English Standard Version(©2001)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
The "work" of preaching is a phony pursuit designed to give the impression to the world at large that the religion is about evangelism. It is not about evangelism.
The Watchtower Society doesn't use public airwaves, broadcasting media, podcasts, Television, DVDs or any contemporary technology proven to be effective.
Do you know why? THEY DON'T WANT THE MESSEGE UNDERSTOOD!!
That's what I said.
Ask 10 people you meet to tell you what they think Jehovah's Witnesses believe ...then, be ready for a big shock!!
They just don't know!! Hardly a soul alive can give a coherent recounting of JW's beliefs. They only know the quirky "don'ts"
That's right. The average John Q. Citizen can only tell you in vague terms what Jehovah's Witnesses DON'T DO or DON'T BELIEVE. They cannot begin to tell you what they DO believe!
Mind you, this is after a veritible blitz of propaganda for over 100 years taken to the very doors of community after community, public talks in local Kingdom Halls and International Assemblies with considerable media coverage.
Does this strike you as peculiar, strange and suspicious?
Well it is on purpose!
The preaching work is a sham and the religion is Pyramid scheme contrived to create "activity", obedience and enough revenue to move forward.
The magazine articles are a front.
Communism pretended to be about the welfare of the worker and the plight of the underprivileged. It wasn't. That was just window dressing to get the disaffected to become true believers and overturn the power structures for a takeover of the real power behind Communism: fascist dictators!
The Watchtower is little different.
Wake up, people. Shine a little light on what this religion is really about.
Look at the facts and follow the money.
Mainstream religion has to do something PUBLICLY with the money they raise like pay for air-time, pay for orphanages in Africa, pay for a new transmitter, pay for a new steeple or glass cathedral or theme park. Mainstream religion wears its charity on its sleeve. Mainstream religions build schools and colleges and hospitals with the money they receive and still have a fortune leftover to house the preacher in luxury and splendor!
But, Jehovah's Witnesses present a public face deceptively out of touch with the real power brokers in Brooklyn that serves to deflect these questions. There is no PUBLIC FACE of a leader with a smile and a glib messege. It is about anonymity and busy-busy non-productive statistics.
The JW who knocks on the local door is dressed in a Montgomery Ward suit and a scuffed pair of cheap shoes. They don't take collections at their Kingdom Halls. The have no starving children in far off lands to solict for because charity is on the down-low with them.
They make no social progress with women's shelters, rehab centers for drug dependant family members or even day care or work-related programs to boost employment among the poor.
They build no colleges, hospitals or orphanages. Yet, they publicly decry the christian denominations who do.
Jesus, for JW's, has ALREADY returned and is directing them! Jesus has been behind everything for the last 96 years!!
OH, REALLY?
Wouldn't the ministry of Jehovah's Witnesses far outstrip the charity and education accomplishments of competing religion in some noticable ways IF THIS WERE TRUE?
But, no! The Watchtower wheels are stuck in the same mud spinning impotently for the last hundred years with NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT except changes in how they make excuses for their backward inattention to Jesus' own commands:
Bible in Basic English
The religion which is holy and free from evil in the eyes of our God and Father is this: to take care of children who have no fathers and of widows who are in trouble, and to keep oneself untouched by the world.
1 Timothy 5:8: 8 Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Think about it.
Constant admonition by the Watchtower to NOT pursue higher education or obtain a career to earn a better living flies in the face of true christian concern for one's family. How many JW families struggle on one paycheck?
Think hard.
How many hours devoted to door to door work and bible study is required to convert even ONE person to being an active JW?
The Pharisees are portrayed in scripture as travelling far and wide to make one convert and yet producing disastrous results. The modern Pharisee (know-it-all-JW) does the same!
According to the Organization with its Governing Body pronouncements of "Truth", the bible was written for and directed to the chosen elite with the heavenly hope and not to the rank and file "other sheep."
If this were truly so, would that not mean the admonitions to preach the Good News of the Kingdom would, logically, be directed soley to the chosen elite and not to the the rank and file as well?
If the Governing Body possesses that magically spirit-directed message of Truth--and they ONLY--it would be irresponsible for non-anointed to take upon themselves work given to the chosen few, would it not?
It seems to me the Door to Door ministry should only be handled by the anointed by the logic of the above premise.
After all, think about this. According to the Watchtower "wisdom", the reaction of the listener to the message received in the preaching work (door to door) is the determining factor of LIFE or DEATH for that householder. Would it not behoove the anointed to make certain the message isn't poorly handled, ineptly delivered, amateurishly presented and ultimately bungled?
Think of it like this. If there is a medical emergency you want to send it emergency medical help that is rigorously qualified to administer state-of-the-art life-saving intervention to prevent unnecessary death---right? You don't send in 1st year Med Students or hobbyists, right?
Why? Because, the patient would suffer as a result.
Analogously, the householder hearing the Jehovah's Witness "Truth" presentation should get it from the elite corp of specially selected persons whom Jehovah has appointed as Judges, Kings and Priests.
To leave Door to Door work in the hands of second-hand sheep who don't qualify to rule with Jesus and who don't deserve heavenly hope is tantamount to delivering inept emergency care to the sick and dying.
Isn't this malfeasance of the highest order?
The Watchtower Society should be ashamed to turn over its quintessential purpose and work to the dogs who yap at the table for crumbs: the earthly hope second-handers who don't merit heaven.
At least, the above is how it really stacks up if you look at it without the Watchtower spin attached.
Getting others to do your work for you is manipulative in the first place and sanctimoniously illicit if you are the chosen one whose "chosen" status depends on how you discharge that responsibility.
Remember, historically, the Catholic Church made up rules and the lay person had to follow them. The lay person could not read their own bible and decide what was True. It was the Catholic hierarchy who interpreted on matters of faith and morals and not the sole christian with an open heart in prayer to God.
Martin Luther came up with the new idea of Sola Scriptura: one christian, one bible, prayer to God and the Holy Spirit giving the Truth directly in the name of Jesus.
The Watctower has gone back to the Catholic way of doing things. Only the Governing Body can tell us what the bible really means and we must do as they determine. Reading your bible cannot reveal or open up anything that the GB hasn't first approved.
Russell, Rutherford and all those who followed merely went back to the Catholic method of doing things.
The doctrine of Faithful and Discreet Slave is nothing less than the Catholic doctrine of Majesterium. Hierarchy is in charge of the Kingdom Hall, preaching work and interpretations of faith and morals. What THEY say is what is viewed as Truth. No one else can go to Jehovah in prayer and see anything worth seeing.
This goes a long way toward explaining why Jehovah's Witnesses never see themselves as PROTESTANTS! They never left the Catholic way of doing things!
United In Worship-1983-p.111 "Special attention was being given to making up the government that would rule mankind for 1,000 years, and nearly all the inspired letters in the Christian Greek Scriptures are primarily directed to this group of Kingdom heirs--"the holy ones," "partakers of the heavenly calling." Watchtower-1970-January-1-p.19 That is what allpeople who have come to know Jehovah and his beloved Son, Christ Jesus, are required to do now. Real Christians today, like the apostles,musthelp people to whom they preach so that such ones can understand God’s Word. They must be teachers and help each disciple or learner to get the sense of the “word of the kingdom.” Jesus said: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” (Matt. 24:14) This, Jehovah’s witnesses are really trying to do. When they do make disciples it is necessary for these to dedicate their lives and be baptized in water so as to make a full expression before Jehovah and Christ Jesus and their brothers that they are going to do the will of God henceforth as that will is set forth in his written Word.
Jehovah's WITNESSES are not able to testify in any courtroom-accepted sense of "having witnessed" an event.
In a legal sense, to witness something you must have first hand observation and experience. Relaying the testimony of someone else it is considered hearsay evidence and is not admisable in court.
Given the doctrine that only the annointed can understand most of scripture, and they pass their knowledge to the great crowd; a rank and file member of the great crowd could not possibly be considered a primary witness, as they would be mostly presenting hearsay testimony to a householder.
The premise and the result are both a sham.
Jehovah's Witnesses do not "witness" anything......not really.
To declare that they do is to tell a lie.
The door to door work is merely repeating hearsay.
They are Jehovah's Liars for certain.