in this picture is the age of Ishmael. Abraham was eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born. (Gen. 16:15) At the birth of Isaac, Abraham was one hundred years old. Hence Ishmael was fourteen years old when Isaac was born. Abraham made a great feast the same day Isaac was weaned and it was at this feast that Sarah saw Ishmael mocking and cast him out. (Gen. 21:8) Our children are weaned about the age of one year, but in those days the children were older. Granting that Isaac was one year old when he was weaned, this would make Ishmael at least fifteen years old. You can readily see that to picture Ishmael as a baby when he was cast from his father's home is erroneous.

Absalom, the son of David was much praised for his beauty: "from the sole of his feet even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. And when he polled his head (for it was at every year's end that he polled it: because the hair was heavy on him, wherefore he polled it: he weighed the hair on his head at two hundred shekels after the king's weight)" (2 Sam. 14:25, 26). Due to the fact that so much has been written about the abundance of his hair, error is taught by picturing him hanging from the branch of the tree by the hair. I have searched diligently and can find no scripture to sustain the theory that he was hanging by his hair. "And Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth; and the mule that was under him went away." (2 Sam. 18:9)

Probably the most frequent error taught by picture is that of an angel. Beautiful women with long blond hair, with widespread wings are shown. When the angels appeared to Lot as he sat in the gate of Sodom, they were men. (Gen. 19: 5, also verse 10) When Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel and he announced to her that she was to bear a son, though she knew no man, "And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be." (Luke 1:29) Masculine is the gender here. And no amount of study will reveal that he had wings.