The partakers are swarming the organization they're coming out of the woodwork and they're unable to stop them even as they begin to overlapp.
New Light About FS--question
by DarioKehl 35 Replies latest jw friends
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Splash
Blondie: Many persons, even in recent times, have been willing to die for a cause, religious or otherwise. A person’s claiming to be a Christian and even dying for his belief does not in itself mean that he is an approved servant of Jehovah God.
Maybe that is more true today since the last 2,000 years have produced so many Christian offshoots, but in the first century these were much fewer in number.
Splash
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wha happened?
Blondie, that was an interesting article, because it contrdicts other articles about the 10's of thousands killed.
Bottom line is they make it up as they go. Unfortunately for them, they then have to redraw the map every few years. This redraw is so far out in lunacy that it reveals to many what this is. A cult. To those who get it, it can be a source of entertainment.
They disqualify their own members by calling them mentally ill, because they ate a cracker, and drank the Jesus juice. Then they state that only those living in a dorm in NY are the FDS. And of course, the only people qualified to determine who the FDS is, is the FDS. The new testiment apparently was not written by the FDS so it's not food at the proper time. But the WT is.
This is a conversation that can go on in circles forever. None of it ever makes sense.
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HollyWood
Thank you, Cobalt. Neat smilies!
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Fernando
Welcome HollyWood!
May you have a great stay and make good friends here on JWN (without getting drawn into the odd ugly scrape and brawl).
Greetings
Fernando
South East Queensland, Australia
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HollyWood
To Blondie: thank you for the 1972 article. Wha-Happened is right about it contradicting other articles, namely one from 1951 that praises all the hundreds of thousands of Christian martyrs and likens them to present day JWs being persecuted.
Here's a paragraph from that article in 1951:
[w51 9/1 p.516-519]Diocletian assumed the crown A.D. 284. At first he seemed friendly to the Christians, but in the year 303 he gave in to persuasion and opened the tenth persecution, probably the most ferocious of all. Suffocation by smoke, forcible drinking of melted lead, mass drownings and burnings, breaking on the rack of men and women alike ran the empire with blood. In a single month 17,000 were slain. In the province of Egypt alone, 144,000 such professed Christians died by violence in the course of this persecution, in addition to another 700,000 who died as a result of fatigues encountered in banishment or under enforced public works.
That's over 850,000 right there. If the WT Org admits even an 8th (106,000)of them were true Christians, they're over their 144,000 number (include the 5,000 from the Bible and 39,000 from the 1938 memorial, and assume none of the 40,000 martyred in 95 A.D. were true Christians).
The article outlines ten persecutions beginning with Nero in 64 A.D. and ending with the one above by Diocletian. If none of those killed in those years were true Christians, why is the WT Org promoting itself on what false Christians did?
Evidently others noticed the numbers weren't adding up because there's a disclaimer in the QFR the next January to explain that the ones in the article are "professed Christians, not Christians in fact."
[w52 1/15 p.62]QuestionsFrom Readers: According to the article “Hated for His Name” in the September 1, 1951, Watchtower, hundreds of thousands of Christians died in the “ten persecutions” starting in Nero’s time, 144,000 dying in Egypt alone during one of the persecutions. How can this be harmonized with the Scriptural limitation of 144,000 placed on the number being in Christ’s body, and which position was the only one open to Christians during those centuries?—J.A., Dominican Republic.
The article did not class with any finality the individuals that died during these persecutions, but spoke of the results in a general way. Note that a key qualification was made in the case referred to in the question: “In the province of Egypt alone, 144,000 such professed Christians died by violence in the course of this persecution, in addition to another 700,000 who died as a result of fatigues encountered in banishment or under enforced public works.” The victims are identified as “professed Christians”, not Christians in fact. Many of those persons might have been caught in the wave of persecution, but may never have actually preached the truth or followed in Jesus’ footsteps, being only professed Christians. They knew the world they lived in was rotten and they were listening to the message of the Christians and willing to die for it even though not in line for the high calling in Christ Jesus. Many professed Christians today might be willing to die for their faith, but still not be Jesus’ footstep followers and meeting the Scriptural requirements for such.
And none of it fits their now OLD teaching that each generation of the 'faithful slave' fed the next generation, all the way from the apostles to Russell.
I tried to discuss this with the JWs at BeliefNet, but it was dodgeball as usual.
Holly
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HollyWood
Thank you, Fernando, for the welcome and the good advice.
Holly
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HollyWood
Splash, most of this is from the work of Crispus on another forum:
Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. (Acts 2:41)
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:46-47)
But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand. (Acts 4:4)
Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord. (Acts 9:31)
When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. (Acts 21:20)(Watchtower, September 1, 1951, pp. 516-517)Brief respite followed the death of Nero, but by the latter years of the first century the second great persecution, under Emperor Domitian, flared up. It is said that in the year 95 alone some 40,000 suffered martyrdom."
(Watchtower, March 15, 2001, p. 8 'Courageous Integrity Keepers Triumph Over Nazi Persecution,' bolding added)"At that time, Germany had one of the largest concentrations of anointed followers of Christ. In fact, of the 83,941 persons worldwide who partook of the Lord’s Evening Meal in 1933, nearly 30 percent lived in Germany.
Using 5,000 from the Bible would be conservative since many times it was only the men who were counted, not the women and children.
Adding up what we have so far: 5,000 + 40,000 + 83,941 = 128,941 by 1933.
This figure, though, doesn't include those who were martyred before the year 95. Nor does it include those who were the generations of the FDS the WT Org says passed the "truth" down to the next generation all the way to Russell. It also doesn't include any of Russell's followers who died before 1933. And it doesn't include the number of anointed after 1933. Though we can add in the number who partook at last year's (2011) Memorial: 11,824, bringing the total to 140,765.
Acts 4:4 it says "the number of men," so it may be the women and children weren't counted, which was a common practice in those days. (see Matthew 14:21; Mark 6:44)
Another notable quote, courtesy of Crispus:(Watchtower, April 15, 1963, p. 249)"It has been calculated that by the end of the second century 60,000 copies of the major part of the Christian Greek Scriptures could have been in circulation, even if only one in every fifty of those professing Christianity possessed a copy."
Holly
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Fernando
WBTS - two hopes (heaven or earth)
Bible - one hope (heaven and earth)
(Eph 2:6,14; 4:4)
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hamsterbait
They HAD to dump the "closed door in 1935" teaching. NOT ONE OF THE CURRENT GB WAS EVEN ALIVE IN 1935.
The teaching completely undermines their credibility as Gods representatives.
Also it was the first step to dumping1914 then 607.
Next step (as I predicted) was to make the appointment of the slave as yet future. They did. This means that 1919 as a year of inspection was no longer tied to 1914. They said in the Proclaimers book p136 "Christ did not return (even invisibly) in 1914."
So now the way is paved. They wrote the 607 articles to keep the sheeples complaisant whilst they eliminate all the 20th century stuff.
607 will go last of all when the other last days stuff has been erased from the memory of the flock. Who will no longer understand what 607 has to with any of it.