Rob Crompton

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Posts by Rob Crompton

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  27

  Forthcoming Kingdom Ministry School schedule and references

  by cedars in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i'm taking a break from jwn at the moment, but i thought i'd briefly jump back on to post some information that has been sent to me.. many of you will be aware that the governing body has somewhat hastily arranged another "kingdom ministry" school for the elders, and there has already been a degree of speculation on the forum as to what matters will be addressed at this meeting.. a friend has very kindly sent me the text of a letter to bodies of elders in britain which includes the meeting schedule as well as the reference material that elders are asked to bring along and "meditate" on beforehand.. here is the letter:.

  to all bodies of elders .

  re: kingdom ministry school.

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  Rob Crompton

  I'm a long time out. Could someone tell me what is involved in "marking disorderly ones."

  Rob Crompton
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  21

  Please respond to an email from a distraught dad who is losing his daughter to the JWs through a JW boyfriend

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i received the following email through my website, www.watchtowerdocuments.com.

  how would you reply to his question?

  (i'll send him the link to this thread containing your replies.).

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  Rob Crompton

  Barbara,

  This is a difficult one to respond to without details. But I see that your correspondent is in the UK and is strongly Church of England. So, as a

  UK resident, ex-special pioneer, and now ordained Methodist minister I might be someone who they could relate to. So maybe you could pass on

  my contact info:

  Rob Crompton

  http://snigsfoot.blogspot.com

  http://www.robertcrompton.com
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  20

  What did Jesus really mean when he spoke on the mount of olives?

  by apocalypse in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  be objective.. http://issuu.com/a.s.o.h./docs/olivetdiscourse?mode=window&pagenumber=1.

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  Rob Crompton

  There are huge difficulties in tryingto answer this one. Before we can say anything about what Jesus meant we need to know what he actually said. And this is not at all striaghtforward. The discourse as it appears in the gospels dates from a long time after Jesus so there is no way of knowing how the gospel version compare with Jesus own words. To what extent did the gospel writer interpret or elaborate Jesus' words? There's no way of knowing.

  Even trying to say what believers around the time of the writing of the gospels might have understood is difficult. Was this before the fall of Jerusalem or after? So were they looking to something that was to happen in the future or something which had already happened? The most likely situation seems to be that they thought the prophecy (if that was, indeed, what Jesus intended to give) was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem and that Christians were then awaiting the imminent return of Jesus.

  So the question has to be: is this a case of the perennial problem for believers of having to find a way of reinterpreting things in order to continue believing and avoid admitting that they got it wrong?
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  34

  Showed Spouse A Quote In the Bound Volume

  by turtleturtle in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  as part of family worship last night, i pulled out the bound volumes i have been harvesting from different sources lately and showed my spouse the following quote:.

  awake!1969 may 22 p.15 .

  "if you are a young person, you also need to face the fact that you will never grow old in this present system of things.

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  Rob Crompton

  I started at university in October 1974. A close family member gave me a 1975 diary and told me that I wouldn't need it all but at least I would be able to use the first part of it.

  I'm now retired.
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  20

  Did Russell Believe Anything Witnesses Do Now?

  by konceptual99 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this weeks wt study got me thinking as to if there was anything major that pre 1914 bible students believed that would be accepted by modern day witness.. as far as i can tell, they throught:.

  1 - the last days had started in 1799.

  2 - christ's presence had stated in 1874.

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  Rob Crompton

  None of Russell's prophetic interpretation has been carried forward to the JWs, with the single exception of the interpetation of the 70 weeks of Daniel 9 leading to Christ. That, however, was not unique to Russell.

  Otherwise as Emery says, it's just Trinity and Hell. And then the basics which one way or another are common to all Christian belief systems.

  RobC
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  12

  Powerful questions to DEBUNK the Jonah and the big fish story

  by Black Man in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  just wanting to link logical, common sense questions that dismantle the jonah/big fish story..

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  Rob Crompton

  Quite frankly if, "Hey, stop and think about it," doesn't do the trick, I'm not sure that anything will.

  But try this (it's the second big miracle in the story, in my reckoning) - look at the opening of chapter 3. When Joan gets to Nineveh he sets out to walk through the place proclaiming his message. This is a big place - really big, it takes three days just to walk across it. And all the people repent. Just like that. So if anyone thinks that could happen, imagine this: A big city that takes three days to walk across. All the electricity is down. There are no newspapers, no computers, no radio, no TV. And the challenge is to go there and give a particular message to everybody. Who reckons they can do it?

  Rob Crompton
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  7

  why the rhetorical questions on the heading of there magizines

  by greenhornet in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i remember back when i was in "the truth" (trade mark).

  the mags back then always was a question like.

  when will there be no more tears?, will we ever see our loved ones?, is satin real????.

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  Rob Crompton

  One of my favourite stupid questions from years back involved the use of the expression, "why not...?" This may well be used a bit differently in US English from British English. In Brit "why not do so and so?" is the equivalent of, "let's do so and so." In Us it may mean. "why ought we not to do so and so?" (Maybe someone will enlighten me.)

  The Studpidly Titled Article in one of the mags was : "Why not commit fornication?" To which, of course, some of us thought, "Hey, great idea!"

  Rob Crompton

  http://snigsfoot.blogspot.com
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  32

  Divine name debate - Greg Stafford v Paul Lundquist etc

  by yadda yadda 2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i'm sure this has been discussed in depth before by the scholarly minded on here.

  i'd be interested in seeing any former threads.. what are we to make of greg stafford's theory (and the watchtower society's) that the hellenized philosophy of the early nt copyists caused them to remove the divine name (tetragrammaton or variants of) from the nt writings?

  have any scholars offered a rebuttal?.

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  Rob Crompton

  Basically, there are two possibilities here: either use of the divine name had died out completely by Jesus' day, except for its use by the high priest on the Day of Atonement; or there was some lingering, minor use of it more widely than by the priest. If the latter is the case, then NWT clearly misrepresents the historical situation because it has others beside Jesus using the name when historically they would not have done. But if there was some lingering use of the name then NWT may (note, may, nothing more) represent this limited usage. But the trouble for WT doctrine is that even the NWT does not show people using the name the way WT says we should - not even Jesus.

  So two challenges for the JW: take a highlighter pen and colour all the uses of Jehovah in, say, John's gospel, in one colour and all the uses of Father in a different colour. And now ask how did Jesus teach his followers to address God?

  Second challenge: try using the name Jehovah in exactly the same way it is used in the NWT - i.e. only when quoting scripture where it is there in the text. All other times use "Father" - then see how the KH police respond.

  Rob Crompton

  http://snigsfoot.blogspot.com
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  3

  Christendom College

  by mamamo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  wow, i never knew there was a christendom college until today.

  it is in virginia.

  that would be the place for all apostates to go..

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  Rob Crompton

  "Christendom" is a fairly archaic term. I think it's true to say that it is used (and only rarely) in writing about the history of the spread of christianity around the world. In all my quarter of a century as a Methodist Minister, I don't think I ever heard anyone use it when referring to the present day church.
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  35

  Pre 1975 if you said the system would still be here in 2012...........

  by karter in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  would they have d.fed as an apostate???

  ?.

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  Rob Crompton

  I can recall way back in the sixties, before the 1975 nonsense, I said in private conversation with a friend (and nobody else present) that it would not matter if armageddon were still a very long time away. He was so disturbed by this that he told his congregation overseer. The CO in turn write to the London Branch Office (I was a special pio, after all) and London wrote to my cong overseer. I got called in to account for what I had said. It was not very long afterwards that I cut loose altogether.