2011 yearbook, singing praise to jehovah, p.17-21:.
singing songs of praise to jehovah is an integral part of our worship.
at the 2009 conventions, therefore, god's servants were overjoyed when they were told of a new songbook, sing to jehovah.
They've shot themselves in the foot. Because no one is to be critical of Jehovah's theocratic organization, they only GET the good letters. Unless you are a big fat apostate, you're not going to write a letter to the Watchtower telling them what a horrible job they did.
Although, to be fair, there are a couple songs in the new songbook that I like.
went to the meeting today.
what a ra ra to be zealous in preaching sales meeting.
i was totally disgusted at the outright deception that they are spewing out.. .
Imagine if your boss told you that you were going to get an increase in pay, "very soon." You would be excited and would work harder than ever to assure that you would get the raise. A few weeks go by, no raise. A few months go by, no raise. You ask your boss about it and he says, "Oh, it's coming very soon. Keep working hard, in fact, now is the time to increase your output! Your raise will make it all worthwhile."
Fantastic point. And that shows one of the major faults of the Watchtower. The focus isn't on serving God. It's about the reward that will be obtained IF you do what you're supposed to. Anytime a reward is the focus, your guard should be up. Why are the angels serving God/ Is it for some future reward? No, in fact the 24 elders in Revelation cast their crowns before Gods throne and give him all the honor. Why? For a reward? Nope.
Revelation 4:11 gives the reason. It says, "You are worthy, or Lord and God, to receive the glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."
We serve God because he is worthy and deserving of our worship. Not for a future reward. The reward is given to those that have accepted Jesus as Christ. But that is not the focus.
And yet the Watchtower ENDLESSLY produces paintings of a garden like paradise earth. That is the real focus. They want you to just "keep your eyes on the prize" and that will get you through.
(reuters) the world of 7 million jehovah's witnesses took a horrific turn this morning when an aviation stunt went bad and claimed the lives of the seven members of the governing body of the watchtower bible and tract society.
the governing body directs both the spiritual and temporal lives of their followers, who believe their leadership speaks to them directly from god.
dead are samuel herd (age 75), geoffrey jackson (55), m. stephen lett (61), gerrit losch (69), anthony morris (60), guy h. pierce (76) and david h. splane (66).
You could do that NOW, EE!
(reuters) the world of 7 million jehovah's witnesses took a horrific turn this morning when an aviation stunt went bad and claimed the lives of the seven members of the governing body of the watchtower bible and tract society.
the governing body directs both the spiritual and temporal lives of their followers, who believe their leadership speaks to them directly from god.
dead are samuel herd (age 75), geoffrey jackson (55), m. stephen lett (61), gerrit losch (69), anthony morris (60), guy h. pierce (76) and david h. splane (66).
Sadly...I don't see a good outcome. I see the JWs stepping up to make sure that there is not any delay in even a single Watchtower. Men from down below would step up and take over the oversight. They would make it a tribute to these "faithful" men. They would go to the bible and show that this was prophesied. I really don't know WHAT would have to happen to end this organization. But the GB disappearing wouldn't end it, IMO.
if you were on a hiring panel for a new chair of the federal reserve board, would either a neatly trimmed beard or a bow tie even register on your dress and grooming "radar"?.
i'm talking ben bernanke, (current chairman of the fed).
richard abrahamson, secretary/treasurer of the wtb&ts of pennsylvania since 2000. i looked all over and couldn't find a picture of him, but he's famous for his bow ties.
We should start a thread where we add beards to to GB member photos. Sorry for the crappy photoshopping. I spent all of 2 mins on it.
Before:
After
2011 yearbook, singing praise to jehovah, p.17-21:.
singing songs of praise to jehovah is an integral part of our worship.
at the 2009 conventions, therefore, god's servants were overjoyed when they were told of a new songbook, sing to jehovah.
To produce reverent yet appealing songs, they avoided music that sounded like hymns used in Christendom's churches.
And yet, I prefer a good hymn over a kingdom melody any day. You can't beat a good rendition of "Amazing Grace". I'll take that over "Love that is intense and pure" every time.
Maybe they can take a lesson from "wicked" Christendom. It's obvious that their current "song writing" staff has much to be desired. Why are we still singing 1920's style music? Why just a piano? Why not some bass and drums? How bout instead of boring, mindless singing, we actually focus on our worship and the intense emotions that should come with it?
" god raised up bold champions for his word, among whom were luther, zwingli, melanchthon, wycliffe, knox and others.
" (divine plan of the ages) um...hello??
bold champions for his word?
when people who are not in such 'lofty' positions find themselves questioning, they're sometimes demonized
So true. And yet the Bible COMMANDS us to "test all things". We are supposed to question.
" god raised up bold champions for his word, among whom were luther, zwingli, melanchthon, wycliffe, knox and others.
" (divine plan of the ages) um...hello??
bold champions for his word?
I'm not attempting to discredit Luther
I'm sorry. I wasn't saying that you were. It's just a common argument I've heard over the years. In fact, many of Luthers arguments about some of those book seem very valid. An interesting argument that he has against the book of Jude is one that I've had for years. He discusses the fact that Jude contains events that are not referred to anywhere else in the Bible. Jude also quotes from so-called heretical books like the book of Enoch and others. I really feel that Luther was trying to do the right thing. And in so doing he showed that he is a sinner just like the rest of us.
And no, Sab, I don't think that Luther will be remembered as someone that destroyed the Christian faith. He fought for it in the face of what he saw as heresy.
" god raised up bold champions for his word, among whom were luther, zwingli, melanchthon, wycliffe, knox and others.
" (divine plan of the ages) um...hello??
bold champions for his word?
Luther did at one point attempt to remove the books of Hebrew, James, Jude, and Revelation. Why? The simple answer is that they didn't seem to him to fit into the overall theology that he held to. But it is fruitless to fight against Gods Word. It is eternal.
But it is wrong to claim that Luther actually removed the books from his canon. In fact, he completed his own translation of the Bible in 1522 and it contained the complete NT that we know today. Even after Luther finished his translation, he continually revised it. Phillip Schaff has pointed out, “He never ceased to amend his translation. Besides correcting errors, he improved the uncouth and confused orthography, fixed the inflections, purged the vocabulary of obscure and ignoble words, and made the whole more symmetrical and melodious. He prepared five original editions, or recensions, of his whole Bible, the last in 1545, a year before his death. This is the proper basis of all critical editions.”Great care and work went into Luther’s Bible. This means that every book in the Bible was given great concern and attention. No book of the Bible was left un-translated.
Luther wrote this statement in his original Preface To The New Testament in 1522:
“In a word St. John’s Gospel and his first epistle, St. Paul’s epistles, especially Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, and St. Peter’s first epistle are the books that show you Christ and teach you all that is necessary and salvatory for you to know, even if you were never to see or hear any other book or doctrine. Therefore St. James’ epistle is really an epistle of straw, compared to these others, for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it. But more of this in the other prefaces.”
Hence, this is one of the most common arguments that has been used to discredit Luther. But a thorough study of Luther shows that he did not exercise authoritarian control over the canon. He was wrong in many of his teachings about some of what he taught, but he was striving to be a borean and test all things. (1Thess 5:21)
" god raised up bold champions for his word, among whom were luther, zwingli, melanchthon, wycliffe, knox and others.
" (divine plan of the ages) um...hello??
bold champions for his word?
Also, to call Luther an outright anti-semite is to not understand the full story. For example in 1523, Luther accused Catholics of being unfair to Jews and treating them “as if they were dogs,” thus making it difficult for Jews to convert. “I would request and advise that one deal gently with them [the Jews],” he wrote. “ … If we really want to help them, we must be guided in our dealings with them not by papal law but by the law of Christian love. We must receive them cordially, and permit them to trade and work with us, hear our Christian teaching, and witness our Christian life. If some of them should prove stiff-necked, what of it? After all, we ourselves are not all good Christians either.”
Fifteen years later, however, rumors of Jewish efforts to convert Christians upset him, and he wrote a treatise venting his frustration. In it, Luther concluded that converting Jews had become hopeless.
Was he wrong (EXTREMELY WRONG) in this treatise? Very much so. Luther did not, however, hold Jews responsible for the death of Christ. As he wrote in a hymn, “We dare not blame … the band of Jews; ours is the shame.” And he felt that at least a few Jews might be won for Christ.
Luther was not an anti-Semite in the racist sense. His arguments against Jews were theological, not biological. Not until a French cultural anthropologist in the nineteenth century held that humankind consisted of “Semites” and “Aryans,” were Semites considered inferior.
Luther was but a frustrated biblical scholar who fell victim to what his friend Philipp Melanchthon called the “rabies of theologians”: drawing conclusions based on speculations about the hidden will of God. Luther erred because he presumed to know God’s will.
