2020 convention of jehovah’s witnesses.
we warmly invite you to watch this year’s three-day convention presented by jehovah’s witnesses.
as a result of the novel coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic, this year’s convention program is being presented online at jw.org.
A guy in our congregation suggested decades go that they put the Assembly Programme on Video, and then we donate what we would have spent. He ran a small farm, so had animals to attend to from the early hours before he struggled to a Convention, so I saw his difficulty.
I thought at the time that Donations would really suffer if they did that, and I guess this will happen now, so I don't see this as being a permanent thing, but who knows ?
has anyone turned it down or know of someone who did turn down being an elder or ms?.
yes, it should be one of the biggest privileges a brother can get !!
(how do i put the barfy icon in?
You have reminded me, U A, of what happened in our Congregation when the Elder thing was first brought in, only one guy accepted, and he was actually elderly, and one of the Anointed, the other "Servants" all felt they did not qualify ! This guy was a humble, really spiritual man, who cared for all.
When the C.O visited some months later, he persuaded the Servants that they were being too modest and self critical, so the P.O of the time, and a few others accepted. Others accepted in time.
I think, as in many other aspects, our guys were pretty unique in this, which made for a nice atmosphere in the Congregation, which caused many JW's over the years to move in from elsewhere. Nobody had a huge ego, until a young guy in his twenties, an Elder, moved in, he was different, a real by the Society Rule Book man, but constantly was restrained by the others.
has anyone turned it down or know of someone who did turn down being an elder or ms?.
yes, it should be one of the biggest privileges a brother can get !!
(how do i put the barfy icon in?
I turned down the offer to be an Elder a couple of times, not that I did not want the responsibility entirely, I certainly never wanted to be responsible for DFing anyone, but I hated the Politics, the obvious deference shown to Elders, which I saw as undeserved, and it generally being a Club I did not want to be a member of.
I also knew that I would take the pastoral work that Elders SHOULD do seriously, and having an exacting and tiring Job, plus kids to raise, I felt that I would get burn-out in no time.
I am glad I never became one, there is less guilt for me to carry, I have enough for simply being a JW for way too long.
i never had much faith in whatever resurrection was.
what appealed to me about jw doctrines was the rejection of the "it's a mystery" defense of the indefensible.
when i would ask how going into non existence could be reversed when all the atomic parts of who we are had been scattered for thousands of years, the answer was "jehovah can do anything".
What is required for the concept to actually seem reasonable to the mind, is a belief in what is called "Soul Sleep".
The problem for the J.W org is that because they do not know how to read the Bible in a Scholarly way, i.e, using proper exegesis to understand the writers thoughts, and take it all as literally as they can, they claim that as it says the Soul dies, that nothing of you lives on after death.
The idea that Big J contains in his big brain every one of your memories, which is pretty embarrassing in my case if true, still does not cut it as to believing that the newly created human is still really you, of course it would not be.
The usual muddled, ill-informed thinking here from the J.W org.
in this mid-week's video, the speaker talking about the marriages of jacob, and joseph, mentions, that jacob had 4 female bearers of his children; therefore the sons were closely spaced in age, perhaps born at the rate of 4 per year, in total much less then 10 years apart with joseph being the youngest at the time , perhaps 17. so:.
the overlapping group generation championed by the same speaker, in the earlier teaching refers to "-- joseph and his generation died --" as key generation proof ext.
we have the tacit admission that his core contemporary family generation group spans less than a decade.
The next generation for you and me is when our first child is born. Not usually even 30 years elapses before that happens.
It is evident that the words attributed to Jesus show that the Gospel writer thought the return of Jesus was almost overdue as he wrote ! later in the 1st Century other Bible Books were written because all the early Christians were distraught that the prophecy had not been fulfilled.
Of course the JW org knows much better than all those early Christians and Bible writers, who they claim were inspired by god, and say that all of that "evidently" means what they say it does. The evidence only being that the JW Org says it.
with the upcoming elections, the campaigns and political rhetoric are ramping up.
(ramping up is an understatement lol) .
i remember a few years ago, gb member brother herd mentioned during one of his talks that several witnesses were either reproved or disfellowshipped for voting for a certain presidential candidate who won...twice.
This is another case of the Org. speaking out of both sides of their mouth. They want to be able to point the Authorities to where they say it is a Conscience matter, but elsewhere make it plain it is not. I think in some Countries it is illegal to forbid others not to Vote in Elections ????
I guess on the basis of this that ,though merely having "faded", I am considered to have dis-associated myself by my old Congregation. I have openly joined a Political Party, and been campaigning for them for a number of years.
this is a topic that i find really interesting- how the bible, in particular, the new testament was compiled and how the jw organisation strives to negate, scoff at and diminish the influence of the catholic church in its development.. here is the official stance of the org: .
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/library/r1/lp-e/all-publications/watchtower/the-watchtower-1963/april-15.
'the roman catholic church claims responsibility for the decision as to which books should be included in the canon, and reference is made to the councils of hippo (a.d. 393) and carthage (a.d. 397), where catalogues of books were formulated.
An interesting point you raise joyey jojo, the use of the word "katholikos" as being very early. It shows that there was as early as that a group of Churches who considered themselves to be "the whole Church" and thus were dismissive of Christian groups outside of theirs as not Orthodox.
This thinking must have arisen because of the size of their group, compared to the others, who were probably dwindling in number by then, so they claimed the evident blessing of God upon their Pauline Christianity. At that time of course there was for sure no fixed "Canon" so they must have judged the other groups on difference of Doctrine and interpretation.
The same thinking pervaded the JW's in my youth : " Look how fast we are growing ! We must have Jehovah's blessing !", that thinking is still there to a degree, of course it is not only a fallacy to think that way, but the figures rather go against it too, much larger Christian Groups are also growing faster. Thanks for your thought on this.
this is a topic that i find really interesting- how the bible, in particular, the new testament was compiled and how the jw organisation strives to negate, scoff at and diminish the influence of the catholic church in its development.. here is the official stance of the org: .
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/library/r1/lp-e/all-publications/watchtower/the-watchtower-1963/april-15.
'the roman catholic church claims responsibility for the decision as to which books should be included in the canon, and reference is made to the councils of hippo (a.d. 393) and carthage (a.d. 397), where catalogues of books were formulated.
"by the usage of Christian congregations throughout the ancient world.'
I commented earlier on this phrase from the WT Article, but they are not consistent on this, apart from the books/Writings they reject totally, which were used by many in the early Churches, they reject the passage about the Woman caught in Adultery, they claim because it "is not in the earliest manuscripts", but there is evidence this passage was long used in the early Church.
Later bishops did not like it because it took away their Control, how very like JW's own G.B ! and because it was too lenient on the woman, had it been a man in the story it would have been different no doubt.
i had it confirmed today that 5 kingdom halls on one site in new addington are for sale.
price being asked £3.5 million.. every witness in london worked on that site.
am in shock.
The longer it sits idle, the displaced and inconvenienced JW's will feel very disgruntled, and may even begin to question if it was "Jehovah's Direction" that prompted this upheaval, or merely Corporate Greed, who knows ?
The guy who forced them to remove the two attached Cottages from the Sale did not help the Agents in their quest to find a buyer. it is not quite the prospect it was, without those.
so within a week he changed the end time chain of events.
this time he said false religion will be along side with the govt.
powers when they declare peace and security!
We are getting so far away from 1914 that I can see an " Overlapping Last Days" idea coming soon LOL ! Or maybe another Date is chosen as significant to "look forward" to ?
This constantly shouting " Wolf ! Wolf! " like the Peter, of the Fable, is wearing very thin surely ? Or at least it will, when things calm down again over the next year or two.
