More "Elders" Doubt They Are Appointed By The "Holy Spirit"!

by Bubblegum Apotheosis 86 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • sabastious
    sabastious
    Elders are duly appointed to serve in the local congregation by means of holy spirit, and the scriptural proof of this can be found by reading 1 Timothy 3:1-10, 12, 13

    Dear Staff God (I haven't figured your real name yet),

    You are a very dark liar, but you know that. I used to find you amusing, but now I realize that you serve a force that I cannot laugh at anymore.

    1 Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. 7 He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.

    8 In the same way, deacons are to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain. 9 They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.

    11 In the same way, the women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.

    12 A deacon must be faithful to his wife and must manage his children and his household well. 13 Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.

    First I would like to point out that you omitted verse 11 from your Bible quotations. It's ironic and sinister that you take your man-only elder qualifications from a passage in the Bible that mentions men and women explicitly, but just omit the verse. That's just what the Staff God would do. He is consistantly brazen and a liar, almost like he has fans to not let down. This is very much the way your evilness views women: not required; able to be omitted without losing context; made from the rib of Adam; compliment; expendable; invaluable laborer. We will all watch the women of this world tear you limb from limb.

    Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach

    ^ When my father was appointed an elder he was a child abuser. He often loss his temper with my little brother and I. I went to my 8th grade graduation with a black eye. I remember my mother having to put makeup on it. He was not faithful to his wife, according to her at least, because he viewed pornography on a regluar basis. One day she found it and I remember her taking a glass heart on our cofee table and shattering it over a wood stove we had. This was because you were teaching her that it was adultery in a roundabout way. The table piece was an anniversary gift. My heart broke along with the shattered glass. My parents relationship was important to me. He was not self controlled, respetable hospitable or able to teach.

    not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

    ^ My father drank a 6 pack at least most every night. Sometimes he was a very happy drunk and other times he would beat the living snot out of us. My little brother and I would love to stay up and talk about things. My father would tell us to be quiet and if he told us a second time I remember his heavy footsteps rumbling our way. I could tell from how heavy the footsteps were how mad he was and how much it was going to hurt. My father was anything but gentle. He had bootcamp like rules for me which created quarrels. He always said that because he paid my way in life that everything he did was completely justified. He put a roof over my head. He was a lover of money and used it as a form of power to create subjects.

    He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect.

    Because of the pervasive physical abuse I slowly lost respect for my father. I did not obey him and eventually stood against him. I left my house when I was 17 to live with my older brother because I just could not reconcile the differences between my father and I. My father never had any respect because my mother would slander him behind his back. She never forgave him for committing adultery on her with a magazine. The elders said she had no scriptual grounds, but the Staff God doesn't want the truth so you make sure there is enough ambiguity there to create contention in my family. You know it exists, you want it to exist, you created it, you crave it, not I. One time my mother couldn't help it again and she kicked dad out one night. She then brought my little brother and I to the store and we rented "bad video games" (games my mother usually prohibited) and "bad movies" (rated R) in protest of his deplorable actions. They were sinful after all according to the Watchtower, albeit not adultery.

    (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)

    In contrast my father was actually a much better elder than he was a father and husband. He used it as escapism and I know that's what you wanted. You cradle men, Staff God, because you are one, and hate women, because you are not one, and they will exterminate you for it.

    He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.

    My father was most definitely conceited because you would have to be to read these scriptural requirements and still accept the "appointment by holy spirit" which is obviously not the way it works. He may even have been appointed by dark spirit. He helped many people solidfy their faith in the organization. Like I he had a way with words and was very intelligent. I real resource to the body.

    He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.

    My father grew up on a farmland where very bad things happened to him. This turned him into a parnoid person who, for the most part, stayed away from people. However his will to help others ("saving" them from the Big A), outside of his immediate family which must have looked hopeless to him, garnered respect from the elder body. He actually turned down the elders trying to appoint him probably because he read the requirements. The elder body knew nothing about his actions at home. He was actually so well respected within the congregation walls that the body wanted him with them to help teach the flock.

    In the same way, deacons are to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain.

    Alcoholism is mentioned twice in your quoted scriptures and as I stated he was an abusive alcoholic. It also mentions being WORTHY of respect. It appeared to the outward world of the Watchtower that he was indeed worthy, but was not. Worth is earned, as the scripture so elegantly stated. You, on the other hand, are against earning what you get for obvious reasons. You are lazy and a liar and don't want to have to put forth the real effort it takes to earn something. Instead you create a maze for people to go through while you rob them of the petty cash they earn while in dead in jobs because you have them peddling your empty words.

    They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience.

    By this time the scripture is depicting a person who can be trusted with ancient truths. My father was not one of these people at the time at least. As we all know, some people can't handle the truth. Therefore, people who can have to be found using a barometer such as the one we are going through right now. However when you omit verses, such as you have with verse 11, that barometer's reliablity is compromised. Clearly you do not have a clear conscience, as my father did not, since you have changed the Bible and distributed them to millions of people worldwide. Something you can't rightly take back, can you?

    They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.

    My father stayed a ministerial servent for as long as he could which he was also guilted into doing. When he first started studying he told the person doing it that he liked what he was hearing, but that he never wanted to actually go out in the field service. He told that story many times while out in field service. He used it as a faith strengthener type of story and did it ever do just that. I wonder how you have such comprehensive results? I wonder if Barry Bonds did steroids?

    In the same way, the women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.

    The verse you omitted, but do not explain why it's stuck in the middle of your man only elder qualifications. I guess it is effecient to just omit it rather than create an elaborate lie (which you have if needed of course). You are good at that, but it does take time and resources to create a good one. Lord knows you have been caught in a lot of stupid whoppers. I was just reading that in 1973 you said Chess was an obvious replacement for war and you then acted like that was a bad thing. Replacing war with plastic is a bad thing? The truth comes out, you actually love war. You wont take part in it, however, because you are a coward and it makes your adherents grin. Along with mass death due to earthquakes, that gets you and your drones off too.

    A deacon must be faithful to his wife and must manage his children and his household well.

    My father had it the opposite. He managed the congregation well and his wife and children poorly.

    Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.

    In a stroke of insidious genius you have simply commandeered the definition of this scripture's "serving well" and "excellent standing." Then you simply tell your flock to look for those fabricated qualifications (like field service and personal study) as the bar rather than the verses just discussed. You are a liar, but obviously not a fool.

    You will lose.

    -Sab

  • djeggnog
    djeggnog

    @Bubblegum Apotheosis:

    I had a falling out with my younger brother, our falling out was due to a "crisis of conscious", he [actively] gossiped to destroy elders that did not kiss his ass. He is the top dog, among the body, he engineered his "dream team" of elders, who bend over backwards to do his will. He is a bully, a liar, and a thief, has no problem watching X-Rated movies or staying drunk for long periods of time. [My brother's] wife is the perfect "Stepford" wife, she blindly obeys this fools rantings, she [believes] that she does not have to study magazines (or read anything the Society prints), read the Bible, blatantly practices "Corban" with no [conscience].... How is that for Holy Spirit Appointment?

    @djeggnog wrote:

    I fail to see how putting your own sister-in-law "on blast" (as the kids put it nowadays) in front of folks who, despite the anonymity, are really strangers to you doesn't speak more to the hatred you have for your brother and his wife than it does to the question of whether your brother was appointed by holy spirit. What you said here seems more a testimony of the contempt you have for members of your own family, and, quite frankly, I don't see how you can speak this way about your own relatives unless you truly have a hatred for them.

    If your younger brother should die today, it would seem that you would attend his funeral, if you were to attend it at all, for appearances sake only, because what you have done here seems tantamount to your standing above the hole that had been dug into which the casket containing your brother has already been lowered, extracting your penis from your pants and then urinating all over it. Who does this??

    @The Quiet One:

    What kind of mind would think this illustration up?.. would be a better question, in my view.

    An adult mind.

    Have you read post guideline 3, by the way?

    I did read Guidelines 3. I suppose I could have just used the word "desecrate" alone, instead of providing an description, but if you don't know what constitutes the making of "obscene or vulgar comments" to which Guideline 3 refers, I do, and but I don't believe what I wrote to have been offensive. There was nothing obscene, for there was nothing with a sexual tint contained in my comment, or vulgar, for there was nothing indecent contained in my comment.

    You do not say what words in my comment offended you, but did my use of the words "penis" and "urinating" offend you, @The Quiet One? If so, then I can only apologize to you for any offense caused by your having innocent read my comment, but my intent was not to offend anyone. You innocently read @Bubblegum Apotheosis' description of his younger brother, too, but I would note that you said nothing and I'm especially sensitive to people "bad mouthing" others, especially when they regretfully should "bad mouth" members of their own family. My intent was to drive home to @Bubblegum Apotheosis what I thought as to the inappropriateness of his having written what things he wrote in "actively gossiping" on here about own brother on a forum like this one. It was unloving.

    @djeggnog wrote:

    ... it is by means of holy spirit that the "faithful and discreet slave" (Matthew 24:45-47), as represented by the Governing Body, received its appointment to preside over the slave's "domestics" as well as over the rest of the Christian household to make appointments of the local body of elders, which scripturally-qualified men, who serve as "shepherds and teachers," are as "gifts" given by Jesus, men to whom Christians in the local congregation are directed to "be submissive." (Ephesians 4:7, 8, 11-13; Hebrews 13:17)

    @pharmer wrote:

    Is this really correct JW understanding, that the GB presides over the slave's domestics? Not over the Master's domestics? Would that not mean that the GB IS the master? [¶] To whom do these domestics belong? [¶] Djeggnog, my questions had to do with what correct JW understanding was; nothing to do with my personal understanding. Try to stay focused.

    Ok.

    Notice in the portion I quoted you, you essentially said, the slave received its appointment (by means of holy spirit) to preside over the slave's "domestics". Do you see the ambiguity?

    Yes.

    You used the term slave twice in one sentence without any mention of a master. As a result, you either have two different slaves (one slave being the master over the other slave) or you are referring to one slave that is also the master.

    Yes, I see what you are saying, but I might point out that I had also stated the following:

    Read Luke 12:42-44. [Jesus] called the slave a "steward" and [Jesus also] referred to the "domestics" as "his body of attendants." A steward is a house manager or administrator who is placed over servants. Yet, the steward is also a servant.

    So I went on to explain thusly:

    (@djeggnog:)

    At Matthew 24:45, we read, "whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time," we read in the parallel citation at Luke 12:42, "whom his master will appoint over his body of attendants to keep giving them their measure of food supplies at the proper time." A steward is put in charge of the master's house and in administering his duties, gives direction to all of the master's slaves that live in the house, even though the steward is but a slave himself.

    So I see the ambiguity to which you refer and I do appreciate your pointing this out to me.

    So really, you were using the term slave (twice in the same sentence) when what you really meant was that the one slave (of which the GB represents) has been appointed over the Master's "domestics". Is that accurate JW understanding generally speaking?

    Yes.

    I notice that discussions tend to be more ambiguous than is necessary, I'm trying to prevent more ambiguity.

    Ok.

    Just simply do this if you would: Clarify the sentence I quoted by filling in the blank with another name other than slave in a way that communicates what you were meaning to communicate. Use "master", "steward", whomever you meant that particular "slave" to be.

    ... it is by means of holy spirit that the "faithful and discreet slave" (Matthew 24:45-47), as represented by the Governing Body, received its appointment to preside over the slave's [fellow "domestics" or fellow "slaves,"] as well as over ["all his belongings" or "things on the earth" (Ephesians 1:10, that is to say,] the rest of the Christian household to make appointments of the local body of elders, which scripturally-qualified men, who serve as "shepherds and teachers," are as "gifts" given by Jesus, men to whom Christians in the local congregation are directed to "be submissive." (Ephesians 4:7, 8, 11-13; Hebrews 13:17)

    @pharmer wrote:

    Would that not mean that the GB IS the master?

    @djeggnog wrote:

    No, Jesus is the master, something that I would expect those who had formerly been Jehovah's Witnesses to already know. But now you know, @pharmer.

    @pharmer wrote:

    Oh, and I've never been a JW, and yet I already knew the correct answer as to what the Bible teaches. Don't worry, I'm not as easily offended by your condescending assumptions as some might be.

    There's every reason to believe that you wouldn't have known this already. My assumption about you having formerly been one of Jehovah's Witnesses was wrong and I'm sorry about that.

    @Bubblegum Apotheosis wrote:

    The W.T.S. believes they have control over the [magnificent] Holy Spirit, and who is saved by Jehovah.

    @djeggnog wrote:

    This is not true.

    @palmtree67 wrote:

    How is this not true?

    Jehovah's Witnesses cannot give absolution to anyone. Plus, the holy spirit doesn't save anyone.

    Do they not disfellowship people, supposedly with the aid of the Holy Spirit and supposedly then the people are not saved?

    This is a compound question, so I will have to break up my answer to it in three (3) parts:

    (1) Yes, we do occasionally have to disfellowship brothers and sisters for wrongdoing, but they are still Christians; they are just put on a "time-out," so to speak, to give the individual time to think about the actions that led to their being disfellowshipped in the hope that when they should (hopefully) be reinstated, they will have a repentant posture or attitude, since Jesus is the judge and only he can determine whether or not someone has truly repented of this sins. (Jehovah is the real judge, but 'Jehovah has committed all the judging to Jesus' (John 5:22).)

    (2) The holy spirit tells us at 1 Corinthians 5:11-13 that "the 'wicked man' is to be removed from among us, but we don't understand this passage to mean that we cannot treat them with respect to which every human being is entitled. I realize that those that have been disfellowshipped are often treated as if they were real lepers in many of the congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses when they have, in effect, spiritual leprosy, many of them because they cannot shake that urge to smoke cigarettes or they are unable to control how much alcohol they drink and some others because they may have slept with the baby's father again in a moment of weakness and failed to confess their sin, but whatever the reason, there exists no scriptural authority whatsoever for those in good standing to be mistreating or beating their brothers and sisters up that happen to not be in good standing at the time. This is unloving.

    (3) You are in a saved condition because you dedicated your life to Jehovah and symbolized that dedication by water baptism. There's no way to annul this. When someone is reinstated, he or she isn't re-baptized. The disfellowshipped person is simply someone that is not in good standing during the period of time that he or she is disfellowshipped. The disfellowshipped person can be reinstated at any time by the local elders that took the action. But I don't know where it was you heard or learned that one is not saved or has lost their salvation when disfellowshipped.

    How is that not true?

    Because no one is saved until one has endured to the end, but Jesus know who belongs to him. If anyone doesn't have Christ's spirit, then "this one does not belong to him." (Matthew 24:13; Romans 8:9)

    @djeggnog

  • pharmer
    pharmer

    Me: So really, you were using the term slave (twice in the same sentence) when what you really meant was that the one slave (of which the GB represents) has been appointed over the Master's "domestics". Is that accurate JW understanding generally speaking?
    Djeggnog: Yes.

    The original was:

    Djeggnog: ...it is by means of holy spirit that the "faithful and discreet slave" (Matthew 24:45-47), as represented by the Governing Body, received its appointment to preside over the slave's "domestics"...

    To make certain then, you use the term "slave" as a substitution for "master" in this sentence. To you, is its meaning the same? In other words, is this an intentional substitution on your part Djeggnog, or is it an error?

    Above, you say "yes" to my question, but then you keep referring to the "slave's domestics" (instead of the Master's domestics), which means the domestics belong to the "slave", but the domestics belong to the "master". (I realize the "steward" can be a "slave", but I don't see how the "master" can be referred to as the "slave".) In this matter of 'possessive nouns', i.e. slave's vs master's, can you please fill in the blank with the appropriate possessive noun?

    Djeggnog: ...it is by means of holy spirit that the "faithful and discreet slave" (Matthew 24:45-47), as represented by the Governing Body, received its appointment to preside over the ___???___'s "domestics"...

    I apologize if you think you've cleared this up already.

  • pharmer
    pharmer
    There's every reason to believe that you wouldn't have known this already. My assumption about you having formerly been one of Jehovah's Witnesses was wrong and I'm sorry about that.

    On the latter part, apology accepted. On the former part, you are wrong as there isn't every reason to believe that I would or wouldn't have known this. It was purely an assumption, and a wrong one at that. But I do appreciate the apology for your error.

  • xchange
    xchange

    When I was selected as an elder, I didn't 'doubt' that I was appointed by the holy spirit - I KNEW I wasn't.

  • ohiocowboy
    ohiocowboy

    I learned long ago that Elders weren't appointed by Holy Spirit when I caught my Elder Dad smoking shortly after he was involved in DF'ing someone else for the same thing. To top it off, I wasn't allowed to tell anyone else, lest people think bad of my Dad.

  • djeggnog
    djeggnog

    @djeggnog wrote:

    Elders are duly appointed to serve in the local congregation by means of holy spirit, and the scriptural proof of this can be found by reading 1 Timothy 3:1-10, 12, 13, for it is only by examining the things we read in the Bible as to the qualifications that elders must meet that we can prove to ourselves that the holy spirit itself has appointed such men as overseers in the congregation, for it is through the Scriptures that the holy spirit speaks.

    @sabastious wrote:

    Dear Staff God (I haven't figured your real name yet),

    You are a very dark liar, but you know that. I used to find you amusing, but now I realize that you serve a force that I cannot laugh at anymore.

    After reading your post, I'm left feeling rather perspicacious. I'm thinking of how Jesus, when approached by a Phoenician woman about healing her daughter, who she had described to him as being "badly demonized," we read that she addresses Jesus with the words, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David," thus acknowledging Jesus' messiahship. Now Jesus had previously travelled through Tyre and Sidon, and had healed many of the people there of the diseases they bore, but these were pagans and not Jews, and remember Jesus had taught his disciples to "not go off into the road of the nations," not enter into a Samaritan city," but that they should "go continually to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matthew 10:5, 6)

    So what does Jesus do? The text at Matthew 15:21-28, says this about Jesus: "But he did not say a word in answer to her." It wasn't that Jesus didn't want to speak to her, but he has to choose his words carefully because his disciples were there with him, and so he decided to think about what he would say in reply to the women, to consider the effect that his words would have on this woman, on his disciples and on everyone else that was present.

    So after thinking about the situation for a moment, Jesus knew that he would explain to his disciples his reasoning later, but the first thing he need to do was reinforce in the hearing of this disciples what he had told them their focus should be, so he said to the woman: "I was not sent forth to any but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

    This is what I must do now, @sabastious, so all of this is just to tell you I'm tabling my response to your post. My first thoughts would make me come off to you and others as being a very mean person, and I'm really not mean at all. I'm firm and very often I come off as legalistic in my viewpoints although this is never my intention. I'll get back to you. I do realize I could have said "I acknowledge your post, but I'll have to get back to you," but I knew at once what I wanted to say, but thought better of it and decided instead to "push pause," as it were.

    @djeggnog wrote:

    At Matthew 24:45, we read, "whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time," we read in the parallel citation at Luke 12:42, "whom his master will appoint over his body of attendants to keep giving them their measure of food supplies at the proper time." A steward is put in charge of the master's house and in administering his duties, gives direction to all of the master's slaves that live in the house, even though the steward is but a slave himself.

    @pharmer wrote:

    To make certain then, you use the term "slave" as a substitution for "master" in this sentence. To you, is its meaning the same? In other words, is this an intentional substitution on your part Djeggnog, or is it an error?

    The "slave" or "steward" is in charge of or has been appointed over his fellow "domestics." I'm now going to change one word and say exactly the same thing: The "slave" or "steward" is in charge of or has been appointed over his fellow "slaves."

    I apologize if you think you've cleared this up already.

    Perhaps I missed (again). Three times a charm?

    @djeggnog

  • sabastious
    sabastious
    "I was not sent forth to any but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

    @dj

    That woman had courage, something I think you believe you have, yet possess the opposite. You are free to reply, but I wouldn't spend a great deal of time on it.

    -Sab

  • pharmer
    pharmer

    So you say:

    The "slave" or "steward" is in charge of or has been appointed over his fellow "domestics." I'm now going to change one word and say exactly the same thing: The "slave" or "steward" is in charge of or has been appointed over his fellow "slaves."

    You seem to be addressing the green highlighted area, whereas I'm asking for clarification on the 'possessive noun' instead. On the original, it is the yellow highlighted area. In this latest version of yours, it is the "his" that needs to be identified (his domestics...whose domestics?) Who is the "his" to which the domestics belong? This is what I am trying to get you to clarify by using this fill in the blank from your original statement:

    Djeggnog: ...it is by means of holy spirit that the "faithful and discreet slave" (Matthew 24:45-47), as represented by the Governing Body, received its appointment to preside over the ___???___'s "domestics"...

    You used the possessive noun, "slave's" in that original:

    Djeggnog: ...it is by means of holy spirit that the "faithful and discreet slave" (Matthew 24:45-47), as represented by the Governing Body, received its appointment to preside over the slave's "domestics"...

    Yet you admit that the "domestics" belong to the Master (Jesus), so why do you use the possessive noun "slave's" instead of "master's"? Is this an error or is it intentional? To me, that sounds like you are contradicting yourself; on one hand you say "slave's domestics", on the other you say the domestics belong to the master ("master's domestics").

  • av8orntexas
    av8orntexas

    I thought they got together and did 'Rock,Paper,Scissors' when appointing elders.

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