Last night....did not go well at all, at least in my opinion. I feel that the sister from her conversations with my wife started on a quite defensive mode....did my best to stay level headed, but I know there were times I was frustrated, and it showed.
The husband and wife were about 40 minutes late, due to traffic, and they were not prepared to discuss Michael/Jesus, and with respect to the doctrine change, he merely provided me a 1995 and 1997 WT article, when he and I spoke on the phone, he said he was going to show me in the bible, he sort of danced around this a lot, but not to my satisfaction.
For a little background on him, he and his wife have been married for 37 years, and he has been pretty much a life long JW, parents became JW when he was two years old.
After he introduced the WT articles, I did ask him if he was disappointed that the change in understanding was made, he said he was not, but of course some were, but we are still far in the last days.....Well I finished with generation by asking if there have been other instances of Generation change and he sort of stumbled and said that there were around 1914, because at one time people thought that is when the end was going to be.....the watchtower articles were just the ones talking about how there is more clarity on the definition of generation...forgot to bring them with me today. He finished on this by stating that there has been no change in 1914.
He was able to use this string of discussion to his full advantage because he went into the Proverbs 4:18 discussion on new light (which I am not at all prepared to talk about) as well as making the point how it is so great that the Jehovah's Witnesses are willing to adjust their doctrines as there is more 'studying' that is done, and how fortunate that we are in this period of enlightenment to have almost 2000 years of information to learn from. The PO said that in order to serve God how he approves, we need to be willing to make changes - sometimes drastic, sometimes subtle. My wife really ate this up and afterwards commented on how she never really thought about it, but it is quite great that they are able to make changes....what would a good answer have been for this??
With respect to generation, he did talk a bit about the parable of the wheat and the chaff, why there were so many year since Jesus prior to the harvest starting (which we are in now), in the doctrine of the JWs, did this start in 1914/1918?
He and his wife also talked about how the Bible is to this day a book that folks need to be using for guidance, how the witnesses have not made changes of what is in the bible to align themselves with the present society, examples he used were women preaching, subjection of women to their husband, homosexuality, and even somehow or other folded in the door to door preaching.
When we were talking about the Bible, somehow or other we got on the topic of translation and I was noting how each bible footnotes slightly different things and I stated my viewpoint that the Bible is the inspired word of God, but there may be issues with man putting the word on paper, well this got quite a reaction from all parties....I don't think any of the three at the table do a careful job of looking over or reviewing anything, my wife really wondered why I was taking the time to look at the scripture referenced by some verses....I find that a quite fascinating aspect of the book the intertwining of the NT and OT.
We talked a bit about the need for a congregation or a group to be saved, he referred to Hebrews 10:23-25 which talks about the benefits of congregations of like faith being good for worship and he talked about how the disciples were responsible for calling people of like faith together. We talked about if the Bible is all that is needed for salvation, and he danced around this, but he feels that it could be and there have been examples of this through history, I believe this is when the conversation started to head south.
Last week with his wife, I had asked about the history of the organization and she said she could get me a proclaimers book, and also I followed up on a conversation I had with another sister my wife had studied with who was to provide me a list of Trinity references. When we finished the above discussion, I asked if he was able to get me the references and the Proclaimers book and neither were provided, but he still is going to try to get me the book. To my surprise he said I may be able to find the references to the Trinity brochure on the internet. With respect to the Trinity brochure, I should not have mentioned the Trinity this, because at this point it became quite confrontational, and somewhat a Trinity bashing, Lutheran bashing session, questioning the use of women clergy, the belief in three Gods, and the sacrament of communion.
At this point the wife of the PO asked what was my purpose of studying, I told her I thought it was prudent to learn as much as I could about the JWs and also this is giving me a cause to go back and learn about my faith. She left it at that, after a few more Trinity jabs....I took the high ground, though not easy.
At that point I knew I had lost it and this was not going to work out for the best. I also asked if the JWs were a spin off of the Christadelphians or the Adventists, he said that they have been around since the time of Chirst, there has always been a small group studying the Bible like it was intended to be studied.
At the end there was one glimmer of light, the PO started talking about how the JWs are preaching the good news throughout the earth, and he talked about China and some of the other harder to reach places. I asked him what the good news is, he read Is 61:1-2 and could not get his bearings on the NT equivalents......this is not the good news preached by Jesus...
All through the time he talked about the benefit of curriculm study...he really would be much more comfortable with the Bible Teach book, I can tell he and she were uncomfortable with the open format, and with him not being prepared, the 'wide open' format was awful for me as well, since I was also totally unprepared.
Afterwards my wife was really pretty agitated and also pretty hyped up on the JWs, she talked about how it is the only truth, why I can not understand it is the truth etc. She asked why I can not just take the time and study the books, I told her I am willing to read the Bible with her, but if I am going to read the books provided by the WTS with her, she needs to be open to other sources of information as well...never got a yes on this, but also never got a no. She did get a little more calm after a while and asked me what other questions I have. I spoke again about 1914 and she really wonders why that is such an important piece of information to me. I told her that it was a very peculiar facet of the JWs and with the television shows that have been on about the end of the world lately, and with this unique teaching, it just draws my attention.
Any thoughts on this, I don't feel good about this at all. Where should I go from here. I think the sister is setting up a separate BS for her and my wife and we may do this 'couples' study or converstion a few more times.
Thanks,
ISOT
