3 JWs injured whilst Cart Witnessing (page 4)

Max Divergent

Very sorry for the family and friends of those involved.

Our sympathies and thoughts shoud be with them.

stuckinarut2

That's gotta be worth triple time on the report slip for the month?

Witness 007

Sorry but I feel bad for these people dont wish it on anyone. But Im sick of brothers talking about "jah's protection" and blessing when anything can happen to anyone...hope they recover.

stillin

So they are only protected from invisible things!

Apognophos

mana11, maybe the JWs in your neck of the woods just weren't very good Witnesses. You're not supposed to ask for personal protection.

*** w08 9/15 p. 10 par. 14 Jehovah Is “the Provider of Escape” for Us ***

To highlight such spiritual protection, recall the parents mentioned at the outset of the preceding article. A few days after their daughter, Theresa, was reported missing, they received devastating news: She had been murdered. The father recalls: “I had prayed for Jehovah to protect her. When she was found murdered, I must admit that I initially wondered why my prayers were not answered. Of course, I know that Jehovah does not guarantee miraculous protection for his people individually. I continued to pray for understanding. I have been comforted in the knowledge that Jehovah protects his people spiritually—that is, he provides what we need in order to safeguard our relationship with him. That type of protection is most important, for it can affect our eternal future. In that sense, Jehovah did protect Theresa; she was serving him faithfully at the time of her death. I have found peace in knowing that her future life prospects are in his loving hands.”

Look at the reports I posted on page one: all those JWs were killed while in a group, on their way to an assembly or meeting. In fact, the 27 JWs killed in the Philipines were killed in a Kingdom Hall...told to go to the meeting by the GB during a typhoon.

Can anyone tell me a JW would trek to a KH during a typhoon or cross a dangerous, flooding river with small children to get to an assembly if they truly felt Jehovah wouldn't protect them? Really?

As I've said many times here: there's what's in print in WT literature, and there's the way JW's collective mindset really works. WT may occasionally say JWs get no protection from god; but talk to most JWs and ask them if god does watch over them while in field service, attending an assembly or building a KH, and they'll most likely say "yes". At every assembly (and many meetings) I've ever gone to, the brother giving the never fails to ask Jehovah to protect the attendees as they "return to their various homes". If the JWs didn't believe this was true (that god was protecting them) the prayer would not only be pointless but completely disingenuous.

AndDontCallMeShirley

As I've said many times here: there's what's in print in WT literature, and there's the way JW's collective mindset really works.

Example:

Ask any JW this question: Did the Watchtower Society hype 1975 as the date of Armageddon? I contend most will answer, "No. JWs who believed 1975 was the End misinterpreted what WT said. It was merely personal speculation. WT never built that date up as being definite".

Yet, dozens, probably hundreds, of examples have been discussed here showing without question WT definitely DID hype 1975 as the end.

Apognophos

Look at the reports I posted on page one: all those JWs were killed while in a group, on their way to an assembly or meeting. In fact, the 27 JWs killed in the Philipines were killed in a Kingdom Hall...told to go to the meeting by the GB during a typhoon.

When the literature says that the Witnesses are protected as a group, it doesn't mean "group" as in "a few people gathered in one place" but rather "as a class".

*** w08 8/15 p. 5 par. 10 Jehovah Will Not Leave His Loyal Ones ***
Moreover, Psalm 116:15 assures us: “Precious in the eyes of Jehovah is the death of his loyal ones.” Jehovah’s servants are so precious to him that he will not allow them to perish as a group.

*** w75 6/15 p. 377 par. 10 Looking to the Future with Confidence ***
Should we expect, moreover, that because Jehovah is on our side he will miraculously intervene to protect each one of us personally from death or injury during the “great tribulation”? Both Psalm 91:7-12 and Proverbs 3:25, 26 have been mistakenly cited by some as supporting this view. The psalm says: “A thousand will fall at your very side and ten thousand at your right hand; to you it will not come near.” Lest we read into this text more than it states, we must ask ourselves if Moses is here talking about the coming “great tribulation” and is declaring a blanket protection for individual servants of God then. This would hardly be so when we remember that centuries later Paul showed that up to his time the devoted followers of Jehovah had undergone mockings, scourgings, prisons, tribulations and many other persecutions, even violent death. However, we can be assured that, as a group, Jehovah will protect them from being exterminated by their enemies during the “great tribulation,” and He, himself, will not touch them during his executing of adverse judgments.—Heb. 11:36-38. [emphasis theirs, though it was originally in italics]

And chapter 7 of the Draw Close book covers this thoroughly, but I won't copy-paste the whole chapter here. The point is, if JWs have some sort of personal superstitious belief that they are protected by the angels, then it didn't come from the literature.

At every assembly (and many meetings) I've ever gone to, the brother giving the never fails to ask Jehovah to protect the attendees as they "return to their various homes".

Well, that may be, but I don't think they're supposed to. It's probably just one of those bad habits that spreads around but isn't approved of, like when brothers had to be reminded not to ask for "extra" holy spirit in the public prayers.

How foolish would the Society have to be in order to claim that bad things wouldn't happen to JWs while in service or traveling to assemblies? Even they're not that stupid.

mana11

Apognophos probably why i was an apostate!,, expecting too much!..

Apognophos

Heh. Well it sounds like this is a more common expectation amongst Witnesses than I thought. I suppose we all prefer to imagine that we lead a charmed life so that we don't worry so much about what might happen to us in an uncertain world. Religious people in general like to believe that God or an angel is watching over them personally, and probably some of this thinking bleeds into the JW religion from the sides (JWs on the fringe, or those with Christian relatives who are saying this kind of thing), and it spreads from there.

3 JWs injured whilst Cart Witnessing

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