As A JW, Did You Ever Really Love Jesus? (page 3)

tetrapod.sapien

no, never felt any love for him, even on memorial occasions when we talked about him the most. i loved the org more than i loved jesus. he seems like a lovable guy. but for me, it would be like having love for zeus.

AnnOMaly

El blanko

Jesus became an afterthought and the stamp I put on each little envelope of prayer sent to Jah.

LOL Very true.

Hi Eu!

How have you been?

Actually, while the NT contains many references to Christ's love, and the love that Christians should have, explicit references to love for Christ seem to be rather rare. John 8:42, John 21:15ff, and Philemon 5 were the only ones I could find.

Yes that is rather strange. The greatest commands are to love God and neighbor. Where's the love directed to Jesus in the NT, if he is the center of believers' faith? As you say: rather rare. And it's mostly John who emphasizes it. I got John 8:42; 14:15-24; 21:15f; Eph. 6:24; Philemon 5; 1 Pet. 1:7,8 as the only references. Of course, it's not an issue if Jesus = Jehovah.

Here's something I hadn't noticed before. In a recent WT article it said, "the only thing of real value that [a Christian] possesses is his relationship with Jehovah and with Jesus." Relationship with Jesus?! Huh? Do my eyes deceive me? Well on a CD-ROM investigation this phrase is not unheard of in WTS literature, but a relationship with Jesus is only mentioned about 26 times as opposed to the well over 2100 times a relationship with Jehovah is! And not all of the 'relationship with Jesus' references are relating to present-day Christians' relationship with him.

But then the question arises, how are Christians supposed to have a relationship with Jesus without talking to him?

For example, when discussing a relationship with Jehovah,

w66 10/1 p. 604 Serving with Everlasting Life in View
If we do not constantly put Jehovah before us in prayer we cannot fulfill our dedication vows, because it just is not possible to have a close, warm, personal relationship with someone unless you constantly talk to him. We all know what happens when family members stop talking to each other. Their relationship breaks up. If we were ever to allow this to happen to our relationship to Jehovah it would be fatal to our hopes of everlasting life.

And in the NT there are scant instances of talking to the post-ascension Jesus. Again, not an issue for Trinnies, but for non-Trinnies ... it throws up some inconsistencies.

ChrisVance

But then the question arises, how are Christians supposed to have a relationship with Jesus without talking to him?

But then the questions arises, if you can have a relationship with someone who never talks to you, why can't you have a relationship with someone you don't talk to?

AnnOMaly

Chris

LOL! I guess I set myself up for that one!

minimus

Hey, if you loved Jehovah, you had to love Jesus, right?

tetrapod.sapien

:Hey, if you loved Jehovah, you had to love Jesus, right?

no, because God already had jesus killed once. therefore he really didn't love jesus since all he had to do was freaking forgive us in the first place, instead of spilling blood. what sort of example is that? if jehovah didn't love jesus, why should i?

Sunspot

it felt a little bit like Jesus was redundant--everything that was attributed to him was attributed to Jehovah, and vice-versa.

This is pretty much how I felt too. I was disgusted at having to go through the Greatest Man book a third time, and I still never felt really connected to Jesus as a JW.

That has certainly changed now. Someone from H2O had told me to re-read the bible (preferably not the NWT) and you'll get a whole new appreciation and respect for Jesus when you do that. I didn't believe him, but eventually I did, and he was right. All KINDS of new stuff practically jumped off the pages at me, much of it I had obviously already read---but the meaning was different.

Better late than never. I feel sorry for the die-hard JWs who'll never know the real Jesus, what his teachings really were, and what he means to each of us personally.

Annie

minimus

Nah. You miss the point. Jesus IS Jehovah.

jaffacake

AnnOmallys post prompts some questions about the lack of references to loving Jesus unless Jesus=Jehovah.

Perhaps many of the references to Lord in the New Testament are references to Jesus, not Jehovah? After all, one man - Fred Franz - was responsible for inserting the name Jehovah in 237 places where it does not exist in a single ancient manuscript of the Christian Greek Scriptures.

I recently learned (by following up Kingdom Interlinear J-References) that Jehovah references came from modern trinitarian hebrew translations. The ancient manuscripts do not contain the Divine name AT ALL and the original authors never used it. Heck many whole books, even in NWT don't contain it at all. For those who believe the Bible is inspired, what does that tell us about the nature or importance of Jehovah/Jesus.

How many times does Jesus name appear in NT (nearly 1000) And Jehovah (zero) except in NWT (237).

BTW, many Christians (myself included) may not be trinitarians, yet still believe Jesus was more than just a man. Why else would even Witnesses have worshiped him in days gone by?

kwintestal

Who was Jesus anyway? Oh, the guy on that book, right.

Kwin

As A JW, Did You Ever Really Love Jesus?

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