Hi Hubert,
Here again is the quote from the upcoming March 16, 2008 Watchtower Study:
"When Christ inspected the faithful and discreet slave’ in 1918, he found those anointed ones on earth to be faithful in providing spiritual ‘food at the proper time.’ Hence, Jesus was pleased thereafter to appoint them ‘over all his belongings.’ (Read Matthew 24:45-47)"
You asked if this could be used to persuade Witnesses to conduct a Watchtower history study before delving into a Bible Study.
I feel this creates the perfect opening to ask for a history study because you are not the one bringing up the subject. The January 15, 2008 Watchtower brings it up.*
If it were me I would sincerely acknowledge to the Witness that if Jesus did in fact give the Society the above appointment (which therefore means that it is God’s organization) then I would surely want to know. Who wouldn’t want to know?
I know it is not easy, but I would encourage you to keep reminding yourself that you are the student so that you don’t come across to the Witness as if you are trying to take over their roll as the teacher.
Since you will only be dealing with the Society’s pre-1919 teachings that the Society already admits were not true, you don’t need to prove that any of those teachings were not true. And so there is nothing to debate with them about. You don’t want to put them in a position where they feel they need to defend the Society’s history. You want them to discover it.
Hopefully they will discover several very important things they didn’t know as they hear what you discovered in the "Proclaimers" book.
You don’t have to disagree with their interpretation of Matthew 24:45-47. You just need to clearly understand their interpretation and then strictly hold them it when conducting your inspection.
Note: They will want to process all of the Society’s pre-1919 teachings that were not true according to the "old light" way they interpret Proverbs 4:18 so that those teachings don't mean anything to them today. But according to their interpretation Jesus would have processed them according to the food-at-the-proper-time way mentioned in Matthew 24:45, which means that they all would have failed his inspection in 1918.
See chapter 21 of "Captives of a Concept" which gives some suggestions on how I would try to go about helping Witnesses to see what the "Proclaimers" book is willing to teach them.
If you have any specific questions please let me know.
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* Note: The March 16, 2008 Watchtower Study article doesn’t make any attempt to explain the above quote that appears in the first paragraph of the article. Nor does it offer any proof for what is being said. I serves only to remind Jehovah’s Witnesses of the concept holding them captive, which is that the Society is God’s "faithful and discreet slave" organization.
Don