Hello Doubtfully yours or El Piro or other Happy JW,
There are 4 questions for you. Can you have a look into it?
1. The issue I have is with paragraphs 1 & 8 of the Study article on page 21 of the 15/09/2010 Watchtower. Paragraph 1 reads:
"CHRISTENDOM’S churches have human leaders, such as the pope of Rome, the patriarchs and metropolitans of the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the heads of other religions. Jehovah’s Witnesses recognize no human as their leader. They are not disciples or followers of any man. ... The international congregation of anointed Christians and their “other sheep”companions want no leader other than the one Jehovah has given them. (John 10:16) They subscribe to Jesus’ statement: “Your Leader is one, the Christ.”—Matt. 23:10."
I fully agree with this paragraph. Christians should only recognize Jesus as their leader, no human.
Then in Par 8, last sentence, it reads: "The anointed and their other sheep companions recognize that by following the lead of the modern-day Governing Body, they are in fact following their Leader, Christ."
This claim is not different from what many other church leaders claim about themselves. The governing body are humans, we know their names and faces. Gerrit Losch was a circuit overseer in Austria, just to mention one. Consequently JW witnesses as religion are following humans and not Jesus as leader, as they have written themselves.
My 1st thought when I read this article was this: To be in agreement with paragraph 8, the 1st sentence of paragraph 1 should read:
"CHRISTENDOM’S churches have human leaders, such as the pope of Rome, the patriarchs and metropolitans of the Eastern Orthodox churches, the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses and the heads of other religions.
My question is this: Do you feel it is right as a christian to follow the lead of these humans instead of Jesus, thereby clearly contradicting Matt 23:10?
This is important for me. It is one of the main reasons I am an inactive JW now, together with the overlap generation teaching.
There are also 3 other questions I would like you to answer (they are shorter):
2. Jesus commanded all christians to participate from the bread and the wine during the memorial, this command was repeated by Paul, and in John 6:53 and surrounding verses, Jesus made it an absolute condition for salvation. So why are JW teaching that you should abstain? Is this not barring the access to salvation?
3. The 587 vs. 607 issue. The question is not whether the chronology is correct or not. The problem is that it is ALWAYS presented to a new student in such away that makes you believe the 607BCE date for the fall of Jerusalem is a generally accepted date. It is not. Please take an encyclopedia and check for yourself it is 586 or 587 BCE, according to scientists (Furuli is not a scientist by the way, but a JW living in Norway). So my question is this: Why is a JW student not pointed out to the fact that science and the Society do not agree on Babylonian chronology in the "What does the Bible really Teach" book. The believe in 1914 is too important to hide this. Why is the Society hiding this fact? Is this not dishonest and immoral behaviour?
4. JW teach that blood and its 4 main components are prohibited by the bible for medical use. Fractions of these main components are a matter of conscience. Why is the use of the 4 main components not a matter of conscience? The bible is completely silent on the subject. Why is the Society forbidding something specifically where the bible is not specific? Is this not going beyond what is written in the Scriptures, and therefore condemned?
Thank you in advance for your efforts.