Do all people go to heaven - my wife has started her "Bible Study"

by insearchoftruth 19 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  insearchoftruth

  OK, just got off the phone with my wife and she has started a new bible study with still another new sister. She likes this woman, unfortunately.
  
  Well my wife's original intention was to learn how to study the bible, well it seems that the sister twisted this to ask her to provide a topic she wants to know more about and then she will show my wife what the bible says about this. I am guessing there is a very heavy use of the Reasoning Book and the Insight book to get to the answers.
  
  Today's topic was Do All People Go to Heaven, and my wife says it was very interesting and she learned some new things.....
  
  Now I would like to be able to plant some seeds for further research here and I think this is a good topic, but I am pretty unlearned in these matters, so any help is appreciated. Do any of you have ideas of what the sister would most likely have focused on as well as some good areas where I could have my wife read full sections of the bible, rather than proof texts, to fine out what the Bible is really saying.
  
  I may have an opportunity to raise questions on the recent change to the remnant definition and this could lead to more seeds, but much help is needed.
  
  I am also going to post on JWD, with a link to here as well, cause I need all the help I can get!!!
  
  Thanks,
  
  ISOT (Eric)

  Have also posted this on Jehovah's Witness Support Forum (http://jwsupportforum.ulmb.com/index.php?topic=27.0)
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  jgnat

  Here's a bible verse the study leader will have trouble with. It's the other Lazarus, who went to heaven. It starts in Luke 6:20. The JW's will have several problems with this account.

  First of all, nobody but Jesus is supposed to be there yet. Everyone is supposed to be asleep in death until that great day. Then how in the heck can Lazarus be speaking to Abraham in heaven? Also, there's descrption of Hades.

  There are scant few verses in the bible about the supposed paradise to come. Rutherford had to create that to appease the great crowd of Witnesses who continued to hang around after 1918. Jesus spoke most often of the Kingdom of Heaven. Why did Jesus talk so much about it, if no-one is going there? In fact, most of the people Jesus talked to, in the Witness view, would not qualify?
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  insearchoftruth

  Thanks jgnat!! All help appreciated and shamelessly requested!!
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  insearchoftruth

  Would this be a fair issue to ask the question if the nt is for the non-anointed??? Also maybe a question on who the moderator is for the great crowd??
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  jgnat

  Sure, go for it. The study leader gets in to miry ground as soon as she suggests there are separate classes of Christians.
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  insearchoftruth

  well I guess I shall see, will be interesting to ask a few questions then when she wants to talk about her study tonight, if she wants to.....she has now stated that she is going to the Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday meetings as well, I guess this sister really fired her up....one risk with my wife though is not to be too challenging, if I push back at her, she may just attend to irritate me...one of her more endearing traits!

  What would be a good way to raise this sort of issue??
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  jgnat

  Like dancing, let her take the lead. Ask her what her chief concerns are, and work on that.

  I am of two minds about attending all the meetings. Your wife will be marinating in the indoctrination stuff, and she may not notice that she isn't given a chance to come up for air. On the plus side, she might get really bored really fast. How would you feel about attending the service meeting (probably Thursday?). Afterwards, you could give a genuine outsider's view on this meeting, which is quite alien to anything you would see in any other religion. It's a sales representative meeting, and quite stale. If you can get her to admit to that early on, it might help.
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  insearchoftruth

  May be a good idea, is the the one they call the theocratic ministry school???
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  bennyk

  The 01. April 1986 Watchtower states:

  “Approved association with Jehovah’s Witnesses requires accepting the entire range of the true teachings of the Bible, including those Scriptural beliefs that are unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses. What do such beliefs include? [...] That only 144,000 Christians will receive the heavenly reward. (Revelation 14:1, 3)

  The 1995 WT refutes their own WTS doctrine re: only 144 000 going to heaven.

  8 When Israel rejected and killed His Son, Jesus Christ, God finally rejected her. So no longer was that Jewish nation a figurative wife to Him, nor was He the Father and Teacher of her wayward sons. (Matt. 23: 37,38) However, Israel was only a typical, or symbolic, wife. The apostle Paul quoted Isaiah 54: 1, which speaks of a "barren woman" who is different and distinct from "the woman with the husbandly owner," the nation of natural Israel. Paul reveals that anointed Christians are children of the "barren woman," whom he calls "Jerusalem above." This antitypical figurative woman consists of God's heavenly organization of spirit creatures. -- Galatians 4: 26,27. (wt95 08/01 page 11 paragraph 8)

  The scripture thus indicates (using the WTS' own interpretation of the 'women') that the number of anointed Christians exceeds that of fleshly Israel. The cumulative number of natural Israelites between the Exodus and the coming of Christ Jesus was in the many tens of millions; therefore, many more than 144 000 are spirit-anointed Christians.

  I hope this helps.
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  AudeSapere

  jgnat wrote: Why did Jesus talk so much about it, if no-one is going there? In fact, most of the people Jesus talked to, in the Witness view, would not qualify?

  My understanding - and I have *no* documentation or reference material, just my personal prior understanding - is that all first century christians did indeed have a 'heavenly hope'. The 'other sheep' - those with an eartly hope - would come later. I also think that the teaching was that there was always someone, somewhere alive who was 'annointed' from 33 CE thru 1914 or maybe it was 1935 (??) [the sealing of the holy ones ???]. Since then, the 'newly annointed' are replacing fallen ones who had already ascended but had apostacized while in heaven.

  Of course, my jw understanding has not really been updated for over 15 years and 'new light' always supercedes 'old light'.

  -Aude.