For those on this forum who still consider themselves Christian or students of the Bible, are there any Bible principles you came across during your own study or research that were never brought out by the GB of the JWs but that you found significant or profound?
I don't mean doctrinal issues like the trinity, heaven & hell, etc, as these are issues Christendom has been arguing over for centuries. I mean simple, scriptural principles that the GB could've highlighted at any time, but for various reasons - some obvious, some less so - have chosen not to.
One that stood out to me is in 1 Samuel chapters 2, 3 and 4.
Young Samuel has been dedicated to the temple and is being raised to serve God there. He is under the High Priest Eli and his two sons Hophni and Phineas. Eli is shown to be a weak father and leader (1 Samuel 3:13, 18), while his two sons are corrupt, behaving selfishly and misleading the rest of the priests (1 Samuel 2:12-17).
Despite these bad examples at the very top of God's "earthly organisation", Samuel continues to do what is right and ends up blessed, while Hophni, Phineas and Eli all die prematurely (1 Samuel 2:31,34, 1 Samuel 3:12-14, 1 Samuel 4:17,18) .
The lesson: Sometimes, bad people, or at least, weak people who make bad decisions, rise to the top of an organisation, and this can also apply in God's earthly arrangements.
Another example is High Priest Aaron when Moses went up to Mount Sinai to receive the Commandments. He foolishly let the people persuade him into making a golden calf, then led them in using it to worship God. Imagine how difficult that could've been for an Israelite who DIDN'T want to do that. Would they have been considered "disobedient to divine direction" at the time?
And it was not only in pre-Christian times. Paul warned his brothers about "certain men" who had slipped into the congregation and were teaching false and corrupting things to mislead others.
So sometimes, the men leading God's "earthly arrangement" will be wrong, and even wicked in their intentions. At times like that, it is up to individual worshippers to continue to do what is right, ignoring their false leaders if necessary, since each of us carry our own load of responsibility before God (Galatians 6:5) and we must obey God rather than men, if the two are in conflict (Acts 5:29).
Why the GB don't highlight this lesson: Obviously, it would undermine their own claim of exclusive favour from Jehovah God and their demand for total obedience. It would highlight the facts that 1) men at the top of any human organisation can sometimes be wrong, or even wicked, and 2) not everything said from the top of such an organisation may be correct.
The other related principles glossed over are that more will be demanded of those taking the lead, and they will receive a "greater judgement". (Luke 12:48, James 3:1)
Sometimes the Org will dance around this subject, like in this week's study WT on Injustice where they weakly acknowledge in paragraph 2 that some Witnesses might be treated "unjustly either by those outside the congregation or by those inside the congregation" - giving an example of one brother who was falsely accused of stealing from the contributions - but they will never come out and admit that a whole body of elders might be corrupt, or that specific instructions or direction from the GB might prove to be wrong or misleading, and that God and Jesus will judge these ones even more strongly.