Do JW’s qualify as Christ disciples based on John 13:34, 35?

by Sola Scriptura 51 Replies latest jw friends

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  carla

  My jw says pretty much the same as inlove2's spouse. He says 'we have love amongst ourselves and help each other all over the world". To which I reply-- And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. Luke 6:33

  How can they be disciples of Christ when Christ plays such a small role in their literature and lives? When Jesus isn't even Jesus but an angel? Some recreated something or other, what exactly He is depends on which year in wt theology you are looking at. When a so called 'bible based' org can confuse satan and Jesus and flip flop on who is who should be enough for any thinking person to take a hard look at this publishing company masquerading as a religion.
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  Sola Scriptura

  To AuldSoul: Thanks for you comments…I appreciate stimulating debate. I tend to agree with your comment that an organization in itself cannot be Christian. But Christians are encouraged to organize together, to what could be called a “Christian Organization” for the purpose of spreading the group’s message and encouraging each other. It may be a matter of semantics, but that’s how I see it.
  

  To heathen: Good point, Titus 3:10 does support the notion of a Unified Oneness of Faith. Other scriptures that support this idea are:
  1 Corinthians 1:10-13 & Ephesians 4:13

  To Inlove2: Hello again… I asked the question the way I did to get some postive disscussion going…I never directly stated whether I believed JW’s were or were not the only true relgion in the world. I simple stated that it is wrong scriptually, for any human to condem anyone who claims to be a non-JW christian,as unworthy of Christ reward of everlasting life. That judgement is up to Jesus on Judgement Day. (Matthew 7:21-27, Luke 6:46)
  

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  Sola Scriptura

  "A simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it"

  -Martin Luther
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  Sola Scriptura

  To JH: Could you please give some evidence to back your point…because as far as I can see, most of our publications as well as the training manual for elders, strongly emphasize loving and caring for the congregation with tenderness…the problem is: individuals don’t always follow that counsel. A very bad habit that has afflicted servants of God throughout the centuries. That’s why we need constant reminders to show love to each other, especially to ones we normally don’t clique with.

  To Tuesday: I feel bad that you never saw the love, because I definitely feel it. How well connected were you to the congregation? (I’m not saying you weren’t, I’m just curious)… many times acts of love get advertised and noticed by few. Where as acts of unkindness get advertised and noticed by many. If we associated with some of the 1st century congregations, that had to be counseled for their lack of love, we might me be inclined to say: “this Jewish sect is a fraud, because I SEE no love here!”. But we know today, that making that assumption based on those bad experiences would be wrong.

  To Finally-Free: It saddens me that you never saw the love either. When I feel I’m not being loved in the congregation, my joy plummets. When that happens my perspective turns from being positive (looking for the good in the brothers and sisters) to negative (looking for the bad, which is much easier to find). The only thing that brings me around is 1) prayer, 2) self reflection, and 3) action. I start “reaching out” to my brothers and sisters…seeing not what they can do for me, but what I can do for them, like helping people move, encouraging the young ones by arranging sports outings and social gatherings, giving a ride, to the store, to a dear elderly sister who can’t drive anymore. I find this formula consistently turns my negative perspective back into a positive perspective, and I start to SEE the love again. I’m not saying you didn’t do this, since I don’t know your situation, but I have found that in some cases, including my own, our lack of positive action = a lack of positive reaction.

  To avidbiblereader:

  But none of us have it totally right. Rather we should be as Christ said, as little children, humbly waiting on our Father to show us just how far off we were, humbly allowing ourselves not to judge others and make hardened rules to hurt those who don't comply. I think some witness are truly living as Christ disciples as others in other religions are trying their best and Jesus will take all that in consideration in his judgment of all of us

  Very good point!

  Thankfully, Jah is more patient then humans and he has allowed us to stumble many times, so we can learn to walk on our own two feet…for in his eyes we are likechildren reaching their terrible two’s.

  Thank you all for your sincere comments.
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  Sola Scriptura
  "A simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it"
  -Martin Luther
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  JH

  To JH: Could you please give some evidence to back your point

  I said that many witnesses have love for one another but the Org with their man made laws dont encourage love.

  Here is one example: When I became a JW' I used to see poople ask for money for this or that reason like at bank entraces or grocery stores for charity or any good cause and I used to give some money to them before being a witness, but they told us at the hall NOT to give money to them. That the money we give isn't the solution to their problem. Only the Kingdom will solve all the problems. So from then I felt obliged to listen to the elders and not give anything. Oh maybe a tract.

  Another example: When I became a witness, I had a good job and was very generous with the brothers and sisters. I was known as brother generous. But 2 years later, I lost my job and was on welfare for a heck of a long time, and NO ONE wanted to share cleaning contracts or anything. Even if I was very generous and known to be generous, they didn't respond in kind. I saw no love. I didn't want charity, I wanted to hear brothers say, how can I help you. come, Ill share a cleaning contract with you, or something like that. That didn't happen so I didn't see any love. Then I quit going to meetings.
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  J-ex-W

  That makes a lot of sense! --Trust true clarification of the Christian Greek Scriptures to come from a...

  ...heathen!

  eh , so what are you saying , that you agree the 4 gospel accounts and everything but Pauls writings were exclusively for the jews? Gee I wonder why the entire new testament was written in greek and not hebrew then , makes perfect sense to me ...... I'm a heathen in the sense that I don't practice organized religion , doesn't mean I can't discuss bible related topics .........

  heathen...I'm not sure if we're communicating here. I was actually saying your point makessense. I was AGREEING with you...not being sarcastic, as I think you might have thought?
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  Sola Scriptura

  To JH:

  When I became a JW' I used to see people ask for money for this or that reason like at bank entraces or grocery stores for charity or any good cause and I used to give some money to them before being a witness, but they told us at the hall NOT to give money to them. That the money we give isn't the solution to their problem. Only the Kingdom will solve all the problems. So from then I felt obliged to listen to the elders and not give anything.

  Wow! That’s ridiculous.

  This is a classic example of “Elders Gone Wild”. Nowhere, and I do mean NOWHERE, is there a JW policy stating that we can’t give to charities (with the exception of religious charities and charities that violate our Christian neutrality ...i.e. “donate to get body armor for our troops” ). I donated money to the hurricane Katrina disaster fund myself. What JW’s choose to do with there money is totally up to them.

  The GB knows of this “Elders Gone Wild” problem and they are consistently telling the CO’s to reign in these wayward Elders. A recent “Elder School” point blank told the Elders that they are not Handling matters, especially Judicial matters, correctly. It also stressed the need for Elders not to interject their opinions into what the Org has giving them to teach the flock.

  This problem is so big, that the Org is going, IMHO, to the other extreme of overly restricting what elders are to say, teach and think. Which in turn creates a Crisis of Conscience for the GOOD liberal and open mind elders, who wish to express themselves more to the congregation. That’s one reason why we see an unprecedented increase of Elders resigning.

  People don’t realize how hard it is right now to be an Liberal Elder. The Conservative Elders are flourishing under this strict system because they are very disciplined and enjoy carefully laid out paths. For a healthy congregation, life, even government, we need a healthy balance of Conservatives and Liberals working together. If all the Liberals give up the “fine fight” we will be in BIG trouble. Stereotypically Conservative Elders bring us order, structure and consistency. Stereotypically Liberal Elders bring us love, joy and new ideas. We need BOTH to survive.

  Sorry for the rant, but this a something I’m very passionate about.

  I was very generous and known to be generous, they didn't respond in kind. I saw no love. I didn't want charity, I wanted to hear brothers say, how can I help you. come, Ill share a cleaning contract with you, or something like that. That didn't happen so I didn't see any love. Then I quit going to meetings.

  That’s sad. But based on your description of the unbalanced leaders of your congregation, I’m not surprised. The Flock usually follows their Shepherd, sometimes over a cliff. And because of them, we lost a ‘salt of the earth’ generous soul like yourself. But know that Jehovah, who looks on in secret, did not forget a single one of your generosities… and HE will repay you in full, just like he did with all of his other mistreated servants of old, as long as you don’t forsake him.

  Agape,
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  Sola Scriptura

  "A simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it"
  -Martin Luther
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  thetrueone

  Hi Sola welcome to this free speech forum,

  I'd just like to say in answer to your question, yes and no. Yes in that they do express an element of love and respect to one another as a whole, but then that could be said of

  other religious groups and organizations. And no, for the main reason why many have left the WTS. blatant corruption, hypocrisy on doctrines, false prophesising and making profits from

  those false prophecies and so on. In short you could say that the people really wanted to be true followers and disciples of Christ but were led in to being instead a false prophesier and a

  disciple or slave of the WTS................. doesn't love mean being truthful and honest......
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  thetrueone

  Corruption follows the love of power !
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  Narkissos

  Sola Scriptura,

  To be more specific:

  You seem to acknowledge that there are "true Christians" outside of the WTBTS; maybe plenty of them.

  At the same time you ask whether JWs match John 13:34f -- among others.

  JWs are taught that they (or strictly their "anointed class") are Jesus' disciples. They are consistently trained to explicitly deny this status to anyone else.

  If your premises are right, the answer to your question, at least collectively, must be negative. Whatever love the JWs in general might show among themselves (and that is highly debatable as you have gathered), the WT teaching amounts to another barrier between Christians as a whole, an obstacle to their mutual recognition.

  I do not mean that some JWs do not approach other believers in a spirit of mutual recognition. But they do so in spite of the WT teachings -- in effect, in spite of being JWs.

  Of course this boils down to one word and notion: sectarianism.

  It seems to me that you are among those dreaming of JWs "going mainstream". I'm afraid this is not going to happen, at least until a severe membership/financial crisis occurs.

  Meanwhile, as you have made clear yourself, even the best of JW elders (including COs, DOs, Branch Committee members) cannot be Christian elders, or teachers, or pastors in any real sense of those terms... They are (un)paid to act as cogs in the machinery: soldiers, officials, representatives of the Governing Body; repeating and applying the teachings and policies of a dozen of old men to 6 millions of lives worldwide. This is not a role anybody with any true spiritual vocation can be satisfied with in the long run.
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  Tuesday

  I must respond here because I feel the need to:

  That’s sad. But based on your description of the unbalanced leaders of your congregation, I’m not surprised. The Flock usually follows their Shepherd, sometimes over a cliff. And because of them, we lost a ‘salt of the earth’ generous soul like yourself. But know that Jehovah, who looks on in secret, did not forget a single one of your generosities… and HE will repay you in full, just like he did with all of his other mistreated servants of old, as long as you don’t forsake him.

  This is always the way Jehovah will reward you. Why do we stay in the religion if this is the case? Why would anything be considered the right religion because Jehovah will judge us in the end to see if we're worthy of paradise. The whole concept of a true relgion is skewed here, the whole ideal of witness mentality at least to me is that if you're in this orginization God will consider you right and you'll get into the kingdom. But when some good soul is taken away from the orginization because of the sin of another person then they'll be rewarded by Jehovah later, and the other person will be accountable. Why do I have to stay in the religion if I'm a good person Jehovah will reward me with paradise right? This just doesn't make sense to me, if you're good you'll get the reward of the kingdom and if your bad you won't, isn't it that simple. Mother Theresa has a good chance of getting into Paradise, but she was a catholic. And if the end comes tomorrow will it really be everyone outside the orginization that will die? You're saying here that Jehovah doesn't forget our good deeds which would say to me that the good people would get in. So what is being a JW going to give me except a whole lot of headaches in this system of things? What maybe brownie points? In the end we'll both get paradise, you because you were a good and faithful witness and me because I was a descent human being who was stumbled by someone in "God's orginization" but since I was still good I'll inherit the kingdom. It's a dichotomy to me, either you're going to die if you're not in the orginization or you won't. If you're not going to die if you're not in the orginization I don't see the asset of being in the religion.