by Dagney 9 Replies latest watchtower bible
Can someone please help me find or direct me to the quote from the WT/or thread, (I believe it was the summer of 2011), where they specifically counseled against associating with those who stopped attending meetings. I am trying to find it but can't come up with the right combination of search words.
Thank you very much in advance.
February 15th 2011 Watchtower p. 28 could be the article you're looking for.
"If you face a similar situation, please remember that Jehovah sympathizes with you. By cutting off contact with the disfellowshipped or disassociated one, you are showing that you hate the attitudes and actions that led to that outcome."
They seem to not have a clue that THEY are the ones responsible for us having our 'bad attitude'.
Thank you The Searcher. The article I'm referring to was specific about even if the person was NOT DF'd or DA'd, just not attending.
*** w08 11/15 p. 11 Help Those Who Stray From the Flock ***
Continue to Show Them Love
16 Do the foregoing suggestions really work? Yes. For instance, one young person who started as a Kingdom publisher when he was 12 years old became inactive at the age of 15. He later became active, however, and has been in the full-time service for over 30 years. His spiritual recovery was largely due to the assistance given him by a Christian elder. How much that spiritual help was appreciated!
17 It is love that motivates Christians to assist inactive ones to return to the congregation. Regarding his followers, Jesus said: “I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.” (John 13:34, 35) Yes, love is an identifying mark of true Christians. Should not that love be expressed for baptized Christians who may have become inactive? It certainly should! But providing needed help may call for the exercise of various godly qualities.
This was all I could find on the CD Rom but I m sure there was something.
I don't recall anything specifically saying to stop associating with those who have "stopped attending meetings", using that exact phrase or similar.
There might be something about not associating with the "spiritually weak" or something like that, and most JWs would connect the dots and figure that if someone isn't attending meetings they must be "spiritually weak".
*** w09 3/15 p. 6 You Must Not Forget Jehovah ***
Consider Moses’ words: “Watch out for yourself that you may not forget Jehovah your God so as not to keep his commandments and his judicial decisions and his statutes.” (Deut. 8:11) That links forgetting Jehovah to willful disobedience. The danger is real in our day too. In writing to Christians, the apostle Paul warns against “the same pattern of disobedience” that the Israelites displayed in the wilderness.—Heb. 4:8-11.
Forgetting Jehovah is akin to willful disobedience in this article.
Thank you Amelia, sir.
This might be what I was thinking of: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/210477/1/Was-there-a-WT-recently-that-instructs-to-shun-inactive-Witnesses
I'm at work and will have to look at it later.
Every article a look up seems to say love will bring them back blah blah blah but I am not da'd or df'd but being shunned. I am sure I too remember an article that was quite explicit about not associating with inactive ones but I can't find it anywhere.
Me neither Amelia. I was talking to a JW gf, Wed, using the word "shun" for my JW family and former friends. She said she honestly never thought of it as shunning before. She did tell me for the first time that "everybody" asks about me. She knew how my PO brother was making an effort to be in touch after our mother passed, then distanced himself again after what I think was an article in the WT.
Tonight when I get home I'll look for the posts around that time. I seem to remember a lot of discussion about it.
