Hi everyone,
This is literally hot off the press as in from about half an hour ago.
We have a friend from NZ (who is wavering and knows our situation) and he is on holiday in Japan at the moment. Today there was a Zone Overseer talk that he went to in Nagoya (southern Japan) and it has just finished up. Straight after the song and still in the stadium he emailed us the info below. Anthony Morris and Christopher Mavor were the speakers:
- A publication was released, well not really a publication, it is the book of Matthew. Not a book about Matthew, but the book of Matthew all on its own. It is called The New World Translation of the Gospel of Matthew and is 128 pages long. It is to be offered on its own in the door to door work because "the Japanese people need to read the bible more." There was a copy for everyone there, and they will be available through the congregations.
- The lack of increase recently in Japan has been a concern of the Governing Body. The numbers have dropped off over the last 10 years. The new release book has been specially provided for the needs of the Japanese brothers.
- Luke 10:16 was read and the follow up statement was "Jesus sent these ones out in the work and if the householder rejected them, they were in fact rejecting Jesus and Jehovah. The same is true today. When people at the doors reject us and the food from the Faithful and Discreet Slave, they are rejecting Jesus and Jehovah."
He shot the email off because it was the first time he had ever heard of one book of the bible being released. Also, as he has some doubts, he got a chuckle from the comparison made between rejecting Jesus and rejecting the FDS. He's heading out with some friends now so I'm hoping he'll give some more info when he gets back!