by Gayle 22 Replies latest watchtower bible
Only scanned,,couple articles on necessary on having a old-age long-term plan now. Reality is hitting them more than ever.
Also, Australia showed "publisher" amount. I assume it was the "peak" stat. Shows an increase. But, looking at 2012 stats and population, with they show in mag. publishers are not increasing with population. Population increasing at a little faster rate than JWs.
Honestly, what other publications other than the WT use a word like "nowadays"? (see last page)
,couple articles on necessary on having a old-age long-term plan now.
That is adding insult to injury.
Gayle, I noticed too that they used the 2013 figures for Austrailia-a small increase. Hope the world report becomes available soon.
After decades of telling parents to blackmail their kids into piosneering and low paying jobs because Armageddon is just around the corner, now they are making it clear that the responsibility to look after the parents belongs to those kids, not the church.
How about the first study article beating the sheep up with "be more self-sacrificing" and quit being selfish rotten imperfect sinners.
Only to turn around the next week and play nice with a "positve" article.
Tear 'em down, build them back up a little. Typical abuse pattern.
Just scanned through the articles, yes they set it up well. First article, Be content sacrificing even further, (second article) maintain a positive attitude about being screwed, then they lower the boom on responsibility of the elder Jw parents resting not only on the family,
but if members of the elderly are in Bethel or in full time service then they provide a wonderful guilt trip for the congregation to accept the responsibility of taking care of the elderly so the grown children can remain in Bethel service or pioneer.
"Evidently", WTBTDS wants their cake and eat it too. Basically, the message is, as I take it, whoever is not in full time service take care of these old people that are getting in our (GB's) way.
I find the “Honor the Aged Among You” article quite troublesome; especially at the 10 th and 11 th paragraphs. Here, it is explained that Full-time service brothers and sisters should not ‘hastily give up service privileges’ to care for their parents when their parent’s congregation could do it for them.
I am baffled by the fact that they avoid the obvious similarity between the situation described in these paragraphs and the actions of the Pharisees exposed by Jesus’ in Mark 7: 9 to 13.
9 Further, he said to them: “You skillfully disregard the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.+ 10 For example, Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’+ and, ‘Let the one who speaks abusively of* his father or mother be put to death.’+ 11 But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother: “Whatever I have that could benefit you is corban (that is, a gift dedicated to God),”’ 12 you no longer let him do a single thing for his father or his mother.+ 13 Thus you make the word of God invalid by your tradition that you have handed down.+ And you do many things like this.”+ 14
Verse 12 leaves no room for doubts: “you no longer let him do a single thing for his father or his mother”.
That is unbelievably irresponsible. Not caring for your parents so you can keep pioneering? Apart from the Pharisee parallel, it's just plain ungrateful. I mean, these are the people who changed your nappies, worked to feed and clothe you, cleaned your puke, wiped your nose and put up with your crap as a teenager. And now they say, hey, just dump your olds on the congregation.
Study article - being in the faith
Apparently being in the faith "is the body of christian beliefs revealed in the bible." The support of this is 2 Corinthians 13:5 which states
"5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?"
So rather than having faith in the truth regarding Jesus it is the relgious beliefs that require JWs faith.
The article then goes on to explain how you can test yourself to see whether you are in this faith.
Firstly, by giving money to the organization
Secondly, by giving your time to the organization
Thirdly, by recognizing the help given by your superiors within the organization
Then at the end of the article JWs are told that they can use the bible to prove to themselves that they are in the faith.
This study article makes no sense and like most of their articles today, there is no logical flow to it as most comments are pretty much ad hoc.
