Posts by thomas15

26

IF YOU STILL READ THE BIBLE WHAT VERSION DO YOU READ??

by Ohio Nana in

i have my jw bible but also have the good news bible that was used at the lutheran church i went to for about 8 yrs back in the 80's.. one (jw)is hard to read and understand some of the books and the (good news)other is to easy and leaves somethings out, well the jw one does to.. .

o.n..

thomas15

Again, I'm an Evangelical, never been a JW. I have a fairly large Bible collection which contains over 100 Bibles from the Tyndale New Testament 1526, the Geneva Bible 1560 and 1599, the actual 1611 King James and most of the modern versions, updates, translations and paraphrases. There are about 35 "Study Bibles" in my collection.

Having said that, in order I like: New King James Version, New International Version and the New American Standard Bible.

For study notes, my first "go to" is the McArthur Study Bible, then the NIV Study Bible and then depending on what I'm trying to understand, I will look at the ESV Study Bible, the New Living Translation Study Bible or the New King James (Nelson) Study Bible. Since I have a large collection of commentaries, word studies and so forth it is rare that I spend much time using study Bibles.

For someone who is new to the Bible or just escaping the WT, I recommend the NIV. There is also a newer revision of the NIV called the TNIV. The study Bibles I mention above are what I term "theological", they, especally the MacArthur explain the theology of the Scripture passage from a (pre-mil) conservative evangelical perspective. There are also "devotional" study Bibles which I think if a new believer has to have a study Bible would be better off owning. I cannot make a recomendation for a strictly devotional Study Bible.

I also like the "Discover God" (Bill Bright) Study Bible in the New Living Trranslation. It has an ugly cover so I would not take it out of the house but I like the notes. It is good for a beginner or someone looking to understand Evangelical Biblical theology and with a devotional/lifestyle angle but without heavy theology. The NLT Study Bible is also good.

I gave my non-believing brother a text-only NIV for Christmas this year. It is the Zondervan thinline "duo-soft" cover edition, a nice Bible. If I didn't have so many Bibles, I would have got myself one.

6

Why Christendom, believe in an 'unpure' God. NWT v's KJV

by Mosesjoel in

i have seen in the kjv which most christians use who are not jw's.

and seen so many contradictions, here is one:.

isaiah 45:6that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none besides me.

thomas15

The King James Version of the Bible was translated in 1611. It has undergone serveral revisions throught the years. The most popular King James Version Bible available to us today is the Oxford revision of 1769 by Benjamin Blayney. The English language has changed much since over the years. The New International Version or the New American Standard Version makes the Bible much easier for 21 century English language readers to understand.

36

12 ex-JWs at church yesterday...

by passwordprotected in

jw
friends

as reported elsewhere on the forum, there were 12 ex-jws at our baptism service yesterday.

twelve.. it was quite an experience to hear about an ex-jw who had moved to another part of the country and had written down 150 names of jws in the area of glasgow she was originally from and had started praying for all those names last summer.

two of the people on her list were at the church yesterday, with their wives and children.

thomas15

Amazing Grace!

40

Please help non jw in love with a studying jw

by heather613 in

jw
friends

i was engaged to a man and was pregnant last year we lived in different states for awhile when he started studying jw without even telling me.

he lied to me about why he couldn't move with me and after 5 months he finally did then out of nowhere he went back to georgia and hid his relationship with a female jw needless to say they got married.

when i ofund out by calling around he told me it was for convience not love and that he would divorce her he was having alot of problems and didn't want to hurt me.

thomas15

Even if you take the JW or religion issue out of the equation, you are still running after a world class chump who will make you miserable no matter what. Get court ordered child support now, and let him chase after you.

25

I Have A New Car!!!

by snowbird in

jw
friends

well, it's new to me, anyway.. it's an '01 saturn l200.. i bought it off my nephew for $1,285.50.. as some of you may remember, my little '92 grand am was totalled back in november '08.. the good hands insurance company grudgingly paid $1,100 for my baby.. any takers?.

sylvia.

thomas15

Enjoy your Saturn. I had a 2001 L-100 that we bought new. Last summer a barn ran out into the street just as I was driving by and WHAM!!!

Anyway, that car was good to me. It had 185K on the clock. Mine was a manual 5 speed, I replaced the clutch at 126K, put a new exhaust manifold on at 148K and that was it except tires and oil changes.

Change the spark plugs and the engine air cleaner. There is also a cabin air filter that needs to be changed. If it has the orig belts and hoses, change them also and change the anti-freeze. My L-100 had the 2.2 LTR 4 cylinder, I think the L-200 only had the 6 cylinder automatic.

Tom

13

Belief in the resurrection trivializes death

by jabberwock in

recently, a@g started a thread called "a belief in an afterlife is the most dangerous of all beliefs".

i have been thinking about the necessary consequences of a belief in the afterlife, particularly a belief in the resurrection as envisioned by jehovah's witnesses.

i came to some of the conclusions that a@g did and this post was originally meant to be a response on that thread, but i went off topic a bit and i didn't want to spoil the point lance was trying to make.. .

thomas15

I'm with Chalam on this one. After my mother died in 1989, we received a letter from a young JW which basically stated that we could probably see Mom again by what I guess joining their free Bible study. Of course the obvious question is that the writer of the letter didn't know if Mom was a JW and I know she was not so what could be a reasonable arguement to support our being reunited later since Mom was never a JW?

Also, if the soul ceases to exist after death with no eternal consiquesces for rejecting God in this life as the society teaches, then why is that such a bad thing?

On the other hand, the Bible as I understand it teaches that God, the maker and sustainer of all things, became a man, the man Jesus and he humbled himself at the cross to pay the price for my disobedience and my lack of real faith in the only real God. So I may not like the fact that God punishes sin but how do I express that dissatisfaction of a God, who loves me so much that he gave me a solution to my sin problem that is available only by simply believeing in the savior, nothing else is required? It sounds too good to be true but is is. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me." Speaking for myself, this is all I need to know.

12

10 Deeper Challenges To Watchtower Theology

by Spook in

i have begun preparing an outline for what i think is an untapped market of opposition to the watchtwoer.

i will post part one of an outline after this explanation.

please feel free to pm with additional thoughts.. 1. most criticism of the watchtower in print has either (a) focused on very specific doctrinal issues or (b) socio-theological criticism or (c) apologetics from other christian sources.. 2. there is a pronounced lack of general philosophical arguments directed against the internal logical integrity of the jehovah's witnesses core theological beliefs.

thomas15

Thank you Narkissos for your response. Now I have to get out my copy of institutes and review.

jwfacts, your response shows to me great insight into what I see as the paradox of the WT, that is a few of the most intelligent persons that I have known were members of the society and yet they seem to have no concept of the theology behind the doctrine. For all practical purposes, these individuals give the society large time blocks of their free time and yet seem to have no desire to obtain a real understanding of the Biblical attributes of God and the actual estate of man. In other words, it's all doctrine with no explanation that would give the believer some idea as to why God acts the way he does, why does man act the way he does and how, lacking a direct Biblical teaching on the matter that would allow for a reasonable prediction as to the mind of God.

Another thing that I don't understand but has a direct relation to this is how persons spend 30 or 40 years active at meetings and study WT magazines with their canned questions and everything at a 5th grade reading/comprehension level. I don't mean to insult anyone and I understand the mind control aspect of the society, but still it comes back to my comments made earlier regarding the lack of scholarly material from the WT society. It seems that the only growth the society wants is in their ability to defend or "sell" the society.

This is a great discussion.

Tom

12

10 Deeper Challenges To Watchtower Theology

by Spook in

i have begun preparing an outline for what i think is an untapped market of opposition to the watchtwoer.

i will post part one of an outline after this explanation.

please feel free to pm with additional thoughts.. 1. most criticism of the watchtower in print has either (a) focused on very specific doctrinal issues or (b) socio-theological criticism or (c) apologetics from other christian sources.. 2. there is a pronounced lack of general philosophical arguments directed against the internal logical integrity of the jehovah's witnesses core theological beliefs.

thomas15

I'm really struggling Narkissos, to take what I know about Calvin and the theology of the WT and finding common ground. When I think Calvin, I see the definition of man's condition and God's remedy, that is God does all the work of salvation start to finish. Arminian theology, on the other hand, I think of "free will" with respect to accepting God's offer of salvation. Much more complicated than that of course.

I have difficulties tying either of these into what I know about WT theology. I imagine, and this is where a true WT systematic theology would come in handy, is that the WT is closer to Arminian or even Catholic (semi-peligan) with respect to man participating in the act of receiving grace that leads to salvation and for those who are leaving to society, they are exercising free will and thus refuse God's provision. No other scenario makes sense to me as I have never heard the JWs say that they are predestined or elected and or have any kind of security as a believer. WT is a works based faith which gives grace lip service only.

Does the WT have an equivalent to limited atonement or total depravity?

12

10 Deeper Challenges To Watchtower Theology

by Spook in

i have begun preparing an outline for what i think is an untapped market of opposition to the watchtwoer.

i will post part one of an outline after this explanation.

please feel free to pm with additional thoughts.. 1. most criticism of the watchtower in print has either (a) focused on very specific doctrinal issues or (b) socio-theological criticism or (c) apologetics from other christian sources.. 2. there is a pronounced lack of general philosophical arguments directed against the internal logical integrity of the jehovah's witnesses core theological beliefs.

thomas15

Hello Spook,

I have to begin this response repeating that I'm not now nor never have been a JW. Instead I'm an Evangelical and a semi-serious student of the Bible.

You bring up a very good issue. Among Evangelicals (born agains, conservative, fundamental protestants) there are a number of theological camps. It is interesting though that most of them are in total agreement on most things like inspiration of the Bible, doctrines like the trinity, salvation by faith through grace, the need to be born again and so forth. The things that they differ on are things like the technical issues regarding the atonement, man's sin nature and the mechanics involved in bringing the sinner to repentance.

So, if the believer wants to know the details of the faith of his or her church, they can study a theology book written by a person of like mind. There are different kinds of theology studies (Biblical, Historical, theology of a particular Bible author-example Paul, Dogmatic, Catholic, liberal, and so on). I'm going to use the example of Reformed theology otherwise known as Calvinist theology. A popular systematic theology book, titled Systematic Theology written by Louis Berkhof in the early 1930s is still popular today 80 years later. And most is in total agreement with Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion written 100s of years ago.

My point is that new theology books are produced not because the theology has changed but rather to re-state the doctrines in modern language and thought. The watchtower doesn't and cannot have a standard systematic theology text covering everything in an orderly manner due to the dynamic nature of the faith and because in my opinion it would underscore the way in which the society abuses the Scriptures. There are no scholarly publications defining WT faith, at least that I'm aware of.

Very few Bibles and theology/inspirational are printed by church printing presses. The biggies are Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, these are independent companies. Holman is associated with Southern Baptist but even they live and die on their own. The WT theory that the churches control "biased" printed information is not factual. When it comes to distribution of materials, the Gideon’s, which is an independent group of businessmen of many different denominations, distribute 80 Million Bibles and New Testaments per year in almost 200 countries, free of charge. The American Bible Society many millions more. The WT doesn't even come close on the number of Bibles distributed.

The NIV Translation, for example was translated by persons from many different denominations in several different countries. No church made money on this wildly successful translation. In my Bible collection, I have 30 or 40 different translations and paraphrases and I can tell you truthfully that the NWT is awful in comparison, just looking at the literary style and use of grammar setting aside the actual translation and choice of words.

I say all of this because somebody is buying all of these books and Bibles. It is sad but true that Evangelicals today as a rule do not know enough about the theology of their faith to confront groups like the WT or Mormons. But that doesn’t' change the fact that the faith is very stable and firmly rooted in the Bible, the very thing that WT claims for itself but doesn't deliver. I think you are correct Spook, there is an untapped market for this bedrock information and I hope you are successful in this endeavor. Your last statement which begins …”Traditional religions”… is right on the mark. Good observation.

3

Advice for my DF'd friend

by wobble in

jw
friends

i have a dear friend who has recently been df'd,which may not be relevant to the problem,but i told her she now has the time ,and the reason, to examine the religion,and i urged her to use the internet,esp.

freeminds.. her problem is her son,for years,15 or so,he has been on a downward spiral of drug abuse.although never baptised,he was brought up,until his teens,in the wt.he is now thinking that to turn his life around he will get properly involved in the religion.. his mother has said to me that she does not wish to dissuade him,as she fears for his future if he does nothing,conventional counselling,and some less conventional, has failed to help him in the past.she does not want to do an examination of wt at the present time as she feels whatever she discovers she will tell him, and he will go further off the rails ,because he believes it is the truth at the moment,and to take that away from him would leave him nowhere to go.. any helpfull words i can send to her would be appreciated.. many thanks,.

wobble.

thomas15

In my opinion and I'm sure others will agree, your friends son will be replacing one problem with another. Your friend, if truly wanting to be come part of the solution should be able to eplain to her son that if using the org to rehabilitate will put her out of the process because the org doesn't like her. This is just a simple fact of JW doctrine.

If your friend is a believer in Jesus then she should be asking Christ for his guidence and wisedom. If she is not trusting in Jesus then I have to admit that I don't have any useful advice to give. I will though be praying to the God in heaven through the Son that He reveal Himself and His will in your friends and her sons life and bring healing.