by candidlynuts 10 Replies latest watchtower bible
why do the great crowd have to be baptized? we dont partake at the memorial.. it looks like baptism would only be necessary for the " annoited" if you go by jw rules and stuff..
i was thinking about that today and thought that its all just to control the masses.. get baptised and if you sin, they have the authority to " discipline " you .
Your question reminded of a sketch I saw on 'The Chaser's War On Everything' (politcal satire program on Australian TV) It was involving the scientologists.
The Chaser Team set up a booth on the side of a road and invited people in to see if they would make a good scientologist. They asked them questions along the line of "would you be prepared to believe whatever crap we tell you?".
Maybe the dubs need to just start doing just that. It would make the process so much simpler. Oh, wait. That's right, there's the power thing.
It is clear that baptism was part of the Christian initiatiion. Jesus said "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." (Mt. 28:19)
However, the question whether one should be rebaptized when becoming a JW is probably more to the point. One of the most disturbing factors of the Watchtower baptism is the loyalty oath one has to make to the organization now. This is not part of the formula required of Christians in scripture. In fact, it should be a "red flag" to anyone who is contemplating becoming a JW.
Candid you're back (((Hugs)))
The bottom line of the whole thing is simply control. Baptism gives simple men elders the authority to meddle shepherd the flock and break up families keep the cult organization clean.
I think you have hit on one major inconsistency of the WT doctrine. In the NT baptism and the Eucharist work as two complementary symbols (in the broadest sense of the term) of the same "thing" -- especially, in the Pauline texts, symbols of union with Christ's death and resurrection, making one a member of Christ's "body" (e.g. Romans 6:1ff). Imposing one and denying the other to the same people simply makes no sense from a scriptural perspective.
It is all the more visible as the WT, afaik, never claimed that the baptism of the so-called "other sheep" was another baptism than the one Christian baptism (cf. Ephesians 4:4ff) which the Gospels and Acts oppose to John's baptism.
Very well put Narkisos, inconsistency is being coming more and more evident with the teachings of the WT, it reminds me of Jesus words at
Matt 6:23b If in reality the light that is in you is darkness, how great that darkness is!
abr
You could take your line of thinking a lot further. Why do the 'great crowd' have to abide with anything in the NT since all of it was all written to 'anointed' Christians?
The WTS says certain texts, eg, as Romans 8:15-17, applies exclusively to the anointed. Such a notion is absurd since the entire book of Romans and in fact the entire NT was written to anointed Christians.
Scripturally, there is no such thing as a non-anointed Christian!
Hi Candi!!! Just wanted to pop in and say it's good to see you here!
Hugs, Juni
The teaching that the "anointed" are the "spiritual Jews" and that the great crowd are "spiritual Gentiles" is a problem for the Society on several levels. No topic relating to that issue is more interesting to me than the blood medical treatment guidelines.
The Society claims the Jewish Kosher blood laws apply to the (spiritual) Gentiles, but The Bible says the Gentiles can buy and eat meat with the blood in it, that only the Jews are under the blood laws.
So which is it? If the "great crowd" are spiritual Jews, then they're in the New Covenant and they go to heaven. If the great crowd are spiritual Gentiles as the Society says* then the vast majority of Witnesses can take blood medical treatment as well as eat meat with blood in it according to the Society's own proof texts.
*"Compared with the anointed remnant of spiritual Israelites, all those of that 'great crowd' would, figuratively speaking, be Gentiles."
Man's Salvation Out Of World Distress At Hand, WTB&TS 1975 p. 201 - 202
