under_believer

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Posts by under_believer

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  30

  What must a brother do to become a MS and Elder the fastest possible

  by JH in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ok experienced ones, tell me what a brother must do to make it to the top the fastest possible

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  under_believer

  ANSWER ONE

  LH, as we know, the Holy Spirit is the force that appoints men to be ministerial servants and elders. They are not appointed by other men; it may appear that way, but the Holy Spirit is just using those men to make the appointment. Let's see what God's Inspired Word, the New World Translation, says about the requirements to be a ministerial servant, in 1 Tim. 3:

  8 Ministerial servants should likewise be serious, not double-tongued, not giving themselves to a lot of wine, not greedy of dishonest gain, 9 holding the sacred secret of the faith with a clean conscience.
  10 Also, let these be tested as to fitness first, then let them serve as ministers, as they are free from accusation. [...]
  12 Let ministerial servants be husbands of one wife, presiding in a fine manner over children and their own households.

  Okay, so what does the Holy Spirit require...

  • You may not tell jokes.
  • You may not posess more than one tongue.
  • You may not drink a lot of wine.
  • You can't be greedy of dishonest gain. Greed for honest gain, on the other hand, is permitted.
  • You must keep your faith a secret, and do so conscientiously.
  • You must be able to bench at least 175; and run 5 miles. There will be a test given to determine this.
  • If anyone accuses you of anything, you're out. It doesn't matter whether the accusation is true.
  • You must have a wife (only one, mind you), and children.

  There, you got that stuff? Then you can be a ministerial servant.
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  80

  BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS Twisting a life-affirming law into death

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  turning a life affirming rule into a death-dealing policy is an amazing accomplishment.

  we can thank the watchtower society for a mindset which makes this possible.. i've gone into great detail before about the watchtower blood policy itself.

  it is a blatant and deliberate publicity stunt which takes the rather simple prohibitions of the laws of noah for gentiles on murder .

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  under_believer

  i dont like smokers, well there habit but im not going to attack them and say they are killing there children through passive smoke

  You don't have to say it: Science has already proved it. See how that works? There is this amazing method, called the scientific method, that can help us to answer questions like that. That way we can rely on facts and proof, rather than our opinions or biases.
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  2

  I thought I saw Gumby (aka Elvis has left the building)

  by MsMcDucket in

  1. social
  2. current

  .

  at walmart.

  he offered to help me put an air conditioner into the shopping cart.. where have you seen gumby?

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  under_believer

  He's supposed to be Amish. Some say his father was Dutch. Nobody ever believed he was real. Nobody ever knew him or saw anybody that worked directly for him. But to hear Kiel tell it, anybody could work for Gumby. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
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  80

  Be Honest: Did You ACTUALLY Report Accurate Field Service Time?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i bet most people did not.

  i think nearly everyone counted time spent on breaks.

  or sitting in the car for an hour and a half while the elders did a "shepherding" call.

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  under_believer

  this elder proceeds to tell me that if you subtract the 4 hrs he spent studying with his kids every month (which by the way he doubted also) then he was really only out in the field about 4 hrs a month.

  XBEHERE! That totally happened in our circuit. We had a fire-and-brimstone eating C.O., very old-school guy, and check out this insane policy that he enforced during his reign of terror:

  If any brother was nominated by the local body of elders to be appointed as a ministerial servant, the CO would look at his family situation and hours combined. If the brother had children, the CO would require MORE hours from him than from brothers who didn't have families. His reasoning? If a brother had children, obviously at least four of his hours were coming from studying with them. Those hours don't "count" for taking the lead in the congregation field service efforts. So for brothers with families, he'd require 14 hours a month, only 10 for brothers without families.

  Ironically, this meant that brothers with the extra burden of kids and family actually had even more burden piled on top of them to reach out for being an MS, not less.
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  44

  I accuse my wife of apostacy. Hilarity ensues.

  by under_believer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this one ranged all over the place.

  i post these because i am hoping someone can give me additional advice.

  wife: why didn't you want to read the daily text to the kids?

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  under_believer

  Thanks, by the way, to ALL who have replied. Your suggestions and comments really make a difference and give me many more ideas for rescuing my family.
• 
  44

  I accuse my wife of apostacy. Hilarity ensues.

  by under_believer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this one ranged all over the place.

  i post these because i am hoping someone can give me additional advice.

  wife: why didn't you want to read the daily text to the kids?

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  under_believer

  Drew, thanks again for your suggestions. Those are all good points, and they will certainly go into my quiver for possible use in the future. Particularly, the fact that Jesus is only the mediator for the "anointed" will be helpful.

  At the end of the day, though, she's not a religious woman, she's a practical (and very family-oriented) one. The kind of thing she really responds to is the stuff that will harm and affect families. Another conversation we had a few months ago, one I felt was particularly helpful, happened after we finished watching an episode of Gray's Anatomy (it's a nighttime hospital drama--I guess watching it makes me girly) together.

  In the episode, a family with like eight kids comes into the hospital, mother is pregnant with the ninth. They are fundamentalist Catholics, don't believe in birth control, don't believe in limiting their family. Wife asks one of the surgeons to give her a tubal ligation at the same time she's having her C-section, but get this, DON'T TELL HER HUSBAND because it would make him hate the wife on religious grounds. Surgeon reluctantly agrees.

  Afterwards the husband gets wind of the fact that the tubal ligation was not in fact accidental. Wife LIES, blames it on the surgeon. Surgeon probably will end up in a malpractice suit.

  Anyways after this episode is over, this exchange takes place in our house:

  WIFE: What could those Catholics possibly be thinking! Doesn't that husband realize how hard it is on his wife's body to have all those kids in a row like that? He's not the one who has to carry them. All that trauma on her body, all just for a religious belief.

  ME (the irony killing me): Well, probably they are thinking something similar to what the
  Witnesses think when they decline blood transfusions for their kids and let them die, all just for a religious belief.

  WIFE: [total silence]

  I guarantee that if my wife is silent, a point has been scored. Silence is a very unnatural state for her.
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  52

  Analysis of a Time Consuming System: Shocking Numbers about JWs

  by drew sagan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  weekly meetings .

  book study: 1 hour .

  meetings for field service: 15 minutes (13 hours per year) .

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  under_believer

  Nice thread, Drew.
  I'd like to partially confirm Terry's comment, too: Think if those hours were spent on something productive that would actually enhance Jehovah's Witnesses standing. Think, for example, if every Witness devoted that much time to some imaginary Witness-run charity, can you imagine how much good could be done in this world? For that matter, imagine if the Witnesess actually had a marketable message and had efficient, modern, non-early-20th-century methods of spreading it!
  In reality, all that time is just pointless busy work. One of the reasons I think Witness depression is so common is that most of them realize that it's all a huge waste of time, just spinning wheels to keep anybody from thinking.
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  13

  TARTARUS - please explain why it is in the Bible

  by Severus in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  honest question here.

  tartarus is mentioned once in 1 peter 2:4:.

  .certainly if god did not hold back from punishing the angels that sinned, but, by throwing them into tartarus, delivered them to pits of dense darkness to be reserved for judgment;.

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  under_believer

  If I was Fred Franz, I'd make something up. Let's see.
  Tartarus... is... ooh! It is a Biblical prophecy which predicted the state of spiritual darkness that those who spoke against the Faithful Slave (Rutherford) in 1919 suffered after they were disfellowshipped for murmuring.
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  27

  Interesting news on Free-Mason Judges

  by Blue in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/969317.stm

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  under_believer

  I take it back, Leolaia's original post was the link to google cache. My mistake, it was deleted some time ago.
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  27

  Interesting news on Free-Mason Judges

  by Blue in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/969317.stm

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  under_believer

  What the... it was just there a second ago! What exactly is going on here?