I was pondering as I came across the phrase "3rd generation witness", and wondered what are the chances of God choosing so many people from one family to be his "special people". If you think about it, there are only 6 million witnesses and 6.3 billion people worldwide, and yet God sees the right heart condition in all of the Smith family, in fact all 4 generations of the Smith family from Crawley, England.
There surely can only be one of several reasons for this; either it is an amazing coincidence (which I think we can rule out), or people are genetically pre-disposed to being acceptable to God, or your up-bringing and education can change the person's "heart".
I think most witnesses if you ask them, would accept that it is the indoctrination from a young age that is the reason for whole families being chosen by God, but there is a problem with this.
Firstly, people do not choose where they are born, whether they are born into a witness family and are likely to get this extra special training or whether they are one of the billions who live in China and have never seen a Bible, let alone heard of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Surely if God is a fair God and believes in justice, every person would receive the same chance of survival, and the pattern of chosen people would, in fact, turn out to be a peppering of people from across society with similar distribution in each country and not large clusters within the same families in predominantly Christain countries.
I think the society understand this problem and it shows in the way they over-emphasise the number of countries they are present in, counting small island chains as "countries" with just one or two special pioneers in an effort to boost the appearance of "world wide" activity.
A second question popped into my head (as they do) with regard to this. When the witnesses started out in the late 1800s, there were only a billion people on the planet. Why would God wait for a massive population explosion which we have just witnessed, and then execute everone in a massive destruction, especially in view of what I have just said about the best chance you'll have of being acceptable to God is to be born into the right family?
A question about "being chosen"
by ballistic 4 Replies latest jw friends
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ballistic
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LittleToe
Reminds me of Wt reasoning about religion being a chance of birth.
I seem to remember they used it as a means to encourage others to look at their religion, rather than just accepting the one they were born into.
I don't think they like that reasoning being applied to the other foot.
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Beck_Melbourne
I'm guessing here...but I grew up in a congregation that was mainly first, second and a few third gen witnesses. Now that I am all grown up...the congregation is now made up of mostly third and fourth generation witnesses. That means...with witnesses only marrying witnesses...in years to come they are soon going to be marrying a relative.... ewwwwwww....TOO related!!!!
Beck
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Undecided
Hi ballistic,
Have you read Matt 13:? It says he only spoke in parables so only those with the right HEART would understand.
What is your HEART??? Are you born with a good heart, does it develope as a result of your environment or is it just luck? Just where is this heart, in your mind or somewhere else. If you are mentally deranged can you still have a seperate good heart? Is your heart some spiritual entity within you? If God judges your heart, how do you change it to match his qualifications?
Too many questions and no answers, Oh! I forgot, the GB has all the answers from God's spirit, but it continually changes the answers over time so that if you look back a hundred years you don't recognize it as the same "TRUTH". Oh the truth doesn't matter anyway, you will be judged by your heart. The judicial committee can't read your heart so they must insist you follow the current truth. The poor JWs.
Ken P.
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ballistic
Yes undecided, these questions could get quite deep and the answers aren't clear but the witness viewpoint is conspicuous by it's absence.