Experience about a elder who put Jehovah ahead of his family

by life is to short 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  life is to short

  I posted a thread yesterday about my elder husband putting the publishing plant first, and I was reminded that not all elders do that. That is very true, I know that and I pointed it out to my husband many times though it did not good. But the elders are told over and over to the brog first and it reminded me of an experience that they had at the last DC I went to in 2009.

  They had a family on the stage the husband was an elder of course, they had I believe three kids if not four. The husband was involved in the RBC and some other stuff and he was never home. The oldest child was a boy who was about 14 years old and he was now man of the house. I kid you not. I was sick listening to it. The boy said that yes he missed his father but he knew his father was doing Jehovah's work and that was more important then being home with the family. The son conducted the family worship night as he was baptized and of course the mom being a woman was not allowed to do that with a baptized male in the home. On and on it went. I was sitting there crying, it really made me sick.

  So I know that not all elders do this but the ones who follow the FS to the tee do. The stupid publishing plant comes first.

  LITS
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  blondie

  That's interesting that the 14-year-old conducted the family study. It was some time ago but my brother was baptized at 15 but the elders told him that did not make him the head of the house (non-jw father at home) or spiritual head (baptized mother was). They pointed out that although Jesus was perfect and dedicated to God, that he was still subject to his parents.
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  Mad Sweeney

  But Jesus wasn't baptized until he was 30, blondie. Your brother should have hit them with that one.
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  blondie

  Actually, baptism was not a requirement of Judaism to be a member. Baptism was a requirement of being a Christian and Jesus was never a Christian.

  I think there is something in writing about minor male baptized children at home and their status. But then my brother was driving a car at 16 and he was not ready for that.
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  Gayle

  Makes me sick how the organization dumps on these kids. Poor boy,,there is no reason for a boy with supposedly a Christian (whatever) father, that he should feel like the "man" of the house. Yuk!! The organization makes kids feel like they can't just be kids. The organization tries to make kids skip a stage or phase of their life. Usually,often, there's a price eventually to pay for youth that have to skip such tender years. Chances are high that the boy will "burn out."

  I know of such a boy, distant relative. He was the 'model JW boy' in the circuit, as a teenager pioneering, working a job, going to school, turning down scholarships, parts always at the assemblies, etc. By 19 or 20, he crashed. Quit the works, got disfellowshipped for smoking, got publicly drunk. Everyone was dumb-founded how that could happen. Poor kid just clearly got crushed under the load.

  Not too much later, he got city jobs, joined police force and included some FBI, went back to college, degreed. Became a fine family man recognized in the community. He was clear to his ex-JW aunt that he would never go back to JWs. His mother and siblings would never talk with him all those years. Just before his mother died, she spoke and cried with him as he was 'allowed' to see her. To me, the WT organization and the JW mom broke that young man at tender years. But he recovered very well in spite of it.
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  life is to short

  I know that is what I thought too blondie. I did not get the whole experience and why they used it. The father was gone most weekends as he was putting Kingdom interests first and on and on. I was sitting there thinking seriously this is what you want to portray to the world, that the religion is more important than the family. But I swear that the boy conducted the family worship, maybe I was so upset that I heard it wrong but that is what I thought they said.

  LITS
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  OnTheWayOut

  I was sitting there thinking seriously this is what you want to portray to the world, that the religion is more important than the family.

  The standard answer is that if you pay attention to the entire talk, they probably stressed that these are not normal times we are living in. The end is so close that we have to make sacrifices and do our utmost to make WTS richer to help people learn about Jehovah.

  This wife is supposed to feel special because she has such a wonderful theocratic husband. In reality, he probably hates field recruiting (as most JW's do) and does this instead. It not only gets him out of the door-to-door service, but it makes him look better than those who do go door-to-door. They sacrifice a couple of hours and go home while he sacrifices whole weekends. It also allows him to pawn off chores on the wife and son.

  If he were golfing all that time, it would look bad. But this looks uber-good.
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  Heaven

  Many years ago, the executives of the company I work for distributed their priority list as follows:

  1) Company and Shareholders Comes First

  2) Unit Comes Second

  3) Client Comes Third

  4) Self Comes Fourth

  I said "No frickin' way!"

  The Borg sure looks like a Corporation to me.
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  jam

  Blondie; "Baptism was not a requirment of Judaism to be A member" why, was

  it because they were jews by birth? And second "Jesus was never A Christian".

  Explain, interesting point.
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  blondie

  The easy ? - Jesus had to die a Jew fully keeping the Law (per the bible)...he was not a follower of himself, his disciples became known as Christians after his death and they no longer had to follow the Law.

  The second ? - where in the law are Jews required to get baptized? Jewish men and proselytes were required to get circumcised.