i like variety and different opinions and i don't see that in the jw's...... what can this lead to?.
NO, it is definately not healthy to be forced, through various means, into thinking like the FDS.
Or, if you cannot agree with FDS or the general culture of the org because you can and do actually think, but you must learn to guard your mouth lest you get a dressing down for voicing your contrary opinions and being labelled "unspiritual". It is soul destroying. And very isolating. Suffocating.
JW's do not think alike - they are told what they have to accept without question.
my husband and i will be partaking at home this year.
could you please share your experiences or insights on how you partook at home?
i have the wine and bread sorted.
BurnTheShips said:
The Eastern and Western churches appear to be on the mend the last few decades, hopefully soon they can all share communion together as a united Body.
Velta said:
I am praying for the day when the many churches will see that we need to be united and not divided as the many denominations are today.
I believe the time is coming when the Christian church will be united until then we choose to fellowship where we are the most comfortable.
Today, however, the need to remain divided from other evangelical congregations is unjustified. We can remain unique churches with unique callings and a unique spiritual heritage, yet we can be united spiritually, and even functionally, with other congregations in our communities.
Knowing Christ has called for unity in His church, many leaders today are re-examining the legitimacy of division in the church. Today's heroes are not isolating themselves from other churches; rather, they are working with others to repair the breaches, seeking to build the citywide church on the foundation of Christ alone.
Hi Velta,
Interesting article that you quoted. It would appear that there is quite a movement for unity within Churches worldwide. I was unaware. Having been a jw until recently, I have come to realise that I am in complete darkness about many things - as my posts above testify! It's as if I missed out on the gathering of spiritual information and understanding for the last twenty years. Got a lot of catching up to do! And I am loving it!
I have learnt more about the Bible and about Churches from the community of jwd that I did sitting at meetings for years. Ahhh, the time I wasted..... but that is another story.
Thanks to the posters on this thread who shared their knowledge.
kind regards
wildfell
my husband and i will be partaking at home this year.
could you please share your experiences or insights on how you partook at home?
i have the wine and bread sorted.
Ashton
P.S. I still can't figure out how to quote in the little box like most of yall do. I can't seem to find the button that makes the box to type in the quote.
Hi Ashton,
To get the quote box, click on the white balloon with the quotation marks in it. It is located above the U button. It is also to the right of the yellow smiley face.
Once the quote box opens, click in the box, then click on the paste icon.
kind regards
wildfell
my husband and i will be partaking at home this year.
could you please share your experiences or insights on how you partook at home?
i have the wine and bread sorted.
We certainly do not need any org to turn to Jesus, to be in Christ. But Christ founded the Church, and vested it with authority until His return, such that "whatever they bind on earth is bound in heaven" and vice versa. Seeing how these things are Scripturally evident, and that Scripture itself was written and collected by the Church, as a Christian why would I eschew it?
Burn, you certainly have got me thinking these last couple of days!
You make a very good and indisputable point. Having said that . . . . . I am going to dispute it. Well, kind of.
Just to give a bit of background: For a while last year, I had been thinking about why there appear (to me anyway) to be few genuine disciples of Christ in Churches. Whether jw or otherwise. I had been feeling the need to join with fellow worshipers in a devotional service. I had missed that so much while I was a jw where all there was offered on jehovahs 'table' was instructional services. So, I was looking for a 'true' church that would abound with genuine Christians. (if there was indeed such a thing - this was probably a left-over from being a jw)
It was at this time that I read an interesting thought in Crisis of Conscience (pages 396 and 398), where the author shared his opinion that:
Christ "call is, not "come to my organisation" or "come to a certain church or denomination", but rather it is "come to me" (matt 11:28) In giving the illustration of the vine and its branches, his words were not "I am the vine and religious organisations are the branches and you are the twigs or the leaves connected to those branches," but rather "I am the vine and you are the branches," connected directly to him (john 15:5)
To feel this way does not imply any failure to recognise that there is indeed a flock of God, a congregation headed by Christ Jesus. How does one become a member thereof? One factor and one factor only is determinative. It is not membership or affiliation with some denomination, church group or organisation. Scripturally, this has no relevance or bearing on the matter. One shows that he or she is a member of that body of believers by being joined to its Head, God's Son, responsive to that Head's direction and guidance, and that alone is determinative. There is only one mediator in God's arrangement and that is Christ Jesus, and no human organisation can insert itself into that picture as a co-mediator or supplementary mediator.
God's Son gave the assurance that he would have true followers, not just in the first century or in this twentieth century, but in all the centuries in between, for he said, "I am with you always to the close of the age." Intermixed thought they were among all the "weeds" that were bound to come, he would know who these genuine disciples were, not because they belonged to some organisation but because of what they were, as persons. . . . . "The Lord knows those who are his.""
Burn, that's when I started to ponder the point that the true Church is all us believers. For does not the Bible say that we are all members belonging to one another? - wherever we are around the world and whatever age we have lived in. Something to think about anyway, hey?
The idea you are describing is called "consubstantiation" and it has been considered a heresy by the Apostolic churches since the middle ages.
I will definately be googling "consubstantiation"!! Brilliant!! If I believe that, looks like I will be considered apostate by Apostolic churches, too. What a laugh!
kind regards
wildfell
my husband and i will be partaking at home this year.
could you please share your experiences or insights on how you partook at home?
i have the wine and bread sorted.
Just thought of another point -
The Bible says that Jesus is my mediator. No other person or institution. So, I feel comfortable concluding that I need no-one and no church to take the emblems through. This is my opinion.
To me, needing a church, even an Apostolic church, is reminiscent of how the governing body was always spouting off how we need them to get to Jesus. I never swallowed that.
kind regards
wildfell
my husband and i will be partaking at home this year.
could you please share your experiences or insights on how you partook at home?
i have the wine and bread sorted.
justhuman and BurnTheShips - your posts have me intrigued.
I was raised in an Orthodox Church that claims to have as its foundation one of the Apostles and can trace it's history back 2000 years. While thinking about what you both stated, I had a memory recall from my childhood. I do now remember being told that the the bread (or wafer as it was) and wine would turn into Christ's real flesh and blood. I also remember testing this information out shortly thereafter at mass, when I tried to sneak a bit of the wafer out of my mouth for a looksee. To my relief, the wafer was still a wafer and I concluded that it could not logically be true.
So, it was easy to believe jw teaching that emblems are merely symbolic. However, I now wonder whether the emblems are really Christ's flesh and blood but in a spiritual sense rather than a physical sense? Hard to articulate what I mean ............... so I am not going to try. I have more thinking to do on this point.
So in order to have the Blessing of Jesus the only way to have the Holy Communion was through the Church.
justhuman - I thought about this statement, however, I also think about Jesus' words when he said 'if two or more are gathered in my name, there I am also'. He also said, "When you pray, go into your room close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you".
Jesus also told the Samaritan woman that physical location of worship was not paramount, but rather that worship must be done 'spirit and truth'. Additionally, Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would be granted to all his disciples - so, if I am deemed by God to be worthy of Holy Spirit, why do I need a man or a Church to worship God?
So, in consideration of those scriptures, I do not at this point believe that I am precluded from commemorating this solemn ritual at home.
I would eventually like to go to a church to receive communion and now having been influenced by what you and BurnTheShips have said, I think I may return to the church I was raised in (like a dog returning to it's vomit, as the jw's say, lol).
Also, Ignatius' Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 A.D. 110
"Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . .. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes"
This quote can be wholly applied as a description of jehovah's witnesses, can it not? And we who were incarcerated by this cult, did not partake of the emblems and "deny the gift of God" and "are perishing". My mind boggles!!!!
Thanks for the explanations and the links. I have a lot of reading to do.
kind regards
wildfell
my husband and i will be partaking at home this year.
could you please share your experiences or insights on how you partook at home?
i have the wine and bread sorted.
my husband and i will be partaking at home this year.
could you please share your experiences or insights on how you partook at home?
i have the wine and bread sorted.
my husband and i will be partaking at home this year.
could you please share your experiences or insights on how you partook at home?
i have the wine and bread sorted.
To the four people who have posted since my last post of thanks.
Guys, enjoyed your experiences/input. Links to music was great, and so was link to article (which I will save to my favourites to read later).
AshtonCA, you mentioned that passover is April 19 this year. I had previously googled this and discovered the same thing. Wonder why the jw's are not having their memorial on nisan 14 this year? Or was that another thing they scammed us about all these years? Nothing they do would surprise me anymore.
To have the Blood and Body of Jesus you must prepare your self through prayer, and fasting, because you invide Jesus in your life, and through the Holy Spirit you become one with Jesus.
That is a profound comment.
kind regards
wildfell
my husband and i will be partaking at home this year.
could you please share your experiences or insights on how you partook at home?
i have the wine and bread sorted.
Are you kidding? JW 'wannabes'? 144k 'look-a-likes?
I mean all of us who got 'out' are supposed to be free of all this ritualistic crap
guess you are so ignorant that you did not understand what I meant... if you feel proud of being a Christian (whatever that may be) you should under go some serious brain washing reversal.Do you also stone people like the god of the bible instructed to do to those who dont believe in this CRAP? or do you sleep with your children as your 'god' instructed Lot to do so there can be more believers and progeny? Do you cut the skin of you childrens penis just to meet the requirements? Do you shun anybody that is not a believer in your God? Do you follow his instructions to kill women child men old and young so you show 'respect' and follow his orders? Jesus was a jew after all...
go ahead.. eat 'human flesh and drink human blood" (isnt that what partaking means?) to me that is more savage stupid and offensive than dancing naked around a fire...
maybe a little intoxication will erase the stupidity that permeates your brains!
Forgot to tell you.. I post wherever and whenever I feel like it... are you going to stone me to death because of my irreverence toward your 'fairy tale' beliefs? Will you throw me into a concentration camp? How about considering me like a 'man of the nations?
I am so scared that I offended thee... so I will partake to appease you.. pretzels and beer
but when they get a little taste of it they become offended and all teary eyed..
Lou-Cypher, glad you said you didn't care if you looked bad. Cause you didn't make yourself look too good.
Just wondering, would you have the courage to say the above quotes to my face? Or is it easy to make anonymous aggressive and bitter insults to other anonymous people in a discussion forum? Maybe this is just your cyber-personality? Hmmm ......... I wonder if you are more docile in real life?
I would suggest to you that this is a discussion forum. That requires being able to hold a discussion in a reasonable manner, to be able to critise ideas (not people) in an intelligent and thoughtful way. Just a suggestion ..........
As for your hopes that I would become "offended and all teary eyed" - sorry, you lucked out on this Christian today. I have confronted bigger and meaner than your statements (notice I said 'statements' and not 'you'?) and I have done it IN REAL LIFE. I was a witness for over 20 years, I had plenty of practice with people who tried to dominate me.
My parting suggestion to you would be that you may benefit from a book called "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Maybe that will assist you in your interpersonal skills?
Have a nice day, Lou-Cypher, cause I will.
