Why Do You Believe Elders Have Special Spiritual Powers? To J.W.s visiting or droping by!

by Bubblegum Apotheosis 8 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Bubblegum Apotheosis

  To brothers and sisters passing by, A note to think about:

  Your Elders and Ministerial Servants are just men, not prophets, not appointed by Holy Spirit, they are human beings like you.

  You attribute or impute some quality to us that does not exist, we are not any close to God than you are. The training we received did not prepare us for the kinds of situations we were thrown into. I never claimed to be a marriage counselor, a sex therapist or "Suicide Hot-line Specialist", and I can bet you, most of the other brothers never saw themselves as anything more than human. Some will say "He must be of the annointed, he is to nice to be of the Great Crowd?", really, I thought Jesus was the King who judged our hearts and position in his Kingdom.

  I have sat with men who really needed someone to talk to, three hours of listening to a monologue, how the Congregation will change once "I am made a Elder", the only thing that changed was your ego, it grew really big! Here is another simpleton statement "I can't wait to be on judical comittees and hear all the dirt the friends have soiled themselves with" His attitude changed after his first year of receiving 3am Adultry and Fornication confessions, he was only a man and you can only handle knowing so much about the brothers and sisters sexual problems!

  Just pause and remember, your brothers are human like yourself, they are not any closer to Jehovah than you are, He promises He will listen to your prayer. Don't act like the COs or DOs are holy, they are company men from the Watchtower Society, their job is to make sure your "Ring Leaders" elders are keeping their little circus functional! If a brother claims to have special insights from Jesus, you are commanded by the Bible to test this inspired expression and see if it orignates from God. This applies to Elderettes as well, they are nothing but women, nothing more and nothing less!
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  soft+gentle

  bubblegum

  we had the "elders are glorious ones public talk" recently. how would you respond to this?
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  Bubblegum Apotheosis

  @soft+gentle: I know what you are talking about, I never felt comfortable with this concept, we are suppose to let Jesus provide us with the "Well done, good and faithful slave! or his other saying "we did what we ought to have done, we are good for nothing slaves!(He wanted humility, not self-praising servants!)", I know the Watchtower uses this to qualsh and backlash from unpopular judical decessions. The set the bar up high, so a good little publisher won't challenge a "glorious one", lest they be accused of murmering or blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. They print everything for a reason! I was thinking of this when I wrote this thread, knowing some do think they shine like the Sun!
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  apostatethunder

  In every congregation there are some elders that try to do their best, and there are also the big egos that put themselves above the others. Same goes for elderettes.

  Unfortunately the organization promotes the differentiation of people based on their title, and on external appearances, and the ones at the bottom of the hierarchy become dependent and approval-seeking of the ones at the top, which contributes to the degradation of everyone as they become followers of men rather than followers of Christ.

  Critizising the elders is like going against the holy spirit, the only unforgivable sin, so the simple sheep will think twice before opening their mouths against the arrangement. Not that many in the congregation will listen, after all nobody wants to be like rebel Korah and his followers that ended up being swallowed by the earth.
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  winstonchurchill

  Why Do You Believe Elders Have Special Spiritual Powers?

  We don't. Elders (or any other human) do not have special spiritual powers. An elder -at best- is a man with some perspective, a bit of insight. A friend, if you will, that will listen to you and give you advise to the best of his abilities.

  Before you jump to tell me most elders are not like that, and do believe they have spiritual super-powers, and god-given authoritiy to rule on other people's lifes, I already know that. You are right. And the minute an elder starts to think like that, he is lost for the people he's supossed to be serving and becomes just another 'company man'.

  That critizising elders is going against the HS, is bull crap. If that was true, everybody would be guilty of the unforgivable sin.
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  elderelite

  How dare you! I do indeed have super powers ! Im super stupid usually :-P

  All too true... Elders are just dudes in suits who kissed the appropriate ass. NothIng more.
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  Chariklo

  ElderE, never mind your super powers, or not, as the case may be...you have Thor.

  You've openly proclaimed it, he's delighted with you, you've shared the news with others, including me, and you (and we) have all the super-powers that we could possibly need available to us!
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  LongHairGal

  Bubblegum:

  I never believed such hogwash and I did like the elders in the early days of my being in the religion. Then, things changed and the whole religion developed a different atmosphere.

  In time I started to see the religion was elevating the elders ever higher. I wondered if it was because there were problems and people were criticizing the elders and the religion thought if they made lofty statements, people would just shut-up. I was never one who believed the elders were appointed by holy spirit. I know some of them tried very hard to be kind and balanced and I am sorry the whole fantasy just didn't work.

  The religion's mistake was to underestimate the problems in the real world (which they know nothing about) and what people have to deal with and the problems (mental, physical, financial) they have. There is NO way the elders could solve these things.
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  Disillusioned Lost-Lamb

  Well if you get enough hot air and smoke blown up your ass eventually you'll believe you're a smoke machine.