the new world need to cultivate love rather than selfishness, the spirit of giving instead of greed. Rather than going into debt in order to increase material possessions, the Christian learns to be content with necessary things, working diligently to earn such things with honest labor. The apostle Paul was careful not to put any unnecessary burden on his brothers. Just because he was an apostle he did not use his position to make material gain from his fellow Christians. He did not covet their “silver or gold.” As a full-time apostle he appreciated assistance from the congregations so that he could devote all his time to the ministry, but where this voluntary assistance was not forthcoming he was ready to work with his own hands at tent-making so as to care for his material needs.—Acts 20:33, 34; 18:3; 1 Thess. 2:9.

The Benefit of Living for God’s New World

1. What do James and Paul have to say about anger, contention and the wrong use of the tongue?

IS IT not true that today in this world people quickly become angry, losing control of their tempers? Often this leads to harsh and abusive speech, even to unclean and filthy speech. Such kind of speech shows a lack of kindness and consideration for others and is but an evidence of the bitterness, jealousy and contention that are part of the bad conditions around us. The Bible writer James therefore asks: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show out of his right conduct his works with a meekness that belongs to wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and contentiousness in your hearts, do not be bragging and lying against the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above . . . For where jealousy and contentiousness are, there disorder and every vile thing are.” (Jas. 3:13-16) That is why Paul properly says, at Ephesians 4:29-32: “Let a rotten saying not proceed out of your mouth, but whatever saying is good for building up as the need may be, that it may impart what is favorable to the hearers. . . . Let all malicious bitterness and anger and wrath and screaming and abusive speech be taken away from you along with all injuriousness. But become kind to one another, tenderly compassionate, freely forgiving one another just as God also by Christ freely forgave you.”

2. What counsel should be followed when one is overcome temporarily by the heat of anger?

² Even when it may be necessary to give correction or reproof, as parent to child, or as a Christian overseer to one in the congregation, one’s speech should not reflect an uncontrolled spirit. If one feels momentarily overcome by the heat of anger, that is the time to keep silent until the anger has cooled and one can speak on the matter with proper balance. Under such circumstances he should be “slow about speaking,” and rather remember that “an enraged man stirs up strife.” To gain God’s approval we must learn to live in peace, be peaceable, for “happy are the peaceable, since they will be called ‘sons of God’.”—Jas. 1:19; Prov. 15:18; Matt. 5:9.

3, 4. What are some other things that have no place in the New World society?

³ There are times when one may be properly stirred by righteous indignation against what is wrong and evil. But to be moved to indignation against what is wrong because of love for Jehovah and what is right, and because one is disturbed to see His name and people reproached, is different from being moved to anger because of personal hurt feelings of pride or hatred for another person, or to cover up fear of being found out in some wrong that one has done.

⁴ Anything that would work contrary to the peacefulness and orderliness of God’s arrangement of living for his people can have no place in his now-forming New World society. This means that such things as fighting or drunkenness (which so often leads to strife) are no part of New World living.—Rom. 13:13.

PRINCIPLES FOR MARRIAGE AND MORAL BEHAVIOR

5. For what purpose did God make the two sexes, and what limitation was put on the privilege of sexual union?

⁵ When God originally placed man and woman in the paradise garden of Eden it was His purpose to have them reproduce and multiply to become a society of people eventually to populate the whole earth with a righteous race. So that they could multiply, God created them with the ability to reproduce, and that was why he made the two sexes, male and female. By the man and woman coming together in sexual union they would beget children “after their kind.” This would be a right and proper thing for them to do, with no shame attached to it, and it was therefore intended to be a pleasurable experience for them. But God set certain limitations on the exercise of the privilege of sexual union. It was to be practiced only with the arrangement of marriage—the husband with his own wife, the wife with her own husband.

6. (a) Was it God’s purpose that polygamy be practiced in Israel? (b) What did Jesus say about marriage and divorce at Matthew 19:4-9?

⁶ Although for a time God permitted the Israelites to practice polygamy, yet this was not God’s purpose for them, nor did he command them to adopt this practice. In instituting marriage in the first place God gave Adam only one wife. And so Jesus later said concerning the Jewish practice of polygamy and divorce: “‘Did you not read that he who created them at the beginning made them male and female and said: “For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh”? So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has yoked together let no man put apart.’ They said to him: ‘Why, then, did Moses prescribe giving a certificate of dismissal and divorcing her?’ He said to them: ‘Moses, out of regard for your hardheartedness, made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but such has not been the case from the beginning. I say to you that whoever divorces his wife except on the grounds of fornication and marries another commits adultery.’”—Matt. 19:4-9.

7. (a) With whom only may a man or woman have sexual relations? (b) What are the only grounds for divorce that permits remarriage?

⁷ The Bible principles in connection with marriage are really very simple. A Christian man may have only one living wife, and a Christian woman may have only one living husband. The man may have sexual relations only with his wife and with no other woman; the wife may have sexual relations only with her husband and with no other man. The two have become one flesh. If one of the marriage partners dies, then that, of course, ends the marriage and the remaining one may remarry. (Rom. 7:2, 3) But while the two are still living the only Scriptural grounds for divorce that allows remarriage is where either the man or the woman goes outside the limitations of marriage and has sexual relations with some other person, thus becoming one flesh with that other person, thereby committing adultery. For a married person