well, children are mature enough to take a stand in behalf of the kingdom

by aligot ripounsous 16 Replies latest jw experiences

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  aligot ripounsous

  I heard this morning the "Who will be saved (n° 126) " public talk. The speaker raised the point of age baptism and he confirmed what has been pointed out a couple of times on this board, namely that, according to a trend which seems to be fairly recent within the WTS, people don't have to be adults to decide they want to become JWs and get baptism. The only two examples which the speaker selected were 2 children : Manaseh who, at age 12, promoted idolatry, and king Yoshia who restored Jehovah's worship as soon as he came to power at age 8 !

  I must grow old, can't keep up with new lights and understanding. Last time I conducted a Bible study with someone, I emphasized that Jesus was baptized at age 30 and I thought that it was the standard JW line. This morning, Jesus example wasn't even mentioned, now I understand that with these new 30 min talks the speaker clings closely to the outlines provided by the WTS. The conclusion is, Jesus is an outdated model to young christians, the future belongs to kids !
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  Seeker4

  I was baptized at 11, my ex-wife at 12, my JW daughter at 12.

  Too, too young to make that decision. 30 sounds good to me. I'm hoping my 11 yo granddaughter doesn't get baptized for many, many years.

  S4
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  BabaYaga

  Sad. The thing is... it doesn't matter whether they dunk them at that age or not... the fact of the matter is, they are still probably going to leave at some point.
  
  If Jesus, supposedly perfect and the son of god, waited until he was thirty...
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  MissingLink

  Gotta dunk 'em to get the strangle-hold tight enough. Otherwise their parents can't threaten to shun them when they're 15.
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  heathen

  anyway you look at it, the baptism ritual was meant for adults . John the baptist or the story of Jesus and his apostles both tell of mature people that realized they needed to repent in some way for their sins . Since the WTBTS doesn't include all members in the christian covenant you do have to look at what john the baptist was doing which would more or less be what the GC are considered, more along the lines of a foreign proselyte to the mosaic covenant and not spirit adopted sons of the christian covenant.
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  jamiebowers

  The fact that the powers that be in the cult insist that celebrating birthdays are bad, because the Bible only has two stories about such, and each are negative, but yet refuse to glean the fact that John and Jesus were adults when baptized, just proves to me that they don't give a damn what the Bible says. If they only allowed baptism at age 30, they wouldn't have an organization. If two-thirds of the people who were raised as jws leave, how many 30-year old would be left to take the plunge?
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  JWdaughter

  Well, John and Jesus were both executed around the age of 30-- so that MUST mean that they should have gotten baptised earlier! I mean, it was horrible, and if God had wanted people to wait that long for baptism, then surely they would not have been killed!
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  funkyderek

  Strange how JWs will think a pre-teen is old enough to get baptised but not old enough to decide they don't want to be a JW..
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  LouBelle

  amazing they think Jesus is outdated when manaseh & yoshia were waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before him. You see once they got you baptised you pretty much have signed a binding contract with them, very difficult to get out of it later on in life.

  They can't used the new testiment either because most of those followers were also older men / women.
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  WTWizard

  Not to mention the showcased examples of children getting baptized at age 6 in the yearbooks and washtowels. I wonder what Jesus would have done if he was in the baptismal area and saw children ages 6-12 getting baptized. I bet there would be a puddle of water on the floor.