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Q: I am in a quandary, my final exam on Acts in Bible Study has a question: "name the man who had seven prophetess daughters?"   HELP! I just can’t find the answer. –Paula

A: Paula, the only reference in Acts to ‘prophetess daughters’ is in Acts 21:9 and there were only 4. Phillip the Evangelist who was one of the 7 original Deacons or servants had 4 daughters.

However, some church historians later got him mixed up with Phillip the Apostle who had 3 daughters. Nevertheless, there is no reference to anyone in Acts having 7 prophetess daughters. I hope this helps.

Previous question about Phillip’s Daughters:

-The Names of Philip’s Daughters?

Q: In Genesis 3 evil comes into the world. Why did God create evil? After all if God supposedly created everything then he must have created evil also.

A: God did not create evil. He did create Satan who had been his highest angel but became evil by choice. He also created the man and the woman and gave them the freedom to choose—to make choices. It is by the choice of Adam and Eve that evil came into the world.

Q: Isn’t God just the sum total of everyone and everything in the Universe—he or she is the creation itself?

A: That is a ‘pantheistic’ perspective of God which is what a lot of Eastern religions teach. Also modern environmentalists and some ‘new agers’ talk about the Earth as being ‘mother god’ or Gaia.

It is not the teaching of the Bible.

That perspective only really works in a Universe that was always there –with no beginning. In that model God is part of creation—part of space and time. So what is going to happen to that One when the Earth or the universe as we know it goes out of existence?

Plus the way environmentalists talk about mother Earth and Gaia, Humans seem to be characterized as some sort of virus or infection that is destroying or killing that all encompassing powerful Pantheistic Being. In which case humanity seems to be more powerful than the supposed creator—after all, mother nature must be saved by all of our ‘global warming’ measures. We must save the world—Gaia—or she is going to destroy us instead?

That is not the all-powerful God of the Bible.

I’m not even interested in that kind of god—mother nature might be able to affect me in this life but is bound by time and space and can do nothing to me or for me in a life to come—after death–outside of time and space for all eternity.

Only the God of the Bible claims to have that power.

Also, with the Hindu and Buddhist gods you are constantly being recycled until you finally get it right– lose your identity and become downloaded into the greater world itself—sorry, that possibility has no appeal at all for me nor is it taught anywhere on the Bible.

Q: When the tribulation starts, before the Antichrist has risen, the believers will be taking up to Heaven. My Question is this when those people who were believers left behind will they get a second chance to be saved in the Tribulation? This is my question. –Solomon

A: Solomon, it is still ‘day’ for those left behind. Since they are still alive it is not really a ‘second chance’ but still the first and all can be saved who have real saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ during the tribulation period regardless of whether they ‘professed’ to believe before or not. In fact many will come to Christ during the Tribulation including millions of Jews.

The only scriptural qualifier is whether they receive the ‘mark of the beast’ or not in which case they would no longer be eligible for salvation according to Rev. 15:9-11.

All of this assumes that the Pre-Tribulation theory is correct in the first place and believers will be ‘Raptured’ before the Antichrist-the Beast of Revelation is revealed. Solomon, there are many solid Bible scholars who do not believe in the pre-millennial, pre-tribulational approach to eschatology.

Some believe that the church will be going through the tribulation, and meet Christ in the air at the end of that period, others see the church being raptured in the middle of the tribulation or just before the ‘wrath of God’ is poured out. Some do not believe in the millennium at all and take a ‘amillennial’ approach to the events in the Book of Revelation seeing them as primarily allegory and part of the church age.            *Top

Here’s a great article for Easter: “Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?” by William Lane Craig, professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California.

He looks at the facts concerning the resurrection of Jesus–a timely pursuit for the Easter season. This is the best and most concise article that I have found on this issue.            *Top

Q: In Genesis 1, we read that God created light before He created the Sun.  What is this light?  -Chris T.

A: Actually the Sun or stars for that matter are not the only sources of light in the universe. Last night I flipped on the ‘light’ switch when it got dark. But more seriously, I believe that the Bible itself has the best answer right at the back of the book. This is the bookend to the Genesis story. Turn to Rev. 22: 5:

“There will be no night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign forever and ever.”

There was light in the world because God himself supplied it and said so—Let there be light and there was.            *Top

Q: I’m very confused regarding a Jewish objection to Jesus as the Messiah which goes like this:

“The Bible says that the Messiah would be of the tribe of Judah and a descendant of David. According to Christians, Jesus was born of a virgin. However, tribal affiliation is conferred through the birth father only (Numbers 34:14, Numbers 1:18-44, Leviticus 24:10). The mother’s tribal affiliation was considered irrelevant to what her children’s tribal affiliation was and tribal affiliation/genealogy could not be inherited though a stepfather; only property could be inherited. Because Christians believe that Jesus had no human father, he would have had no tribal affiliation and would be eliminated from messianic consideration.”

A: The Jewish arguments seem to be rather compelling. However there are several facts that they do not address:

1. When Joseph completed his marriage to Mary who was pregnant at the time rather than breaking it off he was in essence accepting the coming child as his own. On the eighth day after Jesus was born he was circumcised and later Joseph along with Mary took him to the Temple to be registered and consecrated as his ‘first-born’ son (LK 2:22-24). Therefore Joseph officially recognized Jesus as his son and first-born heir (not by adoption) in the line of David and the tribe of Judah.   Game, Set, & Match!

Continue reading »

Q: Adam & Eve were the 1st man/woman.  Able/Cain were were their sons.  Who were the people Cain thought might kill him, because he killed Able?  And where did they come from?

Were they not off spring of Adam/Eve, therefore brothers/sisters of Cain/Able?   -Chuck

A: Chuck, we actually dealt with that very question a couple of years ago. Here’s a link to the post:

“Who Was Cain Afraid Of?”

Here’s links to all of the Christmas related Q & A’s from our archives:

1.  First the Christmas story itself:

The Christmas Story: Where is it in The Bible?

2.  There seems to be a lot of interest in the ‘Wisemen’ (Magi) that visited Jesus:

-Re: The Wisemen and the First Christmas

-Who Were the Wisemen?

-Are the Wisemen Really Buried in Cologne?

-Were There Really Four Wisemen?