We had a similar question some time ago regarding whether a believer can marry an unbeliever.

There are a couple of Bible texts that would lead us to caution in this area: The most famous one is 2 Cor. 6:14 MESSAGE

Don't become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That's not partnership; that's war. Is light best friends with dark?

The King James Version (and the Greek) talk of being unequally yoked, in the same way that a farmer would not put a donkey and an ox on the same yoke to pull his plough. The results for him would not be very satisfactory. They pull at different rates with different strengths. They might also be tempted to fight against each other.

The caution here is that if you are entering into a business partnership you want to ensure that your partner has the same ethical code as you. Whether or not the partner is a Christian, do they uphold and live by the principles you value in the ten commandment and in Jesus sermon on the mount.

The second text is Matthew 6:24

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

From your email I am presuming that your Christianity is not just a one day a week affair, but is something that flows though your whole being and life. That means that your ultimate aim in life is not building an empire for yourself but, while running a successful business, is to share the joy you have found in Christianity with those around you. Jesus parable of the rich landowner is a good example of a business man with the wrong priorities. [Luke 12:16-21] That may mean you want to invest some of your business profits into Christian projects. I am sure it means you want to pay tithe. Your primary focus is on God. Your money is a means to an end.

How does your proposed partner feel about this? If they are in agreement with you then you may have a workable partnership. If not, you may be working yourself up for difficulties in the future. It can work. In many cases it does work. It can also go disastrously wrong. You have to carefully evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the business proposal, and spend time in prayer on the issue before making any solid decision.

I'd like to start in the 3rd letter of John and verse 2: "Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. "

It's just a friendly greeting at the beginning of a letter - but it does actually make sense -- good physical health can be an asset in maintaining good spiritual health - but more than that - God wants the best for everybody - and he's done that by laying down guidelines in Scripture that can help keep us in good shape.

For instance: in Genesis 1:29 he lays out an ideal deal diet - one that he as creator knew was best - grains, nuts and fruit - later on after sin entered and the world was devastated by flood he allowed the use of meat or flesh food - but only once the blood was drained from them - and back then he also made a difference between clean and unclean foods - re-emphasised in the book of Leviticus and chapter 11. You can basically summarise those clean animals as being vegetarian and the unclean as being carnivores or scavengers.

That's all in the area of food - and it's in that area that Gert seems to be asking - but there are other issues of health that the Bible deals with - proper amounts of work and rest for instance, good hygiene habits, and avoiding things that are harmful to us - the Bible has a lot to say on drunkenness. [e.g. Proverbs 20:1, 23:20, Galatians 5:19]

However, Gert is quoting Matthew 15:11 and seems to be indicating that these old testament codes of clean and unclean no longer apply by Jesus time.

Let's have a quick look at the whole chapter. Jesus is in discussion with the religious leaders and with the crowds in general, and with his disciples. The Pharisees were complaining that the disciples did not wash their hands in the proper ritual manner before they ate. That meant going through the motions of washing even if there was no water present. Jesus challenged them with other examples of how they had turned practical laws of God right around so that they became a burden rather than a blessing. So what's the difference eating food whether you've washing your hands left to right or right to left. And certainly what's the difference if there's no water. In the Old Testament laws hygiene was the principle. With the Pharisees ritual was the principle. Hygiene didn't come into it.

So when Jesus says, "It's what comes out of a man that's important, not what goes in," he's really laying into them - telling them their hypocritical talking is killing people far more than any dangers from not ritually washing.

Remember that this was all in a Hebrew context. No discussion here of clean or unclean foods. It wouldn't even have entered into the equation. Jesus spent his time restoring lives - physically with healing, emotionally with comfort, spiritually with teaching that was alive and relevant to folks needs.

Good health was just a part of the package - and a part that Adventists recognise as being important too. As a result, in general the Adventist lifestyle means people live between 5 and 11 years longer, spend less time in hospital and have a higher quality of life. And that really isn't the Adventist Lifestyle - it's God's design for our lives. We've summarised it in an acronym: NEWSTART - Nutrition, Exercise, Water, Sunshine, Temperance, Air, Rest and Trust in Divine Power.

If you want to know more about it - write in and we'll send you a summary. But get the balance of those eight Biblical Health rules together - and I'm sure you'll feel better.

The simple answer is no! I’ve searched and checked through the Bible and I cannot find any reference concerning not eating the organs of clean animals.

The Bible does have some things to say concerning the best diet we can have. It also advises on substitute diets when the best is not available. Here is a quick rundown of the Biblical Advice:

The ideal Diet: Genesis 1:29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

A less ideal diet after the flood:

Genesis 9:3-4 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.

Blood and fat were both parts of the animal that God recommended should not be eaten:

Leviticus 17:13 'Any Israelite or any alien living among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth.

Leviticus 3:17 'This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live: You must not eat any fat or any blood.'

Leviticus 7:23, 26. "Say to the Israelites: 'Do not eat any of the fat of cattle, sheep or goats. . . And wherever you live, you must not eat the blood of any bird or animal.

However, even as animals entered the ark God was distinguishing between those suitable to eat and those considered “unclean”.

Genesis 7:2 Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate.

The distinction of clean and unclean became more clear in the laws as set out in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. In general the principle is to eat animals that are vegetarians. Those that are carnivores or scavengers are more likely to be disease ridden and so come in the prohibited list.

The above advice leads me to take some care over my diet. God know what is best for me, and what will keep me most healthy. Daniel and his friends had the same experience in the Babylonian court when the choose to eat a simple diet rather than the kings rich food. (Daniel chapter 1). However, the most important Bible text on diet refers not to what we eat, but rather, how we eat it:

1 Corinthians 10:31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

That is the advice I most want to follow.

Summary: I have no idea how many children Adam and Eve had. Adam was 930 when he died and in Genesis 5:4 it states that after Seth was born that Adam lived another 800 years and had other sons and daughters.

As we all trace our ancestry back to Adam and Eve their children would have married each other. That sounds weird in our modern society and is forbidden later in the Bible (Leviticus 18:6). However, part of the reason for that is that with genetics incest will increase the chances of abnormalities, especially if that carries on for a number of generations. That is a result of sin.

Adam and Eve were created perfect and so had no deformed genes to mutate and cause problems. I would guess it was a number of generations before that would become a problem. By that time the population was large enough that you would have a larger pool from which to choose your spouse.

Summary:The whole issue of 1844 is based on the 2300 day prophecy of Daniel 8:14.  To understand anything in Daniel you need to remember what the purpose of the book is.  Daniel's very name means "God is my judge" and the stories in the first part of the book, along with the prophecies that get more and more complex as the book goes on, are there to show us that God is in control, and that even while bad things may be going on down here on earth (Israel in captivity, a pagan king in power, God's people oppressed, Messiah not yet come), victory is already assured in heaven (Dan 2:44, 7:9-14, 12:1-3).  The same theme is continued in the Book of Revelation.  Both books were written to give hope to people in times of difficulty.  That hope, quite rightly, transferred itself into the development of the Adventist church in the 1800's. 

Many people from the 18th century on, started to take a particular interest in the Book of Daniel and realised that it had a message not just for the people of Daniel's day, not just for the people of the time of Jesus, but also for people living at what they saw as the climax of this earths history, the time just before Jesus would come again.  They read Daniel 12:4, "But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge."  

As they read Daniel they found they were understanding the prophecies.  People like the scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, famous for discovering gravity, also were deep students of Daniel and came to understand and appreciate the various prophe cies and the times elements indicated in some of them.  There was a growing awareness that Jesus second coming would be soon.  While people were discovering this all across the world, the largest group was in the United States under the leadership of William Millar, again an avid Bible Scholar.  

They took the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed" and asked the question, which sanctuary is the angel in Daniels vision talking about?  

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  The literal sanctuary or temple in Jerusalem?  This was already destroyed in AD70 and the preceding part of the prophecy already took us way beyond that date.   
  

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  The sanctuary Daniel had seen in vision in heaven?   If it is there then surely it would not need cleansing.  It should already be pure.
  

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  The sanctuary of each individual person who accepts Christ? (1 Cor 3:16 )  But this would be an individual cleansing and therefore would not seem to fit the prophecy.
  

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  The sanctuary of God?s people here on earth made up of the church?   (Eph 2:21)
  

Following the idea of the Jewish temple being cleansed each year on the Day of Atonement they came to the conclusion that God?s temple, the church, would be totally cleansed of sin at the end of the 2300 day period.  They then needed to work out when that period ended.

They did this by using the principle in prophecy of one day equaling a year (e.g. Ezekiel 4:6).  In brief, they took the starting date of the 2300 days as the same as the starting date for the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem in Daniel 9:25.  This is totally logical as Daniel 9 is an explanation and expansion of Chapter 8.  The decree was issued in 457 BC.  Add 2300 and it will take you to 1843.  That is when the Millerites first thought Jesus would return and is known in Adventist history as the first disappointment.  They then looked at the maths a little more closely and realized that in jumping from BC to AD there is no zero year and so they needed to add one more year.  As the Jewish day of atonement in 1844 landed on October 22 they settled on that as the day Jesus would return.  Of course, he didn?t, and the day is known in history as the ?Great Disappointment?.  

What was most disappointing is that they had carefully studied through he prophecies of Daniel 7 & 9  and had rightly worked out the time periods leading up to Christ's ministry, death, and the opening up of his mission to the gentiles with the stoning of Stephen in AD44.  What they had misjudged was the event in 1844.  Further study, particularly of the book of Hebrews (e.g. 9:11-12, 22-23) led them to understand that what happened in 1844 was not Christ coming again but a change in the role of his ministry as he moved into the last phase before he does literally return, a hope that all Adventists hold dear to (1 Thess 4:16-18, etc.)  This phase is sometimes called the pre-Advent judgment or as Revelation 14:7 puts it, "the hour of his judgment".  The sanctuary was, indeed, the one in heaven as seen more clearly in the Book of Hebrews.  

A fuller explanation of all this (and there is a lot of it) can be found by reading Mervyn Maxwell's Book on Daniel, "God Cares".  

In recent times various groups within Adventism see this period in slightly different ways.  Whichever way you look at it we can be clear that:

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  The last time prophecy of the Bible has happened

  
  


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  That we do live in what the Bible calls ?the last days?.

  
  


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  That God is doing as much as he can to have as many people as possible ready and waiting for him when he returns.

  
  


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  That Daniel and Revelation, along with the rest of the Bible, are there to give us hope and to show us that our God is a God of Victory and that he wants us to be winners with him.

  
  


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  That it is very clear from Scripture that God has a special place for each of us and that we have nothing to fear for the future as long as we trust in God.

  
  

This is a very brief answer to a very complicated question.  I hope it is of some help to you.

Summary of the Audio Answer: I am wondering if Yousseff has got a copy of the Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament. If that is the case the answer is Yes and No. The Bible is one, but it is made up of 66 individual books yet all talking about God in a remarkably unified and purposeful way. These are made up of the "Old Testament" -- the books written before Christ was born, and the "New Testament" -- the books and letters written about Christ in the years following his death and resurrection.

There is also another way to answer this question. There is only one Bible, but there are many translations. The Bible was originally written in the Hebrew language (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament). All the Bibles in the world, whether in English, or any other language, have been translated from those languages.

Because there are no original manuscripts of the Bible, either Old or New Testament, translators compare the various manuscripts – sometimes of the whole Bible; but in the case of older manuscripts, often of only parts of the Bible – in order to have as accurate a translation as possible.

Another problem is that some translations, for example the King James Version, are translated into old-fashioned English, and today’s young people, especially, find it difficult to understand. So Bibles have been upgraded to modern English, usually from the original Hebrew and Greek, to make them more accurate, and more understandable. So we have, for example, the Good News Bible, The New International Version, and many others. If one is trying to understand truth, it is good to compare versions, in an endeavour to understand what is the truth.

In order to understand the meaning of ?three days and three nights,? we need to understand how the Jews used the term. When they described a period of time, they would include the part of the day still remaining, plus the full day or days following, and the part of the day concluding the period. So when Jesus is described as rising after three days and three nights, that means part of Friday, all day of the Sabbath (Saturday), and the few hours of the first day of the week (Sunday). Any Jew would understand it in this way.

The Bible has many descriptions of God. My favourite is God's description of himself in Exodus 34:5-7

Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.

I like that picture as it shows the wealth and breadth of his character. There is, however, a shorter description that totally sums him up in 1 John 4:8, "God is love".

2. What is the Real, True Name of God?

In ancient times the scribes who copied out the Bible held the name of God to be so holy that they would take a bath and use a new quill every time they wrote out his name. Holy men would not even pronounce his name, so Holy was it to them. Furthermore, in ancient Hebrew there were no vowels so it is impossible to know exactly how the name of God should be written or pronounced.

The main names that the Bible assigns to God are 'El, from a word meaning to be strong; (2) of 'Eloah, plural 'Elohim., The Hebrew word Jehovah (or Yahweh) is the only other word generally employed to denote the Supreme Being, and is often translated in the english Bible as Lord.

However, in Exodus 13:14 God gives himself a title which is above all these other title. He calls himself "I AM THAT I AM" That is, "I am what I am."

Barnes commentary on the Bible states that: "the words express absolute, and therefore unchanging and eternal Being. The name, which Moses was thus commissioned to use, was at onc e new and old; old in its connection with previous revelations; new in its full interpretation, and in its bearing upon the covenant of which Moses was the destined mediator.

3. How many Gods do we have?

There is only one true God. As the first commandment states in Exodus 20:2-3
"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me."

There are many objects of adoration or worship around the world, but there is only one God as revealed in the Bible. This is the God worshipped by Christians and Jews, and is the same God worshipped by Muslims under the name of Allah.

However, as we saw in the last question, God can have many names (and if we look through the Bible we find many given to him, mainly describing his character), so he can also make himself known in different ways. In the Bible we see God revealing himself in what Christians call the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. One God, but working and showing his character in three ways.

4. Christ Jesus was born by Mary. Is he a man, a God, or Spirit?

This is one of the divine mysteries. Philippians 2:6-11 how Jesus is "in very nature" God but in order to save humankind from sin he made himself into the form of a human and died a humiliating death for us. It is the greatest example of love and humility in the universe. It then goes on to say that because of this he became more honoured and greater even than he was before.

This is why in Matthew 1:23 he is called "Immanuel" which means, "God with us". The mystery of the incarnation is that Jesus was at once 100% God and 100% man.

TRINITY, is the theological term used to define God as an undivided unity expressed in the threefold nature of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. As a distinctive Christian doctrine, the Trinity is considered as a divine mystery beyond human comprehension to be reflected upon only through scriptural revelation. The Trinity is a biblical concept that expresses the dynamic character of God, not a Greek idea pressed into Scripture from philosophical or religious speculation. While the term trinity does not appear in Scripture, the Trinitarian structure appears throughout the New Testament to affirm that God Himself is manifested through Jesus Christ by means of the Spirit.

Uni tarianism, also the idea of a few early Adventists, excludes the concept of distinctiveness while focusing solely on the aspect of God the Father. In this way, Christ and the Holy Spirit are placed in lower categories and made less than divine. This error compromises the effectiveness and contribution of the activity of God in redemptive history. Even the Old Testament does feature implications of the Trinitarian idea. This does not mean that the Trinity was fully knowable from the Old Testament, but that a vocabulary was established through the events of God's nearness and creativity; both receive developed meaning from New Testament writers. For example, the word of God is recognized as the agent of creation (Ps. 33:6,9; compare Prov. 3:19 ; 8:27 ), revelation, and salvation (Ps. 107:20). This same vocabulary is given distinct personality in John's prologue (John 1:1-4) in the person of Jesus Christ. Other vocabulary categories include the wisdom of God (Prov. 8) and the Spirit of God (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:30; Zech. 4:6). A distinguishing feature of the New Testament is the doctrine of the Trinity. It is remarkable that New Testament writers present the doctrine in such a manner that it does not violate the Old Testament concept of the oneness of God. In fact, they unanimously affirm the Hebrew monotheistic faith, but they extend it to include the coming of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The early Christian church experienced the God of Abraham in a new and dramatic way without abandoning the oneness of God that permeates the Old Testament. As a fresh expression of God, the concept of the Trinity--rooted in the God of the past and consistent with the God of the past--absorbs the idea of the God of the past, but goes beyond the God of the past in a more personal encounter.

The New Testament does not present a systematic presentation of the Trinity. The scattered segments from various writers that appear throughout the New Testament reflect a seemingly accepted understanding that exists without a full-length discussion. It is embedded in the framework of the Christian experience and simply assumed as true. The New Testament writers focus on statements drawn from the obvious existence of the Trinitarian experience as opposed to a detailed exposition.

The first New Testament passage in relation to the trinity is the Trinitarian formula of Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14; 1 Peter 1:2; Revelation 1:4. In each passage a Trinitarian formula, repeated in summation fashion, registers a distinctive contribution of each person of the Godhead.

Matthew 28:19, for example, follows the triple formula of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that distinguishes Christian baptism. The risen Lord commissioned the disciples to baptize converts with a Trinitarian emphasis that carries the distinctiveness of each person of the Godhead while associating their inner relationship. This passage is the clearest scriptural reference to a systematic presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity.

1. God is One. The God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament. His offer of salvation in the Old Testament receives a fuller revelation in the New Testament in a way that is not different, but more complete. The doctrine of the Trinity does not abandon the monotheistic faith of Israel .

2. God has three distinct ways of being in the redemptive event, yet He remains an undivided unity. That God the Father imparts Himself to mankind through Son and Spirit without ceasing to be Himself is at the very heart of the Christian faith. A compromise in either the absolute sameness of the Godhead or the true diversity reduces the reality of salvation.

3. The primary way of grasping the concept of the Trinity is through the threefold participation in salvation. The approach of the New Testament is not to discuss the essence of the Godhead, but the particular aspects of the revelatory event that includes the definitive presence of the Father in the person of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.

4. The doctrine of the Trinity is an absolute mystery. It is primarily known, not through specul ation, but through experiencing the act of grace through personal faith. See God; Jesus Christ; Holy Spirit.

The Bible does not say so in so many words. This is an oft quoted statement. I'm not sure where the original source is, but there is one very similar to it in the Book, Desire of Ages by Ellen G White:

". . . Men hate the sinner, while they love the sin. Christ hates the sin, but loves the sinner. This will be the spirit of all who follow Him. Christian love is slow to censure, quick to discern penitence, ready to forgive, to encourage, to set the wanderer in the path of holiness, and to stay his feet therein." Desire of Ages, page 462

That seems a pretty good summation of the way God deals with us, and the way we should treat those around us. The thought is summed up well in John 3:16-17.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

What better evidence is there for God's love. But equally clear is the thought that while we are all sinners (Rom 3:23) God's aim is not to condemn us but to save us. This is made even more clear in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

That's the good news, but we cannot escape the fact that God hates sin, and works with us to move us from sin to victory. There are two Bible texts that emphasise this idea very nicely for me:

Habakkuk 1:13 "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong."

1 John 1:7-9 "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

This then leaves us with the challenge of how we should treat someone that God loves, but who is committing sin (remembering that this also includes you and me!)

Galatians 6:1-2 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.