Oh yeah, because there’s no doubt that I was much more funny before as a JW than I am now!
When you all left the truth.........
by defd 32 Replies latest jw friends
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fairchild
defd, why do I have a feeling that this topic resulted from the "hibbie and I are married" thread? I can see where such a thread might not be taken as a joke on JWD, although it was meant to be funny.
In or out of the truth, I've always had a great sense of humor and laugh a lot.
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jaffacake
Hi
I have not yet come across anyone on this forum that ever left the truth.
Can I ask about how you define the term truth please?
“Dearly beloved friends, don’t always believe everything you hear just because
someone says it is a message from God: test it first to see if it really is.” (1 John 4:1)
I have heard the term “the truth” so often recently, how do Jehovah’s Witnesses define “the truth”? I looked up these words in my dictionary:
Truth: the state or quality of being true
Error: a departure from the truth in a statement or in a belief
Err: to make a mistake, to be wrong
Under the dictionary definitions “the truth” cannot contain “errors”; truth and error are incompatible. This would suggest that the Biblical definition of truth would suggest infallibility. I can accept the Word of God as infallible, but many fallible humans interpret the Word of God in many different ways. Are the Scriptures truth? Can the Apostles’ interpretations of the Scriptures be accepted as truth? Do the Scriptures refer to any other source of truth? Could any of the above mentioned sources of truth contain error? If something described as “the truth” yesterday is acknowledged as error today, was it ever “truth”? By the same token, if “the truth” is what is being taught today, does that mean it will never be considered as “error” in the future?
If we are not very careful, the concept of truth could become pretty meaningless, and just about anyone could claim to be in “the truth”. I need to understand exactly what is meant by people who claim to be in “the truth”. Rightly or wrongly, my own feeling is that “truth” must be absolute and unchanging. When Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life...” I believe he meant an unchanging, eternal truth. What is the Watchtower’s definition of “the truth”?
Many, if not all religions, speak in the name of the truth, based on their understanding of the Bible, yet they all disagree with each other. It seems the Bible can be interpreted in different ways by imperfect humans. And what happens when we discover that “the truth” contains many “departures from the truth” or “errors”? Does this allow the possibility that such claims about “the truth” were false or mistaken? Can any religion really claim to have a monopoly on ‘truth’? How often can we alter 'truth'? And what is this I read about 'past truths' and 'former truths'?