by eyeslice 17 Replies latest jw friends
Eyes,
Me thinks thou confuseth the "good news" with the crap that the witlesses peddle. If the standard is to reach every person, it will never happen. People propagate faster than the publishing trust can get their sales staff to them. Might as well acknowledge the idea and get on with a different paradigm.
caveman
About 2 years ago, the Society said that every territory had been preached in the 12 months of the service year, except about 2. And these 2(?) were going to be worked at beginning of the service year. Although India and China are not Christian countries. theres a possibility the can really grow there. Take Japan for instance.
The population is growing faster than they can preach or increase their preaching. They will never do it.
SS
Nope the watchtower been saying for a while they are not even trying. The preaching work will go on indefinitely regardless.
If the WTS imagine they're going to achieve it, then they should think again!
Their very own statistics show their "reach" is actually declining, not increasing! In fact, if their promised Big A was so close, you'd expect that more of the earth had been witnessed to by now.
As a case in point, my own enquiries in New South Wales (Australia's most populous state) have shown me that there is a large percentage of the population who've never heard of Jehovah or "His Witnesses". Now if that's true here after much more than a century of witnessing, what chance has the whole earth got?
Ozzie
The versus you quote are from Pauls epistles because he was selected by God through Jesus to be an apostle to the nations and was on the road for over 15 years before going back to jerusalem to tell certain men fromJudea about teaching you had to get circumcised before you can be saved.Acts 15:1
That so called G.B. back there on sittng on their hands apparently had forgotten Jesus injuction " go and make disciples of peoples of all the nations "until Paul and Barnabas were sent to Jerusalem by the Cong. to straighten them out on the matter of circumcision.Acts:15:14 tells the OLDER MEN ,hey guys you got it all wrong and James speaks up and says ,you are right and Quotes the text " to take out a people of the nations for his name just as it is written"
So as an Apostle to the nations different translations render world Rom1:8 "everywhere "and Rom. 10 :18 their voice went out into all the "earth" and their words unto the "ends "of the world. Phillips Modern English
Rom 16:25,,26 is a final warning that the word has gone out disclosing the secret after long ages of silence ,has now been made known ,in full agreement with the writings of the prophets long ago by command of the everlasting God to all the Gentiles that they might turn to him in obebience and faith.
And Colossians shows that the secret or mystery has been revealed in the gospel and has been heard and preached,but how many respond is the Question and contnue in the faith. Preach is to proclaim , teach is to instruct.
I think the WT spin is misleading Don
YES, has been and is, but NOT in the way JWs think, nor will it be 'finished' by them. Why did God invent TV? Internet? Satellite Dishes? (Saw on Christian TV just today that a Satellite Dish/Receiver/and all the works that go with it, sell for $110 in Iraq. And in those countries, one person with a dish draws a mob of friends and family in to watch.)
And I've seen/heard testimonies up the kazoo of people in China, Iraq, Iran, etc., where people gather together in homes with whoever has the satellite dish, and they 'all get saved' from learning about Jesus on TV (they then seek out churches to associate with, or can send for copies of Bibles and bible literature, etc.)
While JWs have been knocking on a few doors all these years, TV is making a huge impact on reaching people with the 'good news about Jesus', along with the Internet ministries, and massive "open air" Jesus conferences in the "poorer" countries like India, Africa, Russia, China, Korea, etc. I'm not saying these 'TV preachers" are the 'true religion' either, but at least they are 'smart enough' to use these technologies in an INTERACTIVE WAY with the masses of people (via prayer lines, #800s, free literature, etc. etc.) and not like WTS' website which is a dead-end street (NON-interactive, what a turn off), and in it's 100+ year history, hasn't gotten it's butt on TV yet (I'm not referring to their measely 30-second PSA infomercials, but if they REALLY wanted to reach people, they would be airing their public talks, bible lectures, assemblies, etc. on TV and Radio since almost everyone either has a TV or they can go to the 'public square' to watch one'; and certainly everyone has a radio... yes I know JFR was on radio back in the old days, so why did they stop? Wasn't too smart of them, imho). This business about HAVING to go house to house and/or 'brainwash' the individual on an individual basis in their home is not necessarily the ONLY WAY to preach/teach somebody about Jesus.
THOUSANDS would gather around Jesus in HIS day and 'hear the word' and 'get saved,' same in Acts (large crowds got saved at a time). So it is the same today...
As an example (and please wait for the point to be made ;-), "Pastor" (notice the quotes) Benny Hinn was just in India for 3 days and 4.8 MILLION people attended his conferences over those 3 days, with 2 MILLION attending on one day alone. Now that's reaching some sheep! And he's not the only one who is and HAS BEEN for a long time going 'throughout all the world' in this manner. I am not saying Benny Hinn is 'for real,' but who knows? Maybe God IS using some of these folks to "get the word out," and it is truly quite humbling to see the massive crowds of sincere, praying, men/women/children in the audiences. And let's not assume it's just a bunch of illiterate brainless peasants in those crowds either being 'conned' by the man in the white suit LOL, as there are doctors, lawyers, politicians, scientists, and other educated ones in these countries converting to Jesus at these huge gatherings. I think it's quite amazing and wonderful and just scratch my head in disbelief how we (as JWs) and the WT were/are so IN THE DARK about what's really going on in the world, news-wise/prophecy-wise, and 'preaching the good news' -wise. At the rate the JWs are going, it'll never happen.
And even if Hinn is a 'phoney,' that doesn't mean all the sincere seekers are 'phonies' in their hearts. When I see these huge crowds, I just pray God will know their hearts, that at least they are making effort to know/learn about Jesus, and if the 'man on the stage' is a phoney, that God NOT destroy those masses of humble people in the audiences. I mean, wasn't it Abraham who prayed if there was ONE righteous man in the crowd for God to save the whole lot of them?
As for India, there's another huge org, GOSPEL FOR ASIA.org, that is working hard over there, training local converts to become ministers themselves, plant local churches, travel the country to preach, etc. It was founded by a local man from there, I forget his name. I respect what he's doing, though he believes in that 'burning in hell' business which I still can't wrap my mind around that one. :-/ His book about his conversion and ministry, though, is quite touching and humbling and reminds us how 'easy' we have it over here in the good ol' USA.
Saw another humble man on TV today who has a huge TV following in Brazil. He said when he was 11 years old, someone took him to a town where they had a TV in the public square, and he was so astonished how all the people were mesmerized by the TV, and what he said to God in that moment was, "Lord, all these people glued to this TV, yet the TV is not teaching anything about you." He said on that day he made a vow in his heart to God that's what he would do when he grew up, was to preach about God on TV. He has a show in Spanish/Portuguese which they do air here locally.
So, one way or another, the masses are being reached, and, imho, it won't take toooo long using all the means/inventions available for decades now, to those willing to make use of them.
Oh well, just my 2, make that 25 cents in reply to the question. ;-)
Grits
The Answer is YES it was, Yes it will be and NO.
First, the Good News really is about Jesus and the Salvation by means of him. The Kingdom or the government that is set up is secondary, however because JWs believe they have a specail role in preaching the Good News about the Kingdom and not just the Good News about Jesus they concentrate on the limited undertanding of the term.
Using traditional JW typology, JWs say there were two fullfillments of Matthew/Jesus's words.
The first occurred in 70 CE when by the time the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, they assert the Good News had been preached to the Jewish World. They must use this interpretatoin of "the end" (end of Jewish system of things or state) and "throughout the earth" (Jewish World) because obviously by 70 CE the gospel hadn't reached many populations in existence (for example in the Americas.)
So JWS say Yes it Was fulfilled.
As for the later-day fullfillment as JWs believe, in general they believe that it will be fulfilled with a Yes but they also have an odd belief that they actually do not expect to fullly complete the work. Currently JWs retain the belief that Jesus' words at Matthew 10:23 indicate that the apostle's successors (the FDS class) will not "complete the circuit" of the cities (that is population) before the Son of Man (Jesus) returns. This ties into their interpretaton of the scripture that says the days of tribulation will "cut short on account of the holy ones" (Great Tribulation and some of the Anointed passing through). Incidently the last vestige of a biological clock for Armageddon among JWs.
But again the true understanding of the term Good News is to apply this to the gospel about Jesus. True not every person will have heard the message but all of the nations of the earth have presently been introduced to the Bible and certainly the Gospel about Jesus will have truly been preached to all the inhabited earth before the end comes or he returns.
So the answer is Yes it will be fulfilled, although JWS have a qualified No answer which is why the answer is also No according to them.
