conscience void of offense toward God, and toward men" (Acts 24:16). Do the same.
Listen to the voice of conscience. It's your friend, not your enemy.
CHAPTER 5 Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; 2 The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.
3 Honor widows that are widows indeed.
4 But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home, and to requite their parents: for that is good and acceptable before God.
5 Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusts in God, and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.
6 But she that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.
7 And these things give in charge, that they may be blameless.
8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
9 Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man, 10 Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints' feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work.
11 But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry; 12 Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith.
QUESTIONS & OBJECTIONS 6:1 "Isn't it blasphemous to call the Bible 'God's Word' when it makes Him look so bad?"
I am going to tell you some things about my father that will make him look bad. He regularly left my mother to fend for herself. I was once horrified to hear that he deliberately killed a helpless animal. Not only that, but he hit me (often).
Here's the information that's missing: The reason he left my mom during the day was to work to earn money to take care of her and their children. He killed the animal because it had been run over by a car and was suffering.
He regularly chastened me because he loved me enough to teach me right from wrong (I was a brat).
Portions of the Bible that "make God look bad" merely reveal that we lack understanding. I never once questioned my dad's integrity, because I trusted him (see
13 And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.
14 I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
15 For some are already turned aside after Satan.
16 If any man or woman that believes have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged; that it may relieve them that are widows indeed.
17 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine.
18 For the scripture says, You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn. And, The laborer is worthy of his reward.
19 Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.
20 Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.
21 I charge you before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that you observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.
"Try after sermons to talk to strangers.
The preacher may have missed the mark, but you need not miss it. Or the preacher may have struck the mark, and you can help to make the impression deeper by a kind word."
CHARLES SPURGEON 22 Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins: keep yourself pure.
23 Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for your stomach's sake and your often infirmities.
24 Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after.
25 Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid.
QUESTIONS & OBJECTIONS Q 6:20 "Didn't the Church persecute Galileo?"
Skeptics often try to demean Scripture by saying that the Christian Church persecuted Galileo when he maintained that the earth circled the sun. As a professor of astronomy at the University of Pisa, Galileo was required to teach the accepted theory of his time that the sun and all the planets revolved around the Earth. Later at the University of Padua he was exposed to a new theory, proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus, that the Earth and all the other planets revolved around the sun. Galileo's observations with his new telescope convinced him of the truth of Copernicus's sun-centered or heliocentric theory. Galileo's support for the heliocentric theory got him into trouble with the Roman
Catholic church. In 1633 during the Inquisition he was convicted of heresy and ordered to recant (publicly withdraw) his support of Copernicus. The Roman Catholic church sentenced him to life imprisonment, but because of his advanced age allowed him to serve his term under house arrest at his villa outside of Florence, Italy. The Christian
Church therefore should not be blamed for his imprisonment. It was the Roman Catholic church that persecuted Galileo.
"Under the sentence of imprisonment Galileo remained till his death in 1642. It is, however, untrue to speak of him as in any proper sense a 'prisoner.' As his Protestant biographer, von Gebler, tells us, 'One glance at the truest historical source for the famous trial would convince anyone that Galileo spent altogether twenty-two days in the buildings of the Holy Office [during the Inquisition], and even then not in a prison cell with barred windows, but in the handsome and commodious apartment of an official of the Inquisition.'" (Catholic Encyclopedia)
*** For how to address the sinner's conscience, see John 4:7 comment.