by Gill 11 Replies latest jw friends
I don't know whether this particular song is still in the new brown song book, but the chorus goes:
'Fear not those who kill the body, but cannot destroy the soul,
To the end continue faithful, I will bring you to your goal.'
What can a JW be thinking when they sing these words, or when they used to sing these words considering their views on the immortal soul?
Good question and I remember asking this years ago. The answer I got was pretty vague......they say that the term "soul" here means the persons "hope of a future resurrection" even though such a retarded idea is found nowhere in the scriptures.
This flies directly in contrast with what they say elsewhere about what the soul is:
WT 95/1 p. 21 Your View of the Soul Affects Your Life "....Clearly, the Bible’s use of ne´phesh and psy·khe´ shows that the soul is the person......It is not some immortal part of an individual...."
So on one hand, they said that the soul is something different than the body, but when it's convenient, they tell us that the soul is the person. This scripture, plus the illustration of the Rich Man and Lazarus are the two scriptures that Witnesses prefer to avoid. There is absolutely no reasonable argument as to why Jesus would use a (supposedly) false doctrine to support an illustration to his disciples, like he does in the illustration of the Rich Man and Lazarus.
There's just as many scriptures to "prove" that we have a soul or spirit that survives death, as there are scriptures that "prove" that we don't. That's why there's such a division amongst religions because the bible can be interpreted anyway you want it to.
Another scripture that they try to explain away by saying man was created with the four cardinal qualities of God (love, power, wisdom and justice) because it goes hand in hand with Matthew 10:28 is Genesis 1:27
Gen 1:27 (HCSB) So God created man in His own image;
He created him in the image of God;
He created them male and female.
Matt 10:28 (HCSB)
Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
I always hated singing that song, because it made me feel as if we were teaching one thing, and then singing another.......I never understood that song....but never asked about it.
Thanks for your thoughts!
I too have always switched off to the possible real meaning of this phrase.
What else can it possibly mean but an immortal soul. Just as in the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. It makes uncomfortable reading to any JW.
I didn't even realise!
But didn't we all used to stand there singing those words 'mindlessly' pretending we 'understood' what those words 'really meant' as only the FDS 'really' knew!
Then you get 'the dead are conscious of nothing.'!!!!!!
Then what do you do?
No wonder so many of them are on anti-depressants just to make it from day to day and from door to door. I always believed the ridicule from other people was because I was being faithful to Jehova. It was only after I had been out a while that I realised that I was only being faithful to an apostate group of deceitful old men in Crooklyn, NY
Hi Gill,
The WT has a number of definitions for 'soul':
Soul means the person himself (Eze 18:4)
Soul means emotions (Job 14:22)
Soul means future prospects for life (Matt 10:28)
Soul means life (Acts 20:10)
Soul means dead body (Num 19:13)
Soul means spirit plus the body (Genesis)
Soul means a breather (Gen 2:7)
Soul means blood (Gen 9:4)
Here's a link to my source:
http://hometown.aol.com/SmcDownLds/DownLdFIT.html
thinker
Thanks Thinker!
I'll read that up.
However, it seems to me that 'Soul' means whatever they want it to mean, whenever they want it to mean something.
Cunning little devils aren't they!
