The official "how did they react to the new light" thread

by PYRAMIDSCHEME 45 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  sd-7

  I wasn't at the meeting, but I used refrigerator magnets to spell the words "this generation" on the fridge. Wife was offended, thought I was making a joke of the new teaching, since I obviously do not believe it, and asked me to take it down. If there was nothing dubious about it in the first place, why would she draw that conclusion? I find it sad, if anything, not funny, that this kind of thing is seriously being taught to 7,000,000 people.

  I don't have to guess how people reacted--it probably went over most people's heads. For people so convinced they have the truth, they're awfully nervous when people even mention their doctrine....you'd think they'd be proud. Ah, well...
• 

  5thGeneration

  Other than myself and 5 elders, no one else grasped he significance of the article.

  I haven't been for a couple of years but if it is anything like 1995, and the last time, I think more 'grasp' it than we think.

  The whole congo was talking about it the last time around. I can't imagine it went over their heads this time.

  Of course, I'm not currently active like yknot so I could be wrong.

  5th
• 

  garyneal

  For people so convinced they have the truth, they're awfully nervous when people even mention their doctrine....you'd think they'd be proud.

  Exactly, you would think that truth would stand up to any discernment. My wife went every which way on this which tells me that she has no clue as to the significance of this. This morning, she told me that 1914 had nothing to do with it. This evening, we read together in the paragraph where is explicitely stated that the annointed who saw 1914 would overlap the annointed of today.

  She tried to state that the generation teaching was not 'new light.' However, in the margin, there were five bullet points about keeping up with 'increased light.' One of them spoke about the time when the calling of Christians to the heavenly hope ended. I mentioned 1935 and she stated that that year was brought up at the meeting by someone (obviously someone who's been in the 'truth' for a while).

  I was taking the stance of someone who was questioning the doctrine without outright denouncing it. She pulled up ' Christ’s Presence—What Does It Mean to You?' from her WT CD-ROM and wanted me to read it in its entirety.

  I guess I will and present more questions.

  ---

  Blondie: That asking for scripture thing is a good suggestion. The Bible is the final authority to both Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses so that should hopefully get brother "Scholar" to thinking.
• 

  Mythbuster

  I went for the first and last time.

  The guy leading it skipped completely over it.

  The only mention of overlap was when it was read from the paragraph by the other dude. I looked around while the guy was reading and a guy in the audience was smiling. When the guy reading finished, the guy leading read the question at the bottom and the guy in the audience who had been smiling read back the sentence in the paragraph, which didn't deal with overlapping, and then the guy leading it moved on to paragraph 15.
• 

  Gayle

  I feel sorry for many of rank and file,,I remember the times giving the WTS the benefit of any doubt of them knowing what they were talking about,,so many explanations made so complex, creating in our minds, especially when we were very young, that we would just accept as true, as what did we know as the young, the inexperienced. Then, I grew up, and outgrew them, and became frightened that I realized I was smarter, actually wiser than them; frightened because I knew I myself was not so smart nor so wise so I wasn't haughty, didn't think I was so very smart for sure; however, bottom line, more than they.

  I continue to hope for ones to have their realization also.
• 

  sd-7

  This morning, she told me that 1914 had nothing to do with it.

  Although, GaryNeal, as you pointed out, this is not correct at all, certainly this doctrine enables them to detach themselves from 1914 without explicitly doing so. It's almost ingenious, if you're counting on the fact that people will believe anything you say.

  There was never any scriptural support for 1935--it's incredible that they held onto it until 2007! But it's like, you could say that the three recent changes are natural consequences of each other:

  (1) 1935 date for final selection of anointed removed (2007)

  (2) "This generation" now = anointed ones (2008)

  (3) "This generation" now = anointed ones who were alive at some point during the lives of older anointed ones who saw 1914. (2010)

  Once you detach 1935, you can basically create extensions for the logic without worrying about old dates. This is pretty much the best idea--as long as you can get the people to believe it, and this article is crafted with that in mind--since attaching it to the wicked. It could be pretty much any generation they wanted.

  But the paragraphs leading up to it clearly set it up. False 'if-then' statement: if God's spirit is directing things in the heavenly part of the organization, it said, holy spirit must be directing things in the earthly part. (Therefore, of course, you must obey us in order to be in harmony with the holy spirit.) False, because God's spirit can be handling things in heaven and be completely unrelated to this particular religion. The first notion does not require the second notion to be correct. It's sort of a bait-and-switch. It is after stating that, that they get into the new change. I think that alone solidified it as truth in their minds. I couldn't have set it up better myself.
• 

  yknot

  I continue to hope for ones to have their realization also

  Me too.....

  I am kind of expecting to get a 'talkin' too for all my over-eager face making during the WT-Study .....

  But with the tip-toeing I am wondering if they are gonna let it slide for fear of what I might say or ask.....
• 

  garyneal

  Yknot,

  They may start wondering if you are showing 'apostate' tendencies.
• 

  AGuest

  May you all have peace!

  Those who are still in the WTBTS and partaking of this kind of poisonous wormwood are "loving" it. Because they neither want... nor know HOW... to live as a free people. It is the same as when the U.S. slaves were emancipated: they were SO used to eating pig offal, that putting a steak before some of them was almost blasphemous! And even then there were those who looked upon their life of slavery as a "blessing" ("At least we'll eat - even if it is tainted, rotten, meat that twists our stomachs inside out. And we'll drink - even if the milk is sour and spoiled and so runs right through us!").

  Why is this? Although other reasons exists, it is primarily due to fear - including their fear of God, which exists SOLELY because they have NOT been told the TRUTH about Him (and how could they be? Those who lead them do not know God; indeed, their works demonstrate that!). But also fear of the unknown! Such fear, however, is not borne of pure ignorance. It is MUCH more borne of a lack... of love. A lack of love FOR God... which is manifest by means of their lack of love for their brother, their neighbor, strangers, and even their enemies. They are SO imprisoned by that "probably you will be concealed" teaching! And if you're an unkind, unloving, hateful person, then yes, you "probably" SHOULD be in fear!

  It is also due to their fear... of starving: like Israel, they don't trust the Most Holy One of Israel to feed them HIMSELF. They do not TRUST that HE will provide them with "manna"... although He already has! (John 6:48-58). Rather, like their forefathers before them, they believe that if they let go of the teet [of that Harlot], they will perish. Thus, they continue to suckle and gulp down tainted, sour, curdled milk. Such ones should take care that they don't one day find themselves bathing in their own vomit.

  And some who HAVE "left" (or rather, claim to )... but have done so only in body, but not in spirit may have the same fate. For they, too, keep looking back to... and longing for... the "leeks and cucumbers" they once dined on. I ask such ones: have you ever eaten a spoiled onion? A rotten cucumber? One does not have to actually do so to know that sooner or later such "fruit" will come back to visit you... in the most "ungodly" way!

  Through Christ, may JAH one day have mercy on such ones, both groups, and open their noses... if not their ears... and/or their eyes. Soon.

  Again, I bid you all peace.

  A slave of Christ,

  SA
• 

  TheOldHippie

  I had in advance made the study conductor aware of the change - and he answered that he was aware of it, and that a couple of the other elders had been talking about it for months, as they had been told about it by someone who had been at the annual meeting. But my concern towards him was the lack of Scriptural support for the overlap understanding. During the study, both before it and before/during and after the paragraphs in question, emphasis was put on the new or changed understanding, so it was very well stressed. The question was asked what Scriptural backing there was for the change, and one sister replied - the only one replying to the question - that there really was no explicit backing given, except for the reference to Exodus and Joseph and his contemporaries, that when those died who had experienced the entering into Egypt it was stated that that generation died. And the conductor also stated that this was the backing given.

  So I think that it was well covered here as far as it was pointedly stated that it was a changed understanding, and that the Joseph reference was the backing given, and also that it supposedly would be dealt with at the DC.