when he was ordained by God he put foremost in his mind the doing of his Father’s will, which was the preaching of the kingdom of the heavens as being at hand. His disciples he trained to do the same kind of work, or follow the same vocation.

13. What is the theological meaning of the word vocation? Who must follow such a course?

¹³ The theological meaning of the word vocation is: “A calling to the service of God in a particular station or state of life, esp. in the priesthood or religious life, as shown by one’s fitness, natural inclinations, and, often, by conviction of a Divine invitation. The station or state of life to which one receives such a calling. An official invitation to a particular ecclesiastical office, as a pastorate.” Jesus indeed had “a calling to the service of God.” He had a summons to a particular activity or career. His vocation was now “seeking first the kingdom and his righteousness.” (Matt. 6:33) So, too, any individual becoming an ordained follower of Christ Jesus must henceforth live a Christian life in that way. Jesus’ apostles had to do this in order to prove that their vocation was that of an ordained minister before God, even though before worldly governments men looked upon them as fishermen, tax collectors or tentmakers.

14. (a) When do vocations like those of a carpenter, a mason, an engineer or a doctor take second place? (b) Why may one never quit once he is ordained?

¹⁴ Being a dedicated Christian today is not a part-time occupation any more than it was then. It is a full-time vocation. A true Christian is not just a Christian on Sunday for a few hours while he is in his church or at a prayer meeting. A truly dedicated person, an ordained minister before God, must be a Christian his whole life from the time he takes up following Christ Jesus and walking in his footsteps. In the world an individual may say that his vocation is that of a carpenter, a mason, an engineer, a doctor, and that he makes his living by such occupation. But if that particular individual dedicates his life to Jehovah God and is baptized in water, then that secular occupation he pursues becomes secondary and his Christian ministry must become the thing of first importance, really now his vocation, because he was called to God’s service. Jesus said: “Keep on, then, seeking first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you.” A Christian’s first job, his principal interest, then, is his call to a Christian life. It must be that. His vocation must be that of an ordained minister before Jehovah God. He may quit his secular work, but he may never quit his divine call to God’s service. If a Christian quits the ministry he loses his eternal life. Which is more important, then?

15. One making a dedication declares what, and how does he view God’s Word?

¹⁵ Dedication to Jehovah’s service and symbolizing that dedication by water baptism is not a joining of some earthly religious organization. It is not such a minor step as that. It is the biggest thing that one has ever done in his life. His being immersed in water is a declaration to all fellow Christians and peoples of the world that henceforth he is dedicated to God, to serve as his minister. This is his vocation, and from then on the whole word of God as it is set forth in the Bible must be his guide. He as a true Christian has acted as Paul said: “When you received God’s word which you heard from us you accepted it, not as the word of men, but, just as it truthfully is, as the word of God, which is also at work in you believers.”—1 Thess. 2:13.

16, 17. (a) When one has accepted God’s Word, what is involved? (b) How did Paul show this?

¹⁶ ‘You have received God’s word and accepted it,’ have you? What, now, is involved? The apostle Paul said it involved even one’s eating and drinking. That may sound absurd, but let us read what he wrote to the Corinthians: “Therefore, whether you are eating or drinking or doing anything else, do all things for God’s glory. Keep from becoming causes for stumbling to Jews as well as Greeks and to the congregation of God, even as I am pleasing all people in all things, not seeking my own advantage but that of the many, in order that they might get saved.” (1 Cor. 10:31-33) Paul was interested in saving lives through his “eating or drinking or doing anything else.” But how does one’s eating and drinking tend to save lives? Paul explains it in the eighth and tenth chapters of First Corinthians 8, 10.

¹⁷ Paul knew that Christians were ‘to keep themselves from things sacrificed to idols’ (Acts 15:29); but he explained to the Corinthians: “Everything that is sold in a meat market keep eating, making no inquiry on account of your conscience, for ‘the earth belongs to Jehovah, and so does its fullness.’ If anyone of the unbelievers invites you and you wish to go, proceed to eat everything that is set before you, making no inquiry on account of your conscience. But if anyone should say to you: ‘This is something offered to a god,’ do not eat on account of the one that disclosed it and on account of conscience. ‘Conscience,’ I say, not yours, but that of the other person. For why should it be that my freedom is judged by another person’s conscience? If I am partaking with thanks, why am I to be spoken of abusively over that for which I give thanks?” (1 Cor. 10:25-30) It may have been that the meat sold in the meat markets had been offered to idols, but how would a person know? He might not have inquired whether the animal, or even the part of it that he bought, was offered to an idol. So, Paul says, if a person invites you to dinner, eat what he has. Paul knew “that an idol is nothing in the world and that there is no God but one.” (1 Cor. 8:4) But, if someone eating with you says, “This is something offered to a god,” then because of that man’s conscience do not eat any of it. Because of your own conscience? No, but because of the conscience of the other person. You may stumble that one by your eating.

18, 19. (a) Why was Paul concerned so much about his brothers’ conscience? (b) Should Christ’s followers today be likewise concerned? Why?

¹⁸ Paul argued that a Christian’s freedom or knowledge should “not somehow become a stumblingblock to those who are weak.” If you should eat the food offered to idols after thanking God for it you might still ruin a man. “But when you people thus sin against your brothers and wound their conscience that is weak, you are sinning against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat flesh at all, that I may not make my brother stumble.” (1 Cor. 8:9, 12, 13) Paul’s ordination, his being set apart for God’s service, included how he ate and drank. It involved his every action in everyday things. Paul was interested in saving lives. So he said: “Do not by your food ruin that one for whom Christ died. . . . For the kingdom of God does not mean eating and drinking, but means righteousness and peace and joy with holy spirit.” “All things are lawful; but not all things are advantageous. All things are lawful; but not all things build up. Let each one keep seeking, not his own advantage, but that of the other person.”—Rom. 14:15, 17; 1 Cor. 10:23, 24.

¹⁹ May Christians today look at things differently and allow their eating or drinking to stumble a Jew or a Greek or a brother in the congregation? No! We are in the same position as was Paul. He would rather be “pleasing all people in all things, not seeking my own advantage but that of the many, in order that they might get saved.” (1 Cor. 10:33) Would you do the same? If you are an ordained minister like Paul you would.

EATING, DRINKING, SPEECH AND WORK

20. (a) While eating of foods may not be an issue to Christians now, what is, and what arguments are advanced for its use? (b) Yet what must be considered in our drinking habits?

²⁰ But, someone says, things like that do not happen today. People do not offer food to idols. Well, then, how about your drinking habits? There is plenty of drinking done today, and Paul mentions drinking as something to watch. People drink all kinds of beverages, but the drinking causing the most disturbance in the minds of some people is the drinking of alcoholic beverages. Maybe a person who wants to drink wine will argue that Paul admonished Timothy to drink a little wine for his stomach’s sake. Another may say that Jesus’ first miracle was the making of wine. Still another will say that wine makes glad the heart. What is said is true, and in most countries and states it is lawful to have and use alcoholic beverages, but is it to the advantage of another brother? Will your drinking such a beverage serve to “build up”? Let us think not of our own advantage, but of that of the other person.

21, 22. (a) What bad example could be set before brothers by a thoughtless overseer? (b) Who else besides brothers could be stumbled?

²¹ Suppose there is an overseer in a congregation of God’s people, a man of influence, one looked up to, who goes out some evening with friends but he does not control his drinking of intoxicating liquor and he becomes drunk. The Bible states very definitely that drunkards will not inherit the Kingdom. “What! Do you not know that unrighteous persons will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be misled. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, . . . nor thieves, nor greedy persons, nor drunkards . . . will inherit God’s kingdom.” (1 Cor. 6:9, 10) Even though some of you were like this before coming into the truth, Paul says, you were washed clean. So why go back to this sort of practice again and stumble your brother? Now a brother may see this intoxicated overseer walking down the street in a zigzag fashion. This observer is shocked, disturbed and offended that an ordained minister of his congregation should think so little of his ordination before God that he should become a drunkard. This carelessness in drinking has become a cause for stumbling a brother in the congregation of God.

²² Let us follow this drunken man a little farther. As he nears his home his neighbor with whom he studies the Bible observes his drunkenness, and he, too, is stumbled, because he thought that this ordained minister was living a Christian life. Well, the neighbor decides he will no longer study the Bible with this individual, and says to his wife: “If that is what the Bible did for him, there are better men than that to associate with who do not even have faith in God. Why should I change my way of life and take up something new when here one of the prominent ones in the congregation, who claims to be an ordained minister, is drunk?”

23. In what way are the words of Paul in letters to the Corinthians and Romans very timely?

²³ How very right Paul was when he said: “Therefore, whether you are eating or drinking or doing anything else, do all things for God’s glory.” (1 Cor. 10:31) Was this to God’s glory? Certainly a Christian does not want to stumble a Jew, a Greek, a neighbor, a friend, or one of his brothers in the congregation of God. What every ordained minister must be interested in is saving the lives of all people for God’s new world. “So, then, let us pursue the things making for peace and the things that are upbuilding to one another. Stop tearing down the work of God just for the sake of food. True, all things are clean, but it is injurious to the man who with an occasion for stumbling eats. It is well not to eat flesh or to drink wine or do anything over which your brother stumbles.”—Rom. 14:19-21.

24, 25. In what other ways must a Christian watch his step?

²⁴ A Christian must watch his step in other things too. Paul presents this truth when writing to the Colossians: “Let the word of the Christ reside in you richly in all wisdom. Keep on teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, praises to God, spiritual songs with graciousness, singing in your hearts to Jehovah. And whatever it is that you do in word or in work, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, thanking God the Father through him.”—Col. 3:16, 17.

²⁵ Paul says to watch your words and work, which take up a good part of our time every day. Just how do we speak to people and how do we work for our employer? One’s Christian training certainly expresses itself in these two things.

26. What kinds of words should ordained ministers use and why is it difficult at times to control our speech?

²⁶ Are the words that come out of our mouths decent, clean, helpful and respectable? Would we be pleased to have God listen to us in everything we say? James wrote about our words when he said: “A fountain does not cause the sweet and the bitter to bubble out of the same opening, does it? . . . Neither can salt water produce sweet water.” As for that little member in the body, he says: “The tongue is a fire. . . . Not one of mankind can get it tamed. An unruly injurious thing, it is full of death-dealing poison. With it we bless Jehovah, even the Father, and yet with it we curse men who have come into existence ‘in the likeness of God.’ Out of the same mouth come forth blessing and cursing. It is not proper, my brothers, for these things to go on occurring this way.” The mouth of an ordained minister should be teaching and admonishing others with graciousness. There should be no such thing as bragging and lying against the truth. The mouth should always praise Jehovah. “Moreover, the fruit of righteousness has its seed sown under peaceful conditions for those who are making peace.”—Jas. 3:6-12, 18.

27. Can an ordained minister have two vocabularies? What do Paul and Peter say in this regard?

²⁷ Ordained ministers of Jehovah cannot have dual personalities with two vocabularies, one clean and upright, the other filthy and wicked. A Christian can train himself and be able to use good words that express his thoughts clearly and forcefully. The Christian does not have one vocabulary he uses in the congregation of God’s people and then another set of cruel, harsh, dirty words to be used where he works. Remember what Paul says: “Whatever it is that you do in word. . . , do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, thanking God the Father through him.” Peter confirms this, too, using good expressive words: “For, ‘he that would love life and see good days, let him restrain his tongue from what is injurious and his lips from speaking deceitfully, but let him turn away from what is injurious and do what is good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For Jehovah’s eyes are upon the righteous and his ears are toward their supplication, but Jehovah’s face is against those doing injurious things.’”—1 Pet. 3:10-12.

28. (a) How should the ordained Christian minister view his secular occupation? (b) How else, besides by outright taking of others’ goods, can one be a stealer?

²⁸ Then there is that other part of the Christian life—work. Considerable time is spent at some kind of labor, but how does one perform his work and earn his daily bread? All individuals in effect make a contract or an agreement with their employer. When an employer hires a man to do a certain work he agrees to pay the worker a certain wage. The employee should not shirk his work, do less than he agreed to do. He should be honest and give his employer full measure. If one is hired as a carpenter for so many hours a day and he receives so much pay for those hours, then certainly during that period of time he should be diligent in doing good carpenter work for all those hours. He is not paid to loaf. He is paid to work. If a Christian is working in a store owned by a rich man he has no right to steal from that rich man because he is wealthy, nor has he the right to steal from customers by charging them more than the goods are worth and keeping the difference. That is stealing. A man can steal, too, from his employer by loafing on the job. The man expects to be paid by his employer. Why cannot the employer expect the work to be done for the money he pays out? “Whatever it is that you do . . . in work, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Do you?

29. What attitude did the apostle Paul take toward the slave Onesimus, once he became a Christian?

²⁹ Paul did not feel that Onesimus, a slave of Philemon, should be kept from his employer. When Onesimus became a Christian, Paul found out he was a slave and sent him back to his owner. The slave, now a Christian, still belonged to Philemon even though Philemon was a Christian too. Paul, writing about Onesimus, said: “I am exhorting you [Philemon] concerning my child, to whom I became a father while in my prison bonds, Onesimus, formerly useless to you but now useful to you and to me. This very one I am sending back to you, yes, him, that is, my own heart.” Even though Paul found Onesimus, who had run away from his owner, most helpful to himself, yet Paul wanted him to go back to his owner, because that was right, and there was where he belonged by law, and so that Philemon might “have him back forever, no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, as a brother beloved, especially so to me, yet how much more so to you both in fleshly relationship and in the Lord.” (Philem. 10-12, 15, 16) The Scriptures indicate that no matter what condition one finds himself in, as a slave or a free workman, a Christian should work as though he were doing it “in the name of the Lord Jesus, thanking God the Father through him.”

30. So, then, what must Christians be?

³⁰ Christians must be honest. They must be truthful. They must prove they are ordained ministers, not only when they preach the good news, but in everything they do, so that all kinds of men might get saved. By this they prove that ‘the word of God is at work in believers.’ Are you a Christian doing good works in your eating, drinking, talking, working, preaching or doing anything else, doing all to God’s glory in order that someone might get saved? Are you ‘seeking peace and pursuing it’? A Christian knows “Jehovah’s eyes are upon the righteous,” his ordained ministers.—1 Pet. 3:11, 12.

“Become holy yourselves in all your conduct.”—1 Pet. 1:15.

Do You Let Your Light Shine?

1, 2. Why is it appropriate to compare the activity of an ordained minister with a city situated on a mountain and with a lamp that is lit?

AN ORDAINED minister of God carries a heavy responsibility. He starts in where Jesus left off. It was the Master who said to his faithful followers: “You are the light of the world. A city cannot be hid when situated upon a mountain. People light a lamp and set it, not under the measuring basket, but upon the lampstand, and it shines upon all those in the house. Likewise let your light shine before mankind, that they may see your right works and give glory to your Father who is in the heavens.” (Matt. 5:14-16) This light of truth shines in the world day and night because of the activeness of true Christians. When ordained ministers preach from house to house, the light shines. But that is not the only time he lets his light shine. It must shine during his eating, during his drinking, during his general conversation, during his working as well as when he is in the congregation of God’s people. At no time can a Christian hide or turn off his light. “You are the light of the world. . . . Let your light shine before mankind.”

² An ordained minister of God looks to the future. So, then, if he would “love life and see good days, . . . let him seek peace and pursue it.” (1 Pet. 3:10, 11) While pursuing peace he has no time for wrongdoing and so getting out of harmony with God’s Word. If he does, it will be seen. As a minister he must for twenty-four hours a day prove that he is living a Christian life. He is observed just like a city situated on a hill; there is no hiding it. It is there to be seen for many miles around. You cannot hide that city any more than you can hide the light of a true Christian. An ordained minister’s light shines continually. It is always aglow, unless the minister deliberately smothers the light by the way he eats, drinks, talks, works or preaches the good news of God’s kingdom. But never let that happen! Let people of all kinds see your right works, because when they see your right works all kinds of men will give glory to your Father who is in the heavens.

3. Aside from the Christian’s right work in preaching, what else should people be able to observe favorably?

³ The house-to-house preaching that the kingdom of God is at hand is vital, very important; and this good news helps people to see more clearly the great blessings God has in store for believers. But let them also observe the Christian’s right works, the way he lives, how he conducts himself at work and at play, the way his children behave themselves, the way he mixes with people in the congregation, along with his teaching ability. Yes, all this tells if he lets his light shine.

4, 5. (a) Is there such a thing as a part-time Christian, and why? (b) Can all Christians devote the same amount of time to preaching the good news? (c) What conclusion do we thus reach in the matter?

⁴ An individual who has dedicated himself to Jehovah’s service and has been baptized in water cannot say that he is a part-time Christian. He must be a full-time Christian. He may not be able to spend all his awake hours preaching from house to house and conducting Bible studies as do pioneers and missionaries. But that makes no difference as to being a Christian. God’s commandments are the same for all Christians. Many Christians among Jehovah’s witnesses are referred to as pioneers and missionaries, full-time preachers. These individuals have been able to arrange their affairs so that they can spend all their time in teaching and ministering to other persons by going from house to house and conducting Bible studies in the homes of believers. It is easily seen that not all persons who have dedicated their lives to Jehovah God and have been baptized can devote all their time to the preaching work, but certainly they must devote all their time to the Christian life. They must prove that they are ordained ministers before God just as surely as one who evangelizes all his wakeful hours. All Christians must be full-time light bearers just as Jesus was, because they are walking in his footsteps.

⁵ What, then, must we conclude? This: A Christian, whether he be a pioneer, a missionary, or a person known as a congregation publisher, must be an ordained minister before God full time. According to the Scriptures, in Paul’s writings as well as Peter’s and in Jesus’ own words, one living a Christian life must “keep on, then, seeking first the kingdom and his righteousness.” Furthermore, Jesus said: “If you observe my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have observed the commandments of the Father and remain in his love.” (John 15:10) There are no exceptions; all Christians have the same commandments, the same Redeemer, the same God.

WORKS BECOME MANIFEST

6, 7. How might we explain 1 Timothy 5:24, 25 in relation to people’s evil works?

⁶ What a person really is will eventually manifest itself. Paul pointed out to Timothy: “The sins of some men are publicly manifest, leading immediately to judgment, but as for other men their sins also become manifest later. In the same way also the right works are publicly manifest and those that are otherwise cannot be kept hid.” (1 Tim. 5:24, 25) A simple example will help us see Paul’s point. There was a thief in a certain city who had been robbing homes for two years and another man who for the first time tried to rob a home. On the novice’s first venture of this kind he was caught leaving the house with the stolen goods. He was turned over to the police. The trial was held. The witnesses gave their testimony and he was proved to be a thief. The judgment: six months in prison. This man’s sins were “publicly manifest, leading immediately to judgment.”

⁷ But how about the first thief, who has been stealing for two years now? He decides to make another robbery. This time, however, he is apprehended. The police arrest him. He is brought before the court, and in the evidence presented it is proved not only that he robbed in the last home he unlawfully entered, but that he had robbed many other homes during the past two years! While this thief may have had a good reputation in the community up to this time, now his “sins also become manifest,” but only later, after two years. One cannot always hide his real way of life. If he is a thief, eventually it will become manifest.

8. How might the works of a righteous person become manifest at once?

⁸ Paul reasons that just as the sins of some people are manifest immediately and other men’s sins become manifest later, so the same is true with the right works of some persons. Maybe another illustration will show this truth clearly. A woman zealous in preaching the good news from house to house has excellent success in interesting people in God’s Word, resulting in many home Bible studies. By her right