Question 26.
1. Does "account for" mean "how can we explain it..."?
2. Does "it" refer to "teaching"?
3. Would the sentence still make sense if I substituted "that" for "since" (a conjunction meaning: in view of the fact that)?
Think what the teaching of the Scofield Bible does by implication to this simple,
plain and all-important word of Christ, which it passes by in silence! For, by that
teaching, this testimony of our Lord, given in open court when on trial for His
life, was not true. According to that teaching the Kingdom He had been
proclaiming both in person and also by the lips of His disciples throughout the
length and breadth of the land, was of this world; and its establishment would
necessarily have involved the overthrow of Caesar's dominion, and the
subjugation of the whole world to the Jewish nation. How then can we account
for it that this text is ignored in the notes of the Scofield Bible? And let it be
remembered in this connection that when the Pharisees had previously
attempted to entrap the Lord into some utterance which they could use against
Him as savoring of sedition again Caesar, He perceived their hypocrisy and
expressly commanded them to "Render unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar's, and unto God, the things that are God's" (Mat. 22:17-21). For the
Kingdom of God is not in anywise antagonistic to the kingdoms and rulers of
this world. On the contrary, the law of Christ commands loyalty to them,
because "the powers that be are ordained of God" (Rom. 13 :1) ; and it requires
of all the citizens of His Kingdom that they submit themselves "to every
ordinance of man for the Lord's sake" (I Pet. 2:13).
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4. What is meant by "a parting"?
- A different point of view?
The last verses of Acts give a parting view of the apostle Paul. They tell us that
he dwelt two whole years in his own hired house (in Rome), where he "received
all that came in unto him, preaching the Kingdom of God, and teaching those
things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 28:30, 31). Evidently Paul
had not heard that the preaching of the Kingdom of God did not belong to this
"dispensation." For in those days there was no "Scofield Bible" to enlighten
him. On the other hand, we are not informed as to how this passage can be
reconciled with modern dispensationalism, for the Scofield Bible ignores it.
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5. What is meant by "do flow"? I just can't seem to figure that out.
The Kingdom is here defined both negatively and positively. We are told first
what it is not, and then what it is; and hence the text is the more enlightening
for our present purpose. For a contrast is here presented between the Kingdom
of God and the historical Kingdom of David, which the rabbinists supposed (as
the dispensationalists do flow) were one and the same. Concerning the
kingdom of David it is recorded that they who came to make him king "were with
David three days, eating and drinking", and that those who lived in the territory
of the other Tribes, even unto Issachar, and Zebulon and Naphthali, brought
bread on asses, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen; also meat, meal,
cakes of figs, and bunches of raisins, and wine, and oil, and oxen and sheep
abundantly; for there was joy in Israel" (I Chr. 12:39, 40). Also it is written that
David in those days "dealt to every one of Israel, both man and woman, to every
one a loaf of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine." (Id. 16:3).
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6. Does "setting forth of..." mean "establishment of" or "advancement of" or something else?
It is a cause for profound astonishment that, in what purports to be a complete
setting forth of the teaching of Scripture as to the Kingdom of God, this
particular text (Rom. 14:17) should have been ignored; since it has the unique
distinction of giving the Holy Spirit's own definition of that Kingdom.