the question here is a general one, and i am sure that there are exceptions.. did elders have more than others in terms of material possesions?.
my experience was that they did.
the majority of elders i knew had money, or at least good jobs, and were in the top income brackets at least in the hall if not compared to most.. i am not saying they were rich, but better off than most.
in all three congregations I went to, the elders always were owned the most money. one, in fact, travelled most of the time on international business assignments so he wasn't able to perform his elderly duties very often. Still since he practically bankrolled the whole congregation, that meant little. It was always intereting to hear the hypocrite give the talk about not striving after riches.
"That hypocrite smokes two packs a day!"-Beastie Boys
hello peoples.
my mommy let me join this forum.
her name on this is bittersweet.
birthday party gone wild:
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what do you think would happen to the watchtower society if disfellowshipping were forcibly banned by government decree?.
think about the implications for current jw leaders personally, for the doctrinal structure, for the power structure.. this is no mere theoretical possibility.. alanf
they'd start DA'ing people.
ever heard about the "goddess" the ancient hebrews worshipped?
asherah?
funny, how the jews were'nt supposed to have other gods or graven images, but there it is, right there in exedous , i believe, the israelites were wandering around in the desert & started to get bit by snakes.
stop with the yellow and red big font text. you all are burning out our retinas
kind of similiar to minimus question, this one got me thinking.. the funniest for me has to be the elders telling me i should buy a 4-door car for field service and not to buy a camaro.
i almost believed them.
telling me in would not be proper to drive that in field service.
"Brother if you can get your hours back up to the national average you could have the priveledge of cleaning up outside the hall on sunday afternoons."
I deliberately kept my hours down after that.
i'm sure this has been posted before but i really enjoyed it.. http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/questionnaire.pl?page=1.
i think like the dalai lama...lol!
economic left/right: -3.62. authoritarian/libertarian: -5.33.
thanks for the link Aztek, it was very interesting.
i'm sure this has been posted before but i really enjoyed it.. http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/questionnaire.pl?page=1.
i think like the dalai lama...lol!
economic left/right: -3.62. authoritarian/libertarian: -5.33.
i have a friend who is a jehovah witness.
once we started talking about prayer, and i told him that we referred to god as 'lord', or 'god', or 'father', for reverence or respect, although we did not have prohibited to say jehovah.
he said that i was wrong, that it was necessary to state that the prayer was for jehovah and not any other god.
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In Matthew 6:9, in the prayer done by Jesus, he states "Hallowed be thy name." According to him, we sanctify or bless his name by saying it.
Here is a very simple question. Is the Lord's Prayer a good prayer? If Jesus felt it was important to say the name, why didn't he in this very prayer?
All to often the JW's are quick to disregard anything said by Jesus in deference to the their waky interpretation of the Pauline letters and Revelations. They even feel that reciting the Lord's Prayer is invalid because it is "repetitive". However I doubt you will find any witness who will come out and say Jesus made a mistake in not saying "Jehovah" or Yahweh when making his prayer on the Mount.
If it's this simple to a non-christian like me, it should be EASY for them.
i imagine that there must be quite a few bethelites that have been there for many years, and because of the internet or their own experience while working at bethel, that causes them to know that this is not the "truth".
but because they have gotten old and have no place else to go, and so make beleive they are still with the program.
can you imagine how tuff that must be, what kind of pressure that put on some poor soul lke that.
I'm writing this hypothetically, so get that bee out of your bonnet folks.
I'm actually surpised that there hasn't been an assasination attempt on a Watchtower leader yet. They protect themselves, however, by not drawing too much attention to themselves. Their whereabouts, while generally known, are not specifically known except by a small cadre of caretakers and followers. They only appear in public places of large croweds in enclosed rooms, so the person that did it would have to face that fact they would almost certainly be caught unless they also committed suicide.
The other thing that prevents it is the relative age and feebleness of the governing body. Anyone with a grudge against the GB large enough for them to WANT to commite a murder, would probably have to wonder (as we all do) weather these folks are really the ones in power now.
as jw's, everybody had a vision of what the new system would bring.
those with fragile health dreamt of having perfect health.
those who were poor could only expect to be better off.
multiple sexy subservient wives. a few at each of my homes spread across several star systems, and a few to travel with me wherever I went in my galactic super starship.
ah.. paradise.
