So often the WTS makes the claim that its teachings are ?Bible based? and so are worthy of following, but are they?
True, the WTS? publications are full of Bible quotes, but the question needs to be asked, in what context are the scriptures quoted?
So often it?s the added words of commentary, or ?asides?, that carry the weight of teaching for the R&F.
Take, as an example, this discussion of marital relations found in the ?Life Everlasting? book of 1966, on page 241:
?Christian husbands and wives should pay to each other their marriage dues. This should be done in love and with full consideration for each other in a spiritual and a physical way, hence without debasement and unnatural practices. The apostle Paul?s inspired advice on this is: ?Let the husband render to his wife her due; but let the wife also do likewise to her husband. The wife does not exercise authority over her own body, but her husband does; likewise, also, the husband does not exercise authority over his own body, but his wife does. Do not be depriving each other of it, except by mutual consent for an appointed time, that you may devote time to prayer and may come together again, that Satan may not keep tempting you for your lack of self-regulation. However, I say this by way of concession, not in the way of a command. But I wish all men were as I myself am. Nevertheless, each one has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that way.? ? 1 Corinthians 7:3-7?
Notice how the Bible quotation is used to support the preceding statement, with the words (highlighted in red) ?the apostle Paul?s inspired advice on this.? What is the ?this? being referred to? Why, the statement of Christian husbands and wives paying their marriage dues!
Looking closely at that sentence, notice that it adds the expression ?hence without debasement and unnatural practices? ? a loaded phrase indeed! The R&F would know what that means! They would connect it to what they?ve previously heard at the Kingdom Hall. So the reader is led from this personal opinion to the supposed supportive words of the apostle Paul. Yet Paul nowhere mentions it in those terms. He went no further than the general expression on sexual relations.
When this paragraph was studied at the congregation book study, what would have been emphasized? Likely the words, not of Paul, but of the book?s writer.
This is so typical of much of the writing style of the WTS? publications, where Bible texts are used to ?support? personal opinions, human teachings.