by garybuss 24 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
A young child who is faithfully taught God's Word will no doubt progress in knowledge and understanding, and in time reach the point where God's spirit motivates him to make his own dedication to Jehovah and to request baptism.
Love the "will no doubt" thrown in there. Shame on you parents with unbaptized teenagers. Didn't you faithfully teach them God's Word?
BTW, I am adding this to a list of "left field" doctrines that WTBTS has espoused or spawned. Some of them aren't generally recognized as doctrines by most people. But, the effects and influence on people are none the less real.
Mustang
An eye-opener for me was when Apologetics Index that the Witnesses, as a cult, require their members to agree with ALL doctrines of the organization, no matter how minute, from meeting attendance to proper attire. Orthodox Christianity, on the other hand, has a short list of key doctrines. Within the Christian community, there can be great latitude of practice, while still agreeing to a few key doctrines.
It's still my opinion that one should only be baptized if they are mature adults who are willing to accept jesus christ as their savior and messiah . If a retarded person who can understand who jesus is I would say, why not ? The apostle peter refered to baptism as an appeal to God for a clean conscience so they can be approved for doing fine works in connection with the gospel . According to jesus his yoke is light so I don't know where the WTBTS comes up with carying a heavy burden unless they are talking about a heavy book bag full of literature .
I did have the displeasure of visiting a person in the mental ward of a state hospital and did notice some baptists there that were praying with people and who knows what but didn't see one jehovah witness doing anything like that . I thought that was an interesting comment about studying with people in the hospital and had no idea that the WTBTS looked at it with such negativity .
I used to study with an old lady who was in her 90s and a bit senile. She was lovely and I was very fond of her. We would spend 3 or 4 hours just chatting, drinking tea etc before I started the study. I would only count time for the hour or less that I actually studied with her. One elder pulled me up on spending so much time with her (I used to visit her a couple of times during the week as she loved company and, other than a home-help, had no visitors). The elder said that I could spend my time more beneficially visiting the elderly 'brothers and sisters' in the congregation instead. When I pointed out that she was a prospective sister, he said that it was highly unlikely because she didn't have the 'mental capacity' to be a sister. I was so depressed after this! He said I was to stick to a short study, keep strictly to the book being studied, and not spend so much time socialising as she was getting the wrong idea. So in other words, don't be a good neighbour or be kind or anything, that's not what I was there for. I was there to offload literature and count time! I realised then that this elder was a jerk!
By the way, apart from a couple of times, nobody would come with me on this study because she used to go off the point quite a bit and it was hard keeping her on track. One sister came with me for 2 weeks running but, when I said I only counted the time actually spent studying on my monthly report, she didn't come again. I think she wanted to count the 3 hours drinking tea also.
She died not long after the elder made his 'loving' comments.
Terri
