First, as I am just back online, happy new year to everyone!
Totally unrelated to the above (or maybe not), it just occurred to me that the unscriptural WT doctrine of "two classes of Christians" might have some faint pars veritatis after all as far as the NT is concerned.
Of course it is not about "anointed or not," "two hopes," "heaven vs. earth".
Yet several segments of early Christianity did seem to allow for a huge difference in levels of requirement, vocation, or fate among believers. On the one hand, the high and hard way of the apostles, disciples, missionaries, evangelists, martyrs; on the other hand, the minimal requirement of the rest. And those two "ways" are not left unconnected.
In Pauline Christianity, the connection is often made through the notion of vicarious suffering -- a notion obscured by Protestantism which relied heavily on Paul but swept this aspect of Pauline theology under the carpet in its attempt to struggle against the Catholic concepts of communio sanctorum, transferrable merits, etc. However this notion is evident in many Pauline texts, e.g. 2 Corinthians 4:7ff (notice that the "we/us" doesn't include all Christians):
But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.
This echoes (albeit without the ironical ring) 1 Corinthians 4:11ff (here the criticism does not mean that all Christians should live as the apostles, but that all should respect the hard way of the apostles):
Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.
Nowhere is the idea of vicarious suffering so clearly expressed as in (the probably post-Pauline) Colossians 1:24:
I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.
Although the logical connection is far less obvious, one can't help notice a similar difference of requirement in the Synoptic Gospels: the disciples have to forsake everything to follow Jesus, while nothing is required from the multitude that Jesus feeds and heals -- except kindness and respect to the disciples -- even handing them a cup of water would bring everlasting reward. There is a strong debate around the scene of final judgement in Matthew 25 -- whether the "brothers of Christ" mean all poor, thirsty, hungry, needy persons in a humanistic perspective or the disciples, which would be more consistent with the Synoptic outlook, although reminiscent of the WT perspective. Whatever the case, there are clearly two standards. This Robert M. Price, in The Uncredible Shrinking Son of Man, called the "Hinayana Gospel vs. Mahayana Gospel" -- the narrow vs. broader way of salvation.
Of course the WT GB in its cosy headquarters has little to do with the early Christian radicals; to put themselves in the place of "apostles" or "brothers of Christ" they require too little of themselves and way too much of the others. But this should not obscure the original difference among early Christians.
If we step out of doctrinal issues, I think this is an interesting way of approaching the difference of fate and vocation between people. Back to Paul: "For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another." "We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living." (Romans 12:3ff; 14:7ff)
Any thoughts?