So considering I have broken all of those rules - would beginning to follow them put me in more of a good standing?
JW Service
by skeason 57 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Badger
It's actually sheep and goats:
Sheep: JW's
Goats: Non-JW's
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Satanus
I once heard that they divide people into two groups wolves and lambs
It's an ongoing process that is not complete yet. Basically, people who respond positively are sheep, people who react negatively to their preaching are goats. We apostates are the wolves. They consider us to be worse than the average nonjw, because we know what the wt teaches and have rejected it.
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Gopher
I once heard that they divide people into two groups wolves and lambs - is that right?
Actually their terminology is "sheep and goats" based on Matthew 25:32. However their reasoning on that scripture has changed. They once believed that their preaching work was accomplishing the division of mankind into the sheep and goat "classes" of people. However they now believe that the actual division will occur later during the "great tribulation" which shortly precedes the destruction of all non-believing mankind. So people now are only 'sheeplike' or 'goatlike', but not actually divided.
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skeason
This is all very interesting - it is like I cannot hear enough - it is nothing like what you are led to believe
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Gopher
So considering I have broken all of those rules - would beginning to follow them put me in more of a good standing?
Technically, since you broke these rules while yet an "unbeliever", they don't hold them against you. After you get baptized, only then do all your actions fall under possible scrutiny by elders and fellow believers. You have to convince the JW elders that you've given up your worldly (non-JW) friends and habits before they would let a person (such as yourself) go out and share in their door-to-door ministry. That's right, you'd have to cease regular association with all your current friends.
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skeason
You pegged my question right on the nose - why would you not be able to associate with your old friends - wouldn't you have a greater chance of bringing them over to your "side" if you kept associating with them?
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Gopher
It seems so, doesn't it?
But their view is that such persons would exert an "unwholesome" influence on you and that the ONLY good association is to be found among those who have learned the "Bible-based" teachings of JW's.
Any contact you'd have with current or old friends would be expected to be for witnessing opportunities only.
JW's are the 'new family' for those who join them. Even ex-members in your family are to be avoided (or even shunned if they have an official congregation censure against them).
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skeason
I would think that once you had learned the basics of the Bible the way they wanted you to - you would be less apt to be influenced by outside sources and so why worry about it?
One last question and then I am off to work with many thanks and much appreciation. When is this day of Armageddon? When will the sheeplike people be saved?
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Gopher
I would think that once you had learned the basics of the Bible the way they wanted you to - you would be less apt to be influenced by outside sources and so why worry about it?
Yes, you'd think that anything so "truthful and logical" would hold up to any scrutiny, right? But they're so afraid of losing their members, that they prohibit them from reading about spirituality and doctrine from ANY source outside the Bible or their own publications. (They seem afraid that the logic of such 'outside' information would help any readers see that their brand of 'truth' really isn't that special.)
One last question and then I am off to work with many thanks and much appreciation. When is this day of Armageddon? When will the sheeplike people be saved?
The WTS has announced several possible dates for Armageddon, starting with 1914 and leading up to 1975 and even "before the end of the 20th century". They feel that the signs Jesus talked about in the 4 gospels plus the signs in Daniel and Revelation are all being fulfilled in our time and so the end is "soon" or "just around the corner". When I was growing up, the JW's believed that Armageddon was so near that I wouldn't graduate from high school before it came. Well now it's coming close to my 25-year reunion !! (Class of '79 here...) They used to teach that it was a "lifetime" or "generation" since the last days began (which according to their esoteric calculation is 1914, or about 90 years ago). But in 1995 they changed that teaching because that group of people alive in 1914 was dying off. So the answer: real soon. And you better believe it or you'll certainly displease Jehovah.