maybe someone can explian to me the meaning of paul words.
when i saw this many elders came to mind.diotrephes elders.
Jam,
maybe someone can explian to me the meaning of Paul words. When I saw this many elders came to mind.Diotrephes elders.The Apostle Paul did not write 3 John. The Apostle John wrote it. Yes, the application could be made to JW Elders, or at least a good number of them, as well as Circuit Overseers, District Overseers, and even the Governing Body.
Jim Whitney
for all the years you were in the borg, i was wondering how many of you received a friendly shepherding call from the elders?
.
that was part of their responsibility as elders but in over 30 years i never received one and i found that was the case with many in the cong.. did you regularly receive a visit?
I was in for 27 years, and received a total of 5 shepherding visits. 3 of those 5 visits were in the last year I was a JW, and were not to really "encourage" me, but to determine my status as a potential apostate.
While I was an Elder in the 1980s, I went on many shedherding visits. What we did was looked at the congregation in three groups, 1.) Excellent Examples, doing very well, 2.) Average, doing okay, 3.) Weak, needing assistance.
We scheduled our shedherding calls on the "weak" as we were trying to keep within Jesus words of leaving the 99 to find the one sheep who strayed. So, if you were an average to strong JW, this is likely why you received fewer or no visits. Once in a great while we would get the notion that the strong need encouragement too, so we would schedule them in as well.
We had a body of Elders of 7 or 8. We often had 5 or 6 Elders show up for shedherding, and we took along 2 to 4 Ministerial Servants for training. So, we might have 5 pairs, and meet with two families per week each, for a total of ten families. Over a month that was forty families, or just about the entire congregation. That was the ideal schedule. It never worked that way for all kinds of reasons. I would say that at our best we covered the entire congregation once a year.
Jim Whitney
i could no sooner kill a dog much less a human but the god of death yearns to destroy 6 billion plus humans to uphold his sovernity.
the omnipotent god, sees all, knows all just to watch his creation live and die and yet does nothing to stop it.
would you, stop it if you could.
Hi Ken P.,
Amazing you make a few good points but what I can't really understand is why nature,most wild animals etc. which have no choice are more cruel in their actions than humans.
Animals were designed to survive on instinct, not intelligence. We could also argue that they evolved as they did, but I would want to know why more animals have not evolved more intelligence. Not all animals are so cruel, as you put it. But, for animals, killing their prey to eat is no different than humans who hunt and kill to eat ... or humans who raise animals for slaughter and eating. We just do it more proficiently.
And also the natural disasters, viruses, mosquitos which according to TV has killed half of all humans who have lived. Who was responsibile for all this, not humans, so it must have been God.
I agree with your comment about nature causing human death. Nature was designed and installed by God. It is a problem for me to explain to myself much less anyone else. The tsunami that killed about 250,000 people in the area of the Indian ocean two years ago is a powerful example of your point. Yet, some people still blam humans for causing it because they believe that we are screwing up the weather. They failed to note that the tsunami was caused by a huge undersea earthquake that shifted the rotation of the planet. To date, no religion or system of philosophy has given good reasons for why God placed us in harms way. We have enough problems as it is without facing such monumental disasters.
Also when God chose a tribe of people they were used to kill continually the other nations and then God turned on them when they didn't meet his every demand.
God even kept Israel well trained by retaining some nations to war with Israel ... so that Israel would stay battle ready at all times That is plainly taught in the Old Testament. I think that much of the Bible is far more human works than that of God ... but then again, what part is of God and what part is not? As for God turning on them ... well Israel turned on God every bit as much ... it was a love-hate relationship.
It's hard to see this loving God that so many say he gave his son so he could forgive us of something we didn't do.
On this part, the Eastern Orthodox have a different view of Jesus becoming human and then dying for us. I would need to make a separate post, as it would require some discussion and citing source references. But, in short, the Western Christian view is that Jesus had to pay a legal debt to free us from bondage. The Eastern Orthodox view is that Jesus would have come to earth whether we sinned or not ... because his purpose was to join the human to the divine. His death was more about sharing in every aspect of humanity, including pain, suffering, and death. In both Catholic and Orthodox theologies, our nature is not to be humans forever, but rather to get through this life to our real goal of our full spiritual nature. Jim Whitney
i'm not sure if anyone's posted this yet, but here are the figures for the 2006 service report.
i highlighted the countries that have either a "0" or negative growth in yellow and i highlighted key countries where the you would expect more growth......i tried looking for england's stats, but i couldn't see it.
i looked under "england" and "united kingdom" but i can't see it.
Hi Mary,
England is under "B" for Britain. I first tried Great Britain, but I guess the Society does not think that merry old England is all that great! Anyway, a couple of others did post the report. But I am enjoying going through your highlights, as it is very telling of what is going on in Watchtower growth and non-growth.
Jim Whitney
PS: Whoops, it looks like you already learned about "Britain" while I was typing my post.
i could no sooner kill a dog much less a human but the god of death yearns to destroy 6 billion plus humans to uphold his sovernity.
the omnipotent god, sees all, knows all just to watch his creation live and die and yet does nothing to stop it.
would you, stop it if you could.
Zeroday,
I can appreciate your need to vent at what seems like a God who is distant. Taking another look at your comments, maybe we can see things differently:
I could no sooner kill a dog much less a human but the God of Death yearns to destroy 6 billion plus humans to uphold his sovernity.God is not going to do that to us, it is a Watchtower fiction. I could kill an animal to eat it were I in that kind of need. Do we eat steaks, fried chicken, bacon? We are eating animals slaughtered and butchered just for the purpose of food. Do we drink milk, eat cheese on pizza, or enjoy scrambled eggs? We are eating the products that animals produce for their own young, or to have their own offspring. I could kill a human who was raping a child, or about to blow up a building full of people, or was holding hostages, or trying to kill me or my children.
The omnipotent God, sees all, knows all just to watch his creation live and die and yet does nothing to stop it.What do we do to stop it? Why bitch at God when we start it and continue it?
Would you, stop it if you could. Why? God does not why would youI have stopped what I can it in my own life. I am not sure that any more can or should be done. God has his own reasons, and I am not convinced that just because God does or does not do something, that it necessarily applies to me in the same way.
What is God's will to grant us free will just to watch us die is that it. Who here could create life just to stand back and watch it self destruct and do nothing to stop it.Do you have children? When they become adults, as mine have, you find that as a parent you want to step in and say things, or take action. But they tell you to mind your own damn business. We humans essentially, and collectively, beg for God's help, but then we refuse the help he offers. We essentially tell God to mind his own business. We do not even try to act like God. If we did, we would not have wars and murders and violence and rape.
And yet the bible says we are so much lower than God. What is that higher level of understanding us mere humans don't understand that could stand back and watch this uter destruction and do nothing. The GOD of LOVE I don't think so more the GOD OF DEATH...Nowhere does the Bible say that God is higher than us. That is a conclusion we have drawn. The very Son of God took it upon himself to become one of us, and humans killed him. If God is the God of death, then we are acting no better. We have no reason to complain, not until we stop war, stop crime, stop vilence, stop murder, stop robbery, stop anger, stop abuse, stop rape. Hell, most people can't even get along in civil discussion on a discussion board. Once we have shown how damn good and righteous we are, then maybe we will have the right to bitch at God ... a person whom we have never seen, heard, or even touched. Jim Whitney
my grandfather was in pearl harbor.
he is 87 years old.
he can still remember it like yesterday and his stories send shivers down your spine.. pleas take a moment to remember the sacrifice many made.
Woodsman,
And while the Japanese may have felt the Nuclear weapons were not a fair trade for Pearl Harbor I was under the impression they were not so much payback as a prevention of a land invasion. Perhaps both.
You are 100% correct ... and to end the war early. Many at the time believed that the Japanese would never have surrendered, and the war would have lasted months or years longer ... with tens of thousdands to a hundred thousand or more American casualties.
Jim Whitney
i always assume that people with real pics for their avatars are pics of that poster.
obviously that's not always the case.
i'm curious about whose pic is really them.
My Avitar is pretty much like me, except my skin is more purple than blue.
Jim Whitney
the reason i ask is i know my father possibly visited them and would like to see if i could find what he wrote about.
he always talked about a lot of the issues discussed here, but no one in the family would listen to him.
i've done a lot of googling but can't seem to locate anything.. he died in 1999. it's a long shot but it doesn't hurt to try.
As others pointed out, H20 was the premier site until JWD came along, and you can find the archives. ... but ...
There was also Eden Outpost, sometimes known as E20 ... it is still on line
and there was Jerusalem Outpost, sometimes known as J20, it is gone, but there may be archives.
Prior to these was "Jesus Witnesses, but I have no clue is archives exist. AlanF may know. Just look him up on JWD under "members" and send him a PM.
JIm Whitney
PS: What was your father's screen name? We had one very popular man on H20 who was building the archives. He died in his mid 40s. I wonder if he was the same person.
what "thing" could happen to make someone decide to leave the organization for good??
?
Hi Min,
I imagine that for some it only takes one or two "things" but for others, it may take many "things" over several years. For me, and most ex-JWs I know, it is a series of "things" that add up over time. When I read Ray Franz second book, In Search of Christian Freedom, it was perhaps the one "thing" that put me over the top, and allowed me to begin the process of leaving the JWs. I am willing to bet that if ALL JWs could read one or both of Ray Franz' books, that would be enough for a large percentage to leave.
Jim Whitney
my grandfather was in pearl harbor.
he is 87 years old.
he can still remember it like yesterday and his stories send shivers down your spine.. pleas take a moment to remember the sacrifice many made.
Free2beme,
Oh, and as a final thought. The Japanese feel that what we did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was not a fair trade to Pearl Harbor. Although, the commander of the Japanese forces was quoted to have said, after the attack, "... we have awoken a Giant" and they did ... they reaped a huge revenge upon their nation for there cowardly move.
I enjoyed your comments. Just some additional thoughts:
Prior to the war, American servicemen, mostly pilots and mechanics, resigned from the US military to join the Chinese Air Force as mercenaries. China was being wiped out, and needed experienced pilots. The United States supplied the planes as well. Some historical revisionists use these events, and some issues with supply embargoes to try and blame the United States for provoking Japan.
The Truth is Japan was a vicious and wicked agressive nation that was raping China and the entire eastern Pacific region. They were bruttal and tortured men, women and children. They literally raped and pillaged. It was the motto of the Japanese militrary to bomb, pillage, and rape. They would not quit fighting, and were preparing even their children to fight shold the United States military enter their home land. They were warned prior to the Atom bomb being dropped that a terrible weapon was going to be used and to surrender. They did not, and they were bombed. They still refused to surrender, so a second bomb was dropped. They finally got the clue and surrendered.
Today, Japanese people are only taught the horrors of what happened to them, and they do not teach their children what their people did to cause the war and the wicked treatment Japan caused to other nations, especially Korea and China. To this day, Japan has never apologized to China or Korea for the raping of their nations. Even here in America, there is tension and hatred to this day between Koreans and Japanese. After the war, America treated Japan very well and rebuilt their nation. The Japanese were expecting a harsh retribution, but America was kind, and this surprised them.
Jim Whitney
