Verbal Inspiration
There has been much talk among some people as to how the Bible is inspired. Is it only the thought that is inspired? Or are the very words themselves inspired?
The differences in style, vocabulary, grammatical construction, etc., have disturbed some. The infidels have pounced upon these matters as proof that there was no single mind behind the full revelation, that each man wrote his own thoughts in his own words, and in his own style.
In all likelihood the exact "mechanics" of inspiration will always remain a mystery. But as to the fact that God himself chose the very words used by the writers there can be no doubt at all. Paul declares it expressly, "Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual words." (I Cor. 2:12)
When the inspired writer laid down his pen, every word on that page was exactly the word the Spirit wanted there.
Such a statement as this leaves room for every difference that can be found in style, vocabulary, or other literary characteristic. The Spirit "taught" Paul in the words which were familiar to Paul, that is, in Paul's own vocabulary; he "taught" Peter in the words Peter would normally understand and use. So Paul wrote down the revealed truth, in the precise words in which he had been "taught" that truth, that is, in words of his own vocabulary. Peter and the others did likewise.
Why should anybody stumble at so simple a thing? —F. Y. T.
—O—
A GIRL BETRAYED Some months ago a very intelligent seventeen-year-old girl came to us with a problem. She was a member of the First Christian Church in our city, and had been engaged in a series of conferences with her pastor. The thing that disturbed her was that she had come under the influence of some very persuasive Catholic friends, and they had almost convinced her that the Catholic church was the true church.
She went to her pastor with her problem. He is one of these "broad-minders" who are so numerous in the Christian Church. After listening to her story and the doubts and uncertainties that filled her mind, he said to her (so she told us), "My dear young friend, you must not distress yourself with these matters. If you are convinced that you can serve God better in the Catholic church, then by all means join that church. After all, we are all of us trying to reach the same heaven; we can't all see the way alike. And a loyal Catholic has the same chance of getting there that anybody has in any church. Go right ahead with your friends. Join the Catholic church; become a nun if you desire."
So potent and persuasive was the speech of this betrayer that that girl is at this very hour in a Catholic convent in Kansas, serving her novitiate, well on her way to becoming a full-fledged nun in some Catholic order.
Truly the Christian Church and many of her pastors are today a terrifying example of what can happen when both conscience and conviction are wanting. Having made their first departures from God's word, there is no stopping place.
—F. Y. T.
—O—
HERESY IN BOSTON Boston College, with an enrollment of 6,600, directed by the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus (Jesuits) Late in April of this year there was considerable excitement on the campus when three members of the faculty; were expelled for publicly airing their charges that some of the other members of the faculty were teaching heresy. The three men who made the charges were Dr. Faklr Maluf, assistant professor of philosophy, Charles Ewaskic assistant professor of physics, and James R. Walsh, Instructor in Philosophy.
The expulsion of these three faculty members was heralded in all the religious and secular press as an out standing example of Catholic liberalism and broad mindedness. The men were discharged from their position because they openly and publicly accused some their fellow faculty members of teaching that in some rare and exceptional case when "through no fault of his own some man did not know and could not learn that the Catholic church is the only true church, and so had not bowed in submission to the pope", there might be a chance that God would extend mercy and save him.
That such a teaching is rank "heresy" so far as Catholic doctrine is concerned is too well known to need argument. It was too much for Messrs. Maluf, Ewaskic and Walsh, staunch Catholics all. "There is no doctrine that has been more often defined than that having to do with the salvation of the soul," said Dr. Maluf. "Pope after pope has spoken of it. The Athanasian creed opens with the statement: 'Whosoever wishes to be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith". Leonard Feeney, S. J., declared that the three expelled teachers were absolutely right—that there is possibility of salvation whatsoever outside the Roman Catholic Church, and that anybody who taught contrarywas a heretic.
Then why were the true Catholics expelled from a Catholic school and the heretics allowed to remain in their teaching positions?
To answer that question it is necessary that one know something of Catholic history. For more than a thousand years the Catholic Church has been following her traditional policy of duplicity and deception to gain an end. She feels that "the end justifies the means" and practices that doctrine ruthlessly. In this particular case the "end" is the winning of America to Catholicism; and the "means" to that end is the public disavowal and repudiation of one of her most cherished doctrines.
Catholic leaders feel that America is not yet ready to gulp down her arrogant and monstrous claim to having a monopoly on salvation. To make such a claim public and open would, they feel, bring about a revulsion in popular sentiment and a mass turning away from Catholicism by people who are at present favorably inclined. Whereas, to advertise herself as being "liberal" and "broadminded" would be the very thing calculated to win popular acceptance.
So the course was obvious. She fired the men who publicized her true doctrine. Once the converts are won, however, we can be mighty sure they will be thoroughly indoctrinated in true Catholicism—the very doctrine held by the three men who were discharged. For there can be no doubt as to the real teaching of Catholicism from her earliest years she does declare absolutely and without any exception that there is no salvation possible for anyone who does not submit to her teachings and her pope.
—F. Y. T.
—O—
"Men Of Distinction
(Editor's note: The whiskey interests have spent millions of dollars since the war in an effort to promote and encourage drinking by Americans. One of their favorite ads is the "Man of Distinction" motif, picturing some high-powered, sixteen-cylinder executive, faultlessly attired, surrounded by all the evidences of extreme wealth and "distinction", drinking a glass of whiskey—the implication being that all these things are his because he uses this particular brand of liquor! We think the following anonymous offering, taken from the pages of Christian Century is quite apropos.)
"I can't make it go. For some time now I have been trying, after closing the door to my room and pulling down the shades, to look like the "Men of Distinction" whose Napoleonic features and majestic forms are paraded in Technicolor every week in the smooth-paper magazines. I sit in my chair with my shoulders squared and a tall glass of milk in front of me, but I don't look very distinguished. My suit is never pressed right and the high-powered executive look is missing.
Yet my ponderings while I posed have brought forth a thought which I pass on free to the distillers. They haven't much more than scratched the surface on this "Men of Distinction" idea. There are a lot more men that by rights should be included in the gallery. There is the man in Baltimore, for instance—who has achieved the distinction of having been sent to the county jail eighteen times in five years on account of conduct he probably would not have indulged in had he been sober.
Eighteen times in five years may not hang up a world's record, but it is a distinguished score nevertheless. Then there is that man in Michigan who has achieved the distinction of having been divorced four times in eight years because of confirmed drunkenness (his own). These two certainly rate a place in the Highball Hall of Fame.
Of less spectacular distinction, but still worthy of notice are certain minor contestants I can name—the man who has lost five jobs in eleven months owing to the flowing bowl or a smaller vessel; and my neighbor who has had his driving license revoked twice in fourteen months for driving while "under the influence". I am sure the distillers and their public relations counsels will immediately perceive the vast possibilities in adding these notables to their gallery. Their pictures, in appropriate costumes, would round out the record and make it less one-sided.
Other possibilities crowd the imagination. How about pictures to illustrate the persuasive slogans of the breweries? "Gulp's Beer makes neighbors neighborly." I saw a couple of neighborly neighbors the other day, swatting each other under the stimulation of Gulp's. Or, consider the possibilities of "Whimsey—the Unhurried Whiskey." I saw a client recently who looked as though he would not be at all hurried for the next forty-eight hours.
Let's have, too, some additions to the list of "Who's Who-ers who have switched to Muddle's Reserve". There is a lot more switching to be recorded. There is the man who switched his address to Cook County Hospital, Alcoholic Ward.
Yours for keeping distinctions clear.
Simeon Stylites
—O—
A FANTASTIC TALE The Southwest Courier, a Catholic paper, carries a fantastic tale characteristic of Popish superstition. It publishes the picture of an eleven year old girl who kissed " a broken statuette of St. Ann" and "it is reported shed tears when she kissed it." "Many hundreds gathered outside her home to witness the phenomenon which has failed to reappear since the statue head was televised." Of course that kind of a yarn will not stand up under scrutiny but "Local church authorities" accept it as a fact. "Local church authorities have warned that 'the explanation of the fact or its significance has not been established". It happened but they are not sure what it signifies. Some of us are quite sure what the whole yarn signifies. Catholic imposition is only limited by the gullibility of superstitious people. The more ignorant the people, the more brazen the imposition. Such tales are as fantastic and groundless as the piece of fiction in one of the apocryphal books wherein the child Jesus is represented as delighting his little playmates by making birds out of mud and clapping his hands and making them fly away. Anybody who can believe such tales ought not to have any trouble believing that Joe Smith got a revelation from heaven by peeping into his old hat. —C. E. W.
—O—
Inflation may have affected nearly everything, but the wages of sin are still the same.