I cringe when I think about the talks I gave.

by James Mixon 28 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • flamegrilled
    flamegrilled

    Good topic. Got the T-Shirt.

    People used to speak very highly of my illustrations - most of which I realize were completely flawed now. I think I used to use illustrations as if they were proof of something which they never ever are. The gullible in the audience treat them that way too, as they do the pictorial illustrations in the publications.

    If anyone is familiar with Greco-Roman history this whole "teaching method" actually parallels the way in which plays and certain events in the Colloseum and other amphitheatres were used. e.g. they would get some guy to dress as a swan and literally rape a woman publicly. This would reinforce belief in the idea that a god called Zeus actually took the form of a swan and seduced/raped a woman called Leda. Just seeing it reenacted was used as a form of proof in the minds of the audience.

    So many people during the Watchtower study comment now on details in pictures as if they're proof of something that actually happened, even though it's an artist's impression. It's the same syndrome.

  • konceptual99
    konceptual99

    Great OP and thread.

    I used to think I was a good speaker but I now realise I had more in common with a parrot.

  • jwleaks
    jwleaks

    "When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, to think as a child, to reason as a child; but now that I have become a man, I have done away with the traits of a child." - 1 Corinthians 13:11

    We all grow up.

  • OnTheWayOut
    OnTheWayOut
    I must say I am right at home with this thread.
    I developed 45-minute talks following the outlines tightly, but having done research on the individual points found within the outline or (more commonly) the Watchtower references until I was convinced that this is such obvious logic. As I look back, I used logic flaws like a madman.
  • StephaneLaliberte
    StephaneLaliberte

    James Mixon: One day, out in service, I preached to a baptist preacher. "How old are you son?" he asked. "I'm 13!". "Then how could you possibly know more on life, God and the bible, than me, a 50 year old preacher?" I replied: "The bible is the word of God is it not?" "And God is since time indefinite is he not? So both you and I are nothing compared to him. So, I visit my neighbours and let him speak through the bible." While this man probably stood silent, bewildered by the stupidity of my argument, I sadly believed that I had won an argument. So, for the next 20 years, I felt empowered by that conversation and believed that my personal knowledge and age were no obstacles to speaking teaching. Little did I know, I was just a puppet, doing the will of my puppeteers.

  • Billzfan23
    Billzfan23
    I gave a local needs talk in November of 2006 about the dangers of mySpace, Facebook, and other social media sites - their bad associations, why they are not suitable for Christians - now every tom dick and harry in the hall has a FB page covered with JW drivel....
  • sir82
    sir82

    I used to proudly give the talk on Noah's flood.

    One of the centerpieces of the "historicity" of the flood that I used was that old 1960's "Saturday Evening Post" article about jumbles of fossilized bones found together, and still-edible mammoth carcasses in Siberia.

    Yikes.

  • Ucantnome
    Ucantnome
    I only gave a number 4or 5 talk in the school when I was about 12 that was it. Then bible readings
  • James Mixon
    James Mixon

    Thanks folks I feel a little better now, I see I wasn't the only one full of themselves.LOL

    I gave a slide presentation (preaching work in Belize,Mayas in the bush) in my congregation,

    other congregations heard of about it and request to be shown in their congregation in the circuit.

    I gave the presentation in two congregation before the brothers sent word it wasn't appropriate,

    something about self exultation. But anyway the friends enjoyed the presentation, something

    a little different than the book of Daniel that no one understood. Maybe because in the presentation a lady

    we encounter ask for medicine for her child, she was topless.

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