I bought some eggnog around the end of December, just found it in the back of the refrigerator.
It had gone bad!
Is the Watchtower shy about repeating their new "generation" teaching?
by slimboyfat 245 Replies latest jw friends
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djeggnog
@elderelite:
I find it so amusing that eggnog cannot simply [address] the plain reality:
I'd happy to amuse you, but to what "reality" do you refer? Are you referring to your reality or mine? I've addressed what is my reality. If you weren't listening, what can I tell you?
Jesus used "generation" in the first [century] and it was indeed a generation of less than 40 years. Period. Fact.
Actually, the 37 years between when Jesus' spoke those words about Jerusalem's destruction in 33 AD and its description in 70 AD wasn't a generation. Not at all. When Jesus used the word "generation" at Matthew 24:34, he was referring to the generation of his followers that were living in Judea that had begun to see, just 33 years later, the sign that Jesus had described at Luke 21:21-24, which ultimately led to the great tribulation that destroyed the temple and killed some 1.1 million Jews, and brought to an end of the Jewish system of things four years later. What happened in Jerusalem became a prophetic shadow or "type" of the reality or "antitype."
You are stuck on what you believe a generation to be, rather than on what Jesus meant when hye used the word "generation" at Matthew 24:34. Jesus wasn't referring to a generation of 20-23 years, a generation of 33-37 years, a generation of 40-50, or even a generation of 80-90 years as you and others are wont to believe in satisfaction of your own respective theological viewpoints. Jesus was referring to the passing away of a generation, the passing away of a particular event, the passing away of the great tribulation, not the passing away of the people that were alive when the great tribulation befell them. How can we know that Jesus wasn't talking about a generation of people passing away? Because Jesus said at Matthew 24:22, we read that it was "on account of the chosen ones," Jesus said, that those days would "be cut short," which enabled some flesh to be saved. This is how we know that Jesus was referring to the generation that would witness an event, and not to people themselves.
And we know this to be true historically because some 97,000 Jews survived and did not die, did not pass away, so by Jesus' saying "this generation will not pass away," what Jesus was referring to then at that time he was also referring to now in this time, namely, the generation that would see the sign when it began -- the generation that began to see the sign in 66 AD, which is the minor fulfillment of Matthew 24:34 (the type), and the generation that began to see the sign of Jesus' presence in 1914 AD, which is the major fulfillment of Matthew 24:34 (the antitype). When Christians living in Judea had begun to see the sign that Jesus had given them, they began to flee to Perea, to the mountainous region around Pella, a city located in the mountains located some 954 miles away from Jerusalem clear on the other side of the Jordan River.
By current wt standards its been 98 years. Thats not a generation by anyones [definition]. Blather, quote and defend all you want. The [comparison] is broken beyond repair. The end came. Exactly when jesus said. In 70 ce. A hope for anything more is smoke and [mirrors] and wasted paper.
I don't believe you will find anywhere in Scripture where Jesus specifically gave to any of his followers the year when the end of the Jerusalem, the end of the Jewish system of things, would come, but you know when it came because history informs you of when the temple in Jerusalem and Jerusalem itself was destroyed. By your own admission, @elderelite, you are at present pretending to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses, which is fine, but you should not expect me to give any credence to a pretender's point of view, knowing as I do that it is not 'by the Bible's standards' that the "generation" to which Jesus refers at Matthew 24:34 can be measured in years as you are wont to do. The generation of the sign that began in 1914 continues until now, and I have faith that whether it continues for yet another five or ten years, it will yet continue "until all these things occur."
@therevealer:
If the [anointed] are chosen, and that by none other than (jehovah or jesus?) and then fall away/are disfellowshipped, does this not suggest that an error was made in their choosing?
If you should hire a guy to move money from money from the casino tables to the Count, the place where money is counted, stacked and packed for a trip by armored vehicle to the bank, and after 17 years of faithful service you learn that he had decided to abscond with the $1.25 million he had collected on his cart during his table run, would this not suggest that an error was made on your part in his choosing? How do you feel about Judas Iscariot, who was chosen by the Lord Jesus Christ to be one of the twelve. Does Judas' betrayal not suggest that an error was made on Jesus' part in his having chosen the man? I don't know why, but I'm actually offended over the question you asked here, @therevealer.
Your question reminds me of an occasion when the Kingdom Hall had been opened so that folks could go in and do some overall cleaning and maintenance work, and I wasn't expected to be there, but upon driving by I noticed the cars in the parking lot that would not otherwise be there and so decided to pull my car into the lot to say "Hi!" and maybe offer my help, only to discover Blackjack being dealt among four teenagers in one of the restrooms, and my initial impulse was to pull out some money and say "Deal me in!" since I was once a teenager myself, and I used to play Blackjack at school -- I play Blackjack on my iPad now -- and my sudden appearance I guess you might kinda freaked all of them out.
One of them had become so fearful of what he thought was going to happen next once an elder had reported to his parents what had happened at the Kingdom Hall that he peed himself -- I'll call him "Peabody," so I excused the other three from the restroom and told them to sit in the main auditorium since I needed to talk to whomever was in charge. I left Peabody in the restroom to grab some sweats from my gym bag and came back inside to tell him that he should change his pants and then call his father and tell him he had had gotten wet and needed a change of clothes right away, since I had learned that Peabody was riding with one of the other teenagers. I told Peabody that after he had called his father that he should meet me in the main auditorium where the other teenagers were.
I told them that they may not realize it, but what they were doing in God's house was just as inappropriate to be done there as it was when men had set up tables in the courtyard outside of the temple, and had converted this area on the temple grounds -- the courtyard -- into a marketplace where animals were being sold to the foreigners that had travelled with their families to Jerusalem to observe the passover, so that they could have what things they needed to offer sacrifices at the temple, but being dishonest merchants, they were selling these animals for more than they were worth. These men, I told them, had also set themselves up as a money exchange to exchange foreign coinage for coinage peculiar to Jerusalem, but being dishonest brokers, the money exchange was crooked with these foreigners receiving less than what they were entitled to receive for their coins.
I then had them read John 2:15, 16, and Matthew 21:12, 13, which had occurred before the passover in 30 AD and on Nisan 10, 33 AD, respectively. I also told them that when I saw what they were doing in the restroom, I wanted to throw all of them out of the Kingdom Hall because what they did was like walking into God's spiritual temple and pulling out a deck of cards to play Blackjack in a holy place.
I told them that if Jesus had walked into that restroom and saw them playing Blackjack in the Kingdom Hall, he would have become righteously indignant and made a whip of ropes and used it to drive all of them all out of the Kingdom Hall, except that this was the 20th century and Jesus would probably have had to go to jail, and it would be all their fault because Jesus had become righteously indignant that Blackjack was being dealt in God's spiritual house of worship.
I told them that I was once a teenager, but the Kingdom Hall is a holy place and my hope is that what they had just read in the Bible as to how Jesus felt about God's house of worship will help them to see things as Jesus did so that would ever do this or anything like this again, at which point I would feel I had no choice but to report this incident to their parents. One of these teenagers is now an elder in another congregation and whenever I do see Peabody, he smiles because he knows that only he and I know about his accident after I had broken up the card game!
Listen, @therevealer: I don't know, but maybe when you were once regularly associating along with Jehovah's Witnesses, you heard someone say or you read in one of our publications something about free will. Even if it should out that you didn't hear a thing about free will, free will is something of which all human beings are in possession, for with it, one can decide to take that swath of $20 bills stacked up on a table at your friend's house and become a thief, and enjoy the rush that comes from stealing something of value from one of your friends, or you can decide to ignore the klepto impulse in you and do what Jesus would do. That you were gathered as one of the Jesus' "other sheep" to worship and praise God in everything you do does not suggest that an error was made should you deflect and decide to go back to the things you had supposedly left behind -- like the dog that has returned to its own vomit, and the hog that had been bathed clean to return to rolling in the mud again -- but only that you had exercised your own free will to do what you felt like doing, to do what things you wanted to do, and having free will gives you the choice to do what you want.
Look: Don't be silly! No one is responsible for the choices that someone else makes. Not your parents, not some other adult, and certainly not Jehovah or Jesus. No one is responsible for the choices that you have made. You are responsible for the exercise of your own free will. If you want to apportion error, the error would be yours, no one else's.
@THE GLADIATOR:
I wish you well in your quest for truth. May I suggest that truth is very simple, it is organizations that make it sound complicated. There is money to be made in [claiming] to ‘have the truth.’ You seek truth, and I admire that.
I'm not on any "quest for truth"; I believe I've found the truth. I don't seek truth; I have the truth. The truth is not simple, if it was, then you should know it, but, as it is, the truth is for those who are able to humble themselves before God and learn, for it is not for the simpleminded. Why don't you go admire someone else. I need neither your admiration nor sarcasm; I'm fine without any of these.
I urge you never to surrender your birthright to gain the approval of those who claim that your right to life is dependent on membership of their club.
You seem clueless to me as to knowing what it is that constitutes one a Christian, @THE GLADIATOR, you truly do. A Christian is someone whose conscience has been spiritually trained to be able to distinguish between right and wrong. If someone with their own conscience should disapprove of something that I might be doing or might not be doing, that would be a function of their own conscience, not mine. When anyone sees fault in anyone else not their own child, in someone that is not their own responsibility, that is judgmentalism, and while there is a lot of judgmentalism found among Jehovah's Witnesses, it exists here on JWN, too, with folks thinking that they can judge others -- those who are currently Jehovah's Witnesses and those that are no longer actively so -- because many of them actually learned to be judgmental from other Jehovah's Witnesses. It's sad when an adult is persuaded that he or she must live up to another's expectations for them in that they give up all claim to themselves and subject themselves to the will and designs of others seeking to obtain their approval, based not on their own conscience, mind you, but based on the consciences of others.
I do not live to gain the approval of others. My future prospects are in the hands of the Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, and I do not accept the judgment of any man, nor do I care whether anyone (other than my own wife) approves of me or of the things I do and don't do. I am what some might refer to as a spiritual person, a mature Christian, and an adult. Maybe one day you, too, will grow up and become such.
@djeggnog
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watson
Weeeeehaaawww!
A truly "spiritual" person!
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smiddy
"It never ceases to amaze me the length some people go to defend the indefensible"
smiddy
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JW GoneBad
The Gladiator says to djeggnog: "I wish you well in your quest for truth. May I suggest that truth is very simple, it is organizations that make it sound complicated. There is money to be made in [claiming] to ‘have the truth.’ You seek truth, and I admire that."
djeggnog says to The Gladiator: "I am what some might refer to as a spiritual person, a mature Christian, and an adult. Maybe one day you, too, will grow up and become such."
You (djeggnog) who claim to be “a spiritual person, a mature Christian and an adult!” Why did you have to respond to The Gladiator in such a way? I thought his comment to you was rather fair-spoken.
If Jesus Christ himself were to serve you humble pie-you would more than likely refuse to eat it.
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djeggnog
I made a few modifications to my previous post, which appear in red type:
@elderelite:
And we know this to be true historically because some 97,000 Jews survived and did not die, did not pass away, so by Jesus' saying "this generation will not pass away," what Jesus was referring to then at that time he was also referring to now in this time, namely, the generation that would see the sign when it began -- the generation that began to see the sign in 66 AD, which is the minor fulfillment of Matthew 24:34 (the type), and the generation that began to see the sign of Jesus' presence in 1914 AD, which is the major fulfillment of Matthew 24:34 (the antitype). When Christians living in Judea had begun to see the sign that Jesus had given them in 66 AD, they began to flee to Perea, to the mountainous region around Pella, a city located in the mountains located some 954 miles away from Jerusalem clear on the other side of the Jordan River, when the great tribulation began in 70 AD, not 37 years, but some four years later.
By current wt standards its been 98 years. Thats not a generation by anyones [definition]. Blather, quote and defend all you want. The [comparison] is broken beyond repair. The end came. Exactly when jesus said. In 70 ce. A hope for anything more is smoke and [mirrors] and wasted paper.
I don't believe you will find anywhere in Scripture where Jesus specifically gave to any of his followers the year when the end of the Jerusalem, the end of the Jewish system of things, would come, but you know when it came because history informs you of when the temple in Jerusalem and Jerusalem itself was destroyed. By your own admission, @elderelite, you are at present pretending to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses, which is fine, but you should not expect me to give any credence to a pretender's point of view, knowing as I do that it is not 'by the Bible's standards' that the "generation" to which Jesus refers at Matthew 24:34 can be measured in years as you are wont to do. The generation of the sign that began in 1914 wasn't limited to just four years, but continues until now, and, yes, the generation of sign has been manifest for "98 years" so far. I have faith though that whether it continues for yet another five or ten years, it will yet continue "until all these things occur."
@JW GoneBad:
Why did you have to respond to The Gladiator in such a way? I thought his comment to you was rather fair-spoken.
Who exactly was it here on JWN that appointed you as judge over me? I don't recognize you as having authority over me, and neither of my own parents would think they had authority to question me as you have done here. I have no idea how old you are and I don't know if the only way you can understand when you have crossed a boundary is when someone tells you without equivocation that you've crossed a line, but be advised that I'm not a child and be advised further that I am most definitely not your child, and I don't care if you thought I was being utterly horrible to @THE GLADIATOR. I don't care what you think. If you don't like something I have said to anyone on JWN, then you would do well to skip my posts, all of them. Let me say again that I don't care what you think.
When you join an online forum like this one and make the decision to exchange posts on any thread with someone else, including with me, you must be prepared to accept whatever comes back as a response, even if that response should be an "utterly horrible" one. If you think I'm supposed to care what you think about what things I might say to @THE GLADIATOR or to anyone else on JWN, you, as they say, have another think coming. I don't post here thinking or hoping that I might endear myself to anyone; my motive for posting to JWN is not to endear myself to anyone at all, not to make friends or to be anyone's friend on here. I have no friends on JWN, although I've made the acquaintance of many folks on JWN, even you, but I don't care if you don't like me or don't like what things I might say to you, to @THE GLADIATOR, to anyone else here on JWN.
One thing you should know about me is that I'm not a nice person and I don't care what others think to be right or wrong. I don't pretend to be someone that I'm not and nice I'm not. I know what's right and I know what's wrong according to my conscience, and I endeavor to live my life by God's standards, not by man's, nor by yours. I'm not saying any of this to make you cry or whine; I'm saying this so that you can move on to someone else and explain to them some of the things to which you are so sensitive and toward which you have such tender feelings. I'm not here to hurt your feelings, but I don't care if I do hurt your feelings. Understand?
Just in case you didn't understand me, let me say to you again: I'm not a nice person and I'm not here to be your friend, @THE GLADIATOR's friend, anyone's friend. If @THE GLADIATOR should feel he needs you to run interference for him, you cannot run interference for him. I don't allow it. I expect men to step up to me like men and I don't not expect them to cower or tuck their tails between their legs in fear as if they were a scared animal, a dog.
Let @THE GLADIATOR speak for himself and see if you can, in the meantime, learn how to mind your own business instead of his business. If by this stunt your hope was to "get" with @THE GLADIATOR, prove your love for the man and all of what that might entail, I've no interest in being used in such a way, do your thing, but please don't use me in any of your schemes. I'm here to exchange posts with others on various topics raised here on JWN, and whatever it is you might think about me, your post, @JW GoneBad, is off-topic. I don't know if you know @ScenicViewer, but both of you seem to have boundary issues.
@djeggnog
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slimboyfat
I think it was Jack Barr who introduced the new overlapping generations teaching at the annual meeting a couple of years ago: one of his last acts not long before he died. I don't know if he devised the absurd teaching himself, but what a toxic legacy to bequeath the brothers.
It will be interesting to see whether they stick it out and keep teaching this nonsense or whether they drop it before too long. Neither is exactly a great option. If they come up with yet another generation teaching that would the third attempt in less than twenty years.
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Vanderhoven7
booked
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djeggnog
@slimboyfat:
I think it was Jack Barr who introduced the new overlapping generations teaching at the annual meeting a couple of years ago....
What "new overlapping generations teaching"? Barr didn't introduce any such teaching among Jehovah's Witnesses. You know this already, but you are going to believe what you want to believe, aren't you, no matter what the facts might be? At least now we know what you "think," don't we?
@djeggnog
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cantleave
Eggy - You are are so bloody duplicitous you make me sick. Of course it is a new teaching and you know. You obviously weren't a witness in the 70's and 80's because if you were, you would know that the teaching has been changed....or it may just be that you were too thick to comprehend.