comments you will not hear at the 4-18-04 (week of 4/12-18, 2004) wt study (march 1, 2004 issue)
review comments will be in black and parentheses ().
wt quotes will be in red and quotes "".
I learned through my own experiences over the last 40 years in over 15 congregations in 10 states and 2 countries. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Wow Blondie, I did not realize you had that much experience in the jw religion. You've pretty much "seen it all".
at the time of writing, there is no news on any appeal against the ban recently imposed on jehovah's witnesses religious activities in moscow.
however, this perhaps gives us an opportunity to review the facts and to get a few points straight.
most people seem to have very similar views on this religious group and the principal concerns appear to be over the blood transfusions and the methods in which jehovah's witnesses promote their faith.
We believe it is wrong for someone to get paid for preaching
Note what the Bible Gateway commentary says about 1 Timothy 5:17:
. "Not only had God chosen them, but they had proved themselves to be devoted to the work. On the other hand, as verse 18 indicates, those called elders were to be supported financially (or perhaps "materially," since we do not know what form this support would have taken) by the church for their service. Double honor, therefore, brings together respectful submission to authority and remuneration.
The full-time minister's right to remuneration was not an innovation but a well-established tradition in the early church. Paul supports his teaching by appealing to the Scriptures. First comes a citation of Deuteronomy 25:4, which originally provided that threshing oxen be allowed to eat from the field in which they were working. Paul had applied this text earlier, in 1 Corinthians 9:9, to argue for the right to material support from that community.
A second citation applied the teaching of the Lord to the matter; in Jesus' opinion those working for the kingdom of God deserve to be supplied by those benefiting from their ministry (Mt 10:10; Lk 10:7). This principle probably derives from God's regulations for provision for the priests and Levites, who had no lands to till and whose responsibilities as ministers of God occupied their whole time (Num 18)."
It's not wrong to be compensated for ministering, as Paul showed at 1 Timothy 5:17-19, which read: 17" The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain," [1] and "The worker deserves his wages." [2]
He simply declined so as not to impose a possible burden on the church. But, as he explained, it would not have been wrong for him to accept remuneration.
Slightly off-topic, but I just wanted to throw that in.
Back on main topic, I agree with Euphemism - while jws may be harmful, I cannot support a ban on their activities.
holy bible, kings james version, the new testament has the words of christ in red.who decided what words should be put in red, and how have they come to this decision?this has always interested me, could it be all hear-say information,or otherwise?
Several translations have the words of Christ in red. I'm not sure who was behind the decision, but it does make for a nicer looking page.
when the public reads stuff like this, it makes them think how strange jw's are.
http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/0/3621e5bd9a9bd8e280256e78002de315!opendocument.
prince upset by ben affleck's swearing .
Ah yes, now The Artist is all righteous.
But as the above quote from Rollingstone shows, he's not righteously avoiding the bumping, grinding, and flirting? Hmmmm.... methinks The Artist Formerly Known As has limits to his righteousness.
my mother called a little bit ago to talk.
she works at an s.o.s.
school ( a place where all the "bad" kids go).
Yes, they do generalize. My daughter and I just had a conversation about that recently, and she readily picked up on how jws automatically assigned kids of the so-called "world" to the trash-bin of life, failing to point out that many of the so-called "worldly" kids were better behaved than their jw counterparts.
yesterday, a business associate asked me why jws would not celebrate a birthday, a bar mitzvah, or any other holiday.
he asked why they literally believed only 144,000 go to heaven.
he asked how they could celebrate everything 1 year and the next year, tell their families that everything is pagan........my answer to all of his questions, were "it's because they're a cult.
I usually stop short of saying that they "are" a cult. Normally, I say 'they are cult-ish' or have 'cult-like charactaristics'. That's just me, and heck - if it looks like a cult and talks like a cult, it's a cult.
some feel that you should put out a history of who you are, what your life was and is like now and express it in a very simple way so that everyone can "know" you.
we've had posters say they were elders, elder's sisters, hurt jws, etc.
it could all be a little fantasy.
Well, I've never posted a naked picture of myself (board heaves collective sigh of relief) if that's what you mean.
I reveal facts about myself, here and there, so that I don't end up tripping myself up in case jws who know me scour these pages. To get a detailed picture of who I am, one would need to go back and read my 3370 plus posts, plus the 1000 posts I made prior to getting exclusive rights on my username.
What I do reveal about myself is true (okay, I have no exclusive rights on my username), and though I don't reveal myself "totally" I do so truthfully.
just got news yesterday, indirectlyly from another non-jw family member, that my mom is going to have heart surgery afterall.
they will replace a valve and do a triple by-pass to try to fix her up.
this is such surprising news for me, especially at this time.
I'm very sorry to hear about the situation you face Karen. I hope your husband makes a swift recovery. I hope your mom can get through her operation too.
.
poor leolaia became a jedi and no one noticed.. when do i get my light saber?
or do i have to turn to the dark side to get force lightning instead?
Live long and prosper!
Oops, wrong movie series.
when you were an elder what sucked most....conducting the schoolconducting the book studyconducting the wt study (having to listen to sister know it all answer over and over...)giving public talks (trying to squeeze sense out of a one page summary of total crap)being an attendant at assembliesbeing food/cleaning/work overseer at assemblies & quickbuildsauditing the finances/paying in contributions at the banktaking the lead in unassigned territory serviceshepherding calls !!!!!
omg !!!!
!jc'sget togethers and having to pray !praying at the khserving the emblemsgiving counsel at the school/weaklings/youth(e.g young sisters wearing mini skirts & makeup)being always positive about the "new light" and the gb.training young msworking with the circuit overseer when he visited (on saturday afternoons)giving a "special needs talk"never being able to fart, swear or loose your tempercompelled to having missionary sex, not enjoy it and never discuss it..even with your wife, just incase it may be immoralnever seeing any good movieshaving one beer a fortnight .
I'm sure you realize there is a kind of love-dislike relationship a lot of us felt toward a lot of you.
Very true. And having been on both sides of that equation, I can say that I disliked elders when I was not serving as one. Funny thing though - even when I was one, I disliked them. I saw certain qualities even more closely that were a turn-off. And I disliked myself too. I saw what I had become - a company man for the wts, a judge of people whom I was as weak as or weaker than.
And yes, what the wts demands is pretty much impossible. Then you'd have the CO coming through and telling you to juggle work, family, and all the jw stuff and make it all work in harmony and yet they never really helped us to do that. We were somehow just supposed to manage it all.
And you're cut no slack at all, either as a jw or an elder. Attend all meetings. Lead out in service. Shepherd. Prepare thoroughly for all meetings. Handle judicial matters. Keep your family spiritually active. I used to sit there, especially during CO meetings, and ask myself why they just couldn't cut us (and all jws) some slack. Schedule one less meeting per week or something.
Well, it's the religion of the scribes and the Pharisees, so I'm not surprised any more.
