Your answers

Christ said: "In heaven, people neither marry nor are given in marriage." Does that mean that we shall all be sexless?

This saying of Jesus, that in heaven people neither marry nor are given in marriage, has perplexed many readers of the Gospels. It would be a misunderstanding of its meaning to suppose that in the future life all will be sexless.

By reference to people in the hereafter who do not marry and others who are not given in marriage, Jesus actually presupposed rather than denied the continuance of respective genders, and his careful choice of those generally accepted matrimonial terms strongly supports this view. It is a case thatin heaven there will indeed be males who do not marry, and femaleswho will no longer be given in marriage.

The intention of the saying was to emphasise that in the resurrection life, while gender differences are not abrogated, there will no longer be marital bonding as in this mortal life. Heaven, it is implied, will not simply be a continuation of this present age with its restrictions, but entrance into a new dimension.

There will, indeed, be males and females, as originally intended in the order of creation, but all relationships will be transfigured.

(Canon) Terry Palmer
Magor, Monmouthshire

Your questions

What was "The Word" of "In the beginning was the Word", ofJohn 1.1? T. B.

A few Anglican and Roman Catholic priests and bishops are wearing their stoles outside rather than beneath their chasubles. Is there some reason for this?

I recently saw a Roman Catholic priest bless the people with the Book of the Gospels when it was handed to him by the deacon after the Gospel. I thought that only a bishop should do this. Is this correct? G. S.

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