In any given congregation, it's a pretty sure bet that at least half on the body of elders are not qualified to run a lemonade stand, much less "shepherd the flock of God" or "judge righteously for Jehovah".
Posts by Funky
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24The Myth of being "Spirit Appointed"
by BluesBrother inback in the first century we read that the apostles would "lay their hands" on someone and the holy spirit would be imparted to that one.
appointments of older men were made in this way - at that time.
in modern times the wts has claimed that their own elders ,min.
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Is the WT changing the 1914 teaching now?
by nonjwspouse ini've been absent from the forum for about 10 months while deep into a divorce and working long hours.i heard mention in another thread about a change in 1914. is this actually being taught?
i'm very curious.
a extended non jw family member of my soon to be ex spouse finally decided to really do the deep investigation on the jw, and is in the phase of wanting to "ask the direct questions" and inform them of the facts of the jws.
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Funky
Nope, no change yet.
Eventually they'll have to change it of course.
They used to say (in the 19th century) that the "last days" began in 1799. They didn't change it until - when, exactly? 1930's? 1940s? Anyway, when it got too embarrassing to keep pointing to a date 140+ years in the past as "last days", they changed it to 1914.
So in maybe 20 or 30 years they'll change 1914 to something else.
Heck, maybe they'll eventually say "the last days" started in 2020! They'd have the "pestilence" part down, anyways.
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Covid-19 (Coronavirus) - Status Update Thread
by Simon inthis topic is to focus on status updates & advice (no opinion or politics please).. status.
latest status is that it's serious, probably isn't going to be contained and most large companies are making contingency plans, cancelling large events etc... which i don't think would happen if it was just people being alarmist.
the incubation period means it may have already spread further and infected many more people than are currently known, so expect jumps in the numbers over the coming days and weeks.. tracking.
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Funky
Don't worry, as you can tell by the downvoting that has started even at this early hour, soon you will have a few dozen folks here telling you that your experiences & observations don't matter, Hannity / Ingraham / OANN / whatever say something else, so that's that!
If you're "lucky" you'll even get a few accusing you of lying about being a healthcare worker.
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24
The Myth of being "Spirit Appointed"
by BluesBrother inback in the first century we read that the apostles would "lay their hands" on someone and the holy spirit would be imparted to that one.
appointments of older men were made in this way - at that time.
in modern times the wts has claimed that their own elders ,min.
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Funky
LOL - yeah, if the typical R&F JW could only be exposed to a typical elders meeting prior to the arrival of the CO, when "appointments" are considered, that would pretty much blow up the notion that these guys are appointed by "holy spirit".
Here's how it works in real life:
COBE: "OK, who can we recommend for appointment?"
Rest of elders: Dumb silence
Token caring elder: "What about Brother Humble? He meets all the scriptural requirements, he's kind, caring, humble, generous, intelligent, compassionate, hospitable, loving...."
Other elder: "Yada yadda yadda, what's his average hours in field service?"
Secretary: "About 4 hours a month"
COBE: "Well that disqualifies him. Next?"
Another elder: "What about Brother Pompous? He gets 15 hours a month."
Token caring elder: "Well, yes, but he doesn't really seem to care much about other people. I've never been to his house. His kids don't look happy. His wife seems to gossip..."
Other elder: "Yadda yadda yadda. He gets enough time, his wife & kids are regular publishers, he qualifies."
COBE: "Let's taka vote, all in favor?"
All elders but one raise their hands.
COBE: "Brother Token, will you acquiesce to the decision of the majority?"
Token caring elder: "Well, if the body feels that strongly, I guess I'll go along with it."
COBE: "Great, it's unanimous. Now let's go on to our next point, spying on the facebook pages of congregation teens. Who'd like to volunteer to try catch them doing something wrong?"
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Is it because of Pride or Loyalty?
by joey jojo inin a recent effort to entice me back to meetings, an elder friend gave me the example of his dad.. he said that his pioneer/elder/ex-missionary dad went through the anticipation and disappointment of 1975 and yet, he kept going faithfully for decades afterwards.
the obvious point was that, if his dad can deal with disappointment, then, surely a nobody like me could do the same in regards to the scrapping of the 1914 generation doctrine, and all the other changes.
his 'encouragement' was to tell me that it was only me that felt like this, everyone else is fine and have no problems with the changes.
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Funky
In summary: The "sunk cost" fallacy.
I suspect it's responsible for a very large percentage of JWs just hanging on.
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38
HELP!! Just Woken Up - Fanatical Mom wants to report me
by Scarlett_Martin ini've just been introduced to this site by a pimo friend of mine.
this will be my first post on this website.
i need help, and he told me you guys are a very supportive community.. i'm a female in my mid twenties.
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Funky
I'm PIMO. My parents are the same. Marry me, I will give you a home and we can pretend to be JWs together and fade together.
Yikes!
Not sure where exactly this lands on the "creepy-to-cute" scale.
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2020 Meeting Content/Schedule - Anyone know what is coming?
by JWTom inhello all - no 2020 midweek meeting content has been published yet.
anyone know or hear of what will be changed for 2020 due to the pandemic?
even my pimi family (i am pimo) is scratching their heads wondering why we are still reviewing content from 2017-2019 that talk about all the future plans, field service, etc etc etc....that have all been derailed due to covid-19.
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Funky
got the January/February 2021 workbook already delivered in print three weeks ago..
I have no reason to doubt you, but....
If it's been printed and shipped so long ago, what prevents them from posting it? It's not on their website nor their library app.
Very curious....
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2020 Meeting Content/Schedule - Anyone know what is coming?
by JWTom inhello all - no 2020 midweek meeting content has been published yet.
anyone know or hear of what will be changed for 2020 due to the pandemic?
even my pimi family (i am pimo) is scratching their heads wondering why we are still reviewing content from 2017-2019 that talk about all the future plans, field service, etc etc etc....that have all been derailed due to covid-19.
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Funky
They do seem to be behind in publishing the January 2021 workbook.
It is increasingly bizarre how, aside from random miscellaneous "governing body update" videos, there is no acknowledgement that JW life has been turned completely upside down. All the videos, sample presentations, WT articles, workbook content, everything, shows images of "normal life" - meetings at a Kingdom Hall, door to door presentations, etc.
No JW has done any of that for the past 7 months, and by the looks of things, won't be doing that again for several years, maybe many years.
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wt organizationthimk (last week's study)
by waton infor those who want to see how bad it really is, 2 thoughts: .
1) the article says "jehovah" gave gifts in men, but the bible in gal: 6 clearly mentions the one who ascended into heaven as the one, jesus, their reigning king, that does provides these " the captives.. of course when wt writers say jehovah they really mean the wt society.
and local elders, ms, really are wt appointees, now done by the co, a man with no assets.
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Funky
Incidentally, this is one (of a few thousand) of my peeves with the NWT.
How on earth can you translate Ephesians 4:8 as "gifts in men"?
The Greek says "to", virtually all other translations say "to", the context implies "to"....
It doesn't even make sense in English, grammatically. If I hand out gifts to all my employees, and the gifts are all boxes of candy, I don't say "for your bonus, I'm giving you gifts in candy". That just sounds goofy and bizarre, what, there's a hidden prize inside when I bite down on my Snickers bar? I would say "I'm giving you gifts of candy".
I guess maybe it might make sense if you assume there is an implied "in the form of" as in "he gave gifts in the form of men" but while I'm no Greek scholar, there seems to be an absolutely zero chance of an implied "in the form of" there where you simply read "to".
Example number 3,856 of the WTS coming up with some bizarro doctrine, then cherry-picking a barely conceivable/grammatically allowable translation of the Greek text to support that weird doctrine and make it somehow "Biblical".
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8 Year Old Can Decide If They Are Transgendered
by minimus inso says joe biden.. anybody agree with this?
?.
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Funky
as doc says, this shit will be over soon
That's just the problem - it won't be over soon.
It doesn't end with the election, nor with the transfer of power, nor with the reversal of the majority in the Senate. About 65 million people will have voted for the loser, thinking that things have been wonderful for the past 4 years. And for a certain subset of the population, things have been "better" in a sense that is important to them. They've been given permission to hate again. They are, at least for now, no longer pariahs for expressing their bitter dark feelings toward the "other".
They're not going to change their minds overnight. It extends far beyond any one man in any one political party in any one office.
Things will get better. Responsible adults will soon be back in charge of the government. But the attitudes manifest by many in the nation (and reflected by some on this website) won't change as a result of that. Society can learn and improve, and I think eventually it will, but it's a long, slow (as in decades) process.