by blondie 24 Replies latest watchtower bible
Wonderful comments, pistoff. I too wondered if the conductors would make clear that Micah was talking about the leaders not the common people. If Micah has a secondary fulfillment, then the leaders would be the elders, COs, DOs, GB in today's organization.
Yes, the legal-minded organization loves using the OT to beat the publishers with. No Jesus in their world.
Blondie
Jehovah will not answer our prayers if we practice sin. That is certainly so if we are living a double life, concealing our wrongdoing while pretending to serve God faithfully.
This is one watchtower study I should have attended. I'd have raised my hand and asked the following questions:
Am I right in assuming that he WILL answer our prayers if do dont practice sin? Or because we all sin, no prayer is answered? Are our prayers not answered if we conceal our wrongdoing from the elders, but ask forgiveness from God? Are these wrongdoings as per the Watchtower , the bible, or our own conscience? If we pray as a collective (ie at the end of a meeting) does gods response depend on the speakers sinful standing or of individual members of the congregation? When you say "Concealing our wrongdoing", whom are we concealing it from, god, elders, members of the congregation, family members? When will the writing department start publishing material that is not imcomplete, condecending, full of half truths, dull and non-repetitive? When will all you idiots realise that the same matrial covered in this article is churned out every 12 months? Is it considered a sin if I set light to my copy of the watchtower and scatter the burning pages over everyone who is wearing clothing containing no less that 99% polyester? Have I gone too far?
Blondie, as usual, a great post (sorry for the rant, but I cant read these posts without thinking about my family members lapping this crap up)
Thanks for the recommendations, all. Blondie, I may yet get to where you are now.
There were no referents to the condemnation of the leadership in Micah's prophecy in the comments at my Hall. In fact, I had overlooked this obvious fact myself. Yes, it is to the leadership of the Society that such words should be applied, if at all today.
We are fond of pointing out second and third fulfillments of prophecy, bringing them into our own days. I am not sure that the prophets had any such thing in mind at all. But it is convenient for the Society to apply all the bad stuff to Christendom or to the rank and file.
I also wonder why the Society is stuck on the old terminology for masturbation: self-abuse, rather than the more modern one: self-pleasuring. Depends on one's outlook, I suppose. The Bible says nothing at all about masturbation though I am sure people did it back then too. (Onan's sin was not masturbation, as even the Society admits.)
But the OT has much payoff for the officers of the corporation: Control. It is hard to threaten the faithful with the NT; Jesus is just too forgiving, and even Paul wouldn't disfellowship the ones who disagreed with him.
Precisely why there was never a second verse-by-verse study of NT writings following the publication of Commentary on the Letter of James, and why that book is now out of print; it made people too uncomfortable.
xyl1, a very good rant.
Hi OHD.
But it is convenient for the Society to apply all the bad stuff to Christendom or to the rank and file.
They like to forget that it was always to the secular and religious Jewish leaders that God's warnings were addressed. The Society blamed the r&f for the 1975 fiasco. It reminds me of King Saul who blamed the people for his overstepping his boundaries as king and disobeying God.
1 Samuel 15:19-2119
So why is it you did not obey the voice of Jehovah but went darting greedily at the spoil and doing what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah?"20
However, Saul said to Samuel: "But I have obeyed the voice of Jehovah in that I went on the mission on which Jehovah had sent me and I brought A´gag the king of Am´a·lek, but Am´a·lek I have devoted to destruction. 21 And the people went taking from the spoil sheep and cattle, the choicest of them as something devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to Jehovah your God in Gil´gal."24
Then Saul said to Samuel: "I have sinned; for I have overstepped the order of Jehovah and your words, because I feared the people and so obeyed their voice.Pistoff,
"Micah's prophecy applied to the heads of Judah; today we are our own heads, and so it applies to us." (!!) (Try telling an elder that from now on you will be making your own decisions about what to believe, as you are your own head.)
Did the conductor just slide by that comment? I don't think that person has a head or a brain.
Willyloman,
Precisely why there was never a second verse-by-verse study of NT writings following the publication of Commentary on the Letter of James,
That and because the book was written by Ed Dunlap who was expelled/disfellowshipped from Bethel for being an "apostate." He had run the Gilead School for years. The Aids book was redone too to get rid of the Ray Franz association.
What book would you like to see a verse-by-verse study done?
Blondie
