djeggnog

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  86

  More "Elders" Doubt They Are Appointed By The "Holy Spirit"!

  by Bubblegum Apotheosis in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the study edition of the watchtower says the elders are appointed by jehovah's holy spirit.

  it's confounding the society does not realize that more and more elders, do not accept this claim.

  i have racked my brain, wondering how many brothers and sisters actually believe this, fall hook and sinker.

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  djeggnog

  @Bubblegum Apotheosis:

  I had a falling out with my younger brother, our falling out was due to a "crisis of conscious", he [actively] gossiped to destroy elders that did not kiss his ass. He is the top dog, among the body, he engineered his "dream team" of elders, who bend over backwards to do his will. He is a bully, a liar, and a thief, has no problem watching X-Rated movies or staying drunk for long periods of time. [My brother's] wife is the perfect "Stepford" wife, she blindly obeys this fools rantings, she [believes] that she does not have to study magazines (or read anything the Society prints), read the Bible, blatantly practices "Corban" with no [conscience].... How is that for Holy Spirit Appointment?

  @djeggnog wrote:

  I fail to see how putting your own sister-in-law "on blast" (as the kids put it nowadays) in front of folks who, despite the anonymity, are really strangers to you doesn't speak more to the hatred you have for your brother and his wife than it does to the question of whether your brother was appointed by holy spirit. What you said here seems more a testimony of the contempt you have for members of your own family, and, quite frankly, I don't see how you can speak this way about your own relatives unless you truly have a hatred for them.

  If your younger brother should die today, it would seem that you would attend his funeral, if you were to attend it at all, for appearances sake only, because what you have done here seems tantamount to your standing above the hole that had been dug into which the casket containing your brother has already been lowered, extracting your penis from your pants and then urinating all over it. Who does this??

  @The Quiet One:

  What kind of mind would think this illustration up?.. would be a better question, in my view.

  An adult mind.

  Have you read post guideline 3, by the way?

  I did read Guidelines 3. I suppose I could have just used the word "desecrate" alone, instead of providing an description, but if you don't know what constitutes the making of "obscene or vulgar comments" to which Guideline 3 refers, I do, and but I don't believe what I wrote to have been offensive. There was nothing obscene, for there was nothing with a sexual tint contained in my comment, or vulgar, for there was nothing indecent contained in my comment.

  You do not say what words in my comment offended you, but did my use of the words "penis" and "urinating" offend you, @The Quiet One? If so, then I can only apologize to you for any offense caused by your having innocent read my comment, but my intent was not to offend anyone. You innocently read @Bubblegum Apotheosis' description of his younger brother, too, but I would note that you said nothing and I'm especially sensitive to people "bad mouthing" others, especially when they regretfully should "bad mouth" members of their own family. My intent was to drive home to @Bubblegum Apotheosis what I thought as to the inappropriateness of his having written what things he wrote in "actively gossiping" on here about own brother on a forum like this one. It was unloving.

  @djeggnog wrote:

  ... it is by means of holy spirit that the "faithful and discreet slave" (Matthew 24:45-47), as represented by the Governing Body, received its appointment to preside over the slave's "domestics" as well as over the rest of the Christian household to make appointments of the local body of elders, which scripturally-qualified men, who serve as "shepherds and teachers," are as "gifts" given by Jesus, men to whom Christians in the local congregation are directed to "be submissive." (Ephesians 4:7, 8, 11-13; Hebrews 13:17)

  @pharmer wrote:

  Is this really correct JW understanding, that the GB presides over the slave's domestics? Not over the Master's domestics? Would that not mean that the GB IS the master? [¶] To whom do these domestics belong? [¶] Djeggnog, my questions had to do with what correct JW understanding was; nothing to do with my personal understanding. Try to stay focused.

  Ok.

  Notice in the portion I quoted you, you essentially said, the slave received its appointment (by means of holy spirit) to preside over the slave's "domestics". Do you see the ambiguity?

  Yes.

  You used the term slave twice in one sentence without any mention of a master. As a result, you either have two different slaves (one slave being the master over the other slave) or you are referring to one slave that is also the master.

  Yes, I see what you are saying, but I might point out that I had also stated the following:

  Read Luke 12:42-44. [Jesus] called the slave a "steward" and [Jesus also] referred to the "domestics" as "his body of attendants." A steward is a house manager or administrator who is placed over servants. Yet, the steward is also a servant.

  So I went on to explain thusly:

  (@djeggnog:)

  At Matthew 24:45, we read, "whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time," we read in the parallel citation at Luke 12:42, "whom his master will appoint over his body of attendants to keep giving them their measure of food supplies at the proper time." A steward is put in charge of the master's house and in administering his duties, gives direction to all of the master's slaves that live in the house, even though the steward is but a slave himself.

  So I see the ambiguity to which you refer and I do appreciate your pointing this out to me.

  So really, you were using the term slave (twice in the same sentence) when what you really meant was that the one slave (of which the GB represents) has been appointed over the Master's "domestics". Is that accurate JW understanding generally speaking?

  Yes.

  I notice that discussions tend to be more ambiguous than is necessary, I'm trying to prevent more ambiguity.

  Ok.

  Just simply do this if you would: Clarify the sentence I quoted by filling in the blank with another name other than slave in a way that communicates what you were meaning to communicate. Use "master", "steward", whomever you meant that particular "slave" to be.

  ... it is by means of holy spirit that the "faithful and discreet slave" (Matthew 24:45-47), as represented by the Governing Body, received its appointment to preside over the slave's [fellow "domestics" or fellow "slaves,"] as well as over ["all his belongings" or "things on the earth" (Ephesians 1:10, that is to say,] the rest of the Christian household to make appointments of the local body of elders, which scripturally-qualified men, who serve as "shepherds and teachers," are as "gifts" given by Jesus, men to whom Christians in the local congregation are directed to "be submissive." (Ephesians 4:7, 8, 11-13; Hebrews 13:17)

  @pharmer wrote:

  Would that not mean that the GB IS the master?

  @djeggnog wrote:

  No, Jesus is the master, something that I would expect those who had formerly been Jehovah's Witnesses to already know. But now you know, @pharmer.

  @pharmer wrote:

  Oh, and I've never been a JW, and yet I already knew the correct answer as to what the Bible teaches. Don't worry, I'm not as easily offended by your condescending assumptions as some might be.

  There's every reason to believe that you wouldn't have known this already. My assumption about you having formerly been one of Jehovah's Witnesses was wrong and I'm sorry about that.

  @Bubblegum Apotheosis wrote:

  The W.T.S. believes they have control over the [magnificent] Holy Spirit, and who is saved by Jehovah.

  @djeggnog wrote:

  This is not true.

  @palmtree67 wrote:

  How is this not true?

  Jehovah's Witnesses cannot give absolution to anyone. Plus, the holy spirit doesn't save anyone.

  Do they not disfellowship people, supposedly with the aid of the Holy Spirit and supposedly then the people are not saved?

  This is a compound question, so I will have to break up my answer to it in three (3) parts:

  (1) Yes, we do occasionally have to disfellowship brothers and sisters for wrongdoing, but they are still Christians; they are just put on a "time-out," so to speak, to give the individual time to think about the actions that led to their being disfellowshipped in the hope that when they should (hopefully) be reinstated, they will have a repentant posture or attitude, since Jesus is the judge and only he can determine whether or not someone has truly repented of this sins. (Jehovah is the real judge, but 'Jehovah has committed all the judging to Jesus' (John 5:22).)

  (2) The holy spirit tells us at 1 Corinthians 5:11-13 that "the 'wicked man' is to be removed from among us, but we don't understand this passage to mean that we cannot treat them with respect to which every human being is entitled. I realize that those that have been disfellowshipped are often treated as if they were real lepers in many of the congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses when they have, in effect, spiritual leprosy, many of them because they cannot shake that urge to smoke cigarettes or they are unable to control how much alcohol they drink and some others because they may have slept with the baby's father again in a moment of weakness and failed to confess their sin, but whatever the reason, there exists no scriptural authority whatsoever for those in good standing to be mistreating or beating their brothers and sisters up that happen to not be in good standing at the time. This is unloving.

  (3) You are in a saved condition because you dedicated your life to Jehovah and symbolized that dedication by water baptism. There's no way to annul this. When someone is reinstated, he or she isn't re-baptized. The disfellowshipped person is simply someone that is not in good standing during the period of time that he or she is disfellowshipped. The disfellowshipped person can be reinstated at any time by the local elders that took the action. But I don't know where it was you heard or learned that one is not saved or has lost their salvation when disfellowshipped.

  How is that not true?

  Because no one is saved until one has endured to the end, but Jesus know who belongs to him. If anyone doesn't have Christ's spirit, then "this one does not belong to him." (Matthew 24:13; Romans 8:9)

  @djeggnog
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  86

  More "Elders" Doubt They Are Appointed By The "Holy Spirit"!

  by Bubblegum Apotheosis in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the study edition of the watchtower says the elders are appointed by jehovah's holy spirit.

  it's confounding the society does not realize that more and more elders, do not accept this claim.

  i have racked my brain, wondering how many brothers and sisters actually believe this, fall hook and sinker.

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  djeggnog

  @truthseeker1969:

  if they were appointed by holy spirit then there would be no need for an appeals process in JD's "as an act of kindness".

  Perhaps you weren't aware of this -- I wouldn't know one way or the other -- that the appeals process is only necessary because the elders that sit on a judicial committee aren't able to read anyone's heart nor is there anyone like the apostle Peter through whom the holy spirit speaks (Acts 5:3, 4) on whom the elders can rely to ensure that all of their decisions are just. If the elders had such a person ion their midst, then there would be no need for appeals, but none of that has anything at all to do with whether or not the elders were appointed by holy spirit.

  All such appointments are made based on an examination of the spiritual qualifications that someone that the individual must have to receive such an appointment. As I pointed out in my initial response to @Bubblegum Apotheosis' post, the spiritual qualifications that such appointees must have are spelled out by the apostle Paul, who wrote under the inspiration of God's holy spirit. This means that when such appointments, based on what things Paul wrote in the Bible, are made in God's organization, we cannot rightly hold Paul responsible for having made any of the appointments of those that have served or are currently serving as elders, no, for all appointments are made by what the holy spirit said by Paul in when we read and are guided by the words penned under inspiration of the holy spirit to consider at 1 Timothy 3:1-10, 12, 13.

  @Bungi Bill:

  All you have just proven is that it possible to use several hundred words:

  - when several dozen would have sufficed!

  If this was Twitter, you might be making a valid argument here, but if you comprehend "several hundred words," then how would you possibly get the sense of what I wrote in response to @Bubblegum Apotheosis' post were I to have attempt to limit what I said to 140 characters?

  @Bubblegum Apotheosis:

  I read your post and would like some time to prepare some Bible based remarks, with my fifty years of experience in the Organization, and with dealings will all claims that, Jehovah has used his spirit to appoint us. I greatly appreciate your view and please allow me some time to respond to your post, Thank you for taking the time to share your viewpoint, all sincere viewpoints are appreciated by me.

  Ok.

  One other area deserves consideration, that Jehovah's Holy Spirit is able to be [bestowed] upon men and women who have never had contact with the Watchtower Organization.

  This is not true.

  In addition to the apostles Peter and Paul, who were martyred for their work in connection with God's kingdom, there was Papias of Hierapolis, a bishop, who wrote "Exposition of the Lord's Oracles," said today to have been one of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and who was martyred in 163 AD, held beliefs similar to the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses today. It was holy spirit that convinced Papias, based on his reading of the Bible, to believe in the millennial reign of Christ. As Paul stated at 1 Corinthians 12:3: "Nobody can say: "Jesus is Lord!" except by holy spirit."

  An early Reformer, Jan Hus, who was strongly influenced by John Wycliffe, the man that had produced the very first Bible translation rendered in the English language, and Hus preached against the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). Moved as he was by what things he read in the Bible, the holy spirit compelled Hus to stress the importance of the people being able to reading the Bible for themselves, which brought the wrath of the RCC hierarchy upon him, so that in 1403, the RCC ordered him to stop preaching the antipapal ideas of Wycliffe, whose books they had also publicly burned.

  Ignoring the RCC's order, Hus went on to write some of the most stinging indictments against the practices of the Church, including the sale of indulgences, which led to his being tried at the Council of Constance, where he was condemned as a heretic and excommunicated by the RCC seven years later in 1410. However, Hus’ refusal to recant his beliefs led to his martyrdom, for five years later, in 1415, the same council ordered that Hus be burned at the stake, and this same council ordered that the bones of Wycliffe be excavated and burned, although Wycliffe had been dead for more than 30 years.

  Michael Servetus of Spain, was martyred by his being burned to death in 1553 because of his rejection of the RCC's and John Calvin's view of Jesus Christ being part of a Trinity, for anyone in those days that had been moved by holy spirit to dissent from belief in the Trinity was considered a heretic and thought to be condemned.

  Charles Russell (1852-1916) had once been associated with Congregational Church; Jonas Wendell (1815-1873) had been associated with the Second Adventist Church; Nelson H. Barbour (1824-1906) had been associated with the Millerites Adventists; George Stetson (1814-1879) had been associated with the Advent Christian Church; Henry Grew (1781-1862) had been associated with the Orthodox Church; and George Storrs (1796-1879) had been associated with the Methodist Church. All of these men were students of God's word and men upon whom God's holy spirit operated, but it was because of the contact that all of these men had with Pastor Russell that he came to acquire the spiritual insight that was required to restore true worship and to spread the message about God's kingdom throughout the earth.

  Everyone JW [sic] has heard indirectly that, you have to be a "JW from the Watchtowers" worldview, so if the big "A" were to come today, for years I have heard "Jehovah would judge all of Iran, Afghanistan, China, Russia, Albany and a plethora of other countries, where the "Good News" has not been preached.

  As far as the countries of China, Iran, Afghanistan and Russia, this just isn't true. As far as the country of Albania is concerned, some two years after the fall of the Berlin wall on November 9, 1989, the 24-year ban on religious activities in this nation was lifted in 1991. I might add that we are in Pakistan as well. We even have publishers in Saudi Arabia even though we no longer publish reports about this or any other nation where our work may currently be under ban. If you should no longer be involved in helping us complete the work that all Christians are obliged to do, then what difference would it make what Jehovah's Witnesses might be doing anywhere in the world? The point I would make here though is that whoever it was that suggested to you that the good news wasn't being preached in these countries was mistaken.

  The W.T.S. believes they have control over the [magnificent] Holy Spirit, and who is saved by Jehovah.

  This is not true.

  The Bible is very clear, that Jehovah will save, [anoint] men and women, who are not [affiliated] with the Watchtower.

  This is also not true. First of all, Jesus is responsible for mankind's salvation, for just as Jesus stated at John 5:26, God has granted to Jesus "to have life in himself," so Jehovah isn't involved in anyone's salvation at all. Secondly, there is no one that has received an anointing or is yet anointed by holy spirit that would not be affiliated with Jehovah's Witnesses.

  I digress, but I wanted to add this to our discussion, that Jehovah has people in every country, he has never left his name unrepresented (Paul speaks of men whose conscience bear witness to their actions, and implicate or [exonerate] them, through their God given sense of right or wrong, since [Adam)].

  You seem to be alluding to our moral nature, which is a law about which Paul wrote at Romans 2:14, 15, with reference to the human conscience that gives to us a sense of fairness, a sense of right and wrong. The conscience is the God-given moral sense that was given to all mankind, which has nothing at all to do with Jehovah's name, and our "perceptive powers" do "bear witness ... in holy spirit" if our consciences have been "trained to distinguish both right and wrong." (Romans 9:1; Hebrews 5:14)

  Egg cut and pasted his form letter response on this issue.

  I don't have any "form letter." I write this way because I do not wish to make it easy for my words to be taken out of context, so I'm verbose when I write, whereas I'm brief when I don't learn anything when I'm speaking, but learn much by listening.

  We are told to watch the conduct of those taking the lead, and to run, if they are acting wickedly. The Society tells us not to judge the elders or the GB, only to constantly judge our own works.

  That is not true, for all Christians are required to "contemplate how [the] conduct of the elders turns out" and that the only thing that Christians should "imitate [is] their faith" and nothing more than this. (Hebrews 13:7)

  @curiousconfused:

  3. When the prospective elder displays [Fruitage] of the Spirit, then it can be said that HS is working on him;

  Every Christian ought to exhibit the fruitage of the spirit, but every prospective elder should manifest godly wisdom and give evidence of their being led by God's spirit would have their spiritual qualifications reviewed by the body of elders. (1 Timothy 3:1-10, 12, 13; Titus 1:5-9)

  make a review of their spiritual qualifications to serve as an elder. Like Christ Jesus, they should "with lowliness of mind" consider those in the congregation "as being superior to them. (Philippians 2:3-6)

  @djeggnog wrote:

  ... it is by means of holy spirit that the "faithful and discreet slave" (Matthew 24:45-47), as represented by the Governing Body, received its appointment to preside over the slave's "domestics" as well as over the rest of the Christian household to make appointments of the local body of elders, which scripturally-qualified men, who serve as "shepherds and teachers," are as "gifts" given by Jesus, men to whom Christians in the local congregation are directed to "be submissive." (Ephesians 4:7, 8, 11-13; Hebrews 13:17)

  @pharmer wrote:

  Is this really correct JW understanding, that the GB presides over the slave's domestics? Not over the Master's domestics?

  Read Luke 12:42-44.) He called the slave a "steward" and referred to the "domestics" as "his body of attendants." A steward is a house manager or administrator who is placed over servants. Yet, the steward is also a servant.

  At Matthew 24:45, we read, "whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time," we read in the parallel citation at Luke 12:42, "whom his master will appoint over his body of attendants to keep giving them their measure of food supplies at the proper time." A steward is put in charge of the master's house and in administering his duties, gives direction to all of the master's slaves that live in the house, even though the steward is but a slave himself.

  At Matthew 24:45, Jesus was really asking rhetorically, "What nation will discreetly replace fleshly Israel as God's servant and be responsible for feeding the master's domestics? This question was said with reference to the Israel of God, who had now become God's servant.

  Would that not mean that the GB IS the master?

  No, Jesus is the master, something that I would expect those who had formerly been Jehovah's Witnesses to already know. But now you know, @pharmer.

  To whom do these domestics belong?

  Let's reason this out: Jehovah is the Father, Jesus is his Son, the heir, and the domestics or body of attendants? Well, technically these domestics belong to both Jehovah and Jesus, but, in the Bible, the Son is referred to as their "master." In Matthew 24:29-31, Jesus indicates that it would be "after the tribulation" that the Son of man would come "with power and great glory," and the "day and hour" of their master's arrival wouldn't be something that his servant would know (verse 36), so since the "Son of man" is the Lord Jesus Christ, then the "master" of the domestics would also be the Lord Jesus Christ, thus the need for all of the domestics to "keep on the watch" and be "ready" for their master's arrival (verses 42-44), for the master comes on a day that none of his domestics expect and in an hour that they do not know (verses 50). Also, should there be any doubt, Colossians 3:24 points out that "the Master" is Christ and so the domestics belong to him.

  @Bubblegum Apotheosis:

  The critical thinking ability of JWN, is so sharp, when we all discuss these man made doctrines.

  How so? I've seen evidence of a critical attitude and a lot of faultfinding and no evidence of "critical thinking ability" on here.

  [My brother's] wife is the perfect "Stepford" wife, she blindly obeys this fools rantings, she [believes] that she does not have to study magazines (or read anything the Society prints), read the Bible, blatantly practices "Corban" with no [conscience].... How is that for Holy Spirit Appointment?

  I fail to see how putting your own sister-in-law "on blast" (as the kids put it nowadays) in front of folks who, despite the anonymity, are really strangers to you doesn't speak more to the hatred you have for your brother and his wife than it does to the question of whether your brother was appointed by holy spirit. What you said here seems more a testimony of the contempt you have for members of your own family, and, quite frankly, I don't see how you can speak this way about your own relatives unless you truly have a hatred for them.

  If your younger brother should die today, it would seem that you would attend his funeral, if you were to attend it at all, for appearances sake only, because what you have done here seems tantamount to your standing above the hole that had been dug into which the casket containing your brother has already been lowered, extracting your penis from your pants and then urinating all over it. Who does this??

  This thread you started here is one about doctrine, a doctrine that you clearly don't understand, a doctrine about which the Bible speaks that you don't believe Jehovah's Witnesses understand either, and based on what things you know about your younger brother and about your sister-in-law, you have doubts as to how it is that this guy -- your brother -- could have possibly been appointed by holy spirit. Apparently you derive joy from deriding and throwing darts at your own family members in front of strangers, but what happened to the thread you started? Have you lost interest in it or was all of what you said in your opening post just a prelude to the dart-fest?

  Based on your opening salvo --

  The study edition of the Watchtower says the elders are appointed by Jehovah's Holy Spirit. It's confounding the Society does not realize that more and more elders, do not accept this claim.... I can count twenty elders off hand, who do not agree with the Watchtower's claim on this matter.

  -- I made a few comments to dispel this notion of yours that any of the elders doubt that their appointment were made by holy spirit, since it appeared to me that you were of the opinion that elders are selected by some visible manifestation of holy spirit as per those tongues that hovered above the heads of the 120 that had been gathered together in that room in Jerusalem on that Pentecost day when they became filled with holy spirit.

  The Bible doesn't teach that elders are appointed in such a fashion, but that they are appointed based on whether they are spiritually qualified to do serve as such according to what the Bible says, or, to express this in another way, according to what the holy spirit says at 1 Timothy 3:1-10, 12, 13 and at Titus 1:5-9. I did expect you would respond to my post, but, as yet, you haven't done so. I suppose you will respond to it when you are done pushing this tangent of yours about most of the elders doubting holy spirit as being the source of their appointments.

  @djeggnog
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  86

  More "Elders" Doubt They Are Appointed By The "Holy Spirit"!

  by Bubblegum Apotheosis in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the study edition of the watchtower says the elders are appointed by jehovah's holy spirit.

  it's confounding the society does not realize that more and more elders, do not accept this claim.

  i have racked my brain, wondering how many brothers and sisters actually believe this, fall hook and sinker.

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• 

  djeggnog

  @djeggnog wrote:

  The expression "spirit anointed Christians" is another often misunderstood phrase. "Spirit anointed" has to do with one's heavenly calling, with God's spirit having borne witness with the spirit of those who have been called and chosen by God and adopted by him as sons. (Romans 8:16) However, I myself am filled with holy spirit the same as are many other Jehovah's Witnesses (else it would not be possible for a Christian to grieve it!), but this expression -- being "filled with holy spirit" -- that some fail to comprehend doesn't imply nor does it mean that I have or anyone else has been zapped with a portion of God's holy spirit.

  This expression simply means that I have been "empowered" by God's word, or energized by the same "power" that was given to Jesus' early disciples back in 33 AD, except that "power" was received supernaturally whereas this same "power" today is received through the things we read in the Bible.

  @The Quiet One wrote:

  So basically you are saying that true Christians today do not receive the holy spirit, they can only be directed by it through the words in the Bible?

  No, what I have said here is that the true Christians today do receive God's holy spirit through their reading and studying of the Bible in applying the scriptural requirements that are applicable to Christians. I have also said:

  Because Jehovah's Witnesses are led by holy spirit, only qualified men are appointed to serve as overseers based on the [standards] provided in God's word, so in this way they are appointed by holy spirit according to the scriptural requirements set forth at 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9, and by the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses through the recommendations made by spiritually "certified men ... full of spirit and wisdom." (Acts 6:3)

  Many seem to be oblivious to the fact that Acts 15:28 doesn't just refer to what the holy spirit itself says, but also to what "we ourselves," as scripturally-qualified men appointed by holy spirit, "certified men ... full of spirit and wisdom," empowered to preside and "take care of God's congregation," might determine to be necessary safeguards for protecting the flock of God that has been entrusted to their care.

  In the first century AD, holy spirit manifested itself in God's congregation by the gifts of the spirit, for we can read at 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 about the various operations of the spirit, such as speech of knowledge, so that those in the various congregations with this gift could miraculous quote from the Scriptures without there being any need on his part to have the appropriate Hebrew scroll containing the scripture in front of them, thus making it unnecessary to appoint someone as "a scroll servant" -- a toter of the scrolls, as it were -- for in the absence of this spiritual gift, someone would have had to carry the scrolls about from meeting to meeting.

  There was the gift of faith, which was a gift that went beyond that which one needed to become a Christian, for those having this gift had the conviction that made his faith unshakeable, which served to energize the congregations of God. To the various congregations, there was given many other gifts as well (speech of wisdom, healings, powerful works, prophesying, discernment of inspired utterances, the ability to speak in different tongues and the ability to interpret these tongues).

  Eventually though, the need for these gifts waned, for Paul himself wrote 14 letters under the inspiration of holy spirit "with a view to the readjustment of the holy ones, for ministerial work," for the upbuilding of the congregations (Ephesians 4:12), and these same letters, which became a part of the Bible, are among the 66 books that make up the Bible canon on which Jehovah's Witnesses rely in order to accomplish our ministry today. What's important to note here is that in the first century AD, the congregations didn't carry Bibles with them in their ministry, so instead of saying, "the Bible says" as we do today, they would say, "the holy spirit said."

  As was mentioned in my previous message, when Paul quoted from Jeremiah 31:33, 34, he didn't introduce this Bible passage at Hebrews 10:15-18 by saying, "the Bible said," but what he said was "the holy spirit ... has said: "'This is the covenant that I shall covenant toward them after those days...."'" Note that Paul points out that it is in this way that "the holy spirit bears witness to us," and so it is in this way when we read the Bible that the holy spirit speaks to us today.

  As another example, we read at Hebrews 3:7-11, where Paul quotes from Psalm 95:7-11, his saying, not "For this reason, the Bible says at Psalm 95:7-11, 'Today if you people listen to his own voice...," but instead Paul says "For this reason, just as the holy spirit says: "Today if you people listen to his own voice...." Again, we can see how it is when we quote something from the Bible that it is in this way that "the holy spirit says" this or that, and so it is in this way that the holy spirit speaks to us today whenever we read the Bible or whenever we hear a passage from the Bible being read by someone else.

  Now I mentioned earlier how Acts 15:28 doesn't just refer to what the holy spirit itself says, but also to what "we ourselves" say as scripturally-qualified men appointed by holy spirit, since the central body of elders and the local body of elders are the ones empowered by God's spirit to preside over God's congregation. This means that the elders must also make decisions based on their understanding of what the holy spirit says to the congregations through their reading of the Bible, which is why in the congregations of God you will find certain things are not approved for Christians in certain congregations that may be approved in other congregations, such as sporting a beard.

  Smoking is disapproved in all of the congregations of God today and playing the state lottery or buying lottery tickets is also frowned upon, just as having social contact with disfellowshipped persons is someone not approved in the congregations of God today. While these things are not laws, per se, that are specifically commanded in God's word -- IOW, while you cannot point to a single scripture that explicitly says, "Christians should not smoke" -- "we ourselves" may discern in the Bible that when the holy spirit says to Christians at 2 Corinthians 7:1, that in order to perfect holiness in God's fear we must "cleanse ourselves of every defilement of flesh and spirit," that what this means is that "Christians should not smoke."

  There is single scripture that explicitly says, "Christians should not play the state lottery" -- "we ourselves" may discern in the Bible that where the holy spirit says at Isaiah 65:11, that those "leaving Jehovah" are those that are "forgetting my holy mountain" (how?) by "setting in order a table for the god of Good Luck," that playing the lottery would be gambling in its appeal to greed (why?) because winning becomes an idol. There when the holy spirit says to Christians at 1 Corinthians 10:14 to "flee from idolatry," "we ourselves" discern from the principle established at Isaiah 65:11 that "Christians should not gamble," for playing the lottery would be tantamount to apostasy.

  And that being ''filled with the spirit'' actually means to be 'moved to action through what the spirit has said' ?

  Yes.

  @djeggnog
• 
  86

  More "Elders" Doubt They Are Appointed By The "Holy Spirit"!

  by Bubblegum Apotheosis in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the study edition of the watchtower says the elders are appointed by jehovah's holy spirit.

  it's confounding the society does not realize that more and more elders, do not accept this claim.

  i have racked my brain, wondering how many brothers and sisters actually believe this, fall hook and sinker.

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  djeggnog

  @Bubblegum Apotheosis:

  The study edition of the Watchtower says the elders are appointed by Jehovah's Holy Spirit. It's confounding the Society does not realize that more and more elders, do not accept this claim.... I can count twenty elders off hand, who do not agree with the Watchtower's claim on this matter.

  That would be interesting.

  The Holy Spirit, does not guide the BOE, or we would not have appointed a pedophile, chronic fornicator, a [thief, drunkard,] pathological liars and other cowards... Who still believes elders are picked by Jehovah, honestly I don't know who is that stupid!

  Well, I am "that stupid." I take that this your opinion, but a pedophile, a chronic fornicator, or a thief, a drunkard or a pathological liar can be appointed as a elder by means of the holy spirit. The central body of elders to whom Jehovah's Witnesses refer as the "Governing Body" are, like the local body of elders, part of the Christian congregation, which is in subjection to Jesus Christ, the head of the Christian congregation, but it is by means of holy spirit that the "faithful and discreet slave" (Matthew 24:45-47), as represented by the Governing Body, received its appointment to preside over the slave's "domestics" as well as over the rest of the Christian household to make appointments of the local body of elders, which scripturally-qualified men, who serve as "shepherds and teachers," are as "gifts" given by Jesus, men to whom Christians in the local congregation are directed to "be submissive." (Ephesians 4:7, 8, 11-13; Hebrews 13:17)

  So a question to which one might need a response is this one: And if Jesus has given the GB/elders at the local level such authority, where is the proof?

  I've cited a few scriptures above that indicate that the local elders, even the central body of elders, were appointed by holy spirit, so that their authority to preside and "take care of God's congregation" (1 Timothy 3:5) is based on the spiritual qualifications that the holy spirit has clearly laid out for those serving as overseers and ministerial servants in the local congregation. Let me rephrase this: Elders are duly appointed to serve in the local congregation by means of holy spirit, and the scriptural proof of this can be found by reading 1 Timothy 3:1-10, 12, 13, for it is only by examining the things we read in the Bible as to the qualifications that elders must meet that we can prove to ourselves that the holy spirit itself has appointed such men as overseers in the congregation, for it is through the Scriptures that the holy spirit speaks.

  It is true that many Jehovah's Witnesses do not understand that the holy spirit speaks through the Scriptures even though they have actively been Jehovah's Witnesses for many years, and the holy spirit is actually what gives substance to the elder arrangement in the Christian congregation, but you are free to reject what things I have here explained to you.

  Jehovah is the author of the Bible, and it is by means of his holy spirit that the Bible was, in fact, written. We are "consulting" Jehovah when we both read and study his word, and do according to what the holy spirit directs. If it sounds a bit strange to hear me speak about the holy spirit giving direction or speaking, it may be that you have not become acquainted with the fact that the holy spirit speaks through the scriptures we read in the Bible.

  The holy spirit speaks to us the very same way as it spoke to the Christians in Jesus' day, namely, through the Bible. For example, at Mark 12:36, we read Jesus' reference to Psalm 110:1, in that he states that "by the holy spirit David himself said, 'Jehovah said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies beneath your feet."'" Yes, David penned this psalm, and Jesus quoted the words of David's psalm, but the point here is that when Jesus quoted from this psalm at Mark 12:36, he was letting the holy spirit speak. Likewise, when we read Psalm 110:1 today, we would likewise be allowing the holy spirit to speak since these inspired expressions of God would not be our own words, but God's words.

  Similarly, the apostle Paul personifies the holy spirit in his saying at Hebrews 10:15-18 that "the holy spirit also bears witness to us, for after it has said: '"This is the covenant that I shall covenant toward them after those days," says Jehovah. "I will put my laws in their hearts, and in their minds I shall write them,"' it says afterwards: 'And I shall by no means call their sins and their lawless deeds to mind anymore.' Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin." IOW, Paul indicates here that the holy spirit speaks to us, even "bears witness to us," whenever we read a scripture from the Bible, as when Paul quotes Jeremiah 31:33, 34 and introduces these two verses by indicating that this is how the holy spirit speaks or "bears witness" today.

  If you were to read a passage of scripture and conclude about it something that opposes my view as one of Jehovah's Witnesses as to the meaning of this same passage, in my mind you have a mistaken view that needs to be adjusted to the Scriptures, but you are the only one that could prove to yourself from the Scriptures whether or not you have a mistaken viewpoint. God is not going to suddenly make a declaration to you in declaring me right and you wrong, but God's spirit is the One that will reveal the truth and it does so progressively. (Did you notice how I just personified the holy spirit by calling it "the One"?)

  In the first century AD, the good news was being preached as good news to those being chosen and called to the heavenly kingdom, but the good news today is now being directed to those who hope to live forever under God's kingdom here on earth. We became Jehovah's Witnesses by virtue of our having been being baptized in the Father's name as the Most High, and witnesses of Jesus for we acknowledge Jesus' outstanding role in vindicating Jehovah's name, but we were also baptized in the Son's name as the Messiah and our Redeemer, he having been given by his Father a name or office that is greater than any other name given. Being baptized in the name of holy spirit is what gives us the power to speak to others what God's word says and means.

  It was from Pentecost of the year 33 AD forward that the holy spirit began to be poured out that Jesus' disciples began to "receive power" as to come to an understanding of the deep things of God. Among those that received holy spirit was the apostle Paul who wrote what things we read today in the Bible because he was moved by God's holy spirit to write those 14 books that he is credited with writing. Whereas back in the first century AD, Paul received supernatural gifts of the spirit, Jehovah's Witnesses today do not receive holy spirit supernaturally. We teach others based on what the holy spirit says to us through the pages of the Bible. This is important to understand for there are many people that are of the mistaken belief that Jehovah's Witnesses believe they are zapped by Jehovah with a supernatural force, the holy spirit, which is not the case.

  The expression "spirit anointed Christians" is another often misunderstood phrase. "Spirit anointed" has to do with one's heavenly calling, with God's spirit having borne witness with the spirit of those who have been called and chosen by God and adopted by him as sons. (Romans 8:16) However, I myself am filled with holy spirit the same as are many other Jehovah's Witnesses (else it would not be possible for a Christian to grieve it!), but this expression -- being "filled with holy spirit" -- that some fail to comprehend doesn't imply nor does it mean that I have or anyone else has been zapped with a portion of God's holy spirit.

  This expression simply means that I have been "empowered" by God's word, or energized by the same "power" that was given to Jesus' early disciples back in 33 AD, except that "power" was received supernaturally whereas this same "power" today is received through the things we read in the Bible.

  Holy spirit is what empowers Christians to speak the word of God with boldness. Being baptized in the name of holy spirit is what gives us the power to speak to others what the Bible says and means. Since Jehovah's Witnesses put their faith in God's word, God's spirit may lead us to the realization that we may have gotten something wrong, that we may have drawn a wrong conclusion about something we may have understood differently in the past. Over the years, such progressive changes have occurred many tines as our understanding of the Bible increases, so over the years there have been many adjustments in our understanding, and these adjustments are published as soon as practicable in our literature, and at our Kingdom Halls, circuit and district assemblies. Holy spirit would in this case have revealed the truth to us progressively since what we had discerned in the past to be true will have turned out not to have been true, for something we discover in the Bible is what prompted a change in our viewpoint.

  Jehovah's Witnesses are led by what things we read in the Bible and by what things we discern from the things we read in it, so that while we might get it wrong at times, we are willing to adjust our viewpoint when it becomes necessary to do so, such as when we realize that our understanding of something that the holy spirit says in God's word turns out to be mistaken. God's holy spirit speaks through His inspired word and it is often in hindsight that Jehovah's Witnesses come to the realization that we have come to a wrong understanding of what the holy spirit says, a wrong understanding of what the Bible is saying to us, and so, whenever we should err, we will make whatever adjustments are necessary since, as Jehovah's Witnesses, we endeavor to teach things that are in harmony with what the holy spirit actually does say and not with what we may have thought the holy spirit was saying.

  Our being directed by holy spirit means that one must be in harmony with it. Another way to put this, being led by holy spirit means to conform one's life so that it is in harmony with the things that one reads in God's word. However, it is important to understand that what being directed by holy spirit or being led by it doesn't mean is that Jehovah ever gets anything wrong when we get something wrong. It isn't Jehovah that "gets it wrong," but we ourselves that seek guidance from his word, the Bible, and do not for whatever reason accurately discern what the Bible is saying. To be "led by God's spirit" means that we are observing God's word in our lives and subjecting ourselves to the spiritual guidance that Jehovah provides to us in the Bible.

  The Bible was inspired by God, for the men that contributed to its pages were all "borne along by holy spirit" (2 Peter 1:21), but being directed by God's spirit requires one to submit to what things the holy spirit directs, that is to say, we must do our best to adhere and subject ourselves to the spiritual guidance that Jehovah provides in the Bible. (Galatians 5:16, 18)

  Because Jehovah's Witnesses are led by holy spirit, only qualified men are appointed to serve as overseers based on the standard provided in God's word, so in this way they are appointed by holy spirit according to the scriptural requirements set forth at 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9, and by the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses through the recommendations made by spiritually "certified men ... full of spirit and wisdom." (Acts 6:3)

  If Jehovah's Witnesses are being led by God's holy spirit, how is it possible that this central body of elders in Brooklyn, NY, the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses, could keep getting so many things wrong? Well, mistakes happen to human beings all of the time, and Russell's mistake in 1876 affected quite a few people and lasted for 40 years until he finished his earthly course, and with Rutherford at the helm, Russell's mistake came to affect even more people even after his death in 1942, for an additional 27 years -- that is to say, for 67 years! -- until Russell's mistake was finally corrected in 1943.

  Does Jehovah, the Great Timekeeper, care about Bible chronology? Probably. Does he care about the truth? Yes, I believe he does. Is Jehovah so petty as to abandon his timetable in order to look for someone else less imperfect than was Russell to guide his people? Russell made a mistake that lasted some 67 years, but his mistake didn't affect God's schedule at all, and knowing well how imperfect we human beings are, God was certainly able to forgive Russell his 67-year mistake. What mistake is that? Maybe I'll elaborate in another message, but I just wanted to make the point that when Jehovah's Witnesses get something wrong, this doesn't mean that Jehovah is responsible in some way for our getting it wrong. We read God's word and try to discern what it says to the congregations of God, and at times we get it wrong. It's as simple as that.

  But in Jehovah's theocratic organization, Jesus is the head of the Christian congregation, while the governing body that serves as the central body of elders are viewed as brothers, the same as the rank-and-file are brothers. Consequently, Jehovah's Witnesses are being guided, not by the faithful and discreet slave, not by the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses, but by holy spirit.

  There is no distinction to be made between the appointment of an elder that qualifies to serve as such in the congregation whose conduct is not exemplary and the appointment of an elder that does meet the scriptural requirements to serve as such while at the same time he should be having an affair, which has escaped the scrutiny of the local body of elders. If the affair should end, good, but whether it does or it doesn't, the holy spirit that appoints one to serve as an elder is the same holy spirit that will remove that elder from such an appointment when circumstances arise that outs that elder's affair, for "God is not one to be mocked," even though some may do so. (Galatians 6:7)

  @djeggnog
• 
  18

  Why can Witness Doctors give Transfusions and sisters sell cigarettes??

  by Witness 007 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  it's a "mortal sin" for a witness to not "abstain from blood" or smoke, yet witness elders who work in the medical field are free to administer blood transfusions.

  and sisters that work in a supermarkets in the section that sells smokes are free to do so.....it's like not being immoral yourself but being a "pimp daddy" for others..

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  djeggnog

  @Witness 007:

  It's a "Mortal sin" for a Witness to not "abstain from blood" or smoke, yet Witness Elders who work in the medical field are free to administer blood transfusions. And sisters that work in a supermarkets in the section that sells smokes are free to do so.....it's like not being immoral yourself but being a "pimp daddy" for others.

  It's not a mortal sin for one of Jehovah's Witnesses to accept a blood transfusion or smoke. While accepting blood or smoking can result in disfellowshipping action, the fact that a person can be reinstated to the congregation proves that such things aren't "mortal sins" (as would a Catholic that robs a bank (steals), kills a security guard while fleeing the scene of the crime (murder) and never manages to seek absolution from a priest before the police corners and kills the person).

  I mentioned in another thread quite recently how the human conscience determines whether one Christian can engage in behavior that another Christian cannot do. (Hebrews 5:14) Based on the degree to which one's conscience has been trained, what is "right" and what is "wrong" may differ for one Christian that was formerly a devout Jew that never ate pork and still won't do so, and for another Christian has no problem eating pork on every occasion.

  However, if the conscience of a doctor allows him or her to administer blood transfusions to others while the conscience of the nurse that works with that doctor finds what the doctor does in administering blood transfusions to others to be repugnant, the doctor may have to find another hospital where this nurse is not employed or move his or her practice to a different location or terminate the nurse(!) if the doctor should become aware that what he or she does in connection with blood transfusions is causing the conscience of the nurse to be disturbed.

  Why should it be that our freedom is judged by another person's conscience? (1 Corinthians 10:20) What someone else's conscience will allow one to do doesn't mean that your conscience will also allow you to do what someone else's conscience allows. No Christian should allow someone else's conscience dictate their own freedom.

  @djeggnog
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  100

  Latest Watchtower page 30... They have some nerve to put this!

  by TimothyT in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  one thing that i have always noticed even when i was a jw is that the jw org has lots and lots and lots of rules for allsorts of stupid petty rules which make no difference.

  when you read the bible you see how they are clearly in the wrong here and are acting like the pharisees themselves, who imposed so much pressure on others to conform to the law.

  am i missing something here!?!?

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  djeggnog

  @Billy the Ex-Bethelite:

  It's has now become apparent to me that you do not care that your conduct here may be turning some people off, and could possibly be causing some JWN members to be reluctant about posting here for fear you are going to derail their threads as you and @Mary did this one. I don't know how often you derail people's threads to troll people, but I didn't join this thread to have you derail it and I cannot in good conscience take anything you say seriously. I think that messaging style is rather bizarre, that it could lead to causing irreversible damage to the reputation of this website, and make JWN appear to be an unwelcome place for members, lurkers, and non-member/lurkers that might have been reading the threads and thinking about joining JWN to have civil discussions with others.

  I don't know if you are currently suffering from a psychosis of some kind, but I don't want to be responsible in any way for causing a psychotic break. Your behavior in this thread has demonstrated to me that you aren't straightforward and after reading your last six messages of yours, I've concluded that I might not have been exchanging messages with a sane person.

  You continue to ignore the posting guidelines for this forum and although you have gone as far as to ask the OP for permission to derail his thread, I don't believe the OP (@TimothyT) has been given the authority to permit anyone to violate any of the guidelines here. Although the OP may wish to keep this thread alive, I'm not comfortable with being used this way so that you might continue derailing someone else's thread (for if you've done that in this thread, there's no reason to believe that you won't do the same thing to someone else's thread), so I'm going to withdraw from this thread.

  @djeggnog
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  100

  Latest Watchtower page 30... They have some nerve to put this!

  by TimothyT in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  one thing that i have always noticed even when i was a jw is that the jw org has lots and lots and lots of rules for allsorts of stupid petty rules which make no difference.

  when you read the bible you see how they are clearly in the wrong here and are acting like the pharisees themselves, who imposed so much pressure on others to conform to the law.

  am i missing something here!?!?

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  djeggnog

  @Billy the Ex-Bethelite:

  I see that you're still unable to provide even one example of where Jesus rebuked someone for not properly observing the sabbath.

  I have given short shrift to your request. This isn't your thread; it's @TimothyT's thread, and both your posts and @Mary's in this thread have been largely off-topic.

  @djeggnog wrote:

  Clearly you take issue with many of the things that Jehovah's Witnesses teach, even though you seem to pick-and-choose which things you learned during your association with Jehovah's Witnesses that you are going to accept.

  @Billy the Ex-Bethelite wrote:

  Kind of like how you pick-and-choose to post to Internet forums that include "apostates" when Watchtower says not to do such things?

  No. You don't agree with things you came to learn as one of Jehovah's Witnesses and yet you continue to believe many of those things, which doesn't sound to me like you've made a clean break. This was the point I was making. I know you have difficulty comprehending what I say to you here, but in Jehovah's organization, there are no laws. Jehovah's Witnesses are admonished at the meetings and through the literature we publish as to what things could pose real dangers to our spirituality, but there is no law that Jehovah's Witnesses should not post to Internet forums like this one. This is a myth since no Christian should let someone else's conscience dictate their freedom. I made this same point earlier in this thread so I feel no need to repeat it here.

  Perhaps you are just too immature to understand what I am saying here, @BillyEB -- and @Mary said pretty much the same thing -- but this is the point I'd make: If you believe that you should not post to any website and yet you do so anyway, then that's a problem, and it is your problem alone, not mine. And needless to say, but I'm going to say it anyway, you're off-topic again.

  It is understandable that you're very [sensitive] about the "this generation" subject....

  You still are off-topic, @BillyEB. For some reason, you keep ignoring Rule 10 "Posting an off-topic comment." @Mary did as well when she decided she wanted to use the OP's thread to refer to an older thread started by @jgnat to ask me questions about blood fractions that turned into a discussion about the efficacy of blood transfusions, and @Mary also raised a question here as to whether or not I was counting the time I spent here.

  Since in this thread @TimothyT raised as the topic the "stupid petty rules" that he believes makes the elders in Jehovah's organization "like the [P]harisees," the exchange you and I had about the "Oral Law" was appropriate, but when you started in on me as to the whys of our teaching on "this generation" or pretended as if you had said something other than that Jesus often condemned the Pharisees and lifted "nearly all of the sabbath restrictions" when you didn't, and also went on to disparage Judge Rutherford for hating kids, or took a tongue-in-cheek parting shot of mine about Sodom and Gomorrah as an excuse to discuss the "Michael-Jesus dichotomy," you were off-topic.

  Even djeggnog would agree that their magazine masthead should be in disappearing ink so that [embarrassing] false prophecies would just vanish after a couple of years....

  Jehovah's Witnesses have never made any false prophecies, not one. I felt I should respond to this statement of yours, but you are off-topic.

  If you were to start a thread of your own to discuss what things with which you disagree that Jehovah's Witnesses teach, it's possible that I might not join such a thread since you and @Mary both have proven yourselves to be dishonest brokers in that you cannot be trusted to admit when you have misspoken, and @Mary cannot be trusted to not be honest when quoting something in support of one of her contentions as she went out of her to exclude relevant portions from something she quoted in order to mislead others.

  You often mention the WT Library CD in some of your posts and it seems you love talking about this CD, but I've been one of Jehovah's Witnesses much longer than the release of the IBM PC, even before IBM released the MT/ST, during the days when the mainframe ruled, a time when we would have to order the Watchtower and Awake! magazines as bound volumes! I don't really need to hear anything at all about the WT Library CD. Like you, I also use computers, but my brain is a much better and more useful resource than any computer. I wish you were honest in your posts, but for whatever reason, you choose to be dishonest, so I will probably be having very little, if at all, to say to you and @Mary in the future because I do not trust either of you to be honest.

  Maybe you think you're smarter than I am with respect to what knowledge you have of the Bible, but I've read many of yours posts on JWN, and if this is what you think, then, @BillyEB, you've got another think coming. I just don't want to take the time to point out where your understanding of matters could use a tweak. My agenda on JWN is too important to spend any time really fielding your gripes against the Society, especially when you are more than capable of writing a letter about your gripes to the Society.

  @djeggnog
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  100

  Latest Watchtower page 30... They have some nerve to put this!

  by TimothyT in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  one thing that i have always noticed even when i was a jw is that the jw org has lots and lots and lots of rules for allsorts of stupid petty rules which make no difference.

  when you read the bible you see how they are clearly in the wrong here and are acting like the pharisees themselves, who imposed so much pressure on others to conform to the law.

  am i missing something here!?!?

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• 

  djeggnog

  @Billy the Ex-Bethelite:

  If you don't like the fact that Wikipedia is smarter than you, that's no reason to get insulting toward me.

  Wikipedia is you, Wikipedia is me, Wikipedia is anyone that wants to contribute to this online resource. The information Wikipedia contains is not 100% reliable, so while much knowledge can be gleaned by exploring its contents, one should verify whatever is found in this resource. In case you didn't know, Wikipedia is not a real encyclopedia. In many ways I'm smarter than Wikipedia, and since you rely on Wikipedia for what things you know about the oral law of the Jews, that would also mean that I'm smarter than you because I would never do that. I think what Jesus said in the Bible in Matthew chapter 5 ("You heard that it was said...") would be a good place to start when referring to the oral law, then the Mishnah, and maybe the Talmud, but, personally, I don't think of Wikipedia as a good resource.

  I see that you're very frustrated and continually restating your "you didn't say that Jesus' sacrifice ended the sabbath."

  What "frustration"? Your attempt here obviously is to distort what things you wrote, but I'm not having any of it. In a previous response I posted the following, so let me repeat it again since my position has not changed:

  (@Billy the Ex-Bethelite:)

  Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.

  (@djeggnog:)

  Like what exactly? You say Jesus lifted nearly all of the sabbath restrictions, believing the Mosaic Law should be interpreted "more liberally" than the Pharisees had interpreted the Law, but please provide an example of Jesus having lifted any of the sabbath restrictions. I don't believe you can name a single one since Jesus kept the Law; he didn't abrogate it as you are saying here.

  (@Billy the Ex-Bethelite:)

  You, as a JW, really believe that Jesus' sacrifice didn't end ALL of the sabbath restrictions?!?!?

  I am telling you here that I didn't believe you could provide a single example of Jesus ever lifting or abrogating the sabbath, for it would have been different had you written the following:

  Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, his sacrifice lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.

  But, instead, what it was you wrote was this:

  Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.

  You wrote that Jesus had often "condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions," but nowhere in this you make any mention whatsoever of "Jesus' sacrifice. So it is disingenuous on your part to now be asking me whether I didn't believe that Jesus' sacrifice had brought to an end "nearly all of the sabbath restrictions," when you made no mention of Jesus' sacrifice until I called you on what you had said. Again, just to emphasize the point you keep conveniently missing, you wrote:

  Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.

  -- in which you totally omit any mention of Jesus' sacrifice, and you now seek to distort what it was you actually did write by pretending as if you had written instead the following:

  Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, his sacrifice lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.

  So what do you go on to do after I brought this to your attention? You obfuscate the fact that I had just outted your statement and say the following:

  I'd like to see an example -- just one would be sufficient -- of Jesus rebuking someone for not properly observing a sabbath rule!!!

  -- which is totally irrelevant to the points I was making: (1) Jesus didn't believe the Mosaic Law should be interpreted "even more liberally," and (2) that Jesus didn't lift "nearly all of the sabbath restrictions," for Jesus was "under law" (Galatians 4:4) even as were the rest of the Jews, and he never abrogated any portion of the law. Jesus kept the law. After Jesus' sacrifice, however, the Law of Moses, including the requirement to observe a weekly sabbath, came to an end. But you were not discussing after Jesus' sacrifice, as you went on in your first response and in this last one as well, to pretend to have done, for Jesus had condemned the Pharisees before his sacrifice when he was "under law."

  After Jesus' sacrifice, however, the law was no longer binding upon Jesus -- he had died as a man -- and was no longer binding upon anyone. You might go and try to deceive someone else, and might succeed, but how can you expect to fool me when I know you to be dishonest? Give it up, son. Like I told you in a previous message, you lost this one, @BillyEB.

  Certainly, their "generation" interpretation can change every year or so. And if you don't immediately accept the new explanation, you'll be accused of being a Satanic apostate for believing their "truths" from just last month! You're probably frustrated when you ponder whether any anointed will be alive on earth at Armageddon, too. That one has gone back and forth, even in the short time during the last book study of the Revelation--Grand Climax book. Wow, it was so crazy using that Kingdom Ministry insert to try to keep the "[spiritual] food" "current" in that badly aging book. And you certainly would know how often they printed that it was a sign of the end that the remnant was shrinking during these "Last Days". But the number of partakers is increasing at a rate far faster than the number of new publishers. That's the thing about the JW "Last Days", they last... and last... and last... and last!

  What one would find in our publications, like the Revelation book and in "Our Kingdom Ministry," is designed to keep all Jehovah's Witnesses current since our beliefs are progressive, and it is difficult to keep up with the many adjustments to our understanding of the Scriptures that we have had need to make over the years. We are not concerned with statistics of a shrinking remnant that now seems to be growing. It is clear to many of us that some are partaking of the emblems that should not be doing so, and this might explain the number of partakers counted, but it would be dishonest to not report the count just because we might not agree with it, so we observe and report. So, @BillyEB, you are mistaken: The count is not a source of frustration for me, but why do you mention these things in someone else's thread? You're off-topic.

  Clearly you take issue with many of the things that Jehovah's Witnesses teach, even though you seem to pick-and-choose which things you learned during your association with Jehovah's Witnesses that you are going to accept. Reading your message is not like reading something written by someone in Christendom, for you phrase things in a way that is peculiar to something you would have read in one of our publications, so that you sound as if you could be one of Jehovah's Witnesses, except Jehovah's Witnesses speak in agreement and do not pick-and-choose what things they are going to accept. You may not like this, but our beliefs are not static, but are progressive, and so they are subject to change should it become apparent that we were mistaken in one of more of our beliefs.

  We are just not going to get all upset because we suddenly realize that we had something wrong, but we will immediately publish the adjustments that need to be made in our understanding of Bible doctrines so that everyone in the entire association of brothers in the world is made aware of the adjustment that needs to be made in what we teach. Your mention here of the change in understanding that occurred in 2010 regarding Jesus' use of the words "this generation" at Matthew 24:34, which expression has perplexed us for many years going back to the days of Judge Rutherford, is off-topic, but I suppose you thought your mention of superfluous topics, such as how Jehovah's Witnesses understand this expression, would make you come off smarter. (It didn't.)

  Now if this was your goal, @BillyEB, I'm pretty sure that this goal wasn't reached and that it cannot possibly be reached in this way. If the goal of this approach of yours was to be thought of as being more intelligent than you are, then I must tell you that this approach makes you come off to me as being unsteady, even demented, and so, in my opinion, you missed. The truth is, you come off here as rather foolish to me, but since you brought all of this up, I should probably complete my thought since you have here brought an attack on how Jehovah's Witnesses understand the expression used by Jesus at Matthew 24:34.

  Today we believe Jesus to have been referring to the generation of the composite sign that began with the outbreak of World War I in 1914 in fulfillment of Matthew 24:3, 7, 8. This expression, "this generation," covers the period when the sign began and when it ends, so it became clear to us back in 2010, after some 96 years had passed, that Jesus may not have been referring to anyone's lifetime as we had once thought, but to an entire period of years.

  Rutherford passed away leaving Jehovah's Witnesses with an understanding of what Jesus meant by "this generation" at Matthew 24:34 that was different than what Jehovah's Witnesses today now believe Jesus to have meant by this phrase. Because Jesus himself didn't know the "day and hour," and because it was never our intent to mislead anyone, it was decided to change the masthead that last appeared in the Awake! dated November 8, 1995, from "Most important, this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure new world before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away," to what subsequently appeared in the masthead of the Awake! dated November 22, 1995, to wit, "Most important, this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure world that is about to replace the present wicked, lawless system of things."

  Because we cannot be 100% certain as to what Jesus meant, and, again, it was not our intention to mislead anyone and give anyone an excuse to find fault with our ministry, we went on to undertake a further examination of this expression at Matthew 24:34. In Rutherford's day, Jehovah's Witnesses believed Jesus was referring to the lifetime of people when he referred to "this generation." Today, we now know that this was a mistaken viewpoint.

  The masthead in the Awake! dated November 8, 1995, proved to have unintentionally misled some into believing that, contrary to what the Bible teaches, we actually did know the "day and hour" for it read, "Most important, this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure new world before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away," and based on how we understood Jesus' words at Matthew 24:34, many regretfully concluded that Armageddon would have to arrive before the oldest of Jesus' anointed servants had passed away.

  Today, that masthead reads, "Most important, this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure world that is about to replace the present wicked, lawless system of things." The masthead in the Awake! wasn't designed to deceive anyone, but was designed to build confidence that the end is near, and not to make folks grab their date calculators as if, contrary to what Jesus stated at Matthew 24:36, it were possible for one to determine the "day and hour" that Jesus himself didn't know.

  I should add here that the only significant change between the viewpoint of Jehovah's Witnesses today and what it was back in 1952 is that we have now come to realize that the "generation" to which Jesus referred at Matthew 24:34 referred to the period of time that spanned the length of the sign of Christ's presence, which generation began in 1914. Our understanding of this expression, "this generation," is explained in the article entitled, "Holy Spirit's Role in the Outworking of Jehovah's Purpose" [w10 4/15, p. 10, ¶14], which differs from the explanation provided in response to the question, "Your publications point out that the battle of Armageddon will come in this generation, and that this generation began A.D. 1914. Scripturally, how long is a generation?" [w52 9/1, pp. 542, 543]:

  Three or even four generations may be living at the same time, their lives overlapping.... [W]e could not calculate from such a figure the date of Armageddon, for the texts here under discussion do not say God’s battle comes right at the end of this generation, but before its end. To try to say how many years before its end would be speculative. The texts merely set a limit....

  Since we realize that Jesus had employed a bit of hyperbole in this verse, we now believe that Jesus' reference to "this generation" referred to the sign of his invisible presence during which his anointed brothers living contemporaneous to this generation of the sign. We cannot be dogmatic about this matter, but we are now of the belief that those of Jesus' brothers that were living when the generation of the sign began in the year 1914 as well as those of his brothers that are alive when the generation of the sign ends when Armageddon arrives is what Jesus meant when he said that "this generation" would not pass away before all of the things that Jesus indicated would occur in his prophesy about the conclusion of this system of things had taken place.

  Interpreting the Bible isn't an exact science, and for this reason, we must discern what the Scriptures mean based on what other Scriptures say or according to how certain related expressions are used in the Bible. Just as the Bible points out at 1 Peter 1:10, 11, the prophets of old made a "diligent inquiry" and "careful search" of the Scriptures and "kept on investigating" as to what particular season or what sort of season] the spirit in them spoke concerning Christ, and just as occurred among God's people during the first century during the days of the apostles, so the same investigation has taken place among God's people today.

  This means that while you, @Mary and @TimothyT may have once aligned your beliefs with those held by Jehovah's Witnesses, it has always been possible that the three of you would abandon those beliefs for whatever reason and embrace other beliefs, which is fine. But why should Jehovah's Witnesses abandon their beliefs just because the three of you here on JWN, and others on here as well, may have abandoned them? It is your right to believe what you choose to believe and each one of Jehovah's Witnesses exercise their respective rights to believe what it is they choose to believe.

  @djeggnog wrote:

  You sound bitter, but I don't understand why the bitterness or how you are able to make this connection [that Judge Rutherford hated children], but I'm just curious as to how you would answer this question: I was just reading Hebrews 10:26-31, and was wondering how endurable you think it is going to be for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day. Any ideas?

  @Billy the Ex-Bethelite wrote:

  Since you asked so nicely, I'll enlighten you. The reason for your confusion is obvious. No doubt you are looking for assistance from me because Watchtower has flip-flopped so often on whether the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah will be resurrected. Right now [they're] choosing to ignore Jesus' words at Matt. 11:23, suggesting that they would be worthy of resurrection. But Jesus was just the Messiah, so WT doesn't give much weight to his words. After searching your WT Library CD, you probably can't tell up from down on the judgment of Sodom. Currently, WT [teaches] that those destroyed at Sodom will not be resurrected. Problem is, just when you think you can trust WT teachings, they flip-flop again.

  But I [digressed].... [¶] First of all, "Sodom and Gomorrah" aren't even mentioned in Hebrews. The phrase "Judgment Day" isn't used in Hebrews either.... STOP JUDGING! Why would you concern yourself with stuff about the judgment of Sodom? Is your reference to Sodom some kind of hateful slur against homosexuality?

  I don't need the WT Library CD to know the finality of God's judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. What you would call a "flip-flop" was in my mind an adjustment in our understanding as to which it was determined that we had been mistaken in our viewpoint on the matter of what it was Jesus meant in what he said to the people of Capernaum at Matthew 11:23, 24.

  The point you missed is that Jesus was saying is that if the powerful works that had taken place in Capernaum had taken place in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the people in those cities would have repented of their sins and would not have been destroyed forever, as was also going to be Capernaum's judgment, for those people would surely have repented.

  You are entitled to interpret what you read in the Bible in any way you wish, but you aren't entitled to make up your own facts; your employing spin as you do to manufacture facts won't convert spin into facts. I told you that I had been reading Hebrews 10:26-31 and wondered 'how endurable you thought it is going to be for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day,' did I not? I didn't say that the phrase Judgment Day is used in the book of Hebrews, did I? I didn't say that the cities of Sodom or Gomorrah were mentioned in the book of Hebrews, did I? I don't care what strawmen you construct, nor do I care to explain to you why I had asked you what your thoughts were. If you feel I had made a "hateful slur against homosexuality," ok. I have no desire to argue with you about your fecklessness, but it is clear to me that you're not very smart. You see, what I said to you was said tongue-in-cheek.

  You evidently thought that I had asked you a question, thought that I needed or wanted your assistance, but, no, there was no question in my mind at all. Please take a moment to wrap your mind around this, son: What I was really saying to that you, @BillyEB, you probably have as much chance of being around on Judgment Day as Jesus indicated the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and Capernaum had. You might want to get a pencil and write this down so that you will remember the point: I was making a statement about what I think to be your future, a future like that of these three cities. I wasn't judging you, for as Jesus stated at John 3:18, you have been "judged already."

  If Michael/Jesus didn't think it was his place to judge the Devil....

  It occurred to me that only Jehovah's Witnesses (and Seventh Day Adventists) associate the archangel Michael with the Lord Jesus Christ. If you aren't a Seventh Day Adventists, then when you left God's organization, I wondered why you didn't just erase this teaching about Michael and Jesus from your mind, why you would hold on to a doctrine that is taught by Jehovah's Witnesses that the majority of mainstream Christendom doesn't believe since you don't subscribe to our beliefs. I've often wondered why folks that have left our ranks would be found articulating beliefs that he or she claimed to have rejected. This is a curiosity to me since I often see folks here on JWN using the kind of reasoning that they would use to use when they were actively Jehovah's Witnesses when discussing the Bible on here while they claim, at the same time, to have abandoned their faith. It seems in your case, @BillyEB, that the beliefs that you held formerly weren't really rejected at all. This Michael-Jesus dichotomy did cause me to wonder, if you aren't with the Seventh Day Adventists, with what religion you were now affiliated.

  @djeggnog
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  100

  Latest Watchtower page 30... They have some nerve to put this!

  by TimothyT in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  one thing that i have always noticed even when i was a jw is that the jw org has lots and lots and lots of rules for allsorts of stupid petty rules which make no difference.

  when you read the bible you see how they are clearly in the wrong here and are acting like the pharisees themselves, who imposed so much pressure on others to conform to the law.

  am i missing something here!?!?

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• 

  djeggnog

  @TimothyT:

  HAHA… I find reading your comments like listening to the elders in my congregation: Long winded, full of judgment, full of pride, full of the ‘holier than [thou]’ attitude. I am in no position to judge you, nor do I want to.

  As you're a fleshly Christian, you are in no position to judge others, for only a spiritual person can judge others, and he or she should judge, his or her judgment comes from God, his or her judgment would be based on what things God says to us through his word, the Bible. Any other judgment if not God's would be a wrong judgment, a subjective judgment, judgmental in nature, the kind of judgment that a spiritual person must avoid since even mature Christians are not faultless and should not be considering themselves as being superior to others.

  Those persons that are fleshly in their viewpoint, in their outlook and point of view definitely lack both the capacity and the freedom of speech to judge a mature Christian using God's word, which is why I commend you in admitting that you are in no position to make an examination of me for the things that pertain to God -- spiritual things -- are foolishness to you, but the spiritual person examines all things.

  You would criticize me for being "full of judgment," but I swore an oath and now have a duty to hold God in accurate knowledge, which is why I study the Bible. I made a vow to do God's will just like you did and so you have to know that the judgments I make are not mine at all, but are God's. You made a dedication to God just as I did, @TimothyT, and you, as a Christian, had a duty to hold God in accurate knowledge also, but you returned to the things belong and didn't do that, you neglected to study the Bible and have now abandoned the way of the truth.

  And so now, between you and I, as a result of your decision to abandon your vow and pursue your own fleshly desires, you are no longer holy. You were once holy, but now I am holier than you, and this very attitude of holiness that I have is one in which I can and do take pride, for it is no small feat for anyone to be transformed from the self-willed individual that was a part of my old personality into the holy man I am today, someone that serves Jehovah in true righteousness and loyalty, with an attitude that is acceptable to God. I take pride in the fact that Jesus considered me faithful by assigning me to a ministry, by his giving me the honor of ministering to the spiritual needs of others upon my having been made adequately qualified by God to serve as a minister to the flock and to the world, as did Christ, rendering a sacred service to God with a view to showing others the way to their becoming reconciled to God through Christ and restored to His favor.

  I have no doubt either than you have read your bible and know it quite well… better than me it seems. As for me, I will continue to study the scriptures and continue to gain insight into what they truly mean. I feel it is quite an assumption on your part that people like me and many others do not comprehend scriptures such as John 3:16. I have not explained how I feel about these yet you tell me that im out of my depth and clueless. It seems to me that you are mirroring the mentality of the JWs once again. JUDGING OTHERS JUDGING OTHER JUDGING OTHERS. Did you not realise that Jesus condemned this?

  You know that you are now exchanging posts with a servant of God, and not with someone in Christendom that would be amenable to what you say here about Jesus condemning our judging others, because Christendom's ministers don't even know Jehovah and don't know any better. But you have come to know Jehovah and his son, @TimothyT. What Jesus condemned was our making subjective judgments, coming up with our own rules based on our own subjective standards as to what someone else should or should not be doing. Our judgments must not be judgmental, for all such judgments are what Jesus condemned. However, if our judgments are objective in nature, if our judgments are based on God's commandments found in the Bible, Jesus did not condemn these for God's commandments are what Jesus commands of us to observe as well.

  If you fully comprehended scriptures like John 3:16, why would you not be doing this? Why would you not be exercising faith in Jesus' name as the Ransomer and the one appointed by God to judge the world of mankind in righteousness? If you needed to pay the mortgage on your home and other monthly bills and you accepted employment with an employer that agreed to write you a check on the condition that you would work x number of hours per week, and you comprehended the fact that earning the money you need to pay your bills from this employer is based on your performance with respect to the things you agreed to do, then why wouldn't you perform?

  What Jesus is essentially saying at John 3:16 is that your salvation is dependant upon your performance, is based upon whether you obediently carry out the tasks that Jehovah God's man-in-charge, Jesus Christ, assigns to you to do, for God is only going to write a check, as it were, to those that perform according to His will. Jesus -- God's man-in-charge -- has asked of us is to take in knowledge of his Father's requirements, so that after we have come to know how to worship God in spirit and truth, we can become reconciled to God and bless ourselves by becoming one of Jesus' disciples and getting baptized. By sharing the things we have learned as a disciple of Christ with others, we make it possible for them to become reconciled to God and bless themselves by becoming disciples and getting baptized.

  God wants the world to become reconciled to him, and while God knows that not everyone will do what things are necessary to become reconciled with him, he knows that there are some in the world that will hear his entreaty and do the things necessary to accomplish the reconciliation. Consequently, out of love for the world of mankind, God sent his Jesus to proclaim the good news of the kingdom, which is the message of the reconciliation, and through Jesus God began telling the world, starting with the Jews, to repent and to put faith in the good news, and beginning with the first to respond in a positive way to God's message through Christ, his apostles, it was with them that the message of the reconciliation came to be spread throughout the earth, and it same message continues to be spread by Jehovah's Witnesses today in some 236 lands and islands of the sea.

  Just like back in the first century AD before the apostasy set in, we are today learning how to live our lives with godly devotion and everlasting life in view despite all of the tumult that exists in the world, which we all must endure until this system of things finally comes to an end. In addition to our enduring the restrictions placed on us by the governments under which we live (i.e., tolerating laws that seem to us to be unreasonable, gas prices, inflation, etc.), in the congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses, we are constantly reminded of what our mental attitude should be when we come together for worship.

  The fact is that our being united in worship doesn't mean that we are always going to get along with everyone in the congregation when we are beset by problems outside of the congregation, such as one of your children is sick again and because you have no job, you have no health insurance coverage and what savings you had are depleted, you have to enlist the help of your irresponsible ex to help with the kids so that you can take a part time job that pays just enough to pay the doctor's bill, but not enough to affect your unemployment benefit.

  Our human imperfections do not make it easy to be the spiritually-minded people that we may want to be, and someone in the congregation, maybe an elder or someone single with no children to raise or someone whose children are grown, might say something to you or about you that rubs you the wrong way, which leads to friction in the congregation, while the problems at home being to overwhelm you so that you start missing meetings to maybe avoid the person with whom there is friction. Over time, it seems we have lost some of the spiritual grounding that we once had.

  Maybe we have ailing parents for whom we must provide care, doing things for them at their home on a daily basis that they can no longer do for themselves as well as doing the things we must do for our own immediate family at home, for we might need to arrange our schedules to help them get them to appointments with their doctor. Perhaps we have our own health issues, like we might discover we need eyeglasses or that we need better eyeglasses; maybe the hearing in one of our ears has diminished or perhaps the pain medication doesn't seem to be working, as we struggle to get a handle on a life that has been transformed into a pain management and assisted living odyssey, while giving little or no attention to our own spiritual needs.

  The loss of employment makes it even harder to make ends meet and now you have to figure out how you are going to pay that $800 fine imposed on you for a traffic violation or figure out how you're going to be able to function without a car because you cannot get it registered until you have the money to pay the fine. Or, when money is already tight, you need to hire a plumber to resolve a sewer problem. We have to take care of our family, so having one job may not be enough, so we discover that our spiritual needs are longer given the priority they once had for once we tool that second job, there's hardly enough time for sleep.

  Then there's the matter of loneliness and the need for human companionship. Some women want to have children, but in the congregation they have yet to find a husband (or a potential husband has yet to find them) so they being to look outside of the congregation and what do you know? There are lot of "potentials" outside of the congregation and the thought of having a relationship with someone of the same gender as ourselves to cure the loneliness we feel becomes especially appealing when we have a same-sex attraction that comes naturally to us. So what often happens is that we decide we're just going to go out on a date just once a week with someone and that's it, or maybe kiss the person we're dating and that's it, or maybe touch the person we're dating and that's it, and suddenly that's not it.

  While there's been no fornication yet, you may be romantically linked to the person, and it's even harder for the gay person -- our sister or brother in the congregation -- because he or she will not be able to conceal for very long his or her romantic attraction to the new person, who has not only begun to attend our meetings, but has agreed to and is currently having a Bible study, whereas the congregation seems to be oblivious and even more accepting of the romantic interest shown by the new person that has been accompanying our sister or our brother to the meetings to our sister or brother, for he or she has agreed to and is currently having a Bible study.

  Now I don't need to tell you how this goes: Homophobic bigotry rears its head as the disgust some feel about what they think is going on between you and the new person causes a few to take the initiative in sleuthing activities designed to find evidence of something sexual going on between you and the new person for fornication that involves a same-sex couple is more intolerable for some reason than fornication that involves a different-sex couple in their minds, so while some begin to stalk you and the new person that is studying, the sister or brother and the new person that is studying that everyone knows has a romantic interest in you isn't being stalked by anyone.

  You see, their relationship is a natural one, and they might even get married, but this relationship over here may be an unnatural one, and make no mistake about it: Jesus didn't die for gays. So let's get the evidence or something we can use as evidence and deal with these people once and for all. Can you imagine Jehovah's Witnesses treating someone they think might be gay and maybe is gay in the same way in which Jesus was treated by the Pharisees, who stalked him as they sought evidence that could be used against him?

  Well, there are elders that are judgmental, who bash people because they are gay and do not seem to want to help them to gain life -- maybe their reasoning is such that they believe gay persons are unsuitable to life with them in God's new order, I don't know -- but God's judgment is against fornicators, no matter what their sexual orientation might be, but the elders are imperfect, too, and many of them before becoming Jehovah's Witnesses had issues with race and homosexuality, and perhaps some of them would bash gays and may have railed against gays and certain ethnic groups that they and others in the churches that they attended before they became Jehovah's Witnesses did not like, and now what prejudices and biases they had are no longer dormant, and so they feel that must "root out" what is bad.

  We are not perfect and we will not be thinking about your problems at home or why you've missed so many meetings. The new people in your local congregation think you're new, too, because you haven't been there for months and, to be fair, a couple of elders did call on you once during this time, but you weren't home at the time, and they just neglected to leave you a note to this effect. A note might have lifted your spirits, but, again, we are all imperfect people; somebody forgot to do that and so you concluded that no one remembered you or even noticed that you were missing.

  While it may be difficult to do, we must learn to forgive these elders their sins, too, the same elders that didn't seem to want to forgive you your sins, your shortcomings, even as we would want others to forgive us our sins, which is why Christians are exhorted in the Bible to put up with and forgive one another freely.

  @TimothyT, Christians are exhorted not to forsake the gathering of ourselves together for a reason: It is in the congregation of God that we learn how to love others just as God loves us for it is there that we learn how to incite others to love and fine works, where we learn how to clothe ourselves with the tender affections of compassion, and kindness, and lowliness of mind, and mildness, and long-suffering. It is in the congregation of God that we learn how to put up with one another and forgive one another freely if anyone has a cause for complaint against another.

  I'm not leaving out the elders, but I mean to include the elders that might have "a cause for complaint" against someone that is gay, but won't try to understand that they, too, struggle with human imperfections of their own, and they may not want to lift a finger to help them to deaden their body members as they might someone "straight" that might be struggle with his or her own human weaknesses. We are all in need of being saved from this death, from our inclination to sin, and until our relief comes, we all should be able to find solace in the congregation of God for the help we need. You won't find such help outside of God's organization, @TimothyT.

  Regarding gay, I hear what you are saying. I had to deal with this for so long and in the end, I came to a decision to be true to who I am. I know what the scriptures (supposedly) say, but it’s incredibly demeaning to live a life where you are not being true to yourself.

  You came to a decision? Adam wanted to be true to himself and he's dead. You say you "know what the scriptures (supposedly) say," but I'm only interested in what they actually do say and so should you. You say it's incredibly demeaning to live life "not being true to yourself," so what exactly are you? Do you consider yourself to be more of the human being than I am or less than the human being that I am? Are you telling me that you cannot serve Jehovah and be gay? Or, are you really telling me here that you cannot serve Jehovah without giving in to your own fleshly desires? I don't see your being gay as having anything at all to do with what you are saying here about your "not being true to yourself." If it happens to be the case that you are having sex with someone to whom you are not married, then what are you doing @TimothyT? Is this what you mean by being "true" to who you are? In that case, you cannot be a Christian, so who are you?

  Are you telling me that you cannot obey God's command and abstain from fornication? Well, if you cannot do so, you can't be expected to do the impossible, but there are others just like you in Jehovah's organization -- those who are gay and those who are not "straight" -- people that have had to battle against their own fleshly desires and have won, people who are now serving Jehovah today and are "being true" to themselves.

  Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fall short of Gods Glory. You are in included in that eggnog. I wonder, even now maybe there is some kind of fleshly desire or such that you are pursuing, perhaps not entirely devoting your life to Jesus? This is the reason why we need grace and why God has given it to us surely.

  Like you, I'm imperfect, too, but as it happens, I am someone that is attracted to the opposite sex. But because I am married and I regard marriage as holy, something that is honorable and sanctified by God, if I were to let my own fleshly desires control me, then I would be lose my righteous standing before God, I would lose my holiness, my white robe would be stained and I wouldn't be able to enter God's spiritual house. I am dedicated to do God's will, which is to follow Christ's lead, and am devoted to my wife. This means that I don't have to be concern myself with the possibility that a "Billie Jean" will be suing me for child support because the kid's eyes look like mine, and it's unlikely that I'll ever contract any of those diseases that I mentioned in one of my previous messages nor will I have to take meds for the rest of my life because I contracted herpes or something, nor have to worry about my penis falling off.

  Because although we try (just as I am trying so hard for Jesus despite my imperfections) we all fail miserably. I do not feel that I am assured salvation; likewise I do not feel that any one of us should be. The choice rests with Jesus Christ. However I can do what I can to show him that I am honest and doing my best for him in my own personal circumstances.

  First, you have to be honest with yourself, @TimothyT. The choice rest with you. Jesus Christ did his part in that he died to make it possible for you to get life. Christians look to Christ's sacrifice as the basis for the forgiveness of our sins, but as an excuse to sin. It's up to you now to exercise faith in his ransom sacrifice -- John 3:16 -- and recognize that when Jesus said that he said that he is "the way and the truth" -- John 14:6 -- he was saying that the truths he taught about God constitute "the way of life" -- our religion -- by which we must learn to live our lives, the way of the truth. If you aren't honest with yourself, then there's absolutely no way that you will not be able to get through that narrow door. You have to be willing to do your part, you have to be willing to exercise faith in Jesus' name by obeying him. What you should decide to do is up to you.

  Hehe… I TOTALLY AGREE! I KNOW im inadequate when it comes to discussing the bible. Im not a scholar or a historian. That is why I read the bible all the time and study it to try and gain a better knowledge of it so I can serve God as best I can. I can openly and honestly say that because I would like to believe im a genuine and sincere person who does not know everything. [¶] I hope to see you in paradise brother eggnog! :)

  I'm a Bible scholar, but I'm no theologian. Did you know that it is not a requirement that an elder be a Bible scholar? Actually, a Christian doesn't need to be a Bible scholar; Peter, John, James, none of Jesus' apostles were Bible scholars, but genuineness and sincerity aren't enough. Taking in knowledge of God and Christ is a requirement if you want to gain life, and being honest with yourself is very important. The reason Christians were given the commission to preach the kingdom of God was to keep us mindful of what God's expects of us while helping the disciples we make to learn what they must do to gain life in God's new order. However, the Bible speaks of those that are "always learning and yet never able to come to an accurate knowledge of truth," and it is a waste of time to be reading and studying the Bible while trying to gain a better understanding of it if you don't realize that the Bible speaks only to Christians.

  @TimothyT, you will never come into an accurate knowledge of the truth and make the truth your way of life by reading and studying the Bible on your own. The Bible was written for the edification of God's people -- for Christians -- and if you are sincerely interested in gaining an accurate knowledge of the truth, you need to come back to Jehovah's organization and as indicated at Acts 8:31, let one of the Christians there guide you. I, too, look forward, @TimothyT, to seeing you in paradise!

  @djeggnog
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  Latest Watchtower page 30... They have some nerve to put this!

  by TimothyT in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  one thing that i have always noticed even when i was a jw is that the jw org has lots and lots and lots of rules for allsorts of stupid petty rules which make no difference.

  when you read the bible you see how they are clearly in the wrong here and are acting like the pharisees themselves, who imposed so much pressure on others to conform to the law.

  am i missing something here!?!?

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  djeggnog

  @Billy the Ex-Bethelite:

  Actually, I quoted an example from wikipedia.

  I didn't want to say anything condescending in response, but after reading these seven words of your response, it is clear to me now that what I thought to be the Oral Law isn't, and I really need to start doing all of my research using Wikipedia as you do. <:-J>

  You also didn't cite an example of Jesus rebuking anyone for not properly observing a sabbath rule, which I asked for.

  I'm sure you will remember the following exchange:

  (@Billy the Ex-Bethelite:)

  Many of the pharisees "rules" actually made the archaic law tolerable for the Jews.

  (@djeggnog:)

  How so, @Billy the Ex-Bethelite? I'd like to see an example -- just one would be sufficient -- of a rule imposed by the Pharisees that made the Mosaic Law more "tolerable" for the Jews as you just suggested here.

  (@Billy the Ex-Bethelite:)

  The Pharisees and their "Oral Law" said that you would have to pay financial damages to the injured person.... So there's one example.

  It's rather interesting that you won't let this weak argument of yours die. Am I now to understand that the "Oral Law" is Wikipedia? or that the Pharisaic interpretation of Exodus 21:23, 24, came from a Wikipedia article? In the event you don't yet understand what I'm saying to you, @BillyEB, but as I didn't accept "the Mishnah" in your first response, I don't accept "Wikipedia" either, since I was looking for a scriptural citation where "a rule imposed by the Pharisees [was made to make] the Mosaic Law more 'tolerable' for the Jews."

  Then there is this exchange:

  (@Billy the Ex-Bethelite:)

  Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.

  (@djeggnog:)

  Like what exactly? You say Jesus lifted nearly all of the sabbath restrictions, believing the Mosaic Law should be interpreted "more liberally" than the Pharisees had interpreted the Law, but please provide an example of Jesus having lifted any of the sabbath restrictions. I don't believe you can name a single one since Jesus kept the Law; he didn't abrogate it as you are saying here.

  (@Billy the Ex-Bethelite:)

  You, as a JW, really believe that Jesus' sacrifice didn't end ALL of the sabbath restrictions?!?!?

  As a result of this, I go on to point out how I didn't believe you could provide a single example of Jesus ever lifting or abrogating the sabbath since what you wrote for what you wrote was this:

  Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.

  What you did not write was this:

  Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, his sacrifice lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.

  What you wrote [was] that Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions," but you didn't mention a thing about "Jesus' sacrifice" at all! Now you are asking me if I don't believe Jesus' sacrifice brought all sabbath restrictions to an end. I'm sure you remember that I called you on this statement, because this statement of yours wasn't true. Then, in order to (I suppose) obfuscate the fact that I had just outted your statement for what it was, you go on to ask me the following:

  I'd like to see an example -- just one would be sufficient -- of Jesus rebuking someone for not properly observing a sabbath rule!!!

  What's wrong with you? Give it up, son. You lost this one, @BillyEB.

  You wrote the following in response to something that @Mary wrote about her childhood experiences in school:

  ... that annoyed me terribly when I went to Bethel ... while it was the kids on the front line having to face all the holiday and nationalism issues in school. It all goes back to Rutherford. He really hated kids and wanted to make our lives miserable.

  So you weren't one of these "kids on the front line" when you were at Bethel, and yet you seem to be saying that "the humiliation [that @Mary had to face] every morning in school" was because Judge Rutherford hated kids? You sound bitter, but I don't understand why the bitterness or how you are able to make this connection, but I'm just curious as to how you would answer this question: I was just reading Hebrews 10:26-31, and was wondering how endurable you think it is going to be for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day. Any ideas?

  @djeggnog