Posts by Apognophos

28

Friends are studying with the JW's

by LouBelle in

i was studying spanish a little while ago - had to stop because of finances but became friends with the spanish teacher and we keep in touch, see each other now and again.

i just got a message from him:.

"hola louise, i would like to talk to you about 2 things, about the jws, as we are following this fatih, we find it interesting, we haven't been baptised yet, i want to make sure before making a mistake and the other thing that allan and i wold like to talk about is starting your own business.....".

Apognophos

Yeah, don't go in there with talking points and charts of prophecies. As some others said, just listen and respond. Although, if you were going to talk about the failings of the Society's teachings, I would think the blood transfusion and former organ transplant teachings should be high on your list.

229

How exactly did Jesus fulfill the law NOT the prophecies.

by mP in

theres a clear difference between prophecies (predictions of future events) and laws(stuff you should and shouldnt do).. now since xians always says jesus fullfilled the law, how does one fullfill a bunch of requirements like dont murder, dont worship idols, shave your beard like this etc.. there are 613 laws in the torah, jewish rabbis have done all the hard work and we have a nice list on wiki.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_mitzvot.

im confused which of those some how select a unique individual to be the unique messiah ?

then again there were many messiahs, every king and priest of israel and judea was a messiah.

Apognophos

I didn't see the value in discussing whether you personally, mP, have broken any of those laws, so I haven't talked about that before now. It seems tangential to the point that I and others have been trying to make. But since you seem obsessed with proving your compliance to old Jewish laws, I'll bite... surely you don't claim to be keeping all the practices described in Maimonides' list of 613 mitzvot which you referred to earlier? These include:

- Not shaving the beard (law 68/69)

- Wearing phylacteries (law 79/80)

- Saying the Shema prayer twice a day (law 76)

- Not marrying non-Jews (law 162)

as well as one that non-Jews sometimes keep, which I also doubt you're following:

- Keeping the Sabbath (law 87, and many others)

I would estimate that over 50% of these laws are probably not being kept by you, but of course I don't know you. Christ Alone understandably asked you if you were a Jew and you denied that it was relevant, but it was very relevant because non-Jews do not try to keep most of these commandments.

I have to assume you were actually talking about keeping the "bigger" laws concerned with morality such as "thou shalt not kill", except that all 613 of these laws were considered to be connected to morality. Some laws, about seemingly inconsequential things like beards and clothing, served to distinguish God's people from Gentiles, so one's compliance with these was a necessary aspect of true worship.

More importantly, I'd like to know why we have to prove that you have broken one of the mitzvot. What is your point? I could take a guess, but I'd rather hear you say it yourself instead of guessing wrong and being told not to put words in your mouth.

229

How exactly did Jesus fulfill the law NOT the prophecies.

by mP in

theres a clear difference between prophecies (predictions of future events) and laws(stuff you should and shouldnt do).. now since xians always says jesus fullfilled the law, how does one fullfill a bunch of requirements like dont murder, dont worship idols, shave your beard like this etc.. there are 613 laws in the torah, jewish rabbis have done all the hard work and we have a nice list on wiki.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_mitzvot.

im confused which of those some how select a unique individual to be the unique messiah ?

then again there were many messiahs, every king and priest of israel and judea was a messiah.

Apognophos

Um, I wasn't talking about whether you've broken the Mosaic Law or not. Please read my first sentence and last paragraph again. Christ Alone was the one talking about what laws any of us have specifically broken. My point was trying to get back to your original challenge about how Jesus fulfilled the Law.

229

How exactly did Jesus fulfill the law NOT the prophecies.

by mP in

theres a clear difference between prophecies (predictions of future events) and laws(stuff you should and shouldnt do).. now since xians always says jesus fullfilled the law, how does one fullfill a bunch of requirements like dont murder, dont worship idols, shave your beard like this etc.. there are 613 laws in the torah, jewish rabbis have done all the hard work and we have a nice list on wiki.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_mitzvot.

im confused which of those some how select a unique individual to be the unique messiah ?

then again there were many messiahs, every king and priest of israel and judea was a messiah.

Apognophos

I actually think both of you guys, mP and Christ Alone, are overlooking a strong viewpoint in the OT about man being inherently sinful.

The eating of the fruit by Adam and Eve in Gen. 3 led to their 'eyes being opened and realizing they were naked' (the introduction of sinful thought to mankind). Their first child, Cain, gave in to "sin crouching at the entrance" (Gen 4:7) and killed his brother. By Noah's time, God said that "the inclination of the heart of man is bad from his youth up" (Gen. 8:21). David later wrote, "With error I was brought forth in birth pains [a reference to Eve's curse, making the connection to the Original Sin], and in sin my mother conceived me." ( Psalms 51:5)

Even Isaiah said to the angel in 6:5, "a man unclean in lips I am", feeling unworthy to see Jehovah. So in verse 7, the angel touches a coal to his lips and says, "Your error has departed and your sin itself is atoned for." There was no specific sin being discussed here on Isaiah's part. Rather, even he as a servant of the true God was considered sinful and needed a "pardon" in order to see God.

Finally, don't forget the verse we all knew by heart as Witnesses, Jer. 17:9: "The heart is more treacherous than anything else and is desperate." That's a general condemnation of man's nature if I've ever seen one.

Yes, there was also lots of OT discussion of specific sin -- there were provisions for making a sacrifice in order to atone for an individual sin; the nation as a whole was called sinful when they were not serving Jehovah. But even when Israel or Judah was considered sinful, they were still better than the nations (Deut. 4:8). So I think it's pretty clear that all men were considered sinners, at least in the eyes of whoever wrote those specific verses above (modern scholars attribute a lot of the sinful-man talk in the Pentateuch to the Yahwist). This was the viewpoint that Paul was taught as a Pharisee, and he really ran with it, but it wasn't of his making.

My point here is that Jesus was in fact needed as a sacrifice to counteract man's sinful nature (as referenced in binadub's post, see John 1:29) according to the Mosaic Law, and thus he fulfilled that Law by bringing its need for sacrifice and priestly mediation to a finish. Now, that's not the same thing as saying he replaced the Law, as he himself made clear. The principles behind the Law are still considered applicable to Christians, of course.

229

How exactly did Jesus fulfill the law NOT the prophecies.

by mP in

theres a clear difference between prophecies (predictions of future events) and laws(stuff you should and shouldnt do).. now since xians always says jesus fullfilled the law, how does one fullfill a bunch of requirements like dont murder, dont worship idols, shave your beard like this etc.. there are 613 laws in the torah, jewish rabbis have done all the hard work and we have a nice list on wiki.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_mitzvot.

im confused which of those some how select a unique individual to be the unique messiah ?

then again there were many messiahs, every king and priest of israel and judea was a messiah.

Apognophos

Coming back to the subject of what Jesus himself said, what about the evening meal where, at Matthew 26:26-28 (also in Mark 14:22-24 and Luke 22:19, 20), he said that the bread and wine represented his body and his blood being a sacrifice "in behalf of many"? Doesn't this indicate that Jesus' death was doing away with the need for sin offerings?

229

How exactly did Jesus fulfill the law NOT the prophecies.

by mP in

theres a clear difference between prophecies (predictions of future events) and laws(stuff you should and shouldnt do).. now since xians always says jesus fullfilled the law, how does one fullfill a bunch of requirements like dont murder, dont worship idols, shave your beard like this etc.. there are 613 laws in the torah, jewish rabbis have done all the hard work and we have a nice list on wiki.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_mitzvot.

im confused which of those some how select a unique individual to be the unique messiah ?

then again there were many messiahs, every king and priest of israel and judea was a messiah.

Apognophos

So your saying that we must accept Pauls word, because Jesus never said it.

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood the point of this thread. I thought you were asking what the word "fulfill" meant in the context of Christian teaching and Mosaic Law. I guess your actual point was that Paul taught the fulfillment, not Jesus himself. Offhand I don't know how to refute that, maybe someone else will. I think I get your point a little better now, though.

As i have shown Jesus in love thy neighbour is quoting, he is not refutng it.

I never claimed he was refuting it, just expanding the definition of "neighbor" in that commandment. But let's not talk about that here, it seems to be off-topic if we're talking about Jesus fulfilling the Law.

3

Positive Speech - Watchtower Experimenting With the Law of Attraction?

by jw07 in

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Apognophos

I haven't specifically noticed it, but then again I don't pay much attention :-) I would see this as simply an attempt to counteract some of the negativity that the Society knows is out there among some elder bodies, where they mostly hound the congregation instead of nurture them. So not so much a "new direction" as much as a basic countermeasure to try to prevent the religion from becoming utterly joyless and guilt-laden (hey, I said "try to" ).

11

Was anyone converted after 1995 in the door to door ministry?

by trujw in

i stole this from another forum and everyone was a born in.

has anyone on here actually been converted in door to door ministry since 1995?

all comments are welcome as to how you were sucked in.

Apognophos

I haven't seen a confident, educated person come in from the d2d work in decades.

I have! And it still baffles me... he's very smart (that is, smart smart, not "gee how he done got so learned" JW smart), he's very confident (super outgoing, and he's moderately famous and rich), has a model for a wife who he loves deeply (so he's not doing it for a pretty sister), and yet he still got baptized just a few years ago. This, in an age with Google and Wikipedia and JWFacts and JWN and, and, and.... Like Pickler, I want to ask him, "Why?!?"

Besides that, I've seen one other person convert since 1995 that I can think of, and he was lonely due to his disability, and looking for acceptance.

28

Omg!!! I can't believe it! I'm in tears here (Part of a Convo with a sister on FB)

by MsGrowingGirl20 in

me: hey .

sally: hey...well, i'm not sure if i'm suppose to be talkin to you, because i was disfellowshipped.

but i hope all is well with u, love u guys still.

Apognophos

steve2, that's an interesting story. I guess some Witnesses view lack of faith as a malady that needs curing -- "How do I get back to believing that this is the truth?" It reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from any movie, the famous "thirsty" scene from "White Men Can't Jump":

Gloria:	When I said I was thirsty, it doesn't mean I want a glass of water.
Billy:	It doesn't?
Gloria:	You're missing the whole point of me saying I'm thirsty. If I have a problem, you're not supposed to solve it. Men always make the mistake of thinking they can solve a woman's problem. It makes them feel omnipotent. [...] I want you to connect with me through sharing and understanding the concept of dry mouthedness

We naturally assume that when someone brings a problem to us, we're supposed to solve it. What the sister apparently wanted instead was sympathy, along the lines of, "It's okay, lots of people have doubts, but you can pray those away. Just Do The Truth™." Your experience is a good lesson about how we can't assume that we know why someone is sharing their doubts with us.

229

How exactly did Jesus fulfill the law NOT the prophecies.

by mP in

theres a clear difference between prophecies (predictions of future events) and laws(stuff you should and shouldnt do).. now since xians always says jesus fullfilled the law, how does one fullfill a bunch of requirements like dont murder, dont worship idols, shave your beard like this etc.. there are 613 laws in the torah, jewish rabbis have done all the hard work and we have a nice list on wiki.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_mitzvot.

im confused which of those some how select a unique individual to be the unique messiah ?

then again there were many messiahs, every king and priest of israel and judea was a messiah.

Apognophos

According to Paul's reasoning, Jesus "fulfilled" the law by living a sinless life and sacrificing it at the end of his ministry. As soontobe said, this did away with the need of the Israelites to be under the Law's specific commandments, though of course God's principles remain. I think you're taking the word "fulfilled" in a certain sense that it was never intended to be, or else you think that Paul didn't know basic grammar.