by clarity 39 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
How in turn will they hear without someone to preach?
JW Facts already answered this, ( At Luke 19:40 Jesus said “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”) but you might just get into Bible ping pong, which then makes an objective person like myself realize that perhaps the Bible is not the great book that is easily understood after all. And just because people are exposed to the Bible, doesn't mean they'll turn around and believe in it.
Awakened ... you always look like you're having such a good time!
Thanks for the info and scriptures.
So what you are saying is ... for the millions, of non bible holding people, the stones will cry out ..if they have to?
Or maybe like Sauls conversion perhaps?
Remember these people have never heard of Jesus, the apostles or baptism.
c
Clarity, to be clear, I've read the Bible so many times I now believe its all bullshit. So I really am not going to go any farther offering interpretations since I think its just a fairy tale.
So I don't think that stones will cry out. Nor do I think that non-christians will benefit by becoming christian.
In fact, I think many of the eastern religions are superior to Christianity.
May I suggest that you read the books written by Buddha before you try preaching to Buddhists, for example?
I remember when an elder used the example of Philip and
the Ethiopian eunuch as the reason one needed help in understanding
the Scriptures. (Acts 8) What was not said was that Philip used the
Scriptures to explain the fulfillment of Isaiah by Christ. He did not have
Watchtower literature or a prolonged period of study in the publications.
The Eunuch was baptisted that day. Quite a contrast to the procedure that is
used by the Watchtower in making a convert today.
Pahpa
Clarity,
Let's go wayyyy back. Remind me again who it was that confused the languages of mankind in the first place (according to the Bible)? God right ...during the Tower of Babel incident? And after this confusion of the languages it caused them to divide off into groups of their own language. This is the explanation that Christians today, including the Witnesses, use to explain where the many languages and divisions came from.
Add to it, the Scriptures tell us at 1 Timothy 2:3,4, that God desires that "all sorts" of men come to an accurate knowledge of him and be saved. Right? So if God was the one who created the confusion and barriers in the languages and yet he desires "all sorts" of men to come to an accurate knowledge of him and be saved, and still yet all he saw necessary to provide was the Bible (part in Hebrew and part in Greek) don't you think he had a plan to work out how all those people of other languages "he incited" would be able to receive exposure to the Bible, and then be able to understand what it meant to them?
Going back to JWFacts comment about the Witnesses lacking faith, this is a prime example. They feel that no one can come to an accurate knowledge of the "truth" or be saved without them. To that I would point them to 1 Corinthians 3:5-9 where it says:
5 What, then, is A·pol´los? Yes, what is Paul? Ministers through whom YOU became believers, even as the Lord granted each one. 6 I planted, A·pol´los watered, but God kept making [it] grow; 7 so that neither is he that plants anything nor is he that waters, but God who makes [it] grow. 8 Now he that plants and he that waters are one, but each [person] will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. Y OU people are God’s field under cultivation, God’s building.
So in the end of the matter, according to Scripture, who is responsible for a person growing spiritually and learning the "truth"? God right?
So if 1 Timothy 2:3,4 says: 3 This is fine and acceptable in the sight of our Savior, God, 4 whose will is that all sorts of men should be saved and come to an accurate knowledge of truth.
....and 1 Corinthians 3:5-9 tells us that God is responsible for people's "growth" spiritually, and all we can do is plant the seed (give them a Bible for instance) and water it (maybe share Scriptures of hope, etc) I have to wonder why God doesn't choose to make "all" men/women "grow"? Right? Isn't that his desire? Why some and not others?
Think about it.
The_Present_Truth
How can one learn with ONLY the bible?
Well, here is the thing, WHAT do you want to learn?
If you want to learn about God and Jesus you don't really need more than the bible.
If you want to KNOW God and Jesus, that involves personal commitment and personal revelation ( the action of the Holy spirit) and no one can do that for you.
If you wan to understand that bible and the writers and the times and lives of those people then yes, you need to go beyond the bible and read history book, commentaries, study aids and so forth, all avaible through bookstores or the internet.
You don't need ANY organization for ANY of the above.
As for Matthew28:
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in a the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Jesus is telling is apostles and disciples to spread his teachings and they did just that and the gospel is still being spread through the world.
It is being spread by missionaries, by books, by TV and by the internet, by word of mouth and by example.
People in almost every country of the world hve acces to the bible ( in its many forms).
I have traveled a bit, though not as much as others here probably and I have yet to find a place where no one has heard of Jesus and God.
Clarity wrote,
The scripture that was thrown at me was ...Romans 10:14-15.
...."how will they put faith in him of whom they have not heard? How in turn will they hear without someone to preach?"
As usual, the WTS only quotes part of the Bible, then gets out as fast as they can.
Here is Romans 10:17-18: "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. 18 But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did: "Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world."
So the passage they quoted you DOESN'T mean that if you have the Bible itself in your hand and are able to read it that you need additional magazines and books published in Brooklyn to understand it.
As far as I know, no one has ever become a Jehovah's Witness by reading the Bible alone. Why not? Because the Watchtower teaches a different message than the Bible does! The WTS quotes the Bible selectively and imposes its spin on them.
This has the effect of trying to make its literature superior to that of the Bible. How is it that we can supposedly understand truth from the Watchtower but not from the Bible. This is NOT the way to study the Bible or get truth from God's Word.
Watchtower 9/15/1910, pp. 298-99: "Furthermore, not only do we find that people cannot see the divine plan by studying the Bible by itself, but we see also that if anyone lays the] [WTSScripture Studies aside, even after he has used them... for 10 years... our experience shows that within two years he goes into darkness... On the other hand, if he had merely read the Scripture Studies with their references and had not read a single page of the Bible as such, he would be in the light at the end of the two years, because he would have the light of the Scriptures."
Watchtower 8/15/1981: "[Proud ones] say that it is sufficient to read the Bible exclusively, either alone or in small groups at home. But strangely, through such `Bible reading' they have reverted right back to the apostate doctrines that commentaries by Christendom's clergy were teaching 100 years ago..."
Like pahpa mentioned the ethipopian eunich is a great example. Phillip used scripture to justify the christ plus as the story ends we are told 'he went away rejoicing.' There were no accounts of him having to meet with the GB or any of the BS that the WT would have you believe. ANother good example is that of Jesus apostle who found someone expelling demons in Jesus name and they tried to make him stop. Jesus rebuked his apostles and thus justified the other persons actions.
