Jesus isn't just quoting a scripture in psalms but a whole promise from God in the hebrew scriptures. It isn't just a stand alone scripture but a reference to the promises God gave to mankind. Right from Genesis were we re told to subdue the earth. to psalms (including the scripture quoted) to the pictorial promises in Isaiah were we build our own houses and eat our own produce in idealic earth conditions. And then the greater belief the Jews had of a Resurrection again into this perfect earth in isaiah's predictions. Jesus knew all this when he quoted that scripture and what it was referencing. The resurrection and the perfect earth is a huge topic in the hebrew scriptures.
Concerned JW
JoinedPosts by Concerned JW
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The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth - Matt 5:5 anyone?
by punkofnice inon another thread concernedjw used an interesting quote from jesus at matt 5:5 'the meek shall inherit the earth.
' fair comment i'd say.
but jesus didn't say 'paradise' earth.. now i know some of you don't believe in the bible (which i respect), and i'm not after a debate.. what i'm interested to hear is how you would refyte that jesus was not talking about a jw 'paradise earth'.
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religion only to do with belief?
by Curtains inas jehovahs witnesses we were taught that the truth (belief) unifies every aspect of our lives and is of paramount importance.
are other like religions like this also?
do they emphasize belief to the same extent?.
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Concerned JW
Forgive me Curtains If you felt I was demeaning. I find the Bible very deep and needs a lot study. In many ways you and I agree especially with looking at the greek interlinear for clarification.
Ministry isn't a ritual it is work/a job for witnesses since it is simply viewed as spiritual work for Jehovah and his son Jesus. Work however repetitve has definite goals. For witnesses "first call" (where witnesses knock on doors) is only a small part of the ministry which includes return visits, bible studies with the interested persons, informal witnessing, street witnessing it is all geared towards spreading God's word and seeking interested ones.
Evangelising with the goal of finding interested people has never been classed as a ritual for any religion. I see a lot of Atheists now evangelising for their belief.
The problem with godrulz explanation of "speaking in tongues" is that it is read into the bible and the scriptures that directly contradadict that viewpoint are ignored Acts 2:11. I can see how Pentacostals came to their particular belief on "tongues" by carefully proof texting certain scriptures and taking them out of there biblical context/explanation and using them as stand alone scriptures.
Are "tongues" unintelligible words that only God can understand? no in Acts 2 the only event describing "tongues" shown in action. They are shown to be in the known languages of the people visiting Jerusalem and the people understood what was being said to them. That is the boundary that any understanding about "tongues" has to be set within. You can't then contradict this or ignore it for your own exegesis.
The diversity of "Tongues" understanding and usage within the pentacostal church itself shows a lack of constancy and correctness in their understanding on the subject.
Why would any bible-based religion want to keep the mystery? For me that is a sign of fakery and manipulation. By comparison Witnesses are found to be very blunt and straight forward. Our meetings completely lacking the elaborate rituals and shows, stimulating loud music. all designed to manipulate emotions and senses. I think pentacostals among other charasmatic groups are very much geared towards this type of stimulation for the audience. In that sort of atmosphere people are very susceptable to suggestion.
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New here
by Tuber inhey all.. .
thought i'd introduce myself.. .
first, a disclaimer: i'm an athiest.. .
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Concerned JW
Tuber this is a very negatively biased site against witnesses with information that your relative will realise eventually where you are getting it from because a lot of these are not very original attacks on witnesses. Jehovah's witnesses are a well respected mainstream religion something this site will not make clear. Steve Hassans books are not about main stream religions like Jehovah's witnesses.
You have done some research I see but it is very basic as well.
While "yahweh" is the most modern hebrew version of "Jehovah it would be odd to use "yahweh" in a bible when all the other names are transliterated into English who normally happily using the English "J" instead of "Y". Yeshua is the closest hebrew way of saying the English "Jesus" but we don't use that. So using "Jehovah" which is in the KJV psalm 83:18 and is the established and oldest English transliterated version of YHWH is perfectly fine.
Ancient hebrew was originally a vowelless written language, the consonants serve as sounds for vowels too. People would read YHWH and know how to pronouce it with just them letters. So YHWH is the whole and original name for Jehovah in written hebrew. The addition of vowel points to the original language was much later about 500 years and not always indicative of the original pronouciations. The Jewish superstition on Jehovah's name was not shared by early israelites and Jews who used it nearly 7000 in the hebrew scriptures and in psalms to be sung. The eventual removal and superstition on Jehovah's name was because of a misreading of a commandment in the bible about not blaspheming on God's name which they took to mean not using it at all. Jesus openly condemned this practise saying he had to "make his father's name known" to them.
ASV and NIV are both good translation but they do suffer from adherence to trinitarian theology and directly reflected on how they were translated. NWT is acknowledged to be an accurate translation.
Replacing a name with a title either "lord" or "God" 7000 times really adds to the inaccuracy of modern bibles and in fact led to indirectly to the confusion between Jesus and his Father Jehovah who both hold the title "Lord" which then helped lead towards the false teaching of Trinitarianism.
When someone personally gives you their name to use it shows an intimacy of friendship that the more formal use of titles lacks. Moses was accounted as Jehovah's friend so Jehovah revealed his personal name to him and as his people we also get that honor. When the jews rejected God's name they lost that intimacy of friendship. The bible is very clear Jehovah's people would use his name and come to know him personally and deeply.
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Jehovah's Witnesses are not a CULT ...
by Fatfreek inaccording to 30% of the following definitions.
that leaves 70% that show quite the opposite.
so -- are they a cult?
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Concerned JW
Since the consensus is religion means cult that is a big win or not really.
The next leap is saying "Never mind dangerous branch davidian type cults Steve hassan wasn't talking about them, he actually meant main stream established religions we have a personal gripe with and can read our target religion into his book with a little mental editing when it doesn't fit" not biased at all!
And of course France didn't fall flat on it's face recently on this very subject because they bought into this anti-hype over witnesses and lost.
Interesting old thread.
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religion only to do with belief?
by Curtains inas jehovahs witnesses we were taught that the truth (belief) unifies every aspect of our lives and is of paramount importance.
are other like religions like this also?
do they emphasize belief to the same extent?.
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Concerned JW
Thats a shame Curtains. I have to admit though your recent reply was disappointing I expected more depth from you than just buying into gudrulz "Bible for beginners" explanations that tries to show scriptures can cancel out each other out, when all scripture is written for our instruction and understanding. I enjoyed the chance to debate with you though.
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religion only to do with belief?
by Curtains inas jehovahs witnesses we were taught that the truth (belief) unifies every aspect of our lives and is of paramount importance.
are other like religions like this also?
do they emphasize belief to the same extent?.
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Concerned JW
I do have a kingdom interlinear and various bible translations and none of them say that in 1 cor 13:10. To quote the interlinear directly "Whenever but should come the perfect(thing) the (thing)out of part will be made ineffective."
We have 3 scriptures 1 cor 13: 8,9 and 10. 8 references the ceasing of prophecying, tongues and knowledge as full gifts. Then importantly we have 9 which shows an emergence of partial remaining gifts but no mention of tongues. Then we have verse 10 which is the one under discussion which directly quotes 9 and the "Part" gifts being the ones that end when perfection comes and no reference to verse 8 or tongues. But for further clarity and confirmation you goto 1 cor 13: 12 "at present I know partially" 1 cor 13 :13 GI "Now but is remaining faith, hope, love" of which the greatest is love. Paul is clarifying here what they now have remaining is faith hope and love. But for something to remain something has to end! So what has ended? The gifts! Your argument falls at this. Because you are saying everything continues fully until perfection ends them, so Paul is lying and nothing has ended for there to be remaining faith, hope and love.
And before you say it verse 13 is not talking about after attaining perfection because faith and hope will not exist then! Both are only needed before we become perfect which is when our faith is justified and our hope fulfilled therefore they end with perfection but love we will always have even after perfection.
You are pretending 1cor 13: verse 9 doesn't exist and are tying verse 8 and verse 10 together. This also begs the question why would Paul even go into all this explanation? if we simply have full gifts right up until perfection is attained? why do we need to be told the gifts will cease? We wouldn't need the gifts when we are perfect. Paul felt we needed to know this information and that we also needed reasuring we still have faith, hope and love remaining. So why is he reasuring us? because we lose the full gifts (including tongues)! that can be the only logical explanation.
We know at some point in that time period the gifts ended and probably completely with the last Apostles death. Certainly until the recent spate of claimed gifts by new-age, pentacostal, christian religions history shows a distinct lack of these gifts throughout the centuries. So we know now the full gifts where only meant for a small period of time in the early "baby" "childhood" days of early Christianity. As part of their birth as a faith and so with increased bible knowledge, understanding, maturity under Jehovah guidance and the remaining faith hope and love they didn't need these gifts. Showing also that mature christians now don't need those sort of eye-opening gifts to strengthen their belief.
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Jehovah's Witnesses are not a CULT ...
by Fatfreek inaccording to 30% of the following definitions.
that leaves 70% that show quite the opposite.
so -- are they a cult?
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Concerned JW
You have yet to establish why reading the book is relevent to this discussion? Like I said earlier I am pretty sure Steve Hassan did not mean for it to be used as a "How to spot a Cult" book or a "How to read your religion into a Cult" book. but to be used with already established Cults. I will discuss Steve Hassan's book when you establish that witnesses are a Cult but you can't because they are in fact an established Religion.
Please answer why you asked me if I read it? and why would you think I need to read it?
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I'm new here..... Studying with the Witnesses
by PenelopePaige inhi- i just wanted to say that i have been checking the website out for a few weeks and have read some horror stories and some sad ones.
but i have been studying with witnessess for about six months and can't help but feel that they're completely sincere and maybe even, the true religion.
i love the watchtower and awake and to me, none of that seems crazy.
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Concerned JW
There are numerous explanations for near death experiences some physical like hallucinations due to oxygen starvation and others like the one you mentioned. Jesus himself said about a little girl and for lazarus that they were both "asleep" in death which doesn't support the separating soul viewpoint. I personally would lean towards the hallucination/dreaming explanation because of the basic fact that you aren't dead just "near dead" which means your brain is still active and sending messages and since the woman was in that building, had the shoe registered in her unconscous mind and it came back to it in the hallucination? When I dream I am one of those people that can fly sometimes and I have vivid dreams of places I know but certain things are picked out more than others. you focus on a table or a picture and then the dream jumps to another area. So I'm afraid I lean towards there being a mundane explanation for it. I hope you don't mind?
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I'm new here..... Studying with the Witnesses
by PenelopePaige inhi- i just wanted to say that i have been checking the website out for a few weeks and have read some horror stories and some sad ones.
but i have been studying with witnessess for about six months and can't help but feel that they're completely sincere and maybe even, the true religion.
i love the watchtower and awake and to me, none of that seems crazy.
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Concerned JW
Penelope you really seem genuine in your thoughts especially on the point of paradise. It is a biblical word Jesus himself uses. It's connection with earth is drawn from the promises for the earth in the bible from Eden in Genesis right through to Isaiah and Jesus's own words when he says "the meek will inherit the earth" it is quite an interesting biblical topic when you look into it.
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I'm new here..... Studying with the Witnesses
by PenelopePaige inhi- i just wanted to say that i have been checking the website out for a few weeks and have read some horror stories and some sad ones.
but i have been studying with witnessess for about six months and can't help but feel that they're completely sincere and maybe even, the true religion.
i love the watchtower and awake and to me, none of that seems crazy.
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Concerned JW
Jwfacts why would believing in "one true religion" be a fundemental error? is your point based on the fact you personally think that there can be many true religions? or there can be no true religions? It is the bible that sets the parameter that the true religion must preach (word of mouth) "to the entire inhabited earth" are you saying that is impossible for any religion to do?