many people think those verses are suggesting that the wars, earthquakes, food shortages, etc are all a sign that the end is imminent.
however, a careful examination of the context seems to suggest that jesus was actually forewarning his followers not to draw such a conclusion from such events.
see this interesting article on the subject:.
I have always thought it was referring to AD70. The Romans massacred a lot of the Jewish population of Israel and the rest were sold into slavery. There were so many slaves that no-one wanted them and a lot died. Those that did flee to the hills survived in remote areas.
The parable of the fig tree is more significant for today.
the talk is called "the right religion demonstrates true faith in christ".
i have to help my fading gf give the talk.
if you have any subtle "apostate" ideas, i would appreciate them.. here is what i would like to say:.
Get them to read Isaiah 43. It clearly tells you who God's witnesses are.
i've been reading and posting comments on this site for a while now (about a year) and the comments i see indicate that many who are here have good ideas about what would be required if either (1) jehovah's witnesses were completely reset and the whole framework of belief and organization were started over or (2) if a completely new organization were built.
this assumes, of course, that you believe god exists and that he is interested in human affairs (i know some of you don't).
it also assumes that you do not believe that the "heritage" of jehovah's witnesses has such great weight and importance that it precludes putting all beliefs and procedures on the table to examine them and change them if necessary.. given all this, what do you believe should be the beliefs and organization of true worship today?
If everyone was equal there would be no reason for reporting. Who would you report to?
Any money collected should be for the group who collected it, to pay heating bills of the room they meet in, etc. Collections could be done for disaster victims etc seperately.
in the "reasoning" book (pages 34-37), this scripture is used to help define and understand apostasy: .
hebrews 6:4-6 .
"for as regards those who were once enlightened and who have tasted the heavenly free gift and who have become partakers of holy spirit and who have tasted the fine word of god and powers of the coming system of things, but have fallen away, it is impossible to revive them again to repentance, because they nail the son of god to the stake again for themselves and expose him to public shame.
I understand this as meaning that those in New Testament times who had access to the power of the Holy Spirit, and could use it to heal people, would not be forgiven if they stopped believing in the saving work of Christ.
Perhaps this is what blasphemy against the Holy Spirit means.
when i reason about these things now i just wonder how stupid and naive i was to accept this rubbish , ok i was 19 and not happy where my life was going back then and jumped at the chance of a better life and future that was offered to me.and it took me another 33 years before started to see the flaws in this bizarre religion .
thankfully my wife & 2 sons are out .. satan is a spirit being , angel ?
do they have a finite life span ?
I have never believed that Satan was a fallen angel. A JW told me that Satan was God's first son.
If they believe that Satan was God's son they must also believe that God has not brought up his son very well, and has no respect from his own family. Even worse, they believe that God has sent his problem son here to mess up things for us. It does not make sense.
typical male brain top, typical female brain below.. .
researchers found that many of the connections in a typical male brain run between the front and the back of the same side of the brain, whereas in women the connections are more likely to run from side to side between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
article.
It's the opposite in our house. I am always asking my husband where he has hidden things. He puts things in the wrong cupboards or on high shelves where I can't reach them.
i'm only asking because we haven't seen a single sole......(sole being a living creature not a floaty spirit thing!
lol) and nobody has had one down our street at all.........
Haven't seen a JW for ages.
my father has been suffering from alzheimer's for a couple of years now.
my mother keeps referring to his hallucinations as demons.
i haven't been to the hall in a while, i've been fading for 20 years now, but i find this amazing!
Sorry to hear of your problems, Once blind. Alzheimers is very difficult to deal with and your Mother will need a lot of help.
I heard an interesting programme on hearing voices. When you look at something, it takes a small time for the brain to process the information. Similarly when you hear something it takes time (but a slightly different time) to process the information. Then the brain puts the information together to make sense of it.
It also takes time to process thoughts, which the brain has to link to other information coming in. The timing of all of these processes is only milliseconds.
In some people the linking together of all this information is faulty, so that someone may think that a thought they had was not created by their own brain because the timing of the processing was slightly out. It is nothing to do with outside interference by demons.
After all, the brain is only a piece of meat so it is amazing that it works at all.
and i thought witnesses were bad....... i was walking home in rather a rush and two mormons were in front of me.
suddenly one of them turned around and approached me with their book of mormon aka dodgy bible.
he was from germany and spoke surprisingly good english.
The JWs around here walk very slowly between houses. I have never seen people so dedicated to the job walk so slowly.
simple question here on genesis chronology and how god counts heavenly days (jws seemingly believe in a conversion factor of 'one god day is equal to 1,000 human years', based on 2nd peter).. genesis 2:1-2 says this (niv):.
1 thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.. 2 by the seventh day god had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
3 then god blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.. day seven was the sabbath, the day of rest from all work, specifically from engaging in creative activities (jews observe the sabbath specifically because of the words found in genesis 2:2).. however, god's not quite done creating things, since genesis continues with this, on day eight (8), the day after the sabbath:.
It does not say how long it was before Eve took the fruit, so it is not possible to say if it happened on the first Sabbath, or later on. It could have been hours, weeks, or years. Why is it important?
