Stumbling Your Fellow Brothers (page 2)

dig692

I think there would need to be intention (at least logic dictates so)

I can definitely agree with this. I'm sure no one would want to intentionally stumble someone else, for example constantly offering a drink to a recovering alcoholic. However, when it gets to the point that one feels the need to look over their shoulder when buying egg nog or easter candy at the market just because you like it for fear that a brother or sister will come up to you and say could stumble someone, I think that is going too far.

MidwichCuckoo

Not sure as this is same, but you'll LIKE this...one evening, long after I'd left the Org (except for the obligatory 'Memorial' lol)...I organised a 'cocktail party' at my home. All the guests were non-JW with the exception of one (who actually invited herself when she heard I was holding it). As hostess (and not drinking myself), I was busy serving cocktails etc for my guests. Unbeknownst to me, the JW guest had snook a bottle from my kitchen (and had it concealed beside her seat) and was drinking it steadily all night. There was only ONE drunk at end of party - the JW whose husband (non JW) had to fetch her as she was in such a state (and unable to get to Sunday meeting next morning). The next morning I also found out that this JW had been plying my underage daughter (age 17 at time) with booze. Guess whose fault it was? YEP, MINE!!! It was MY fault because I should have been making sure she didn't drink too much!!! Amazing how the other (Worldly) guests managed without being supervised.

life is to short

Adamakawee

Not to high jack the thread but the world fair in Spokane was when I was just a kid. I think I was 11 years old. My parents were not even baptized but we were told not to go as it was to worldly. My dad was given tickets from work and we went anyway. But it was breaking the law as we could stumble someone by just being there. My husband was brand new in the truth at the time and he said that the elders were really judge mental over it. You were not supposed to go because Armageddon could come while you were at the Fair and well what would you tell Jehovah? Also it was 1974 and 1975 was huge here in Spokane.

inbetween

like the thought about "intentional", otherwise it really does not make sense at all....

carla

If jw's can be 'stumbled' so easily, how real is their faith? could even be called faith at all?

IMHO

The scriptures cited re 'stumbling' are always misquoted in particular Rom 14 where the context relates to matters of faith, to days that some considered holy, to meats that some thought defiled as stated in (wt Dec 1 '77 p.722).

The WT also said in 1978; "To cause another to stumble would be to incite him to sin, for sin is represented in the Bible as a fall." (wt 78 3/15 p15)

Not forgetting that these 'stumbled' ones obviously do not love Jehovah for as the psalmist so well said, "abundant peace belongs to those loving [Jehovah God's] law, and for them there is no stumbling block." (Psalm 119:165)

The insight book states under 'conscience'; the WEAK one should consider his brother, striving for maturity by getting more knowledge and training so that his conscience will not be easily offended, causing him to view others wrongly.

MidwichCuckoo

Do you think JWs can be ''stumbled'' so easily as they have no Free Will of their own? They are 'programmed' to follow others (GB etc, and that's why they are discouraged from making friends outside the Cong) ?

MidwichCuckoo

Also, to add (sorry) - I have noticed a 'blame culture' amongst JWs. When Worldly people do 'wrong' (eg., adultery) it's because they are sinners/part of Satan's System etc...when JWs do the same, it often isn't their fault - they (often) do not take responsibility for their sins. As in my example.

Jazzbo

The whole "stumbling" thing has never been anything other than a mechanism for imposing on someone else's conscience.

chickpea

we were following the admonition to "reach out"
so we regularly had dinners where we invited
people from the congregation who werent close
personal friends.... we were GREAT cooks and
hosts and usually served a decent wine...

one time a single "sister" was invited along
with a relatively socially inept family, with their
own issues, to be sure... at any rate this "sister"
took it upon herself to ream me a new one about
how it would stumble bro. dufus if we served wine
since he was a former drunk...

my reply to her was along the lines of:
if he has so little control over himself that
this civilized setting among fellow xians might lead
to his undoing, my serving wine isnt his biggest problem

Stumbling Your Fellow Brothers

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