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Where Did It Happen?The Watchtower—1961 | December 1
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WHERE DID IT HAPPEN?
Answers to quiz on page 733
1. Bethlehem (Matt. 2:1);
2. Egypt (Matt. 2:13-15);
3. Nazareth (Luke 4:16);
4. the Jordan River (Matt. 3:13);
5. Cana (John 2:1-11);
6. the Sea of Galilee (John 6:1, 16-21);
7. Jericho (Luke 19:1-10);
8. Capernaum (Matt. 9:1; Mark 2:1);
9. Nain (Luke 7:11-17);
10. Tyre (Mark 7:24-30);
11. Jerusalem (Matt. 21:1, 18; 23:1-39; Mark 11:27; 12:38-41);
12. Sychar (John 4:5-42);
13. Bethany (John 11:1-44);
14. the Mount of Olives (Matt. 24:3-51);
15. Golgotha or Skull Place (John 19:17, 18).
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Questions From ReadersThe Watchtower—1961 | December 1
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respected her and her husband’s reproductive powers, for it said: “You must then amputate her hand. Your eye must feel no sorrow.” (Deut. 25:11, 12) God’s law said this thing right after it had approved of brother-in-law marriage within a family. This law specified that the man who refused to perform brother-in-law marriage toward his dead brother’s widow should be publicly disgraced, for refusing to give his brother’s widow a child in the name of his dead brother.—Deut. 25:5-10.
All this gives us some idea of how God feels when a person or a nation dedicated to him tampers with the reproductive organs, preventing their normal function. It is true that the Mosaic law containing the above provisions was done away with in Christ, but God has not changed his attitude on sterilization. The sense, the force, the basic, inherent idea and purport of the above laws remain in effect with respect to Christians, who are under a law even higher than that given through Moses. A dedicated Christian is under the law of loving Jehovah God with the whole heart, mind, soul and strength. The force and effect of sterilization is against this, as sterilization harmfully affects the asexualized person physically and mentally. A Christian is not a habitual criminal or an imbecile that needs to be sterilized.
If a doctor claims that for a wife to have another child it would mean the death of her, then what? Then there is another way to prevent her conception, which conception might bring her life in jeopardy, than by violating the law of God, the whole tenor of which is contrary to deliberate asexualizing of a man or woman. If parents are living in poverty and could not afford to have another child, then there is another way to take care of this economic situation than by ruining those organs with which the perfect man and woman were endowed and which enter so strongly into the noble purposes of married life. There is the need for exercising the spirit of the Lord God, one of the fruits of which is self-control.—Gal. 5:22, 23.
When a Christian understands the good purpose for which self-control must be exercised, then it appears to him reasonable and he is strengthened to exercise it, with the aid of God’s spirit.
● In chapter six, page 58, paragraph 15, of From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained, the statement is made that “none of the first-born sons of Israel died because of this tenth plague” on Egypt. Does this mean that only males were reckoned as the first-born?—F. D., United States.
It is evident that the first-born denominated in the Scriptures means the males alone. Pharaoh himself was a first-born. However, he would not be involved as he had his own household, and not the head of the household but the first-born son of the household was destined to die. Accordingly, not Pharaoh, but his own first-born son perished on the fateful night of the Passover.—Ex. 12:12, 29.
It is possible that not every Egyptian household had a literal first-born son. But the term first-born could include the chief one in the house who occupied the position of a first-born. Thus the chief male in the house, next to the head of the household, would die as representative of the appropriate first-born by birth. That it was merely the male first-born ones who were designated and whose lives were endangered on that Passover night is evident from the fact that when an exchange was made by giving over the Levites to Jehovah God, only the Levite males were enumerated, and since there were not enough Levite males to account for all the first-born males of the twelve tribes that had been saved from Egypt, a ransom price had to be paid for the excess of Israelite first-born males who were not counterbalanced by the number of Levites exchanged.—Num. 3:40-51.
● Why does the New World Translation state that Joseph considered divorcing Mary, when
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