Thanks for the hug, Red, right back at ya'! Your and Path's comments about the unacceptability of the notion that membership in an organization is a requirement for salvation is one shared by many people.
No, Maxee, I cannot imagine Jesus saying that.
Welcome aboard, katchoo. I look forward to your posts.
SC, thanks. Waiting, thank you too , I appreciate your response. I quite agree with your assessment of what has come to be named comment #3:
I've never heard comment #3 you quoted above referred to worldly people. After all, "Jesus was saying that we should not be judging one another." That sentence does not refer to worldly persons. That sentence does refer to Christians and that Christians were not to judge each other.
No Witness applies this to worldly people. It is an excellent example of WTS 'language'. I commented only briefly on that so-called comment #3 but it was not because there was nothing to say about it nor does it in any way contradict my line of reasoning. Actually, a close examination of the text will show it's true meaning as you have already deduced, waiting.
Moreover, Jesus said that we should not be judging one another. We look at the outward appearance; God looks at the heart. He sees accurately and judges mercifully. He has committed judgment into Jesus' hands, not ours
Who is this 'one another'? Is that term defined here? No. Could it mean the world in general? To a worldly person, certainly. To a Witness reading this, what would 'one another' suggest? Yep, you got it. WTS language, double meanings. The next sentence is just a filler. It goes without saying that outward appearances do not mean anything to God. It does not answer the question that was posed. Now had that sentence been : "God looks at one's heart, not one's religion" . Now that would have been pertinent to the question. That would have been a definitive answer. And now for the last sentence about God having committed the judging to Jesus and not ours, what does this really mean? It's a vague reference to John 5:22. It's a deliberate sidestepping of the question. The question had nothing to do with whether God or Jesus was going to do the actual judging. As a matter of fact the previous sentence says that "God...judges mercifully" . Why, at this point, throw in the second sentence? Taken at face value it appears to be a contradiction. Why do that at this time? Is the question about who will judge? No. Then why bring it up? Now had that sentence been something like: "We do not presume to judge who will and who will not be saved based on their religion. God is not bound by religious boundaries in his judging. Christianity itself is a religion, everything else is man-made", then it would have been more of a response to the question. But the society could not state it in such a way because then the Witnesses would become confused by such a straightforward response. They chose, rather, to obscure the answer by clever use of the WTS language. One statement that would mean one thing to a 'worldly' person and the complete opposite to a Witness. Very cleverly done. Almost diabolic, wouldn't you say?