Here we go again on "false prophecies"

booker-t

Hi ex-jws on this board. I have a question that needs answering. For years I have read on this board ex-jws, born-agains, and other anti-jw group condemn jws for "false prophecies". I was talking to the circuit overseer that has known my family all of my life. He is a nice man up in age now but we talked for almost 3 hrs the other day. He feels he can convince me to come back into fold. An guess what we talked about? You guessed it "false prophecies". He asked me a series of questions concerning false prophecies and what makes a false prophet. Of course I went right away to Deut 18:20 and he agreed on the scripture and I said does not this scripture make JW's false prophets? He said no. And he showed me a scripture that I had never seen before at 1 Cor 4:8 here Paul is rebuking the disciples for apparently believing something wrong. They were not ruling as kings with Christ yet and some of them were going around saying this was going to happen right there and then. The Circuit Overseer asked me "Were these disciples false prophets?" He went on to say that if it is in the bible then it must have been circulating among the first century Christian disciples that the "rapture" or whatever you want to call it was going to happen then. Paul never dismisses them for their false expectation/false prophecy but reprimands them. According to Born-Again theology they gave a false prophecy. His point was they did the same as JW's in the past. He stay in 1 Cor and went to chap 13:9,10. Here Paul is saying we(Christians) prophesy partially and when it is complete the partial prophecy is done away with. This seems to back up what JW's say regarding "new light". So when Paul partially prophesies (it is imcomplete) or false until Jehovah gives him light for completion. I know this sounds weird but it seems to back up JW's "new light" theory. If the disciples were wrong on what was to occur at a certain time frame then either they were false prophets or had wrong expectations as JW's. Help

Soldier77

Dude, you just got pwned by the ole bait and switch tactic!

You should've stuck on the question and bust out another example, he deflected yours with the scripture in 1 Cor that took you off guard. As you said the guy is up in years and I'm sure it's not the first time he's had to defend that point.

Ding

Well trained by the WTS, the CO is taking the Corinthians passage totally out of context.

Paul wasn't discussing prophecy at all, but pride.

Those Corinthians were puffed up with pride and were questioning the genuineness of the authority of Paul and Apollos.

Paul was using sarcasm to show them that they weren't as exalted or knowledgeable as they thought they were.

The passage has nothing to do with them falsely predicting the return of Christ or the date of Armageddon, as the WTS has done so many times.

If anything, Paul's rebuke applies to the WTS; they are the ones claiming to be exalted in importance when in reality all of their predictions have come to nothing and all of their claims are based on unverifiable, invisible happenings (invisible parousia and invisible selection of the FDS in 1918).

Gopher

I'm not on the board much these days, but thought I'd jump on to address this topic.

JW "new light" is blinking light. They change their doctrines more than any other more religion known to mankind. I challenge ANYONE to name a religion that changes aspects of its doctrine more often.

It's like a shell game. The WT Society, in the role of the magician, plays the game with its followers -- as if they're asking is the truth under this shell, that shell or the third one? If you guess wrong, it's supposedly your fault and not a result of their trickery.

They have had approximately 4 separate and distinct explanations of the "generation" prophecy in the last quarter-century. The earlier explanations have joined the large heap of discarded doctrines of the Watchtower Society. The rate at which they have kept changing their doctrines is mind-blowing.

Continual changes do not necessarily represent progress. Never confuse action with progress. The WTS lives by the saying "If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your b.s.". In that way, they are not unlike many or most other religions I suppose, except at the rate at which they do it.

So no, the light isn't getting brighter. They just keep changing the light bulbs.

Cinciguy74

The real question: Were those Christians in the first century claiming to be the sole representative of God, and claiming divine inspiration in their prophecy? Were those Christians saying, in effect, "This is what Jehovah has told me."

Another question regarding the "partial prophecy" of 1 Cor 13:9-10: Is any part of what they are prophesying failing to come true? I can say for a certain the sun WILL come up tomorrow, but if I say "It is going to rise at 2:00am in Modesto California, Jehovah told me so" then I am wrong, and that is a false prophesy.

In the first instance, I have not said anything wrong, but it also does not reveal the all of the information because I do not know at what time the sun will come up, nor am I going to run around telling everyone at midnight that it is going to come up REALLY SOON!

Partial prophesy will not at any time be wiped out, or changed, by further understanding. False prophesy will be shown to have failed.

Saying that the likes of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be ressurected in 1925 can be shown directly to be false. Saying that Gods kingdom will come on earth in 1914 (not in heaven as they would have you believe now) did not happen, and is therefore false.

By placing direct, measurable, statements we can confirm that what they said did not come to pass. Therefore, they are false prophets.

diamondiiz

Cor speaks of individuals with wrong expectations. You or I can have false expectations and can be reproofed for such. On the other hand, WTS, God;s channel on earth can't be questioned regarding any of their teachings otherwise you are said to cause divisions and you get the boot. While you and I can have wrong expectations we wouldn't claim that we received our understanding from God and others need to conform to our standarts. WTS, on the other hand claims to receive guidence from Jehovah, you have to believe their shit and preach it to others as if taught by God himself. If wts' actions aren't that of false prophets than I don't know what is.

Nambo

Rather than bringing up "false Prophets", why not bring up something else like the Generation teaching where Jesus himself says "Truly I tell you this generation will not pass away" and "Heaven and Earth will pass awat but my words will never pass away", yet that is what the Watchtower has done, thier own failed doctrine of man is more important to them than the words of Jesus, so in thier own eyes, they have said that Jesus is wrong so that they can be right.

Finkelstein

The WTS has always been an organization established on a premise of commercialized false prophesies, structured around the operations

of a publishing house, quite obvious once you do thorough history examination.

The long standing proclamation that the WTS. is god's chosen organization is nothing but supporting propaganda for the sake

of the organization's own power and control and to uphold its public appeal.

Religion is about an agreement to a set of lies, created to cultivate power and control over people, in choosing your choice of

religion, is really about choosing what particular set lies you agree to.

steve2

My friend, it's great that you are reaching out for responses. I hope you are listening and not easily offended by my response - but I need to talk straight and to the point. Here goes:

There is a HUGE - I repeat HUGE - difference between (1) "innocently" believing some prediction that proves to be false and (2) being required by one's Governing Body to not only believe the prediction that turns out to be false, but also being required to stick to the "party line" and promote that false belief upon threat of being disciplined if you don't.

Paul was "free" to make his comments. He did not have the threat of disfellowshipping over him to silence him.

Go back to the older JW and stick to your original question and please quit being blind-sided by the Watchtower's smoothly well-practiced bait and switch tactics.

Thank you.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

Could it be said then that no Christian religions are "false prophets"? If the scriptures he chose would whitewash the errors of Jehovah's Witnesses, it should equally whitewash the errors of every religion that confesses Christ regardless of the flaws in their teachings, expectations, or practices.

If there is a lesson to be learned, never put your trust in earthling man. Paul himself prophecied falsely about those being the "last days" and that the preaching had been done everywhere (sorry, don't have the verses in front of me). If someone were to put their complete trust in him way back then, they would have been gravely disappointed that the "last days" have lasted 2000 years. Such are the results of following men, regardless of their claims to be "God's channel". But we're supposed to be Christians, putting our faith in Christ, not in Paul or anyone else.

Another option with that argument is that no prophecy becomes trustworthy. It's easy to agree with the CO that JWs have been wrong before, and we can be confident that they will be wrong again. We can agree that they are teaching that these are the last seconds of the last hours of the last days... but they've moved that goalpost before. Just as they abandoned "the 1914 generation" and "preaching to be done in this 20th century", we have no basis for confidence that they will be right this time. We can have far greater confidence that the opposite of what they prophecy will come to pass. And it isn't a case where they change their predictions because of "new light", they change their ideas because time proved their old prophecies to be false.

Here we go again on "false prophecies"

Share this