One of the favourite verses of the WTS is Proverbs 4:18 which they totally distort, as they often do with the Bible, in a very casual and irresponsible manner.
The verse there talks about the lifestyle of the righteous which is like an ever increasing light and juxtaposes it with the way of the wicked in verse 19 which is always like darkness where they can't see where they going and may stamble on obstacles along it.
18 "But the path of the just [is] as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
19 The way of the wicked [is] as darkness: they know not at what they stumble."
It's good to read from verse 10 to get the full picture.
This the JWs seek to apply to their dogmas an issue totally irrelevent with the above verses which revolve around purely personal moral issues. Yet the dubs can't see the obvious misapplication to cover their embarassing and gross dogmatic incompetence, another WTS deception.
On some issues like the resurrection of the sodomites they changed direction many times which gave rise to the flickering light accusation.
The misapplication of the ever increasing light
by greendawn 8 Replies latest jw friends
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greendawn
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greendawn
And the older light (doctrines of the WTS) harm many people whereas the older and weaker light of the righteous in the earlier stages of his path harms no one.
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schne_belly
Hmmm.
So if the light gets brighter - then does the dark get darker????
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Gopher
It's interesting that they lift one verse out of the Proverbs and apply it to the "organization".
The rest of the Proverbs apply to individuals, for useful ideas about their lives.
Why then, doesn't this verse apply to INDIVIDUALS growing in wisdom as they go through life? (Because the Watchtower Society says it applies to their organization??)
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greendawn
Gopher they needed desperately an excuse to cover up their doctrinal incompetence and this is what they came up with, for the naive dubs it does the job it keeps them quiet.
It shows that the FDS are very good at knowing and misapplying rather than correctly Biblical verses. In a God approved organisation doctrine should always be sound because Gosd always gives unchanging true dogma never an erratic one that's here today and gone tomorrow. -
daystar
Increasing of light is a different concept from replacing so-called "old light" with "new light". The scriptures in question seem more to indicate an adding to, rather than a replacing of.
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greendawn
That is the crux of the matter, they discard ideas and replace them with totally different ones, they do not build on them as the increasing light idea implies. The old ideas become dark and undesirable, not brighter.
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AlanF
The Proverbs 4:18 misapplication was actually invented by the Millerites in the 1840s to excuse Miller's prediction of "the end" falling through. Russell and other Adventist-based sects used it later to excuse their own false predictions.
It's amazing how self-serving delusional "prophets" misuse the Bible in the same way, and never notice how much they engage in special pleading.
AlanF
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greendawn
Alan thanks for clarifying this point I had always thought it was the WTS that had originated this devious reasoning. But in fact it was the Millerites, their adventist forerunners, that did it.