i came across an old notebook of mine when we were spring cleaning our attic space.. for some reason i had written down these two references from older wt magazines.. reading over the two of them now i can only think that elders didn't pay any attention to the message either at the time or since.
*** w75 8/1 p. 474 par.
14 elders presiding in a fine way ***.
I seem to remember also a quotation to the effect that the elders were not 'thought police'. I have been unable to find that quote, so it could be I was thinking of one of these quotations in the OP.
In any case, many if not all of the elders I ever knew were dictatorial and policemen, and they liked it
so perhaps we all heard the jw story about jesus talking to gehenna and he was referring to a place outside the city where there was a dump burning refuse and everyone knew what it meant.. according to jw.org: tradition relates that the valley of hinnom thereafter became a place for the disposal of garbage.
and the bible provides confirmation for this.
at jeremiah 31:40, for example, the valley of hinnom is evidently called the “low plain of the carcasses and of the fatty ashes.” there was also the “gate of the ash-heaps,” a gate that seems to have opened out onto the eastern extremity of the valley of hinnom at its juncture with the kidron valley.—nehemiah 3:13, 14.. i think i heard that in the study of the greatest teacher book first.
Hell, damned if I know
regular pioneers: 600 per year, 50 on average per month.auxiliary pioneers: 30 hours per monthauxiliary pioneers in march and april: fee reduced to 15 hours.
Wow, they are just watering it down to nothing.
the league of nations and the united nations in prophetic speculation
how is it that so many individuals through the centuries have found such a pleasure in playing the role of prophet, despite the fact that their prophecies so seldom come true?
regularly their predictions fail, yet they go on with prophesying.
Rutherford was definitely opposed to the League of Nations, but in this he was not alone. Wilson was one of the League architects, but there was such resistance to it within the US that the US never joined it.
I'd be interested to know more of why Rutherford opposed it, likely was more of a personal reason. I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that William Jennings Bryan supported Wilson's efforts to get the US into the League. Rutherford had campaigned for Bryan back in the 1890's before becoming a Bible Student; maybe he wanted to take an opposition stand to Bryan.
i’m a pimo ministerial servant and i won’t fade because i want to keep my front row seats watching what happens next few years.. my predictions are that this current governing body will slowly die off and the current younger helpers will be the next gb.
they will eventually have new light that they were wrong about 1914 and the overlapping generations.. the new light will be something on the lines of the last days are now because of king of north king of south pushing each other etc etc.
they will do their very best to burry old literature and try to change the past trying to make it sound like they were right all along just as they have done for 150 years now.
It's not going away, as much as I might like to see it. There are just too many people who have given their lives to it and it is just human nature to never want to admit the whole thing was wrong to begin with.
That being said, there will no doubt be a lot of changes as the number of JWs and congregations declines over the next twenty to thirty years.
my opinions only:
I do expect elder and MS to be opened up to women
The 1914 doctrine will fade away eventually as it becomes more and more preposterous
The two class Christian (anointed vs great crowd) doctrine will have to go
The disfellowshipping practice will morph into something else, I don't know what, but it is unsustainable as it is.
bits of unreported history that may be of casual interest… as to doctrinal origins.
sykes was one-of-a-kind in the pentecostal movement, but he was considered quite a maverick who went his own way with heretical teachings repugnant to the pentecostal faith.. joshua sykes’ congregation was integrated, unlike pastor russell’s public speeches/sermons where blacks and whites both could attend, but only in separate sections--sykes's members were sitting side by side in the pentecostal church.
this was considered dangerous and inflammatory at the time.. pentecostal preacher joshua sykes practiced racial and gender "integration" as early as 1908 -- having both african-american and female assistant preachers, staffers, and members.
were you ever on a congregation picnic?
i was on several occasions.. the arrangements were often announced from the platform after the closing song and prayer by the last elder up on the platform.. sometimes it was included in the service meeting announcements as "on saturday we're meeting at 10.00am at the kingdom hall for field service, and after field service for anyone who wishes, especially for the younger ones, we will be having a congregation picnic meeting at the beach carpark on seaview road.".
well, according to the new elders manual you won't be hearing those words again.
The congregation picnics and ballgames (the JW equivalent to the church social) disappeared about 2000 or so. I think it was mostly driven by liability fears, and the WT practice of self-insuring. Church socials have a substantial degree of risk for the sponsoring organization, with quite a number of lawsuits out of food poisoning and sports-related injuries.
i can remember the original turquoise coloured evolution book produced by the organisation and the numerous public talks around it.
mind-blowing to a gullible youngster growing up in a jw family.. the flood of noah's day when thousands of tons of suspended water fell from the atmosphere and on hitting the cold poles instantly plunged the woolly mammoths into a deep freeze, to the extent that the last mouthful of grass was still there in the mouth in mid-chomp.
you can quickly see why a kid with a fertile imagination was transfixed by those apparently up-to-date scientific discoveries as presented by the wt org!.
I am curious enough to look up the Wikipedia article on mammoths, which discusses several of the prevailing theories on their extinction. In short, there are three major theories:
Hunted to extinction by humans
Virus
post Glacial change of habitat
A combination of these reasons.
Funny, it doesn't mention Noah's flood as being a possible cause of extinction :)
i keep getting this person who wants me to email them with information already freely available on this website.. i have told him that i have no intention of emailing a total stranger from my personal email address, but they keep sending me this demand.. from bola to lostinthefog1999.
can you tell me how to block this persistent messager?.
LITF are you referring to email, or to the message service within this site? If the latter, Simon would have to weigh in. I don't use the JW Discussion messaging much, but I don't see a way to block users.
isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?
or have they stopped publishing it?
did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?
I think when the Service Year Report is released, it would be accessible from the Library >> Books and Brochures section of jw.org.
I just checked and the 2022 report is not there yet.
