Besides, how is it 'mercy' to give something good to someone who has done good. Surely it's 'justice' or reward.
Grace is providing a benefit for the deserving and undeserving. Mercy is witholding a just punishment, surely?
Sapphy
JoinedPosts by Sapphy
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35
Odd CO talk...ever hear anything like this?
by sir82 inhad our co visit last month.
normally the guy has all the charisma and charm of ben stein from "ferris buhler's day off", but he managed to give a talk that was actually coherent one night.. here is the rough outline:.
the theme was about the difference between "justice", "mercy", and "undeserved kindness".. situation 1: adam and eve sinned.
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Trotting Out Old Light and Making it New Again- 1975
by OnTheWayOut inwts is great at rebooting old doctrines and rewriting their own history.
they need the members to feel that armageddon is imminent, so i have a proposal for the gb members reading this forum.. .
when the end failed to come in 1975, wts offered their explanation that eve was created some time after adam, and that some time passed before she and adam sinned.
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Sapphy
OTWO - quite a few of the old timers still belive the 6000 years of rest thing, so Armageddon would come 6000 years after Eve was created. I hear a few of them say things like "It's been 34 years, Adam must be getting lonely..."
I've always wondered if the societys date for Adam's creation, 4026 bce, was dependent on counting back from 607? Anyone know?
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New light: Generation
by 5thGeneration ingot some info from the annual meeting.. unofficially, the 'generation' is now categorized as 2 groups.
the first is 'the 1914 group' and the second is the younger anointed 'contemporaries' who 'actually work for a period of time with those anointed ones'.. the 'generation' is now 'the lifespan of those who actually saw the beginning of the sign and then the lifespan of those who worked with those who saw the beginning of the sign'.. here we go again....
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Did You Exit the Witnesses Due to Injustices / Difference with Doctrine-Both?
by flipper inmany of us leave due to injustices committed inside the organization.
i did initially.
i had doubts about some doctrines for years - but not until after leaving the witnesses was i free to be able to confirm my suspicions and see that yes, i did have valid reasons to have doubts all those years .
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The increasing number of the anointed. Comments, anyone?
by dgp ini'm very much enjoying "the orwellian world of jehovah's witnesses", by heather and gary botting.
now, this excerpt comes very much to the point of this thread, i believe:.
page 145: "still, in 1975 the society clearly feared a continuation of the upward trend in memorial partakers, and in an article entitled "annointing to a heavenly hope - how is it manifest?
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Sapphy
The doctrine as it stands is being eroded. Many people in the congs still check the partakers figure in the hope it goes down.
If the society ever wanted to get itself out of this pickle, it could abandon the idea that it's the first 144K true Christians who get the heavenly calling - I think they've done that already with the abandonment of the 'heavens doors shut in 1935' doctrine.
They could do a few study articles about how "many are called but few chosen", and say the calling is to accept Jesus & be a Christian. So many are called to be Christian, but few (144k) of those Christians are chosen to rule in heaven. They could then follow that up with a 'here I am, send me' article which would actually encourage the congregation to partake, thereby indicating their willingness to serve in heaven or on earth. Of course this would be couched in terms of 'a serious responsibility' , 'potentially willing to sacrifice your hope of earthly paradise'... You would then get potentially over a million partakers, all willing to be chosen.
By doing something like that, the society could keep the only 144k go to heaven doctrine, the paradise earth idea, and remove the problem they have if anyone actually thinks about the numbers...
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Tell me does this make Any sense?
by whathehadas inwhile satan and his demons fiddled around in heaven and earth.
jehovah and jesus waited for over 2,000 years before kickin them out.
while a jdubb who is declared a apostate by the governing body and elders is kicked out asap!
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Sapphy
Hi whatthehadas, I'm in a place where I don't know what I believe, - and very liberating it is too, but I'll try and answer your question from a true beliver (in the WBTS) perspective.
Yes it makes sense: The governing body is responsible for the efficient running of the earthly congregation today. Immediate action must be taken to keep the congregation clean. Any apostacy allowed to florish could damage the spiritual health of the congregation. If action was not taken and several people were to fall away, it could be that the permissive elders would be found bloodguilty!
It's different with Satan since God is the one setting the rules for the spiritual realm. It could be argued that since 1000 years is as a day in the spiritual realm Satan will be executed one week after his rebellion.
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Did You Exit the Witnesses Due to Injustices / Difference with Doctrine-Both?
by flipper inmany of us leave due to injustices committed inside the organization.
i did initially.
i had doubts about some doctrines for years - but not until after leaving the witnesses was i free to be able to confirm my suspicions and see that yes, i did have valid reasons to have doubts all those years .
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Sapphy
Doctrine all the way for me. It's called 'the truth' and it's anything but.
My first doubt that awakened me from 'the society is always right' mindset was the realisation, as we were studying the Revelation book, that I didn't belive anything of significance took place at Cedar Point, Ohio in 1922.
Then as we were going through the Daniel book, it all started to fall apart. Zenobia? Oh really?
It was obvious the society weren't prepared for the fall of communism and were trying to ignor world events since 1989 since a unipolar world doesn't fit in with the King of the North/South .
Then the Isaiah books, turgid drone-fests of bordom. Months (felt like years) of studying Israel getting destroyed and restored and how everything means 1919.
So after thinking about prophetic interpretations I realised I didn't believe most of it. But even after I discovered 607 was wrong, I still thought that maybe they got the right year for the wrong reason, and I still believed in the religious doctrine, so I pushed further doubts away. But the critical voice in my head had been turned on...
Basically for me, I found that if I pulled at the strings of any of those doubts it all unravelled. Blood doctrine, last days, one-true-organisation. All gone. I read Crisis of Conscience.
I was left clinging on to the oneness of God and the ransom sacrifice. But then the ransom started to not make sense. Adam and Eve seemed more and more like a fable. I couldn't believe humans were only 6000 years old. The flood didn't/couldn't have happened, but Jesus spoke about the flood...
So now, I'm beginning my fade.
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Remember the clean rooms at the KH
by greenhornet ini am not sure if this topic is in the right place but.......... back when i was "in" i remember some kingdom halls had clean rooms that were for poeple that were alergect to every thing.. do they still have them.
(also they had them at the conventions also).
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33
Serious advice needed... being df'd without the brothers hearing my side???
by edlewiese inok i have asked several of my friends and they have never heard of being chased by a committee before.
so i am hoping someone has some insight.. .
i'll give you background and yes i am not innocent in the situation but what i was raised to believe is being contradicted by the actions of the elders.. .
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Sapphy
Sweetheart I'm sorry for your situation. The situation is this; Cult language in " ".
You married a not very nice man. You were a faithful wife for 15 years. His activities left you socially isolated and "on the fringes of the congregation". You reached your breaking point and left. Unfortunately you signed a letter saying your ex is now "scripturally free".
This letter now constitutes "evidence of wrongdoing", if you don't meet with the "Judicial Committee", then they can follow "theocratic procedure" and "disfellowship you in absentia".
If you are not living with your new man, you could perhaps try and withdraw your letter saying you didnt realise it meant you were confessing to wrong doing - just say you thought it meant that you wanted a "scriptural divorce" or something and didn't understand the implications.
Although if they have two witnessess to your adultery then it would be very difficult - would your own father testify against you?
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WTS publication: Mankind's Search for God
by Gorbatchov infriends,.
at the end of the 80's the wts published "mankind's search for god", about the global mainstream religion's.. what's your opinion about this publication?.
i think it was written for use on the weekly bookstudy, there were questions for all paragraphs.. after the publication it was never used at the bookstudy, and it was only rarely used in the congregation.. .
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