a man who was neglecting association with the "brethren" because he became involved with spiritism wrote a letter which was published in the may 1, 1912 issue of the watch tower .... "i was very nearly trapped beyond hope of regaining freedom, in one.
of satan's most successful devices, viz., spiritism.
i was induced.
"Satan ... has learned no doubt as the world to some extent has learned, that 'The Secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.' (Psa. 25:14) We may presume therefore that his representatives, the fallen angels, are frequently present at the little Conferences and Bible studies, etc., of God's truly consecrated people, to learn something of the divine plan.
- Studies in the Scriptures, Volume IV, 1916-18 edition, page 611,612
' cultivate the spirit of a lesser one ' to be studied january 7-13.... " a humble person has heartfelt gratitude for jehovah's provisions, including spiritual food.
hence, such an individual is a diligent student of the bible and an avid reader of the watchtower and awake!
magazines.
They are right that no one can understand the Bible without the Watchtower.
They did not mention that no one can understand the Bible with the Watchtower, too.
share with us memories of the bizarre, funny, strange, what you hated, what you miss...we all have them.
(question..why the big to do between terms- convention and assembly .
When I visited my last district convention, the neighboring congregation organized a hotel. They did not follow the Society's advice to chose a hotel from the list but rather booked a hotel through the bus company.
Now, the presiding overseer visited that hotel and didn't like it. So, he cancelled it and booked another hotel.
The congregation was quite surprised when they found that their convention hotel was right in the middle of Frankfurt's red light district. In the streets around the hotel there was nothing but brothels, strip clubs, table-dance bars etc. There were even shootings at night and whatnot.
or maybe that should be "nightmare" - not dream.. it happens less and less, but still does now and again after 10 years.
it's always associated with a great feeling of dread and going from door to door knowing you do not believe what you are saying (i should point out that, while i was in it, i pretty much did believe it).. i guess it shows how big a part of our lives it once was - a bit like you often dream of being in school or of long-departed relatives..
My wife once dreamt that she would have been in the ministry. She asked me, an elder then, whether she could count the hours on her report.
I replied: "If you now go into the ministry and the people tell you 'I have dreamed of you', you can."
according to the wt, these are the actual sequence of events that led to the start of world war i:.
1) the gentile times ended on october 1/2, 1914.
2) jesus took the throne immediately thereafter.. 3) one of jesus' first tasks as the newly enthroned king was to engage in a heavenly war against satan and his demons.. 4) having won the war against satan and his demons, jesus expelled satan and his demons from the heavenly realm giving them only terrestial access.. 5) since satan is a sore loser, he became extremely bitter and decided to wreak havoc upon all the earth.. 6) filled with anger, satan then provoked the nations of the earth into a 4 year bloody battle known today as world war i. so there you have it... wwi started sometime in october of 1914 (not july 1914 as history books would have you believe).
the simplest solution would be that Russell, after wavering for several months about whether this was truly a big one ( "The Great War"), finally decided he had hit the jackpot and published a proclamation accordingly, figuring like Publications Clearing House "You may already have won!"
Wasn't this idea (that Satan was cast out of heaven in 1914) only invented in the 1920s? After all, the Bible Students foretold Armageddon for 1914, not a war, and later they claimed that instead of "early October 1914" it would be "soon after 1914".
The statement "We were right with 1914 but wrong about what would happen" was made later AFAIK.
according to the wt, these are the actual sequence of events that led to the start of world war i:.
1) the gentile times ended on october 1/2, 1914.
2) jesus took the throne immediately thereafter.. 3) one of jesus' first tasks as the newly enthroned king was to engage in a heavenly war against satan and his demons.. 4) having won the war against satan and his demons, jesus expelled satan and his demons from the heavenly realm giving them only terrestial access.. 5) since satan is a sore loser, he became extremely bitter and decided to wreak havoc upon all the earth.. 6) filled with anger, satan then provoked the nations of the earth into a 4 year bloody battle known today as world war i. so there you have it... wwi started sometime in october of 1914 (not july 1914 as history books would have you believe).
I had some correspondence with the WTS about this issue. Actually I asked why the "Seven Times" should start with the murder of Gedaliah and NOT with the displacement of Zedekiah - since Zedekiah was the last king, so it would be logical to have "7 times" from Zedekiah - not Gedaliah - to Jesus. I also mentioned the issue with WW1 - because if they would count the 7 times from Zedekiah's displacement, the seven times would end BEFORE the war started. Their replies were nonsense though; first they wrote why the 70 weeks started after Gedaliah's murder (but the question was about the 7 times and not about the seventy weeks); on 2nd attempt they replied that it was always stood like that in the Watchtower and that's why it must be correct.
Anyway ... yes, the official JW doctrine says:
- in October 1914, the seven times ended and Jesus was enthroned. At that time, a war started in heaven
- LATER, when this war was over, Satan was cast out of heaven
- THEN Satan started to stir up the rulers so that they would start the war
- THEN the war started
But, the war started in July ...
for those of you who have already done research on this, have you been able to find information that proves jesus was based on dionysus?
do we have proof that any of the following was written prior to 1st century: dionysus turning water into wine, born of a virgin mortal, sent by zeus to save mankind, dead and resurrected (or any of the other parallels).. note: i'm agnostic/atheist, but i'm still curious about the historical details.
was dionysus based on jesus, or is it the other way around????
The Jesus myth was written in the 1st or 2nd century while the mentioned Dionysus myth was written in the 19th or 20th century.
This is likely similar to that Horus thing in the Zeitgeist movie. Sounding nice, but being outstanding nonsense.
yes, we can call them that now, without fear of being disfellowshipped for apostasy.. .
http://www.jw.org/en/news/events-activities/annual-meeting-report-2012/.
http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/governing-body-says-we-are-the-faithful-and-discreet-slave.
This picture covers all FDS members:
This is how they look like in field service:
This is how the magazines are written:
This is the Annual Meeting:
And here are the new Kingdom Melodies:
has anyone found differences between watchtower articles found in bound volumes and its corresponding one in the watchtower cd?.
or between different versions of the watchtower cd's..
There have alwys been various dicussions about this. It seems that the CDs always contain the latest printed version. Some of the articles were altered in the bound volumes or other reprints, and in this case the new version is on the CD. Also for the books, the CD always contains the latest version.
So far, no one has found an article that has been changed specifically for the CD - where the CD would be different from any printed version.
i don't know if anyone has ever posted this beautiful gem of a paragraph but page 25 paragraph 3 states:.
3 if that happens to you, how will you react?
many people know that their way of worship is wrong, yet they hesitate to break free from it.
This brochure doesn't even exist in German (though it was published in English in 2002). So much for the worldwide unity.
