Ashitaka and SheilaM - Yes, yes, yes. Only the FDS can discern if someone's love is genuine or not. Let the sheep worry about whether they have REAL love or FALSE love now. Let them discredit a loved ones love. It cannot be REAL if loved ones are not obedient to the FDS.
Blondie - it will take me a MONTH to get through all your Woman threads. I have a sneaking suspicion the research will be worthwhile, though.
Introspection - thank you for the bible study. It amazes me how the WTS hatchets a scripture apart to make it fit. I was taught to read before and after to get the full context, and it really pays of to get the full understanding of the verse. Now I make my honey read the scriptures in context, too.
Xander - I know exactly what you mean. I get the same feeling looking deep in to a starry sky, sitting still late in to the night watching the northern lights do their elegant dance, or approaching the massive Rocky Mountains at dusk, their looming beauty awesome and majestic.
And one of them had this inscription on it--`To an Unknown God.' You have been worshiping him without knowing who he is, and now I wish to tell you about him."He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn't live in man-made temples, and human hands can't serve his needs--for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need there is. ..."His purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him--though he is not far from any one of us. Acts 17:23-27 NLT
Here are the logical fallacies as I see them. For example, I can say that I fill up the car with gas, it goes.
Gas in Car ----> Car Goes
I cannot say, if my car won't start, it has no gas.
Car Won't Move ----> No Gas
Perhaps I forgot to take off the emergency brake. Similarly, when the scripture says, We Love God therefore we obey him.
Love God ----> Obey Him.
It does not automatically follow, We disobeyed God, therefore we do not love Him.
Disobey Him ----> No Love for God.
Nor even
Obey Him ---> Love God. 1 Corinthians 13:1 to 13:8
If that were true, my teenage children proved their lack of love to me a hundred times. I never doubted, however, that they loved me, even when they rebelled. If I know this, does it not follow that Jehovah knows our hearts as well?
Also, is "harmony with accurate knowledge" synonymous with obedience?
I did a word study on obedience. I looked up all the NT references to akouo and hupo. Obedience is closely connected to listening. You hear the truth, and chose to follow. Obedient to Christ, obedient to your faith. Obedient to your master and your husband. In all of the references using these two Greek words, none talked of obedience to an organization, elder, or the "faithful and discreet slave".