Can You Answer These 16 Bible Questions Honestly?

by The Searcher 63 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • djeggnog
    djeggnog

    @N.drew wrote:

    OK, retarded is not a good word. Everyone is so afraid to call me it! "Borderline" my little bit of intelligence is telling me means borderline functional.... I think you don't KNOW what Mark 3:35 means. And so you call me retarded.

    @djeggnog wrote:

    There's nothing wrong with the word "retarded." Technically speaking, I didn't say that you were retarded. I didn't call you retarded. Yes, it is possible to construe what I did say to make me out to have said that you were such pejoratively, but I am aware that certain words -- like "retard" -- can cause pain. When words like "retarded" and "ignorant" are used together, they are incongruent and are invariably being used to attack someone, but if not used together, they are hardly used to attack someone. I would rather not discuss some things with someone like you, who has demonstrated an intellect that suggests an inability on your part to comprehend the meaning of the words and concepts I've used. Let me put it this way, N.drew:

    Your inability to comprehend some of the things I have said to you in this thread are possibly due of an acuity issue, and if this is due to retardation, then this is a disability that you may never be able to overcome, which fact doesn't make me want to laugh at you or make fun of your disability. I do not laugh at make fun of the blind person that cannot see, the deaf person that cannot hear, the asthmatic person that struggles when his or her breathing is labor, the retarded person that struggles to comprehend certain words, phrases and concepts. You see, viewed from this perspective, I have no difficulty whatsoever describing you as a retarded person, and even if this description of you should hurt your feelings, I do not use it as a pejorative.

    @N.drew wrote:

    [Rumpelstiltskin]

    djeggnog wrote@ No, the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses has never taught that you or anyone else should listen to them or die;

    Correct.

    The army of women telling the good news are doing it so that the people they preach to won't die.

    Correct (and the men do so for this reason as well).

    Who else has the way, truth and life according to the Watchtower Society?

    Who else besides whom? Besides the Lord Jesus Christ? Your question is vague; please clarify your question and I'll answer it.

    Fathers and mothers inculcate the teachings of the Governing Body into their children so that their children won't die at the judgement before paradise comes by the Watchtower Society.

    First of all, the eventual transforming of the earth into a paradise will be the result of a cleansing of the earth made new by Jesus and his angels, which cleansing will have ushered in the beginning of the 1,000-year Judgment Day of the Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ.

    Secondly, when paradise comes, it will be the efforts of the survivors of Armageddon and the resurrected dead that will make up the nucleus of the new earth to transform the earth into a paradise. The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society is a corporate entity that operates a Bible publishing company that is staffed by Jehovah's Witnesses, and it serves as the means by which the Bible-based literature and other materials that Jehovah's Witnesses use in their ministry is printed.

    Thirdly, whatever the parents of Jehovah's Witnesses teach their children, it is not the teachings of the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses, for while they are anointed servants of Jehovah God, Witness parents know these seven men have not been inspired by God are not masters over their faith, their being 'fellow workers for our joy.' (2 Corinthians 1:24) Witness parents are not members of a cult that blithely drink any kool-aid poured by men, for they are as are all Jehovah's Witnesses, a people that are putting their faith in the truth of God's word. (2 Thessalonians 2:13; John 17:17)

    Some people play the game of innuendo. Which is even though they mean it to say it they won't say it in simple terms. Like for instance djeggnog (do you know that's a player of milk and eggs?) calling me "borderline" is the same as calling me retarded, isn't it?

    Above, I re-posted my earlier comments by way of response to your asking me this same question, and I have no problem telling you again what I told you before, namely, that if anyone is retarded -- if you are indeed retarded -- that would be a disability and would explain why you have difficulty grasping what I think to be not-too-hard-to-grasp concepts, and it's not like you have any control over your retardation any more than someone that was born a diabetic or born with sarcoidosis or born with toxoplasmosis, etc. Despite your disability, I'm confident that with Jesus judging the world, he will judge us all in righteousness.

    And saying the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses are they who will survive Armageddon is the same as saying if you don't join, and take to heart what they TEACH, you will die.

    Yes, what you say here is exactly what Jehovah's Witnesses believe. As looney tunes as this may sound to you, did you know that there are some Christian denominations that believe the world will yet witness millions of Christians floating up toward the heavens and being caught up in the sky in a rapture, which event will be accompanied by automobile accidents, train derailments and plane crashes occurring all over the world followed by the confirmation of a seven-year treaty supposedly based on Daniel 9:24-27? Why do you care about the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses if you have other beliefs? What happened to that dream of yours about a Bible discussion group that has an 'ancient language authority' anyway?

    @The Searcher wrote:

    Romans 6:7 out of context, gives all unrepentant sinners automatic forgiveness, just because they have stopped breathing.

    @djeggnog wrote:

    No, it doesn't; Romans 6:7 merely renders a judicial determination as far as the sins charged to the account of the dead individual. They are not forgiven their sins; they have been acquitted from culpability for their sins. Their having received an acquittal from God would be as if they had never sinned at all.

    @Ucantnome:

    These child killers and rapists who die in this time of the end and get a clean slate an acquittal and resurrection seem to have a good deal.

    Either read what I write and don't talk to me. I explained what an acquittal is, and no one's resurrection is assured. I joined this thread to answer the 16 questions raised by the OP, not to focus on things over which I have no control and have no solution. I'm not about to focus on the few "child killers and rapists" that live among us in this world, but if discussing how you and I can make this world a better place in which to live should be a delusion of yours, please don't include me in your delusion because I think it plain stupid for anyone to think that this world can be rehabilitated and made a better place in which to live.

    Many of these "child killers and rapists" move from one church to the next, from one city to the next, and no one can stop these people from killing other people or raping other people, so Jehovah's Witnesses are not going to be able to stop these child killers and rapists either. Stop moaning and accept the reality that human beings are powerless to protect others from crimes like these. If the authorities cannot eliminate these child killers and rapists sprinkled in among the 310+ million people here in the US, let alone those among the seven billion people in the world, how do you propose Jehovah's Witnesses handle the impossible? What makes you say such nonsense?

    What happens to those people at armageddon who believe Christ died as a ransom and was resurrected and are baptised but who will not join you in preaching your good news regarding 1914? If they are mistaken will God give them a clean slate too do you think?

    Recall that 2 Thessalonians 1:8, 9, says that "those who do not obey the good news about our Lord Jesus ... will undergo the judicial punishment of everlasting destruction," which means they will not be given "a clean slate" because it a woe to those that fail to declare and obey the good news,' which means they will not benefit from having the clean slate given to the dead, but they will be put to death by Jesus and his angels at Armageddon. (1 Corinthians 9:16)

    @etna:

    Again, as you just quoted Matt 28:18. He couldn't have any more authority, that was given him on his [resurrection]. YOU show me from the BIBLE and not the WATCHTOWER, how he came to be king in 1914????

    Unlike those Jehovah's Witnesses you have met that are tied to Watchtower publications because they do not have the in-depth knowledge they would have had they spent a little more time studying the Bible as I have so that they would know as I do what the Bible teaches without needing a crutch. I never quote from the Society's publications, except in those threads where doing so is pertinent, so go back and please scroll up and re-read the scriptures I cited -- just the scriptures only -- in my previous message and see if you can figure out for yourself what it was I pointed out about the Lord Jesus Christ, let alone his Messianic kingdom, not having been given authority by God to rule until 1914 when the appointed times of the nations had been fulfilled.

    If you do not wish to accept what things the Bible says and prefer to believe that Jesus being ruling as king in 33 AD, that's ok, for you are free to choose whether or not to believe in other things as well, such as the Trinity, purgatory, mass, immortal soul, lent, novenas, indulgences, penances, holy water, the veneration of Mary, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption of Mary. There are a lot of people that believe it doesn't really matter what you believe, as long as you believe something, and if this sounds good to you, then I'm ok with you believing whatever it is you choose, ok? I thought you wanted the scriptural answer to your question, but I see now that all you want to do is argue with someone because you have your own beliefs and you have no interest at all in what the Bible says because you have issues that the Bible will never solve to your satisfaction.

    @djeggnog

  • N.drew
    N.drew

    So then, seeing that the Watchtower Society has the information that can SAVE a person according to what the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses has published and the person won't listen, the person will die.

    And they also publish that if a person does not "get out of Babylon the Great" which they say is false religion and means every other religion but theirs the person will die.

    How are these doctrines not saying that a person must listen to what the Governing Body publishes or else die?

    By the way, it is written that a person who would save his soul (listening to the Governing Body to save his soul) will lose his soul.

  • The Searcher
    The Searcher

    @DJEGGNOG

    You have a a similar reverence for the Governing Body as a sister I was speaking to recently. She adores them as much as you do. Christ is your leader, follow his direction. The countless failed predictions made by past and present Governing Bodies are there for all our brothers and sisters to see in the Watchtower CD ROM. You defend false reasonings which are mind-numbingly contradictory to God's Word, but stick with it - 1st Peter 4:17 is coming - it didn't happen in 1919. If you are happy "having your ears tickled" in your "spiritual paradise", then I genuinely fear for you, and all others who "get to believing the lie". (2 Thess. 2:11) I'll leave you with something to think about which is going over most of our fellow Witnesses' heads -

    Virtually every change in the Organisation over the past 3-4 years has been financially motivated - e.g. the closures or "merging" of branch offices throughout Central America & Europe; the request to all congregations to send their surplus money to the Society; the "request" to congregations that they insure their Kingdom Halls through the Society and pay them the premiums; the sale of all the Brooklyn properties after all these years; sending brothers from the Society to Hedge Fund Seminars in London at a cost of several thousand dollars; the production of cheap quality paperback song books and Bibles (which fall apart after a few months); paying off pedophile victims with hundreds of thousands of dollars; and finally, reducing the Watchtower & Awake magazines from 32 pages to 16 pages each.

    You'll know these sayings - "wake up and smell the coffee", and "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck!!". How do you think all the Society's stocks & shares fared when the crisis hit 4 years ago?

    p.s. Apart from the money problems, ask yourself why the GB sanctions the Society's participation at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe seminars every year? Better still, why don't you ask your Branch Office! Quit touching the unclean thing; my kingdom is no part of this world....etc. etc.

  • djeggnog
    djeggnog

    @N.drew:

    So then, seeing that the Watchtower Society has the information that can SAVE a person according to what the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses has published and the person won't listen, the person will die.

    The governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses presides over the household of faith, in effect, the central body of elders that represents the "faithful and discreet slave" responsible for dispensing food at the proper time to its "domestics," as well as to the "other sheep" in Christ's sheepfold, and is not like the pope in the Roman Catholic Church in that Jehovah's Witnesses are not followers of the governing body. It's true that it is through the Society that the governing body signs off on the things that Jehovah's Witnesses publish, distribute and teach as part of our ministry, information that we believe can lead to a person's salvation, but not one of these men are responsible for the content of what you read in the literature we produce.

    The "information" we disseminate to others actually originates with several committees that are staffed by spiritually-qualified men, who are also Jehovah's Witnesses. No one that sits on the governing body is responsible for penning the articles or writing the books we produce, but those that pen these articles and write these books sit on one of these committees over which the governing body provides oversight, and the information contained in these articles and books are based on the Bible. What this means if that the information that the Society publishes is based on God's word but as Jesus indicates at John 5:39, 40, the Scriptures alone do not save anyone, but it is by our coming to Jesus that we can be saved.

    If someone should be a bad tenant in an apartment building owned by a certain landlord, and the landlord should send a representative as his agent to give a warning to the bad tenant to the effect that if he should get any more complaints about his failure to dispose of trash from his apartment properly, about his failure to clean up the manure his dog manages to routinely drop within the stairwell of the apartment building, about the noise pollution coming from his apartment after 10:00 pm due to the decibel level of his music, and the bad tenant fails to heed the warning given by his agent, the bad tenant will be evicted by the landlord.

    Likewise, if Jehovah arranges through his organization to send one or more of his servants as his representatives to give a warning to sinners that have Bibles, but who are slow to heed the warning that he gives to them through his representatives, and to sinners that do not have Bibles, who are only hearing God's warning for the very first time, eventually these folks, @N.drew, are going to die.

    And they also publish that if a person does not "get out of Babylon the Great" which they say is false religion and means every other religion but theirs the person will die.

    Correct.

    How are these doctrines not saying that a person must listen to what the Governing Body publishes or else die?

    Because just as it isn't really the agent of the landlord that is the one that has given a warning message to the bad tenant, it isn't really God's representatives, the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses and Jehovah's Witnesses, that are the ones that are giving a warning message to sinners, but it is "the landlord," Jehovah God, that through us beseeches them, really as substitutes for Christ, "to become reconciled to God." (2 Corinthians 5:20) So the "take away" from all of this, @N.drew, is that if a person doesn't listen to what God's representatives, Jehovah's Witnesses -- and this would include the central body of elders that we refer to as a "governing body" -- then, yes, I believe it is clear that that person will surely die.

    By the way, it is written that a person who would save his soul (listening to the Governing Body to save his soul) will lose his soul.

    I've never seen or read such a scripture to this effect. What you say here sounds to me like an amalgam of Jesus' words at Matthew 16:25 ("For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; but whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it"), except it's a very bad paraphrase since Jesus isn't so much talking about losing one's life, but forfeiting it forever. Let me tell you a story, @N.drew:

    What if you were to have picked all of the winning numbers in a lottery drawing, which ensured that many of the anxieties of life in your life and in the lives of close family members would shortly disappear only to learn that you have the Hepatitis C (HPV) disease and your liver has been severely impacted by this HPV. Maybe you decided to get a tattoo at the same tattoo shop where your best friend got her tattoo done using needles that looked clean enough. Or, maybe it was that one afternoon of passion in his car when you were only 17, which involved an exchange of bodily fluids (as in Romeo and Juliet), so now there's a pox ("plague") o' both your houses because that progestin-only tablet, "Plan B," only protected you from getting pregnant, but neither of your parents mentioned to either of you how unprotected sex can lead to more than just an unwarranted pregnancy, STDs like HPV. There's one kind for you and another kind for your boyfriend, and five years later you're 22 and married to you former boyfriend with one child). Or, maybe you may have engaged in something as innocuous as sharing your toothbrush with your promiscuous cousin one weekend, and at 22, here you are, dying from oral cancer.

    Through his word, Jehovah teaches us what true freedom is, so why aren't we teaching our children that sexual freedom isn't real freedom? A lottery millionaire at 22, and while the whole world should now be your oyster, it's too late for medical treatment and you're going to be dead before your next birthday. Recall that the God of that pesky Witness, the one that delivered that warning from Jehovah in his talk to your hearing at the Kingdom Hall five years ago when you were 17, had sought only to 'teach you how to benefit yourself' and your children. (Isaiah 48:17) She heard God speak through his representative, that elder, when she was only 17, but why didn't she listen to him? Oh, my! Even you have heard God speak through Jehovah's Witnesses, his representatives, and you knew enough to know when God, through them, was talking to you, so why would you choose not to listen when God speaks through his word, the Bible?

    @The Searcher:

    You have a a similar reverence for the Governing Body as a sister I was speaking to recently.

    Ok.

    Christ is your leader, follow his direction.

    I try.

    The countless failed predictions made by past and present Governing Bodies are there for all our brothers and sisters to see in the Watchtower CD ROM.

    There isn't a single prediction to be found in the Watchtower Library cdrom. I invite you to point out just one of what you are here referring to as "predictions" to me at least one example of what you mean. Over the years, Jehovah's Witnesses have been guilty of speculating many things, but to claim that such speculations were tantamount to predictions is laughable. But I'll wait to see what example(s) you provide in response to this request.

    You defend false reasonings which are mind-numbingly contradictory to God's Word....

    I don't believe I defend the false reasonings of anyone, but you are entitled to have this opinion.

    1st Peter 4:17 is coming - it didn't happen in 1919.

    This statement of yours is vague: What are you saying "didn't happen in 1919"?

    Virtually every change in the Organisation over the past 3-4 years has been financially motivated - e.g. the closures or "merging" of branch offices throughout Central America & Europe; the request to all congregations to send their surplus money to the Society; the "request" to congregations that they insure their Kingdom Halls through the Society and pay them the premiums; the sale of all the Brooklyn properties after all these years; sending brothers from the Society to Hedge Fund Seminars in London at a cost of several thousand dollars; the production of cheap quality paperback song books and Bibles (which fall apart after a few months); paying off pedophile victims with hundreds of thousands of dollars; and finally, reducing the Watchtower & Awake magazines from 32 pages to 16 pages each.

    It is evident to me that you have no understanding of business, and so I believe it would be useless to even try to explain to you the nature of stocks, hedge funds and other investments that prudent people make -- that I make -- in a world that provides various vehicles to earning a profit on money that would do virtually nothing if it were just sitting in a bank somewhere. In reading all of this, you sound like someone that is very ignorant about how the world works, but fortunately for you, there are other people in this world that know exactly how the world works, people that would not be so prone to make such misleadingly specious statements like the ones you make here that can only fool others as ignorant as yourself about such things. (Compare Matthew 15:14)

    You'll know these sayings - "wake up and smell the coffee", and "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck!!". How do you think all the Society's stocks & shares fared when the crisis hit 4 years ago?

    Yes, I've heard these before. Please tell me how you think they fared back in 2008 and I'll tell you whether I agree with you or not. I know that many Jehovah's Witnesses today didn't go to college; actually many of them didn't even finish high school. My point in saying this is this: I did go to college and perhaps for this reason I know things that you couldn't possibly know as well as I do if you didn't follow the same academic and career paths that I followed, and you probably regretful now that you cannot earn what others earn because you chose a different academic and career path than they. Oh, well....

    p.s. Apart from the money problems, ask yourself why the GB sanctions the Society's participation at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe seminars every year? Better still, why don't you ask your Branch Office! Quit touching the unclean thing; my kingdom is no part of this world....etc. etc.

    I assume that you are upset about Jehovah's Witnesses being listed on the UN's list of NGOs, correct? If you are no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses, why does this concern you at all? It should concern me since I am actively one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but I am not concerned about this at all. For you ignorance is bliss, but for me, ignorant is stupidity.

    Jehovah's Witnesses is one of many NGOs, because we often have need to make certain compromises from time to time, some about which you may hear and not really understand and some you may not hear anything about at all. Our being registered with the UN as a NGO affords to us the right to appeal to the UN should the human rights of our brothers and sisters be denied in any UN member state. You see, @The Searcher, you may not know this, but often Jehovah's Witnesses are subjected to lengthy prison sentences, or even death, due to our being conscientious objectors in many of the countries represented by the UN. If you have no idea what I'm talking about here, then I probably shouldn't be trying to discuss these things with you anyway.

    Many religious organizations (Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc.) have registered as NGOs to protect such groups from human rights violations that might occur in any UN member nation, so Jehovah's Witnesses as an organization has become a NGO to protect our right to appeal to the UN should the human rights of any of our brothers and sisters be denied in any UN member state over which the UN holds sway, which doesn't violate our Christian neutrality nor alter our neutral stance, since Jehovah's Witnesses do not assent or dissent on matters taken up by the UN, except as to matters that are related to our right to worship.

    The UN doesn't promote any religion, but being an NGO serves to protect the right of NGOs to worship without interference from any UN member nation. Again, if what I'm saying to you here is going way over your head, that's ok. I'm not really talking to you anyway as much as I am responding to your message for the sake of the lurkers that might now be reading this thread or might read this thread in the future.

    @djeggnog

  • N.drew
    N.drew

    LOL?

  • N.drew
    N.drew

    What is so true about the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses?

    It is my opinion that the fear of what God can do (suffer a person in hell) is not such a bad thing to think about for anyone who might want to lead a force into doing torture, forced servitude even ethnic cleansing.

    The most important difference between the Witness religion and every other one is it has taken away the fear of the unkown. It's not a good plan in my humble opinion.

  • N.drew
    N.drew

    Who else has the way, truth and life according to the Watchtower Society?

    Who else besides whom? Besides the Lord Jesus Christ? Your question is vague; please clarify your question and I'll answer it.

    God is a spirit. I believe the Way the Truth the Life is a personal spiritual journey. Christ leads the way.

    The Watchtower Society say they alone are in union with Christ.

    They have made it so it is not a personal journey. They teach all the sheep must think alike and they will tell the sheep what to think. They say they are true and every other way is false. So who are they who determine what to think? You say they are not the Governing Body. Fine. Who gave the men who lead the right to lean on their own understanding?

  • etna
    etna

    eggnog,

    Again you avoided the question of using the BIBLE, how did Jesus come to power in 1914??????

    Etna

  • The Searcher
    The Searcher

    @DJEGGNOG - You said, "to claim that such speculations were tantamount to predictions is laughable. But I'll wait to see what example(s) you provide in response to this request". Have a "laugh at this then; (he who laughs last......)

    "The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah", chap. 12 p. 216, par. 9

    "Shortly, within our twentieth century, the "battle in the day of Jehovah" will begin against the modern antitype of Jerusalem, Christendom".

    As someone with a superior education (and attitude) to me, can you explain to me in simple language (so that I can easily understand ) exactly which part of the above quoted paragraph is NOT A PREDICTION?

    End of discussion. Why? Because you nearly had me believing that you actually were an active Witness. However, your pompous and arrogant language, coupled with your downright refusal to acknowledge & read the Scriptures given, clearly show a smugness I've never encountered amongst any of my brothers & sisters. And yes, I am truly a serving brother who examines closely what is offered as "spiritual food". Clearly you don't - otherwise you would know that the thinking of the Governing Body (for many years) about Sodom & Gomorrah, is that those people will get a resurrection.

    You just ain't up to speed are you? And you obviously never checked the CD ROM (if indeed you have one) to "test the inspired expression". If you do have one, research the false prediction I've given you. Also, the WTBTS is no longer registered with the U.N. - please check your information is bit more up to date!

    Your lack of spiritualiy, humility, and Bible insight are what have exposed you asnot being what you claimed to be.

    Final nail in the coffin - 1 Peter 4:17 - HELLO!!! - the judgement of God's House did not take place in 1919 - it is future.

    Just read Revelation chapters 2 & 3 - it'll only take you about 15 mins. (that's if you've got a Bible!!)

    Enjoy your little games with others!! ;) Agape.

  • The Searcher
    The Searcher

    @ ETNA

    More info for you (from the "horse's mouth")

    Insight book -2

    "Upon his ascension to heaven, he was seated at God’s right hand, waiting until his enemies would be placed as a stool for his feet. (Ps 110:1; Ac 2:34, 35) He also became a priest according to the manner of Melchizedek". Jesus was not waiting to become king, he was only waiting for his enemies to become a stool for his feet, because he had already become a King/Priest as Melchizedek had been.

    (1 Peter 3:22) "He is at God’s right hand, for he went his way to heaven; and angels and authorities and powers were made subject to him". Kings have subjects, don't they?

    p.711Psalms

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