Re Biahi's comment: When I was first studying with Witnesses I often compared the NWT with The Living Bible and I do remember that footnote, which now suddrenly calls this question to my mind, If the dead were concious, when resurrections took place, where was the person 'called back' from? I think except for 2 instances the person had just died. Lazurus had been dead several days. Watchtower reasoning is, when he was alive again he did not mention being in another realm, but the Bible doesn't record Anything Lazurus said. Re: one of Vanderhoven7's comments, they of course use whichever interperetation suits the immediate purpose, at times the Spirit is God's (impersonal ) Active Force, but Witnesses often do speak of grieving the Holy Spirit by their wrong conduct but in this case it is made personal "Jehovah's Spirit" , so as to be offending God himself. I think this is often used as a point of counsel by elders. A couple we know had difficulty adjusting to marriage for a time, not communicating, sitting apart at meetings. Happily they later reconciled and the sister confided to us after talking with the elders that she "hadn't realized she was grieving Jehovah's Spirit"..
Examples of Watchtower flawed interpretation of Bible passages?
by Vanderhoven7 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Vanderhoven7
Here is one by P. Kelly
The wtbts cherry picked scripture to support the ban on beards for brothers who had congregational duties.
Decades later, cherry picked scripture to support there's wasn't any reason why brothers shouldn't have beards.
The same brothers that preached anti-beard, now are all wearing beards. All because of the new mandate handed down by their leadership.
Hilarious!
Ultimately, there never was any precedent set in the bible to wear or not to wear.
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Phizzy
The J.W Org. approach to understanding and explaining Scripture is just 100% WRONG !
So early on after leaving I adopted the default position that any J.W explanation was wrong, that position has served me well !
They approach Scripture in totally the wrong way, by interpreting nearly everything as being literal, when many genres are to be found in the Bible, and few are meant by the writer to be taken as literal truth !
They also commit the Cardinal Sin, of employing Eisegesis to nearly every Scripture, in other words, they read in to scripture what is NOT there !
The correct way to understand any Text, especially Ancient ones, is to use proper Exegesis and Hermeneutics. The correct use ot those is to understand the milieu of the Writer's time and place, and what the theology or Christology of the time and the Writer himself was. Added to that of course an understanding of how words were used by the said Writer is needed.
The aim is to understand what the Writer meant by his words, in depth, and what the readers of his day would have understood them to mean.
To add to that, and to twist the words and meaning is an Insult to Scripture.
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Journeyman
The same brothers that preached anti-beard, now are all wearing beards. All because of the new mandate handed down by their leadership.
Oh God, yeah, the whole beards thing has been a farce from start to finish.
Firstly, the nonsense that having a beard was "inappropriate" or could preclude you from "privileges". Absolutely no scriptural validity to that at all.
And the best they could come up with was that resisting that "rule" was somehow an indication of not being sufficiently "obedient", which disqualified the brother because of his "attitude". Well, you could say that about any arbitrary rule you could set, like telling brothers they couldn't wear the colour blue, or no slip-on shoes, or something! Madness.
Then, after their volte-face on the subject last year, the way they had to make a big fuss about the change, "advising" how the R&F should view it, etc, showed again just how hung up they were on the subject. Likely, the recent GB members were embarrassed to even have to address it, but rather than just being honest and saying "this is silly, forget it" they had to make it out to be some great spiritual revelation!
And as Vanderhoven said, the pathetic way so many brothers then rushed to grow beards - including many elders - as if it was somehow something they suddenly wanted now that the GB had "approved" it. Pathetic.
All along I've thought the obsession with beards was ridiculous. I believe it dates back to the days of Rutherford wanting to put a clear distinction between "Russellites" and his own supporters. I remember seeing for myself a copy of one of the old publications from the 1930s showing Jesus as a clean-shaven blond bloke, like some kind of "Captain America" of the Heavens! 🤔
(Except I can't even say that now, as the new CA is black! 😅)I would perhaps have vaguely understood if the Org's doctrine had been that brothers must wear beards, rather than that they shouldn't. That would have had at least some vaguely historical and scriptural justification. (Leviticus 19:27 and the Nethinim not shaving their beards.)
But "shunning" beards and treating brothers who chose to wear them as pariahs was just foolish and it was a completely pointless "rule" that hung over the brothers for decades. Give it a few more years and they'll probably deny it was even an issue, but that the R&F "misunderstood", or something like that! -
Longlivetherenegades
The wearing of beard really expose the hypocrisy in their midst