careful

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Posts by careful

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  9

  2014 master thesis about JWs LOYALITY

  by fastJehu in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  interesting (internet) finding ... after all the bunker videos on the 2016 rc.. this master thesis tries to comprehend the concept of loyalty within the jehovah’s witnesses movement.

  what does ‘loyalty’ mean to jehovah’s witnesses?

  https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/32029/loyal%20to%20jehovah's%20good%20news%20-%20susanne%20kuipers.pdf.

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  careful

  This should be of interest to slimboyfat. I'll try to find the time to read it too.
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  61

  Did others experience this on the ministry or among JWs generally?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes it's hard to know if our own experience of jws was typical and what features were peculiar to our own area or the individual jws we knew personally.

  i was wondering if others experienced this among jws:.

  a few times on the ministry, when we were working wealthy areas with large houses, some brothers and sisters would make the comment that they look forward to taking ownership of one of these big houses after armageddon, when the worldly people have vacated them.

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  careful

  Sometimes the conversations would get specific about who is going to get which big house.
  

  
  I couldn't help but think of some well known characters in the Bible who did something similar:
  
  "The Zebedee boys came to Jesus and asked for the best spots in the kingdom … when the others heard about this, they got angry" etc. (Mark 10:35-44)
  
  Elsewhere Jesus called such places "abodes" or as the AV/KJV puts it, "mansions," John 14:2.
  
  There Jesus did take them to task for their "crass, selfish and pathetic attitude to have to fellow human beings," even their own brothers.
  
  I guess then we should expect the same thing today, eh?
  
  BTW in looking up these passages, I discovered that the RNWT has adopted the standard translation of many other Bibles at John 14:2, getting rid of the "many abodes" rendering for "many dwelling places." (NAB, NEB, NRSV)
  
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  6

  New revised silver jw bible?

  by hubert in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi my friends, i haven't been here in years.

  i am using an ipad mini, as my pc is too old to log me on, so messages will be short.

  i hear the jw' s have a new silver bible?

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  careful

  One good thing they got rid of was Freddie Franz's rendering of "proceeded to go," "continued to speak," etc. for the verbs throughout the Hebrew Bible. It has become more understandable in many places, but alas, with the real loss of meaning in many passages that others have already referred to above.

  As for a list of changes, that would be quite difficult since there are thousands.
  
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  19

  Question about 1940s Watchtower history

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was studying this fascinating composite graph of jw growth.

  lots of interesting things there.

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/demographics_of_jehovah%27s_witnesses#/media/file%3ajwstats1931-2015.png.

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  careful

  Just a thought: perhaps some JWs were so turned off by JFR that they dropped out and kept their own memorials in their own way. Then after his death they came back. He was pretty offensive to many.

  To support this there was a life story once in the WT back in the 50s or 60s of one such individual. The guy had been publicly humiliated by Rutherford, left the organization, and went out into the world and made big bucks as a successful businessman. Then after Knorr and Franz took over, both of whom knew that he'd been unjustly treated by JFR, the guy came back and all was forgiven. I was surprised that all this was published in a WT or Awake. That part about his crossing JFR was played down a bit in the article but was still there.I got the feeling that the life story was published as a service to the guy.
  

  Was he the only one who went through such an experience?
  
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  23

  Who was the poster who predicted radical Watchtower change years ago?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  who was the poster, about 8 years ago, who came on the forum and claimed he had inside information that the gb were planning radical changes.

  he said that in ten years time jws would be unrecognisable.

  many were skeptical.

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  careful

  Are you thinking of Juan Viejo2?
  
  It wasn't so long ago, certainly not 8, just 2 years. Has it been 8 years since the book study got the axe? Maybe I'm just getting too old and suffering from time warp-age, or whatever it's called, but it doesn't seem like it been that long.
  
  https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/277270/will-firing-dos-first-step-new-watchtower
  
  BTW, I know I owe you a reply. I will get to it soon.
  
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  16

  Video about boy to not play violin?

  by Crazyguy in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  it looks to me as though they are saying don't play at a higher level because your then in competition?

  so if i'm correct what if any bible scriptures can be used to back up this anti competitive idea and are there other scriptures showing the opposite?.

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  careful

  I knew brothers who had formal music education beyond the high school level, one who is surely still in, so I suspect it is indeed as the above two posters take it: worldly association is the threat.
  
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  38

  Loyalty? Today's WT The RC. It's a fix!

  by Slidin Fast in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  today's wt has the below scripture as it's theme.

  friday of the rc has the same as it's theme.

  the silver nwt is alone in using the word loyalty in this verse.

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  careful

  Slidin Fast, thanks for the post. It is good to get input on changes in the rev. NWT. Some have been good, some, bad.

  It is also good to have an informed background on the matter. As jwfacts brings out, it is not as simple as just bashing the WT again. Why would those translators he mentions also have the rendering "loyalty" (ERV, MSG) and "faithfulness" (HCSB,NET) if this were some WT oddity? He could have added the reading I find in my NASB: while they render the Heb. word as "kindness" in the main text, they offer "loyalty" in the margin.

  Thus it looks, Slidin Fast, like your check of 37 translations was incomplete. Obviously something bigger than the WTS is going on here. For a informed background on the matter, one needs to read the entry on the Heb. word involved, hesed, in vol. 1 of the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (or TWOT, 1980), written by one of its main editors, R. Laird Harris. He explains that the famous Heb. scholar Nelson Glueck (pronounced as "glick") wrote his dissertation (1927), later turned into an English book (1967), on this word. Harris describes Glueck's work as "a watershed in the discussion." Glueck argued for a "loyalty" meaning based on covenant obligations. Some scholars have later accepted or rejected his argumentation. Even one of his detractors, Kathryn Sakenfeld, believes that "prophetic usage includes faithfulness" (p. 305). This then explains why some would include this translation in the one of the prophets, Micah.
  

  I am not defending the rev. NWT. There are plenty of faults in it. But a simplistic bashing of the WT again here is uninformed. A person wanting the facts should read Harris's article. It's only about 5 columns on 3 pages. BTW, for those using Strong's numbering system, his 2617 = 698 in the TWOT.
  

  I hope this is helpful for those who really want to know the facts...
  
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  17

  Are JWs now encouraged to volunteer?

  by Athanasius in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  after i retired i volunteered for several community service programs, including working with the local food bank.

  every fourth thursday of each month i help out in distributing food to needy families at the local veterans building.

  i've been helping out for five years now.

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  careful

  I knew a pioneer couple who volunteered at a local food co-op. I belonged too and they did not use their time there to witness. Rather they just did work there handling food, filling bins, etc.
  
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  20

  Circuit Overseer Coming For Lunch – Everything Has to be Perfect

  by SAHS in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we have the circuit overseer’s visit this week, and my folks are having him and his wife over for lunch today.

  of course, i’m making it a point of hightailing it out of there to have my lunch elsewhere.

  when my mom asks me “why don’t you stay and meet him,” i just say, “well, he’s just a man like everybody else.” she says, “well, of course.

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  careful

  SAHs, funny!
  
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  29

  One Person Baptized at Circuit Assembly

  by Simon Templar in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i went to the circuit assembly with my wife yesterday.

  i have to keep peace in the family.

  there were less than 1,000 people for both the morning and the afternoon sessions.

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  careful

  Are they now running out of children? Maybe they'll start baptizing infants?