Thought For the Day - for PIMI JW's

by BoogerMan 10 Replies latest watchtower bible

BoogerMan

Which name does the ~~evil~~ faithful slave's literature demand that you focus on - Jehovah or Jesus?
Do Jesus & the Bible agree with the org's obsession with the name 'Jehovah', or was Jesus just being presumptuous?
(Matthew 10:22) And YOU will be objects of hatred by all people on account and whoever receives one such young child on the basis of my name receives me...
(Matthew 18:20) For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.”
(Matthew 19:29) And everyone that has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive many times more and will inherit everlasting life.
(Matthew 24:5) ...for many will come on the basis of my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’
(Matthew 24:9) ....and YOU will be objects of hatred by all the nations on account of my name.
(Mark 9:39) ...for there is no one that will do a powerful work on the basis of my name that will quickly be able to revile me;
(Mark 13:6) Many will come on the basis of my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and will mislead many.
(Mark 13:13) ...and YOU will be objects of hatred by all people on account of my name.
(Mark 16:17) By the use of my name they will expel demons,...
(Luke 9:48) “Whoever receives this young child on the basis of my name receives me...
(Luke 21:8) ....for many will come on the basis of my name,...
(Luke 21:12) YOU being haled before kings and governors for the sake of my name.
(Luke 21:17) ...and YOU will be objects of hatred by all people because of my name.
(John 14:13, 14) ...whatever it is that YOU ask in my name, I will do this, in order that the Father may be glorified in connection with the Son. If YOU ask anything in my name, I will do it.
(John 14:26) But the helper, the holy spirit, which the Father will send in my name,...
(John 15:16) ....in order that no matter what YOU ask the Father in my name he might give it to YOU.
(John 15:21) But they will do all these things against YOU on account of my name,...
(John 16:23, 24) If YOU ask the Father for anything he will give it to YOU in my name. Until this present time YOU have not asked a single thing in my name.
(John 16:26) In that day YOU will ask in my name,...
(Acts 9:15, 16) But the Lord said to him: “Be on your way, because this man is a chosen vessel to me to bear my name to the nations as well as to kings and the sons of Israel. For I shall show him plainly how many things he must suffer for my name.”
For more proof, simply COPY each block of these scriptures and PASTE them into the WT CD ROM search bar.
Every scripture will then be opened up for reading, to help you see whose name is to be witnessed for:
Matthew 10:18; Mark 13:9; Luke 24:48; John 1:15; John 5:37; John 8:18; John 15:26, 27; Acts 1:8; Acts 9:15; Acts 10:39; Acts 10:43; Acts 13:31; Acts 22:15; Acts 22:20; Acts 23:11; Acts 26:16; 1 Corinthians 1:6; 1 Timothy 2:6, 7; 2 Timothy 1:8; 1 John 5:9; Revelation 1:9; Revelation 12:17; Revelation 17:6; Revelation 19:10; Revelation 20:4
........and whose name was to be relied upon:
Matthew 5:11; Matthew 12:21; Matthew 10:22; Matthew 18:5; Matthew 18:20; Matthew 19:29; Matthew 24:5; Matthew 24:9; Mark 9:39; Mark 13:6; Luke 9:48; Luke 9:49; Luke 10:17; Luke 21:8; Luke 21:12; Luke 21:16, 17; Luke 24:47; John 2:23; John 5:27, 28; John 14:26; John 15:16; Acts 2:38; Acts 3:6; Acts 4:10; Acts 5:40; Acts 5:41; Acts 9:14-16; Acts 10:48; Acts 11:26; Acts 16:18; Acts 19:5; Acts 21:13; Acts 22:16; 1 Corinthians 6:11; 2 Corinthians 5:15; Philippians 2:10; Revelation 2:3; Revelation 2:13
NotFormer

They worship the scribal error of a twelfth century Catholic monk.
LauraLynn

Excellent point. And to add to your good list, Peter, speaking of Jesus, said: "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."" [Act 4:12]
And also, the apostle John writes: "but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." [Jhn 20:31]
And again, John in his first letter writes: "And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us." [1Jo 3:23 ESV]
From these 3 scriptures one can see not only that Jesus commands belief in His name, but our salvation depends upon it. When I was a JW, my faith was always directed toward the WT "faithful and discreet slave," and was programmed to think I'd be lost without them. To direct someone's trust away from Jesus is blatant and grievous error.
nicolaou

Dump the Bible. Free your minds.
slimboyfat

Jesus’ own name means “Jehovah saves”. This fact might be lost on many today when thinking about the name “Jesus”, but there are good reasons for thinking that Jews of Jesus’ day were very conscious of the close connection to the name Jehovah, and the fact that the name Jesus contains and points toward the divine name. This is because the divine name was pronounced Yaho by first century Jews and the name Jesus was pronounced Yahoshua. So anyone saying the name Yahoshua was easily reminded that it signified Yaho + shua, that is “Jehovah saves”.
We know that the early Christians were aware of the meaning of the name Jesus because they referred to it directly. (Matt 1.26) And we know that they looked to Jesus as the means by whom God saves because they pointed to this as the focus of their preaching. (Acts 4.12) They were clear about Jesus’ position as the faithful and true witness of God (Rev 3.14) and accorded him honour as such. (John 5.23) In all this they gave glory to God even as Jesus himself did. (Mark 10.17 and 18; Phil 2.11)
ThomasMore

In Hebrew and Aramaic, the name Jesus means “Yahweh saves” or “Yahweh is salvation” As Slim wrote, the name refers to the God that the Jews recognized.
As of today, there are still no discovered manuscripts of the Christian Greek testament (Matthew to Revelation) that use the name Yahweh. I am not aware that any excluded books used the divine name either - someone correct me if you know something otherwise.
The message seems obvious that Jesus became the focus of salvation, by the Father's own intention/direction. WTC ignores this of course, inserting the divine name translated into Latin into the Christian Greek Scriptures repeatedly. When asked for the basis on which they took this liberty, they respond with a 50,000 word essay on why it makes sense even if no manuscripts have ever been located to the contrary. With that many words, they must surely be right...............
slimboyfat

If the intention of the NT authors wasn’t to convey the message that Jesus is distinct and subordinate to Jehovah/Yahweh, then it’s odd that the OT text they applied most often to Jesus did exactly that - in Psalm 110.1 YHWH speaks to the Messianic “Lord” and instructs him to sit at his right hand. This verse is quoted and alluded to dozens of times in the NT, more often than any other OT text, and it shows that Jesus is a different “Lord” and subordinate to God.
NT scholar James Dunn says of the verse, quoted in the NT:
Its importance here lies in the double use of kyrios. The one is clearly Yahweh, but who is the other? Clearly not Yahweh, but an exalted being whom the psalmist calls kyrios. (2) Paul calls Jesus kyrios, but he seems to have marked reservations about actually calling Jesus 'God' (Rom. 9.5 is the only real candidate within the main Pauline corpus, and even there the text is unclear). Similarly he refrains from praying to Jesus. More typical of his attitude is that he prays to God through Christ (Rom. 1.8; 7.25; II Cor. 1.20; Col. 3.17), (3) 'Jesus is Lord' is only part of a fuller confession for Paul. For at the same time that he affirms 'Jesus is Lord' he also affirms 'God is one' (I Cor. 8.5-6; Eph. 4.5-6). Here Christianity shows itself as a developed form of Judaism, with its monotheistic confession as one of the most important parts of its Jewish inheritance; for in Judaism the most fundamental confession is 'God is one', 'There is only one God' (Deut. 6.4). Hence also Rom. 3.30, Gal. 3.20, I Tim. 2.5 (cf. James 2.19). Within Palestine and the Jewish mission such an affirmation would have been unnecessary - Jew and Christian shared a belief in God's oneness. But in the Gentile mission this Jewish presupposition within Christianity would have emerged to prominence, in face of the wider belief in 'gods many'. The point for us to note is that Paul can hail Jesus as Lord not in order to identify him with God, but rather, if anything, to distinguish him from the one God (cf. particularly I Cor. 15.24-28; see also below pp.225f.). So too Jesus' Lordship could be expressed in cosmic dimensions without posing too many problems to monotheism, since Wisdom speculation provided a ready and appropriate terminology (particularly I Cor. 8.6; Col. 1.15-20; Heb.1.36.; see below pp.220f.).
James DG Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity (1981), page 53.
Duran

Its importance here lies in the double use of kyrios. The one is clearly Yahweh, but who is the other? Clearly not Yahweh, but an exalted being whom the psalmist calls kyrios. (2) Paul calls Jesus kyrios, but he seems to have marked reservations about actually calling Jesus 'God'
[7 Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, and those who pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth will beat themselves in grief because of him. Yes, Amen.8 “I am the Alʹpha and the O·meʹga,” says Lord (kyrios) God, “the One who is and who was and who is coming, the Almighty.”]
Who is Lord (kyrios) referring to there, Jehovah or Jesus?
[6 And he said to me: “They have come to pass! I am the Alʹpha and the O·meʹga, the beginning and the end. To anyone thirsting I will give from the spring of the water of life free.]
Jehovah or Jesus?

[13 I am the Alʹpha and the O·meʹga, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.]
Jehovah or Jesus?

[12 Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I have called. I am the same One. I am the first; I am also the last.]
Jehovah or Jesus?

[17 When I saw him, I fell as dead at his feet. And he laid his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last, 18 and the living one, and I became dead, but look! I am living forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of the Grave.]
Jehovah or Jesus?
slimboyfat

Jesus is the first and the last in the sense that he is the first creation, and the first to be resurrected from the dead, and the last Adam. None of these apply to God who cannot die and was not created.
Senior biblical scholar Adela Yarbro Collins explained it this way:
It is not necessarily the case that the same attributes have exactly the same significance for Christ as they have for God. For example, in light of 3:14, the affirmation that Christ is the beginning and the end in 22:13 may be understood as signifying that he is both the beginning and the fulfilment of the creation of God. Thus his being "the first and the last" (an affirmation not made about God in Revelation) could also mean the first creature of God and the agent of God at the end. All of the affirmations are more like poetry than like philosophy, so it is difficult to determine whether the author considered Jesus to be an aspect or emanation of God or the first creature of God, or whether he thought about this issue at all. The notion that Christ was the first creature of God is compatible with his being the principal angel.
Collins, A. Y., & Collins, J. J. (2008). King and messiah as son of God: Divine, human, and angelic messianic figures in Biblical and related literature, page 194.
Duran

Jesus is the first and the last in the sense that he is the first creation, and the first to be resurrected from the dead, and the last Adam
So, Rev 1:17,18 is referring to Jesus.
None of these apply to God who cannot die and was not created.
Are you saying that none of the others are referring to Jehovah?
Revelation 1:7,8
Revelation 21:6
Revelation 22:13
Isaiah 48:12

Thought For the Day - for PIMI JW's

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