@Billy the Ex-Bethelite:
If you don't like the fact that Wikipedia is smarter than you, that's no reason to get insulting toward me.
Wikipedia is you, Wikipedia is me, Wikipedia is anyone that wants to contribute to this online resource. The information Wikipedia contains is not 100% reliable, so while much knowledge can be gleaned by exploring its contents, one should verify whatever is found in this resource. In case you didn't know, Wikipedia is not a real encyclopedia. In many ways I'm smarter than Wikipedia, and since you rely on Wikipedia for what things you know about the oral law of the Jews, that would also mean that I'm smarter than you because I would never do that. I think what Jesus said in the Bible in Matthew chapter 5 ("You heard that it was said...") would be a good place to start when referring to the oral law, then the Mishnah, and maybe the Talmud, but, personally, I don't think of Wikipedia as a good resource.
I see that you're very frustrated and continually restating your "you didn't say that Jesus' sacrifice ended the sabbath."
What "frustration"? Your attempt here obviously is to distort what things you wrote, but I'm not having any of it. In a previous response I posted the following, so let me repeat it again since my position has not changed:
(@Billy the Ex-Bethelite:)
Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.
(@djeggnog:)
Like what exactly? You say Jesus lifted nearly all of the sabbath restrictions, believing the Mosaic Law should be interpreted "more liberally" than the Pharisees had interpreted the Law, but please provide an example of Jesus having lifted any of the sabbath restrictions. I don't believe you can name a single one since Jesus kept the Law; he didn't abrogate it as you are saying here.
(@Billy the Ex-Bethelite:)
You, as a JW, really believe that Jesus' sacrifice didn't end ALL of the sabbath restrictions?!?!?
I am telling you here that I didn't believe you could provide a single example of Jesus ever lifting or abrogating the sabbath, for it would have been different had you written the following:
Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, his sacrifice lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.
But, instead, what it was you wrote was this:
Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.
You wrote that Jesus had often "condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions," but nowhere in this you make any mention whatsoever of "Jesus' sacrifice. So it is disingenuous on your part to now be asking me whether I didn't believe that Jesus' sacrifice had brought to an end "nearly all of the sabbath restrictions," when you made no mention of Jesus' sacrifice until I called you on what you had said. Again, just to emphasize the point you keep conveniently missing, you wrote:
Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.
-- in which you totally omit any mention of Jesus' sacrifice, and you now seek to distort what it was you actually did write by pretending as if you had written instead the following:
Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, his sacrifice lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.
So what do you go on to do after I brought this to your attention? You obfuscate the fact that I had just outted your statement and say the following:
I'd like to see an example -- just one would be sufficient -- of Jesus rebuking someone for not properly observing a sabbath rule!!!
-- which is totally irrelevant to the points I was making: (1) Jesus didn't believe the Mosaic Law should be interpreted "even more liberally," and (2) that Jesus didn't lift "nearly all of the sabbath restrictions," for Jesus was "under law" (Galatians 4:4) even as were the rest of the Jews, and he never abrogated any portion of the law. Jesus kept the law. After Jesus' sacrifice, however, the Law of Moses, including the requirement to observe a weekly sabbath, came to an end. But you were not discussing after Jesus' sacrifice, as you went on in your first response and in this last one as well, to pretend to have done, for Jesus had condemned the Pharisees before his sacrifice when he was "under law."
After Jesus' sacrifice, however, the law was no longer binding upon Jesus -- he had died as a man -- and was no longer binding upon anyone. You might go and try to deceive someone else, and might succeed, but how can you expect to fool me when I know you to be dishonest? Give it up, son. Like I told you in a previous message, you lost this one, @BillyEB.
Certainly, their "generation" interpretation can change every year or so. And if you don't immediately accept the new explanation, you'll be accused of being a Satanic apostate for believing their "truths" from just last month! You're probably frustrated when you ponder whether any anointed will be alive on earth at Armageddon, too. That one has gone back and forth, even in the short time during the last book study of the Revelation--Grand Climax book. Wow, it was so crazy using that Kingdom Ministry insert to try to keep the "[spiritual] food" "current" in that badly aging book. And you certainly would know how often they printed that it was a sign of the end that the remnant was shrinking during these "Last Days". But the number of partakers is increasing at a rate far faster than the number of new publishers. That's the thing about the JW "Last Days", they last... and last... and last... and last!
What one would find in our publications, like the Revelation book and in "Our Kingdom Ministry," is designed to keep all Jehovah's Witnesses current since our beliefs are progressive, and it is difficult to keep up with the many adjustments to our understanding of the Scriptures that we have had need to make over the years. We are not concerned with statistics of a shrinking remnant that now seems to be growing. It is clear to many of us that some are partaking of the emblems that should not be doing so, and this might explain the number of partakers counted, but it would be dishonest to not report the count just because we might not agree with it, so we observe and report. So, @BillyEB, you are mistaken: The count is not a source of frustration for me, but why do you mention these things in someone else's thread? You're off-topic.
Clearly you take issue with many of the things that Jehovah's Witnesses teach, even though you seem to pick-and-choose which things you learned during your association with Jehovah's Witnesses that you are going to accept. Reading your message is not like reading something written by someone in Christendom, for you phrase things in a way that is peculiar to something you would have read in one of our publications, so that you sound as if you could be one of Jehovah's Witnesses, except Jehovah's Witnesses speak in agreement and do not pick-and-choose what things they are going to accept. You may not like this, but our beliefs are not static, but are progressive, and so they are subject to change should it become apparent that we were mistaken in one of more of our beliefs.
We are just not going to get all upset because we suddenly realize that we had something wrong, but we will immediately publish the adjustments that need to be made in our understanding of Bible doctrines so that everyone in the entire association of brothers in the world is made aware of the adjustment that needs to be made in what we teach. Your mention here of the change in understanding that occurred in 2010 regarding Jesus' use of the words "this generation" at Matthew 24:34, which expression has perplexed us for many years going back to the days of Judge Rutherford, is off-topic, but I suppose you thought your mention of superfluous topics, such as how Jehovah's Witnesses understand this expression, would make you come off smarter. (It didn't.)
Now if this was your goal, @BillyEB, I'm pretty sure that this goal wasn't reached and that it cannot possibly be reached in this way. If the goal of this approach of yours was to be thought of as being more intelligent than you are, then I must tell you that this approach makes you come off to me as being unsteady, even demented, and so, in my opinion, you missed. The truth is, you come off here as rather foolish to me, but since you brought all of this up, I should probably complete my thought since you have here brought an attack on how Jehovah's Witnesses understand the expression used by Jesus at Matthew 24:34.
Today we believe Jesus to have been referring to the generation of the composite sign that began with the outbreak of World War I in 1914 in fulfillment of Matthew 24:3, 7, 8. This expression, "this generation," covers the period when the sign began and when it ends, so it became clear to us back in 2010, after some 96 years had passed, that Jesus may not have been referring to anyone's lifetime as we had once thought, but to an entire period of years.
Rutherford passed away leaving Jehovah's Witnesses with an understanding of what Jesus meant by "this generation" at Matthew 24:34 that was different than what Jehovah's Witnesses today now believe Jesus to have meant by this phrase. Because Jesus himself didn't know the "day and hour," and because it was never our intent to mislead anyone, it was decided to change the masthead that last appeared in the Awake! dated November 8, 1995, from "Most important, this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure new world before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away," to what subsequently appeared in the masthead of the Awake! dated November 22, 1995, to wit, "Most important, this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure world that is about to replace the present wicked, lawless system of things."
Because we cannot be 100% certain as to what Jesus meant, and, again, it was not our intention to mislead anyone and give anyone an excuse to find fault with our ministry, we went on to undertake a further examination of this expression at Matthew 24:34. In Rutherford's day, Jehovah's Witnesses believed Jesus was referring to the lifetime of people when he referred to "this generation." Today, we now know that this was a mistaken viewpoint.
The masthead in the Awake! dated November 8, 1995, proved to have unintentionally misled some into believing that, contrary to what the Bible teaches, we actually did know the "day and hour" for it read, "Most important, this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure new world before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away," and based on how we understood Jesus' words at Matthew 24:34, many regretfully concluded that Armageddon would have to arrive before the oldest of Jesus' anointed servants had passed away.
Today, that masthead reads, "Most important, this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure world that is about to replace the present wicked, lawless system of things." The masthead in the Awake! wasn't designed to deceive anyone, but was designed to build confidence that the end is near, and not to make folks grab their date calculators as if, contrary to what Jesus stated at Matthew 24:36, it were possible for one to determine the "day and hour" that Jesus himself didn't know.
I should add here that the only significant change between the viewpoint of Jehovah's Witnesses today and what it was back in 1952 is that we have now come to realize that the "generation" to which Jesus referred at Matthew 24:34 referred to the period of time that spanned the length of the sign of Christ's presence, which generation began in 1914. Our understanding of this expression, "this generation," is explained in the article entitled, "Holy Spirit's Role in the Outworking of Jehovah's Purpose" [w10 4/15, p. 10, ¶14], which differs from the explanation provided in response to the question, "Your publications point out that the battle of Armageddon will come in this generation, and that this generation began A.D. 1914. Scripturally, how long is a generation?" [w52 9/1, pp. 542, 543]:
Three or even four generations may be living at the same time, their lives overlapping.... [W]e could not calculate from such a figure the date of Armageddon, for the texts here under discussion do not say God’s battle comes right at the end of this generation, but before its end. To try to say how many years before its end would be speculative. The texts merely set a limit....
Since we realize that Jesus had employed a bit of hyperbole in this verse, we now believe that Jesus' reference to "this generation" referred to the sign of his invisible presence during which his anointed brothers living contemporaneous to this generation of the sign. We cannot be dogmatic about this matter, but we are now of the belief that those of Jesus' brothers that were living when the generation of the sign began in the year 1914 as well as those of his brothers that are alive when the generation of the sign ends when Armageddon arrives is what Jesus meant when he said that "this generation" would not pass away before all of the things that Jesus indicated would occur in his prophesy about the conclusion of this system of things had taken place.
Interpreting the Bible isn't an exact science, and for this reason, we must discern what the Scriptures mean based on what other Scriptures say or according to how certain related expressions are used in the Bible. Just as the Bible points out at 1 Peter 1:10, 11, the prophets of old made a "diligent inquiry" and "careful search" of the Scriptures and "kept on investigating" as to what particular season or what sort of season] the spirit in them spoke concerning Christ, and just as occurred among God's people during the first century during the days of the apostles, so the same investigation has taken place among God's people today.
This means that while you, @Mary and @TimothyT may have once aligned your beliefs with those held by Jehovah's Witnesses, it has always been possible that the three of you would abandon those beliefs for whatever reason and embrace other beliefs, which is fine. But why should Jehovah's Witnesses abandon their beliefs just because the three of you here on JWN, and others on here as well, may have abandoned them? It is your right to believe what you choose to believe and each one of Jehovah's Witnesses exercise their respective rights to believe what it is they choose to believe.
@djeggnog wrote:
You sound bitter, but I don't understand why the bitterness or how you are able to make this connection [that Judge Rutherford hated children], but I'm just curious as to how you would answer this question: I was just reading Hebrews 10:26-31, and was wondering how endurable you think it is going to be for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day. Any ideas?
@Billy the Ex-Bethelite wrote:
Since you asked so nicely, I'll enlighten you. The reason for your confusion is obvious. No doubt you are looking for assistance from me because Watchtower has flip-flopped so often on whether the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah will be resurrected. Right now [they're] choosing to ignore Jesus' words at Matt. 11:23, suggesting that they would be worthy of resurrection. But Jesus was just the Messiah, so WT doesn't give much weight to his words. After searching your WT Library CD, you probably can't tell up from down on the judgment of Sodom. Currently, WT [teaches] that those destroyed at Sodom will not be resurrected. Problem is, just when you think you can trust WT teachings, they flip-flop again.
But I [digressed].... [¶] First of all, "Sodom and Gomorrah" aren't even mentioned in Hebrews. The phrase "Judgment Day" isn't used in Hebrews either.... STOP JUDGING! Why would you concern yourself with stuff about the judgment of Sodom? Is your reference to Sodom some kind of hateful slur against homosexuality?
I don't need the WT Library CD to know the finality of God's judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. What you would call a "flip-flop" was in my mind an adjustment in our understanding as to which it was determined that we had been mistaken in our viewpoint on the matter of what it was Jesus meant in what he said to the people of Capernaum at Matthew 11:23, 24.
The point you missed is that Jesus was saying is that if the powerful works that had taken place in Capernaum had taken place in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the people in those cities would have repented of their sins and would not have been destroyed forever, as was also going to be Capernaum's judgment, for those people would surely have repented.
You are entitled to interpret what you read in the Bible in any way you wish, but you aren't entitled to make up your own facts; your employing spin as you do to manufacture facts won't convert spin into facts. I told you that I had been reading Hebrews 10:26-31 and wondered 'how endurable you thought it is going to be for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day,' did I not? I didn't say that the phrase Judgment Day is used in the book of Hebrews, did I? I didn't say that the cities of Sodom or Gomorrah were mentioned in the book of Hebrews, did I? I don't care what strawmen you construct, nor do I care to explain to you why I had asked you what your thoughts were. If you feel I had made a "hateful slur against homosexuality," ok. I have no desire to argue with you about your fecklessness, but it is clear to me that you're not very smart. You see, what I said to you was said tongue-in-cheek.
You evidently thought that I had asked you a question, thought that I needed or wanted your assistance, but, no, there was no question in my mind at all. Please take a moment to wrap your mind around this, son: What I was really saying to that you, @BillyEB, you probably have as much chance of being around on Judgment Day as Jesus indicated the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and Capernaum had. You might want to get a pencil and write this down so that you will remember the point: I was making a statement about what I think to be your future, a future like that of these three cities. I wasn't judging you, for as Jesus stated at John 3:18, you have been "judged already."
If Michael/Jesus didn't think it was his place to judge the Devil....
It occurred to me that only Jehovah's Witnesses (and Seventh Day Adventists) associate the archangel Michael with the Lord Jesus Christ. If you aren't a Seventh Day Adventists, then when you left God's organization, I wondered why you didn't just erase this teaching about Michael and Jesus from your mind, why you would hold on to a doctrine that is taught by Jehovah's Witnesses that the majority of mainstream Christendom doesn't believe since you don't subscribe to our beliefs. I've often wondered why folks that have left our ranks would be found articulating beliefs that he or she claimed to have rejected. This is a curiosity to me since I often see folks here on JWN using the kind of reasoning that they would use to use when they were actively Jehovah's Witnesses when discussing the Bible on here while they claim, at the same time, to have abandoned their faith. It seems in your case, @BillyEB, that the beliefs that you held formerly weren't really rejected at all. This Michael-Jesus dichotomy did cause me to wonder, if you aren't with the Seventh Day Adventists, with what religion you were now affiliated.
@djeggnog
