JULY 15TH WT STUDY ARTICLE QUOTES....

by Mary 39 Replies latest jw friends

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  Mary

  Warning: Ad nauseam quotes:

  Keep Free From Murmurings - August 14, 2006 study

  Par 16: Murmuring focuses our min on ourselves and our troubles and pushes into the background the blessings we enjoy as Witnesses of Jehovah. To over come a tendency to complain, we need to keep these blessings uppermost in our mind.......each of us has the wonderful privilege of bearing the personal name of Jehovah...we can cultivate a close relationship with him and are to speak to the "hearer of prayer" at any time....our life has real meaning because we understand the issue of universal sovereignty and remember that it is a privilege to maintain integrity to God...we can have a regular share in preaching the good news of the kingdom....faith in the ransom sacrifice of Jesus Christ enables us to have a clean conscience. (Hmm....don't all other churches teach the same thing?)

  18 Our putting up with inconveniences without complaining not only helps us to improve our personality, but may also impress those observing our conduct. (always an ulterior motive)

  This is nothing though. The next study article, called Focus On the Goodness of Jehovah’s Organization consists of, you guessed it, brow-beating any poor Dub who has every reason to be angry and bitter at the Organization..........While the entire study article is nauseating, I’ve tried highlighted the most ghastly parts:

  Par 4: We have sound reasons to be grateful for "the faithful and discreet slave" appointed by Jesus Christ.....The slave class of spirit-anointed Christians takes the lead in preaching the good news, arranges meetings for worship and publishes bible based literature in over 400 languages. Millions of people earth wide gratefully partake of this spiritual good at the proper time...there certainly is no reason to murmur about it.

  Par 8: ...Of course, those appointed to take the lead in true worship are imperfect (that’s the understatement of the year). All of them make mistakes and some have persistent weaknesses that they are working hard to control. Need we be upset because of this? No. [it then goes on to describe problems in ancient Israel with David and Saul and Joab and Abner]........Yet David did not become a bitter complainer nor did he turn his back on true worship.........

  Par 10 ...We have no reason to complain of treachery within God’s organization today. (Interesting comment. Does that mean there is no treachery within the organization, or there is and we should just ignore it). Neither Jehovah nor his angels nor the spiritual shepherds tolerate the presence of treacherous wicked ones in the congregation. (I beg to differ)

  Par 12: ......May we reject the path followed by murmuring complainers and fix our thoughts on the fine things that come to us through the F&DS.

  Par 13 describes how some murmured against Jesus’ teachings and it quotes the ever predicable scripture "...Lord who shall we go away to? You have sayings of everlasting life".

  Par 14: In modern times, a very small number (growing larger every day thanks to sites like JWD ) among God’s people have become disgruntled with some aspect of Christian teaching and have murmured against the earthly part of Jehovah’s organization. Why does this happen? Such murmuring is often caused by a lack of understanding of God’s way of doing things (or perhaps we understand it far better than they would like us to)........... The Creator progressively reveals the truth to his people. Hence our understanding of the scriptures is bound to be refined from time to time. The vast majority of Jehovah’s people rejoice over such refinements. A few become "righteous overmuch" and resent the changes (like getting your ass kicked out of your Bethel home after 40 years because they don’t want to look after you in your old age?).... Pride may play a role and some fall into the trap of independent thinking (oh no! The two most feared words in Dubdumb land!) Whatever the reason, such murmuring is hazardous since is can draw us back to the world and its ways.

  Par 15: Emanuel....was a Witness who found fault with some things he read in [the publications]. He stopped reading...the literature and told the elders....that he no longer wished to be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Within a short time however, Emanuel came to realize that the teachings of Jehovah’s Organization were correct after all. He contacted the Witnesses, admitted his mistake, was reinstated as [a drone for the Borg again]. As a result, he again became a happy man. (Now this has got to be one of the biggest crocks I’ve ever heard and it’s one of two things: either the guy still had all his family in the Borg and couldn’t handle the horrific shunning by all his family and friends, decided to bite the bullet and come back just so he could have a normal relationship with them, or this is another phantom person that they’ve invented in the Writing Dept’s feeble little minds.)

  Par 16: What if we are tempted to murmur because of having doubts about certain teachings that Jehovah’s people hold in common?....let us not be impatient.....the F&DS may eventually publish something that answers our questions and clears up our doubts (in the meantime, you must continue to believe a lie, because we are telling you to)......Prayer, personal study and association with spiritually minded fellow believers an also help to remove doubts.........(weren’t they doing all this in the late 1970s down at Bethel and were told to stop?)

  Par 17: .....if we were to become habitual murmurers, we would be putting at risk our relationship with Jehovah God. (translation: you speak bad about the GB and you’ll die at Armageddon. Which should be here any day now).

  Par 18:...Jehovah is in control of everything within his organization and Jesus is aware of developments in each congregation.....Patiently wait on God and Christ......yada, yada, yada.....

  Me thinks that if it were only a "very small number" that were complaining, they wouldn’t need to have an entire Craptower on the "dangers" of complaining about the Organization and the assholes at the top that are screwing everyone over. I think that, not only are there ones like us, who have managed to leave altogether, but there must be a sizable number still within the Borg who are complaining more and more.........your thoughts?
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  ballistic

  I'll just paraphrase that article then...

  Put up, shut up, don't question and don't complain.

  Question 1 - 18. What must we do?
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  Forscher

  Yet David did not become a bitter complainer nor did he turn his back on true worship.........

  
  What David did was he got the hell out of Dodge and stayed gone until Saul died. Can we be blamed for doing the same thing?
  Forscher
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  Quandry

  I remember going to the meetings and assemblies wishing that instead of hearing how we could do more, more, more, and how some were not doing this or that right, we could have uplifting talks telling us how wonderful we were doing, how proud of us the FDS was, and how much they appreciated the daily struggles we had to overcome to remain a faithful witness. I always felt that I was viewed as never measuring up, even though my husband was an elder and we always studied every article, cleaned when it was our turn, denied ourselves advancement in our jobs through education, and never spoke ill of others. I do not know if others are becoming dissillutioned by finding things out over the internet like I have or not. Do you really think more people are viewing the information about the Society?
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  Mary

  I do not know if others are becoming dissillutioned by finding things out over the internet like I have or not. Do you really think more people are viewing the information about the Society?

  Does a snake crawl on it's belly? More and more Witnesses are finding out exactly what's going on in the Organization via the internet, which is why they have so many warnings against it. The guys at the top who are ruling, like to control what the rank and file reads. And you can't control that when people have the internet. As a result, a Witness can now log on to the internet and find out easily that we were lied to about Jerusalem being destroyed in 607 BCE, or the fact that thousands of brothers and sisters in Malawi were raped, tortured and murdered because the Governing Body decided they couldn't carry a "party card", but at the same time, they were allowing the brothers in Mexico to bribe the authorities and lie to them so they could own property.

  It's not just the scandals....the Organization demands far too much from it's followers and they give absolutely nothing in return. The New System of Things is nowhere in sight. That was supposed to be our reward. And now they've reneged on it, but are still demanding that we go to 5 meetings a week, go out in Service, etc. etc. etc., even though there's nothing in the bible that says that any of these things are even necessary.......

  Yes, people are finding out the truth about the Truth. Welcome to the club.
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  Elsewhere

  I love how the Watchtower Society NEVER directly addresses specific issues. They always speak in broad and general terms so in the end they never actually say anything about a specific issue! I suspect this is because openly discussing a problem in the organization would open a Pandora's Box of open and frank discussions between the Rank & File. Right now they are keeping the issues hidden in the "back room" where people get Disfellowshipped and shunned if they do not accept the answers given by the elders.

  This article is very encouraging in that it appears the Watchtower Society may implode sooner rather than later.
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  Scully

  Oh good grief!

  So much $h!t... and never enough shovels....

  Where's Gumby with the hip waders?
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  blondie

  Mary, I got that magazine on Friday. All I can say is that there is unrest INSIDE the House of Watchtower. The WTS comments indicate that apostates are the least of their problems. The natives rank and file are getting restless. It will take more than an article like this to solve the problem. They dismantled the 1914 generation prophecy and there are many in my parents age group and mine that are facing death and serious illness who thought the end would be here by now. They may not have left like most of us have, but they are voting with their pocketbook and with their meeting attendance and time in d2d. Fewer are coming in, the ones who are raised JWs are leaving when they reach their majority and not coming back, and the ones who are left are not reaching out and not acting with "a sense of urgency."

  Blondie
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  Mary

  Elsewhere said: love how the Watchtower Society NEVER directly addresses specific issues. They always speak in broad and general terms so in the end they never actually say anything about a specific issue!

  This is actually what prompted me to read "apostate literature" in the first place. It always rankled me how they would never specifically tell us what it was that apostates were saying that was so bad. I used to sit there and think "..uh, why aren't we being told what they're saying? That way, we'll know what kind of a response to give." The term "half-truths" was always there and I would think "...so...what they're saying is partly correct?"

  Blondie said: The WTS comments indicate that apostates are the least of their problems. The natives rank and file are getting restless.

  Ya, I think the problem is much bigger than what they want to admit, hence the article. In fact, I think the R&F can look forward to many more article like this one....but like you said, the R&F are showing their displeasure in other ways: not contributing enough, missing meetings, etc.

  One more thing: I counted up how many time the term "organization" or "Faithful and discreet slave" were mentioned in the article. I counted 22 times. Jesus was mentioned 5 times. This might be off slightly (I'm getting tired), but the point of course, is that they're teaching that the Organization and the GB are far more essential to a person's salvation than what Jesus is.
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  truthseeker

  I just posted a topic on this magazine, analyzing the statement "a very small number of God's people are disgruntled" if anyone's interested.

  Mary - excellent analysis, I applaud you.

  Like you, others are quickly noticing a 'variation of the shadow" and noticing that there is an uneasy element now to being a witness.

  After watching the Drama last week where missing festivals was likened to missing Friday at the convention, and the prophet disobeying Jehovah not to eat and drink or sleep in a certain place was likened to disobeying Jehovah's channel of communication, I am convinced there is something afoot.

  After all - a whole three articles on murmuring? Does it really make sense? Does if tell us that Jehovah's people are "the happiest people on Earth?"