Comments You Will Not Hear At the 2-29-04 WT Study

by blondie 31 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • SC_Guy
    SC_Guy

    For example, the Bible canon was preserved and eventually translated into all major languages on earth today (but not by the WTS). Bible translation was often carried out under difficult circumstances and under the threat of death from Satan?s agents (the Catholic Church according to the WTS). To be sure, Bible translation into over 2,000 languages (only 12 into NWT by WTS) could not have been accomplished if this had not been the will of the unsearchably great God, Jehovah! (none of these translators who risked their lives were JWs.)

    13 Jehovah?s greatness has been manifested in connection with his Kingdom purposes. For instance, in the year 1914, he installed his Son, Jesus Christ, as heavenly King. Shortly thereafter, Jesus took action against Satan and his demons. They were ousted from heaven and confined to the vicinity of the earth, where they now await their abyssing. (Revelation 12:9-12; 20:1-3) Since then, Jesus? anointed followers have experienced increased persecution. However, Jehovah has sustained them during this time of Christ?s invisible presence.?Matthew 24:3; Revelation 12:17.

    Have I got a story for you! Today, at the watchtower study... the conductor was having a hard time getting comments with paragraph 12 about the bible being translated, so... he started to explain the paragraphs (Were 12 and 13 linked? Can't remember) he brang out how the faithful brothers translated the NWT (And he said New world translation) into over 2,000 languages so more people could understand the bible better with a better translation and how it could not be accoplished without jehoober's blessing.

    Course' my hand shot up and I remembered that tidbit in blondie's artical about there only being 12... and I said something like "A little correction there brother, the NWT is only in 12 diffrent languages.." He forced a smile and said thank-you.

  • OHappyDay
    OHappyDay

    This was the 2-22-04 WT Study, but everything else is right on target.

    I find myself reading the WT with a much more critical eye, especially noting that many of the Scriptural references do not support what they are used for in the paragraphs.

    I am tired of absolute statements made on unproved speculations, as if they were proven already.

    Would someone please create a better religion, so I can give this one the boot? I am religious by nature; agnosticism and atheism do not suit me.

  • blondie
    blondie

    Hey Freddy, who does your nails?

    Your closing remarks remind me of my comedic post I wrote here:

    http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/65478/1.ashx

    Actually, someone on here will occasionally post a picture of the Wizard of Oz saying, pay no to attention to the man behind the curtain.

    Galaxy 7,

    that is a point to look for in every WT article. The next 4 weeks are no exception.
    always wonder why they hardly mention Jesus

    Hi Billygoat,

    The strange thing is that according the Bible, providence chose the name Christian for the followers of Jesus. Of course, the WTS had to "correct" that to make it JWs.

    Maverick

    , very witty,
    How wonderful! I am especially impressed with the way they showed how God could resurrect Jesus like a craftsman can rebuild a lawnmower. Made him good as new! Even gave him his old brain back...quite decent of God...don't you think? I would love to sit in on one of those conversations between the Governing Body and God. I wonder if I can get one of those tin-foil hats and maybe intercept a call or two from Heaven?

    Hey Cathy, my special bud,

    (Though we did have one bubbler in the back which dispensed iron laden water that was so putrid that it deterred many a person from getting up for a drink to relieve the boredom of the meeting.)

    The things that "bubbled" forth at the KH from people mouths were equally as "putrid."

    Yes, Elsewhere,

    Yes, we developed new real-estate to increase the WTS's net worth using your donated money! Aren't we so charitable!

    But their charity is only for JWs. Occasionally a non-JW benefits if they are married to a JW.

    Heathen,

    The thing to watch how they say things. Jesus is always a secondary part of the whole scheme.

    The ransom sacrifice is always first applied to the 144,000 and then to the rest of humans in a secondary way. When asked a JW will say, "I?m a Jehovah?s Witness (one of Jehovah?s Witnesses if from the old school). How many say, "I?m a Christian"? We went by a KH today, "Kingdom Hall of Jehovah?s Witnesses." Who would know that Christ was honored there?

    Jgnat,

    Good points about how the WTS takes from Christendom?s hard work and its members who risked their lives, but then denigrates them.

    How grateful the WTBTS must be for all the assistance Christendom's Churches has done to help spread God's word throughout the world...

    The ironic thing is that the WTS has been most successful only in countries where "Christendom?s" missionaries have already been working hard to till the field and plant the seed.

    Forgiving Sins

    w96 4/15 Questions From Readers

    Even before Jesus died and provided the ransom, he had authority to say that someone?s sins were forgiven.?Matthew 9:2-

    This quote shows the WTS position of who put together the canon. But it doesn?t change the fact that by 170 AD, the apostasy had already taken hold according to them. In fact the WTS says the apostasy had taken hold in Paul?s time and accelerated after the death of the apostle John.

    Scriptures Inspired book p. 302 Study Number 4?The Bible and Its Canon

    The Roman Catholic Church claims responsibility for the decision as to which books should be included in the Bible canon, and reference is made to the Council of Carthage (397 C.E.), where a catalog of books was formulated. The opposite is true, however, because the canon, including the list of books making up the Christian Greek Scriptures, was already settled by then, that is, not by the decree of any council, but by the direction of God?s holy spirit?the same spirit that inspired the writing of those books in the first place. The testimony of later noninspired catalogers is valuable only as an acknowledgment of the Bible canon, which God?s spirit had authorized.

    A glance at the accompanying chart reveals that a number of fourth-century catalogs of the Christian Scriptures, dated prior to the above-mentioned council, agree exactly with our present canon, and some others omit only Revelation. Before the end of the second century, there is universal acceptance of the four Gospels, Acts, and 12 of the apostle Paul?s letters. Only a few of the smaller writings were doubted in certain areas. Likely this was so because such writings were limited in their initial circulation for one reason or another and thus took longer to become accepted as canonical.

    One of the most interesting early catalogs is the fragment discovered by L. A. Muratori in the Ambrosian Library, Milan, Italy, and published by him in 1740. Though the beginning is missing, its reference to Luke as the third Gospel indicates that it first mentioned Matthew and Mark. The Muratorian Fragment, which is in Latin, dates to the latter part of the second century C.E.

    Name
    and Place

    Muratorian Irenaeus, Clement of Tertullian,

    Fragment, Asia Minor Alexandria N. Africa

    Italy

    Approximate

    Date C.E. 170 180 190 207

    Matthew A A A A

    Mark A A A A

    Luke A A A A

    John A A A A

    Acts A A A A

    Romans A A A A

    1 Corinthians A A A A

    2 Corinthians A A A A

    Galatians A A A A

    Ephesians A A A A

    Philippians A A A A

    Colossians A A A A

    1 Thessalonians A A A A

    2 Thessalonians A A A A

    1 Timothy A A A A

    2 Timothy A A A A

    Titus A A A A

    Philemon A A

    Hebrews D DA DA

    James ?

    1 Peter A? A A A

    2 Peter D? A

    1 John A A DA A

    2 John A A DA

    3 John A?

    Jude A DA A

    Revelation A A A A

    Your welcome, Odrade and NoBorg.

    Room 215,

    Thank goodness for the CD. I learn to search by phrase "sacred service" and avoid the index.

    Index 1930-85 Sacred Service

    discussion: w76 592-602; ad 1431

    it's interesting to note that there's no reference to it under ``sacred service" in any of the Society's indices... you have to know it's there if you expect to find it.

    Pistoff, I?m glad you were sick today?..
    and the older men in Jerusalem making political decisions that show their bias for the old system of belief; then they might realize that the "ban" on blood was also a political choice.

    Yes, they kept parts of the Law and tried to cancel out others (blood vs circumcision). Yet later they made Paul keep the Law to appease the Jews and Paul had Timothy circumcised but not Titus.

    w76 9/1 p. 535 Titus: Fine Counsel to ?Keep Healthy in the Faith?

    In comparing Paul?s relations with Timothy and with Titus, some have wondered why Paul handled the matter of circumcision so differently in the two cases. Acts 16:3 tells that Paul had Timothy circumcised. But in Galatians 2:3 Paul states: "Not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, although he was a Greek.

    SC_guy
    he started to explain the paragraphs (Were 12 and 13 linked? Can't remember) he brang out how the faithful brothers translated the NWT (And he said New world translation) into over 2,000 languages so more people could understand the bible better with a better translation and how it could not be accoplished without jehoober's blessing.
    Course' my hand shot up and I remembered that tidbit in blondie's artical about there only being 12... and I said something like "A little correction there brother, the NWT is only in 12 diffrent languages.." He forced a smile and said thank-you.

    I wish I had been there, SC. I?d been rolling in the aisles. What a dolt he was! Usually, another elder is supposed to catch and correct those mishaps. It might be 14 by now, but certainly not 2,000. Good job. I?m sure he enjoyed being corrected by a 17 year old boy (man).

    Thanks HappyDay,

    I?m living in the future too much.

    This was the 2-22-04 WT Study, but everything else is right on target.

    Would someone please create a better religion, so I can give this one the boot?

    I?m spiritual by nature and am keeping the good parts. I like the way God is portrayed on the TV show "Joan of Arcadia."

    I figure to love my neighbor as myself covers most everything.

    Blondie
  • wednesday
    wednesday

    It is so true, M, no wonder I always as a JWS, felt a fondness for the jews. It is like we were cousins.. Even now, i am confused as to what role jesus has in our worship. Is he just our role model, as jws would have u believe? Tjhe mediatro for just the 144,000? Currently someone suggested i pray to jesus. Thanks to jws, i have no concept of this at all, and tried but wondered in whose name i was prayiing, and it felt very strange. JWS have all but took jesus out of the equation.

  • dustyb
    dustyb

    Yes, he was the man who took another man's wife, made her pregnant, and then arranged for this man to be murdered to cover up his sin. Instead of Bathsheba or David dying, the innocent child died. This is the same king who knowingly had a census taken when God had forbidden it. When allowed to choose his punishment, he chose pestilence that led to the death of over 70,000 of innocent people. David and his family were not among the 70,000.

    I always kind of refer to David like bin Laden because they both worship who they call God/Allah, but they aren't willing to take their own responsibility. an innocent child died, david blatently disobey'd rules, and he would choose to kill 70,000 innocent people.

    Is David really a person to be looked up to?? If you are a terrorist or a heartless bastard, yea.

  • Mr. Kim
    Mr. Kim

    Blondie,

    Cool posts!

  • willyloman
    willyloman
    It should be abundantly clear that JWs are Neo-Judaizers masquerading as Christians.

    This point cannot be emphasized too much. Excellent posts in this thread, which help to explain why so many non-JW's believe that Witnesses aren't Christians. The confusion is the natural by product of JW teachings. This thought was a real eye opener for me.

    We were taught that people who said "you don't believe in Jesus" were simply brainwashed by Satan and Christendom and our job was to straighten them out by pointing out we were "the only people doing what Jesus commanded" by going door to door. In fact, there's no biblical evidence Jesus commanded any such thing, nor did he say this would be an identifying mark. There are a number of things he did command his followers to do but and serious and sustained discussion of these topics is largely missing from the scheduled meeting agenda at the KH.

  • itsallgoodnow
    itsallgoodnow

    I was really impressed with the slickness of this article, but in general, I'm just paying better attention to it, so they are probably all pretty slickly done. I don't mean that in a good way...

    What this article made me wonder about is all the references to David. Why are we supposed to see things only through David's eyes. What did David know? What was David referring to? ---- When they referenced the scripture about God being merciful and having loving kindness for all, they considered it only from David's viewpoint. What could this statement have meant for David, as if the only weight the statement could have is whatever it could have meant from David's standpoint. So what about "all scripture is inspired"? Maybe God had meant for that scripture to be there for other reasons... The conclusion they come to is that David could see how good God was because of the way he dealt with his people (and alternately, with people who disobeyed him) . See, that's where they are being slick.

    And I also noticed how they defined dignity as obedience to God. Is that dignity? I thought dignity was behaving in an honorable way, having a good character, grace. They are slick here because they are appealing to the R&F's elitist attitude. Well, dignity ain't that easy! It requires more than filling a seat at the KH and cooking numbers on a time report (admit it. we all did/do that).

    Thanks Blondie for all the notes!

  • sf
    sf

    Here is what came to my mindseye upon reading title of art(icle) blondie:

    "Jehovah Is Unsearchable"...

    So stay off the internet from now until New System...brothers and sisters...or else!

    Great stuff blondie. Thanks.

    May I paste these reviews in yahoo chat, as I do many others? I'm sure your threads will be a great addition. And also stir up lots of conversation.

    Ya think Gary? LOLOLOL

    sKally

  • blondie
    blondie

    Wednesday, what a dilemma:

    It is so true, M, no wonder I always as a JWS, felt a fondness for the jews. It is like we were cousins.. Even now, i am confused as to what role jesus has in our worship. Is he just our role model, as jws would have u believe? Tjhe mediatro for just the 144,000? Currently someone suggested i pray to jesus. Thanks to jws, i have no concept of this at all, and tried but wondered in whose name i was prayiing, and it felt very strange. JWS have all but took jesus out of the equation.

    I have been re-reading the Gospels and using several commentaries. It is helping clear out the cobwebs.

    Dustyb,

    Is David really a person to be looked up to??

    Why should the WTS use David when they have Jesus as a model? Because the WTS takes Jesus out of the equation.

    Thanks, Mr. Kim. Great hat.

    Willyloman,

    We were taught that people who said "you don't believe in Jesus" were simply brainwashed by Satan and Christendom and our job was to straighten them out by pointing out we were "the only people doing what Jesus commanded" by going door to door. In fact, there's no biblical evidence Jesus commanded any such thing, nor did he say this would be an identifying mark.

    No evidence that Jesus went from door to door either.

    Itsallgoodnow,

    And I also noticed how they defined dignity as obedience to God.

    Good point.

    Sf, I don't see why not. Let me know where you post it so I can take a peek.

    May I paste these reviews in yahoo chat, as I do many others?

    Blondie

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