blondie’s first thoughts 11-4-2018 wt study (september 2018, pages 3-7 (happy if you do them)
https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/watchtower-study-september-2018/
EXCELLENT GENERAL WEBSITE: www.jwfacts.com
Bible translations www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible
WT publications http://www.a2z.org/wtarchive/archive.htm (old)
www.jw.org (new)
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/h/r1/lp-e
WT child abuse www.silentlambs.org
Blood issue www.ajwrb.org
Discussion board www.jehovahs-witness.net
Overall slant: Happy only if you do them (God’s or Jesus’ instructions really equal GB instructions?”)
Before diving into the manure pile I thought:
What does the title really mean?
What are ‘these things?’
Who said this? Jesus. What is his work?
Then how does this compare to what the WTS/GB says?
Then the questions:
Humility—do the elders you have known show true humility and were/are Pauls or Barnabases?
Unselfish—can you think of how elders and Cos did not display this?
And finally, can you think of a better example when David did not show restraint (clue: Bathsheba)?
Paragragh 1: Last days, see www.jwfacts.com
Despise conduct but envy results—I remember elders who conducted investigations into judicial matters using techniques they assumed law enforcement used, lying to the suspects.
Are all nonjws or the majority of people outside the WTS as described? My experiences do not support that either with neighbors, schoolmates or teachers, nonjws I worked with, etc. Then are jws in the minority or are their sins excused with the concept of “imperfection”?
Do elders and others with appointed authority conduct themselves as “lesser ones” or do they see themselves as “mighty men” worthy of double honor?
Paragraph 2: Acquire power—so is power the mark of a true Christian or love?
Paragraph 3: Through the bible or as explained by publications, websites, JWBroadcasting, meeting, assemblies?
How many of these were used by first century Christians (despite the WTS showing “meetings and field service” with scrolls being used?
More than thinking in knowledge but DO the will of whom, Jesus or God, or as explained by the WTS/GB?
Paragraph 4: ACTing on GOD’S direction?
Food: were the meetings using the bible (best quality food) or merely sprinkling snippets of scripture or cited but not quote scriptures? We the speakers well prepared, on time?
And what was the goal, the carrot on the stick, everlasting life.
Not feeling your best—did you have elders and others compare your situation (which they had no real knowledge about) with other jws who needed dialysis, dying of cancer, etc.? I knew an elder who was called on by the elders because his wife who was dying of brain cancer and no longer remember much and could not be left alone was not attending meetings but listening to the tapes. He was threatened with being removed as an elder. A witness for 50 years, this elder stopped going himself and was removed.
Paragraph 5: Divine instruction (bible) or GB? WT members were told they could not understand the bible reading it only and not having WTS explain it.
Tree of life = everlasting life =only by obeying GB can everlasting life be achieved.
Jesus instructions, HIS teachings
Paragraph 6: MECHANICAL work or skillful, productive?
How many jws do you know that have not varied their sermon after 30 years even though it has been unproductive, never having a bible study (even with their own children)? Or the jws that finally get a live one and turn it over to someone else because they don’t want to take the time to water it and start a study?
Paragraph 7: Personally apply, but only as the GB tells jws and WITHOUT DELAY
Paragraph 8: ALL sorts saved—what is your view? Paul called on more than fellow Jews, but people who worshiped other deities. How many in your congregation(s) did this?
Paragraph 9: What if no wave of popularity but persecution? Do jws publicaly advertise good news, or are reluctant to identify themselves as jws, even when talking to a person at their door?
Do jws really feel that these people are humans like they are?
Paragraph 10: Do jws see these people as imperfect as they do themselves, using imperfection to excuse their own sins? That these people have the same access to god?
Paragraph 11: Resist expecting or accepting adulation?
How do jws view the people they preach; already candidates for eternal death?
UNWITTING bias that is common in my community (Muslims, blacks, Hispanic, Native American, etc.)? Prejudice and racism. I have heard jws express statements that reflect both of these and not unwittingly.
Analyzing territory; I know jws who would not go out door to door in predominantly black territories, hmm. For a long time the WTS would only send whites to whites to whites and blacks to blacks (W.R. Brown).
Learn customs and/or language?
Not view ourselves as superior as the Jewish Christians viewed the Gentile Christians in Ephesus? And we aren’t even talking about people outside the congregation.
Galatians 2:11-14
11 However, when Ceʹphas*+ came to Antioch,+ I resisted* him face-to-face, because he was clearly in the wrong.* 12 For before certain men from James+ arrived, he used to eat with people of the nations;+ but when they arrived, he stopped doing this and separated himself, fearing those of the circumcised class.+ 13 The rest of the Jews also joined him in putting on this pretense,* so that even Barʹna·bas was led along with them in their pretense.* 14 But when I saw that they were not walking in step with the truth of the good news,+ I said to Ceʹphas* before them all: “If you, though you are a Jew, live as the nations do and not as Jews do, how can you compel people of the nations to live according to Jewish practice?”+
Understand EACH INDIVIDUAL
Paragraph 12: DIVINE directions
Praying for fellow jws—those you don’t know and live far away or those in your own congregation? When was the last time did you hear someone seriously ill or facing difficult decisions mentioned in a prayer? Do you get their names from a WT article but by knowing these people intimately in your own congregation? Do the elders know you and/or your children by name?
I found that when I had family members die, no one sent me cards, except the one sister who was always faithful doing that. Are the elders and others so busy they can’t buy a card and a stamp and write a brief note and mail it?
Paragraph 13: Who do you know by name? Get to know new people who come or leave it to the elders?
Paragraph 14: Willing to hear people out—without interrupting them mid-sentence as if you know what they are going to say before hearing it? Why compare Moses and god’s experience; are elders like god and the rest of jws like Moses?
Did David show restraint in regard to Bathsheba and her husband Uriah; committing adultery with Bathsheba and having Uriah killed to cover up his capital crimes under the Law requiring execution?
Paragraphs 15 & 16: Honoring brothers—not sisters? DESERVE our attention
Paragraph 17: David’s confidence—why not he escaped execution for adultery and murder while other Jews were being put to death for the same, no mercy for them.
Paragraph 18: What WE know to be right or GB?
Things pleasing to god or GB?
RIGHT choice according to the bible or the GB?
What we know to be true—bible or the GB.
And final carrot—Forever
Love Blondie