by Antioch 39 Replies latest watchtower bible
"We Cannot go beyond what is written"
The problem that I see with that is, why hold what was written in the Bible as absolute truth?
Where did they get their information? They put 2 and 2 together and got 4. They were not inspired.
They had help from the holy spirit on occasions such as Pentecost, but overall, they were just people understanding
what happened.
Why can't that be done today?
The answer: People worship the Bible and don't want to put themselves to that level
Would this mean that they are dropping the Jonadab class, the Elijah/Elisha class, and other things that they thought fulfilled in the modern times?
The antitypical "Laodicean Messenger" is probably turning in his (other) grave
Most jws today know nothing about types and antitypes or can understand it....a relic of the Fred Franz days. Haven't they placed it with ther term "prophetic patterns"?
Thinking on this a little further, I suspect another reason that they're dropping the "deep truths" one after another is that they're probably going to try to emulate the mormons in yet another way - the "testimony." As I understand it, the end of the book of mormon basically says to pray to god for confirmation that the things in the book are true. This essentially plays into an aspect of the human psyche, in which you don't want to believe that you've just wasted all that time reading a stupid worthless book, so your mind plays a trick on you and you become convinced that you've recieved a direct message from god that the book of mormon is the true word of god. A similar tactic was used in the heaven's gate recruitment videos - he told people to go into a closet and pray for a revelation to determine if what he said was true.
I think this is the direction they're heading. They'll put something in the end of the books that are to be studied with people (and in bookstudy) that says that we should all pray to god and ask him if the religion is true (probably with some out-of-context scriptural citation that no one will read). It will work for essentially 100% of JWs, because even if they don't feel that they've recieved the personal testimony from god, they'll have to say that they did. If they say it enough, they'll start to believe it.
This will be a much more powerful hold on the members. Currently, there are still many members (mostly older ones) that feel that the "truth" can be proven. This is dangerous because it gives an opening for the truth to be disproven to them, which is easier now than it's ever been, thanks to the internet. Once they go the personal testimony route of the mormons, no one will ever be able to disprove it. Any attack on the cult will be an attack on a personal religious experience.
If they only use prophetic types that are clearly in Scripture, then I guess Jerusalem to Heavenly Jerusalem, & New Jerusalem is still accepted. But I wonder about Unfaithful Jerusalem = Christendon? The Shulamite maiden = the anointed ? Elijah & Elisha = Modern day Congregation ? There are a host of others.
If they really are not going beyond what is written most of their application of the prophetic books is jettisoned ....somehow I don't think that will happen.
faithful & discreet slave = GB?
88jm, that is a square piramid, get a stone mason.
oneeyedjoe: insightful prediction.
I loved the type/anti type of Oholah and Oholibah getting their boobies squeezed In the old Ezekiel book...
smelling the"shoot thrust under my nose" was another - after that I am sure many yoofs made sure to keep their wiener squeaky clean with much vigorous scrubbing and slathering with soap.
Yes, the first thing I thought when I heard they were back pedaling on the type / antitype stuff was that this is the beginning of the end for 1914.
@greatteacher I believe they anticipated that already by changing Matthew 24:46 from "arriving" to "coming". In doing so it automatically creates an appointment and a future second coming from the appointment.
