Posts by Justin

4

The heavenly calling?

by jerome in

i am getting really confused about this belief that the jws promote.. i used to think that it (the heavenly calling ended in 1935) but this really confuses me now because, i think that there are members of the gb (and other annointed) who were born after that year.(1935).

if heaven closed its doors in 1935,. how could you be of the annointed and you were born after that year?

also now i think that women are of the annointed, am i right?

Justin

RR,

I've been reading Pastor Russell's writings, and I get the impression that the "high calling" was not strictly speaking a "heavenly calling" as JWs think of it today. The emphasis seemed to be that it was a call to a higher level of existence (the divine nature) more than it was to a "place" called "heaven."

Pastor Russell believed that Jesus had actually returned to the earth's vicinity, though invisibly, whereas Rutherford changed this to a symbolic presence where Jesus actually remains in heaven. So to Russell, the saints when resurrected would have to remain at the earth with Jesus until the Millennial work was finished, at which time they could then return with Jesus to the Father's house.

But it seems also that the Bible Students were not consistent in this, and at times spoke of the departed ones as though they were already in heaven.

Do you think I have understood correctly what the original Bible Student teachings were, or have I overlooked something?

Justin

12

No soliciting = Solicit, only if you're a JW!

by Preston in

when i was an active jw in the field ministry, i was timid to the usual "no soliciting" sign and it was always an elder, or a po, or a c.o.

who reminded me to not skip the house (which i did) with a "no soliciting" sign out front because the field ministry was not the same thing as soliciting (of course we're not soliciting members for our church, we're just warning you that if you don't become a member of our religion you're toast!

) i was a rather timid witness, so didn't care if they joined the religion or not, but i never did liked the reasoning that was put into preaching to people who had conspicuously placed "no soliciting" signs (you know, maybe thay don't want anyone who they don't know knocking at their doors anyway).

Justin

I think their ignoring of the "No Soliciting" signs had something to do with court cases that were won during the Rutherford era which exempted the JWs from obtaining peddler's licenses. Because they were not legally considered to be salespeople, the JWs ignored the "No Soliciting" signs.

It's too bad the WT did not exercise common sense, and adopt a policy that even though the signs did not LEGALLY apply to them, people who put forth the effort to install the signs probably didn't want to be bothered by anyone. Because of the WT's policy, I'm sure many JWs have been exposed to angry householders.

Justin

40

Copping Out?

by IslandWoman in

jw
friends

are we copping out if we blame the watchtower for almost everything that went wrong in our watchtower life?.

most of us knew the rules.

most of us had the opportunity to read and study their publications and the bible.

Justin

I think it is one of the paradoxes of life that people are BOTH unduly influenced to take certain life courses that are harmful to themselves AND also responsible for their own actions. It is not either/or, it is both/and. In this situation of the JWs, of course people who were raised in it have the least amount of personal responsiblity, while those of us who entered it later in life have more. I think that, regardless of what our own responsbility is, it is of value to express our anger and for a while at least to act AS IF the WT were responsible for the whole mess. Hopefully, we'll get tired of venting and eventually move on.

But I must say, that even in the case of adult converts, the WT's methods of indoctrination cannot be overlooked. The book study type method of getting the student to repeatedly give the WTs answers to the WTs questions until they no longer have any opinions of their own is very powerful. There are very few religions which indoctrinate in this manner (at least not for adult converts), and those who do could themselves be considered cult-like. Many churches have just a few doctrinal items they would like converts to subscribe to, or they may want them to have an emotional experience. Other churches that require more study are really asking for self-study - they want people to read books (or the Bible) on their own, without the constant back-and-forth question-and-answer process that the WT puts people through. So I sincerely feel that, when people finally wake up and leave, they can claim to have been unduly influenced (even though it is true that they did not HAVE to sit there and take the indoctrination).

Justin

4

Do we have a Spirit body?

by Nemesis in

it is sown a physical body, it is raised up a spiritual body.

if there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual one.1 corinthians 15:44 nwt.

i was wondering if anyone had an explanation for this scripture?

Justin

The text which you have quoted from 1 Corinthians is not talking about a physical body and a spiritual body existing simultaneously - if that is what you are asking about. It is referring to the physical body being succeeded by a spiritual body in the resurrection.

Exactly what the "spiritual body" will be is the subject of controversy. If it is altogether "spiritual," it could not really be a body. And if it is a real body, its essence could not be spiritual. Perhaps it is a body which is animated by a spiritual principle rather than mere animal vitality. Of course, to JWs this is one of those texts which apply exclusively to the 144,000 rather than to mankind in general. But, I'll leave it to others to thrash this out.

My main point is that the spiritual body succeeds the physical body, and does not coexist with it.

Justin

11

Jehovah Witnesses - the wrong name?

by Mr Bean in

interestingly, how you would respect a witness in court room, and he will come.

the next day and... change his story because he has a 'new light' and now the poor.

accused is guilty.

Justin

Will Power,

I should have said the word you are referring to - hovah - has three of the same consonants as YHWH, not vowels. I'm so used to thinking of the missing vowels in the Divine Name that I got confused.

Anyway, Strong's is indicating that "hayah" is the root, because in tracing a Hebrew root one must disregard the vowel points and use the consonants. So, yes, there is a strong resemblance between the two words, but Strong is indicating that "hayah" is the root.

The Hebrew language has a phenomenon called "polysemy," which means that a certain combination of letters can have several meanings. For example, "av" can mean father, master, or prince. "Barach" can mean either to bless or to curse. "Cherev" can mean both sword and drought. So a layperson cannot trace a root simply by looking for the same combinations of letters in a dictionary. We must rely on the scholars who produce these dictionaries and lexicions to trace the roots for us.

Justin

11

Jehovah Witnesses - the wrong name?

by Mr Bean in

interestingly, how you would respect a witness in court room, and he will come.

the next day and... change his story because he has a 'new light' and now the poor.

accused is guilty.

Justin

Will Power,

The Strong's Concordance entry for "Jehovah" is 3064, and gives the meaning "(the) self-Existent or Eternal." Strong himself traces this back to the root verb "hayah" (1961), which means "to exist, i.e., be or become." So the reference you've cited, though it has three of the same vowels used in YHWH, is not etymologically related.

Of course, the artifical pronunciation "Jehovah" is another matter.

Justin

8

Whether you stay or leave...

by AGuest in

jw
friends

whether you do or don't believe.... whether you post merely 'fluff'.... or long essays and/or other 'intellectual' stuff.... i beg you: learn from the "body" of christ... which is made up of many members... but together... make up one body.

all are not hands, are they?

all are not feet and all are not legs.

Justin

Yes, we should all learn from one another and have more cooperation.

But from where did you get your Hebrew? The Hebrew for Jesus is "Y'shua." If you want to use the longer version, to correspond with the Old Testament Joshua, it would be "Yehoshua." Messiah is "Mashiach."

Justin

5

"Please wrap me in a Roman toga"

by Smoldering Wick in

jw
friends

those were charles taze russell's last words according to the carnegie library of pittsburgh:.

jehovah's witnesses, center of flag rows, born in pittsburgh.. on a train that rumbled over a texas prairie on a fall day in 1916 a gray-haired man collapsed of a heart attack.. to a group that gathered round him, he murmured:.

"please wrap me in a roman toga.".

Justin

Well, it looks like my link isn't working. So if anyone wants to read Sturgeon's speech, go to the Harvest Truth Database V5.0 and look for the Watchtower of December 1916.

Justin

5

"Please wrap me in a Roman toga"

by Smoldering Wick in

jw
friends

those were charles taze russell's last words according to the carnegie library of pittsburgh:.

jehovah's witnesses, center of flag rows, born in pittsburgh.. on a train that rumbled over a texas prairie on a fall day in 1916 a gray-haired man collapsed of a heart attack.. to a group that gathered round him, he murmured:.

"please wrap me in a roman toga.".

Justin

Russell's secretary, Menta Sturgeon, was with him when he died and related the events surrounding Russell's death in a talk given at the funeral, found in the December 1916 issue of the Watchtower. See http://www.agsconsulting.com/htdbnon/r6601.htm . It was Sturgeon who wrapped him in the bed sheet, and Russell showed him how to make it look like a Roman toga. Russell did not simply drop suddenly, but his death was a lingering one in which he became progressively ill on his last preaching tour, traveling on the train. He never explained what the Roman toga meant, and both Sturgeon and Rutherford attempted to give explanations. Both agreed that Russell had finished his course victoriously.

And now I'm sure we'll hear from some Russell haters who'll add their two cents.

Justin

36

What do you think will happen when all the FDS die

by termite 35 in

i'm not planning anything..... but when they all pop off, what are the rest going to do?they think the ns will come before they all die, so how the heck will they cope with it ,scriptually speaking/ surely cause a few to 'desert'?

there was a thread a few days ago about elders being up graded to fds status by some out of context crappily applied scripture;do you think they'll explain the absence of god's action with' the fds is still here!.

or will they work everyone up into a horribly humiliating fever pitch of protelisizing ,the like of which we have yet to see?

Justin

I agree that there will be "new light" on the FDS.

The fact that there are a few thousand anointed remaining will not put this off indefinitely. Many of these are older people around the same age as the current Governing Body. They can't just pull someone like that out of the R&F (even if anointed) and expect them to assume a new role at Bethel. Many of them are also women, who will not be used in leadership roles. Others are people who would have no organizational abilities at all, or people whom the WT would never consider as role models even though they are counted statistically as being anointed. So the "new light" has to come sooner rather than later.

Justin