by rassillon 25 Replies latest watchtower bible
42 Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.
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Today's New International Version
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For me, the simplest way to think of it was this: Where is the contrast if the "house to house" preaching is a form of public preaching? That would be like saying, "in public and in public."
There are ample quotes from the WT showing that the HTH preaching is a public preaching work. In fact, its public nature has been a major basis for a few Supreme Court rulings in favor of JW ministry.
The predominant method of preaching by the First Century Christians was in temples and synagogues. Thirty-two references versus two references to "house to house", and one of the references to HTH was clearly directed to the elders of the congregation at Ephesus.
Well, only two unless we count Jesus' instruction to the disciples that they should not "be transferring from house to house."
I hope this helps.
Respectfully,
AuldSoul
Oh. Leolaia beat me to the punch. And did it much more informatively.
[*waves happily to Leolaia!*]
The "public" in the phrase "public preaching", as JWs use it, means non-JWs. In that updated context, preaching in the Kingdom Hall is on JW turf, versus the preaching done on non-JW turf (public preaching).
House-to-house witnessing is one form of public preaching. Others include "business-to-business witnessing", "telephone witnessing", and "informal witnessing".
Even today, preaching for JWs is predominantly in their Kingdom Hall, given that 5 hours of instruction may be received at the Kingdom Hall, which is more than the average of what JWs spend in the public ministry.
— Q. Bert
See my earlier post.
House-to-house witnessing is one form of public preaching.
Like I said, this converts Paul's statement to the equivalent of "publicly and publicly", which is plainly not what he intended. The contrast for publicly would be privately.
See my earlier post.
AS: "The contrast for publicly would be privately."
Precisely. The context is listing two contrasting venues for preach, that done in a public forum and that done in a private one. The WTS and many JW's seems to require only the phrase, deviod of the context, to make some abstract point about their 'preferred' method of peddling preaching.
It is either on JW turf, or it's on public/world (non-JW) turf. JWs are not the public/world, after all. JWs condemn the world by their conduct, just as their Master, Christ Jesus did.
At places designated as places of worship, a set curriculum/program/agenda is considered with time alloted narrowly for comments. Questions are part of the schedule. Supplemental questions are generally only asked by the moderator of the discussion.
In what is called the public ministry, questions are expected to go in both directions. In fact, in the public ministry, ideally, it is the public that controls the length of the discussion through interest/lack shown.
So there is definitely a contrast maintained in the application of the Apostle Paul's words, whether when written, or even now.
At places designated as places of worship, a set curriculum/program/agenda is considered with time alloted narrowly for comments. Questions are part of the schedule. Supplemental questions are generally only asked by the moderator of the discussion.
I agree. After they start attending meetings victims begin to be subjected to propaganda, as opposed to education. Check out the World Book Encyclopedia article on propaganda.
—AuldSoul
