"spawn of satan!".
"apostate!".
those are just a few from jehovah's witnesses towards those who have left the watchtower organization to become a follower of jesus christ.. do they know they are blaspheming against the holy spirit?
The Holy Spirit acts for good, it does not act in an evil way. Calling The Holy Spirit a wicked spirit is The Blasphemy spoken against by Jesus.
When healings are done in our day by charismatic Christians and they are called "Demonized" with the powers seen a demonic deception then I think that my qualify. I know that there have been healing miracles in Christian Churches. Most happen without any parade though they are acknowledged.
Paul
would you let a jw's religion affect your decision to use their services?.
.
om.
When I was a JW I survived 12 years of annual dead-wood disposal layoffs. I worked well enough to be trusted with difficult assignments of travel to costly labs around the Eastern United States. I think I would be a better employee now.
I would often be beating my WT drum while arguing weird concepts of doctrine. I hope that the ludicrous ideas I expounded on helped prevent anyone listening from becoming interested in them.
I like being a Baptist, I am happy and that must help to be a better employee. I am retired now.
Paul
in the aftermath of the family intervention ambush, i got a phone call from my great uncle (never been a jw).
he told me he'd heard about my wife reading my e-mail and taking it to the elders (although she didn't actually show them the e-mail, just reported its contents).
apparently, my grandmother told him about it.
The only people promoting the Watchtower religion are themselves and they do so continually. In all the dozens of Catholic Masses I have attended this past year and a half, I have only once heard The Catholic Church extolled as The True Church. Self promotion is not at all common. (I belong to a local Baptist Church but attend Mass weekly.)
Criticisms agaist The Catholic Church or other mainstream Christian religions are doctrinal and minor. There are few "horror stories" of psycho-emotional abuse in any of the traditional Christian Churches. In the Watchtower abuse is systemic AND an integral part of their doctrines.
I am out after 45 years of eating garbage at the table of the Watchtower. I heard at a convention that some had called the "Table of Jehovah polluted" implying their ideas and issue was taken against. The Watchtower does not even offer "Table of Jehovah" fare.
Blessings and regards,
Paul
one of the things that has frustrated and bothered me greatly is how the wts has invented their own definitions for koine greek words that already have meanings.
the word death is one of those.. .
throughout the past 2000 years the word death has been widely known and accepted to mean not only that the corporeal body has died, but with regard to spirituality, it has meant that one exists forever knowing they are separated from christ and the father.
I fairly well agree with everastudent. Believe in hellfire is not "pagan". If Jesus knew that hellfire type doctrine was false and pagan, he would have said so. It was a prevailing doctrine on the street. Instead he used the doctrine as a teaching tool in the Story of the Rich Man in Hades. He would not deceive us. The preventive for not being cast into Hades is to obey Moses and the Prophets.
When the Hebrew scholars needed to translate "sheol" into Greek for The Septuagint they chose "Hades" as the best fit, the closet equivalent and that included the mythological baggage. A review of the Greek belief about Hades during the 3 rd century BC is appropriate.
An essay on Hades is attributed to Josephus and identifies belief in Hades as being current Jewish thought. That essay corrects aspect of current Greek thought but maintains the fact of Hades. There is a part of Hades where there is no torment and is where the righteous are taken and treated well.
Hades, the God, NEVER released the dead persons there. That is why the Greek philosophers left off hearing Apostle Paul on Mars Hill during his “Unknown God” speech. Paul claimed that a judgment for all men was guaranteed because those in Hades would be released.
Also, in the Pseudo-Clementia (at CCEL.org) doctrines can be ascertained from his account of being taught by Apostle Peter. He speaks of Enoch and the Book of Enoch is known to have been in use by First Century Jews and Christians.
Jude refers to Prophets more ancient than his day then quotes The Book of Enoch. Prophecy is One of the Signs proving Inspiration.
The Book of Enoch was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Book of Enoch details Hell.
It is common for scholars to reject Enoch but their logic is faulty.
http://www.heaven.net.nz/writings/enoch.htm
Grace to you,
Paul
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very interesting article.. http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=42815
That is the point of it. Have faith that Jesus paid the penalty for all of our sins even if we find it absurd, void of logic or repulsive. Sin is that bad, it separates us from God. No more guilt, we sinned, Jesus took our punishment, we are forgiven just for asking.
Sorry for a late addition to this thread,
Paul
came across this article this morning.
i'm sorry if you think i keep harping on this, but this is scary.
devil worship is absolutely mainstream now.. .
WHAT GOD BLESSES NOTHING CAN CURSE.
The Catholic Church is the leader of Hundreds of Millions to One Billion Christians on Earth. One may not agree with its doctrine, its hierarchy, or believe its history to be too spotted yet it has still chosen to follow and promote Jesus as the Savior of all Mankind. The Watchtower's animosity to the Catholic Church is due to Russell's campaign against them and that still poisons JWs and ex-JWs feelings about a group of actual Christians. It was solely responsible for the spiritual welfare of all of Western Europe and many other places for over 1200 years. It mostly did the job. I believe that God's blessing and direction is evident in Mainstream Christianity. JWs are not informed about the blessings of God in Mainstream Christianity and refuse to believe the reports found everywhere. People are changed for the better. People have their physical needs cared for. Miracles do happen.
The biggest differences between Catholic, Orthodox, Traditional Protestant and independent Christian organizations is the style of worship and the Governance of the group. The differences in Theology is relatively minor.
What God Blesses nothing can curse. Satanists will not "take over" the Kingdom of Christ (Christendom = the Domain of Christ). The exposure will change some and that is what we should pray for. Prayer for all kinds of persons is appropriate. The WT ban on prayers for anyone other than themselves is not Biblical.
Greetings to all and prayers for blessings,
Paul
i'm not that good at quoting the bible.
i see no value in learning verses by heart, sorry.
however, i just learned that in the new world translation (the organization's bible), john 10:30, jesus is said to say "i and the father are one".
"singular anarthrous predicate nouns" does anyone know what that means? It is babble talk and might mean something to one in 1,000 University trained English majors but since only 5% of JWs have any college guess what? They likely are in awe at the big sounding words but have no clue if that is even a truthful or meaningful description of anything.
Sorry but my previous entry in this thread is that THE GOD is the one that the Logos was with but he is still called "god / God". The trinity is a separate issue anyway. The relationship between two persons is being spoken about.
We are familiar with three persons representing God. The Holy Spirit is an intelligent person.
1 Corinthians 2
9
What no eye has seen and no ear has heard,
and what has never come into a man's heart,
is what God has prepared for those who love Him.
10
who has known the Lord's mind,
that he may instruct Him?
But we have the mind of Christ.
Also, the Holy Spirit is termed "The Angel of The Presence of God" Angel meaning "messenger" but a person still.
Isaiah 63:
9
10
Persons are grieved not "force fields" from God. The son of God was hinted at in Job when God asked if Job knew the name of his son. At Jesus baptism the Father identified Jesus as this Son introducing him with a thunderous voice from Heaven.
Equality is also a separate issue. Jesus is still called God. We must therefore fear him as much as The Father.
There may be more persons not yet identified.
Revelation 1
4
To the seven churches in the province of Asia.
Grace and peace to you from the One who is, who was, and who is coming; from the seven spirits before His throne; 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
"Seven Spirits"
And the Sages of the Hebrew people throughout the last several millennium have theology for ten emanations of God who is called the EIN SOF. One of these emanations is "Wisdom" = "Chokhmah" "Binah" = "understanding" "Daat" = "knowledge". These emanations are said to have personality.
Proverbs 8 : 12 (and to 9 : 12 or so)
12
It becomes obvious that a person is speaking in Proverbs 8 ....
Romans 11 : 22
Therefore, consider God's kindness and severity
Sephirot #4 Chesed -"Kindness"
#5 Gevurah - "Severity"
This is the nature of inspiration. God gives it to whom he wants and in several ways to produce "two or three witnesses".
Good-night, got Church and Sunday School in the Morning,
Paul
I, Wisdom, share a home with shrewdness
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to the elders of the maitland congregation and governing body of the watchtower tract.
and bible society,.
When I wrote my letter I refused to play by their rules so I used no terms they emply such as "disassociate" or that I was leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses since that term is in the Bible and refers to Israel. I just told them The Watchtower, its doctrines and origins was seriously flawed and left them to figure it out. I pray that the letter gets read by a heart prepared by the Holy Spirit to leave the WT and find a relationship with Jesus.
I said that the Watchtower had demonically inspired doctrines. That made certain no one missed the import of my letter.
Paul;
numbers are not a sound basis on which to build faith.
if christianity had been founded on numbers, it would have failed.
at christianitys darkest hour, namely, when jesus was on the torture stake, there was not one of his apostles that stood by him.
For every ten baptisms they perform the number of JWs goes up one or two because eight or nine leave at the same time. Check it out. Its the actual case. More leave all the time.
i'm looking all over and i can't find my old book.
i need to check one of the pictures - specifically jesus nailed to the stake..
Actually, based on Raymond Franz's testimony, the Aid to Bible Understanding book is well put together and the Commentary on James was well done by a man who is now considerd an Apostate enemy by the WT. The Aid books replacement is garbage. Raymond Franz sells the James Commentary in the form originally written because the WT edited something to its detriment. Raymond Franz does admit that he was given the Aid book's Bible Chronology entry and had to be dishonest to match the flawed dates that the GBees support.
Still don't have those anymore though. Might have demons printed onto the paper. They are in the Watchtower manufactured ink you know!
