@TimothyT:
Do you know... i cant be bothered....
However i will give you one of the [discrepancies]. As quoted above there is a huge difference between John 3:16 and many other verses in John regarding Jesus as the means of salvation, compared to this quote from the Watchtower: "To receive everlasting life in the earthly Paradise we must identify that organization and serve God as part of it." Watchtower 1983 Feb 15 p.12. A BIG difference there!
Somehow I knew this already, that you couldn't be bothered. I did know that you were just blowing smoke at me, that you wouldn't be able to answer either those first two questions I had asked you in my previous message, nor the third one.
You may have once been one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but there are only perhaps about a third of us who are really what we claim to be, witnesses of Jehovah, because there are perhaps only a third of us that have read and studied God's word -- both the "Old Testament" and the "New Testament" -- which gives us a "leg up" on those in Christendom who are just like you, @TimothyT, confident that they have the formula for salvation "down," confident that they fully understand what scriptures like John 14:6 and John 3:16 mean, confident that by knowing what a few scriptures say that they like will merit and obtain everlasting life. At John 14:6, Jesus says, "I am the way...," and you know this scripture, but you don't know what "the way" is, do you?
At John 3:16, Jesus says that God gave his son so that "everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed," but how can you possibly put faith in someone you don't know? In the Bible at Acts 8:27-39, we read about a man that had been reading from the "Old Testament," reading from Isaiah 53:7, 8, which is a passage that refers to the same Jesus in whom we must exercise faith to be saved, and we read in this passage that "starting with this Scripture" Philip began to declare the good news about Jesus in order that the man might begin to exercise faith in Jesus' name by getting baptized, since until then, he didn't know a thing about Jesus or the proper applicable of Isaiah 53:7, 8.
This man told Philip that he would never have understood what he was reading "unless someone guided" him and that is why today Jehovah's Witnesses will start with the scriptures that people know -- like John 3:16 or John 14:6 -- and begin to declare the good news about Jesus since they are just like you, people that don't really know Jesus at all -- some of them thinking that Jesus is God, because that is what they were taught -- as we seek to help folks begin exercising faith in Jesus' name by getting baptized, so that they, like John 3:16 says, "might not be destroyed, but have everlasting life." Many of these people were baptized without their being properly guided by anyone that took the time to explain to them what the good news about Jesus is, in order that they might learn who Jesus is and what it means to exercise faith in his name -- they think that Jesus' "name" is Jesus, when the good news about Jesus isn't referring to Jesus' personal name at all! -- and begin exercising faith in Jesus' name by getting baptized.
At Acts 16:25-34, a jailer asked Paul and Silas, "What must I do to get saved?" and he was told that if he and his household would "believe on the Lord Jesus," they would get saved, and they went on to speak "the word of Jehovah" to them and they, each one of them, thereupon began to exercise faith in Jesus' name by getting baptized. Jehovah's Witnesses do not baptize anyone without our first teaching the person what the good news about Jesus is all about, so that they know that in order for them to begin exercising faith in Jesus' name, they must get baptized.
In your 495th post in another thread, I recall your declaration of "how lovely it is to be gay and free," but as long as you are pursuing fleshly desires, how can you possibly believe you are free? In one of the gospels you claim to have read, at John 8:34, Jesus said that "every doer of sin is a slave of sin," so how in the world did you come to conclude that John 3:16 affords you a better outcome than destruction? What if you -- a baptized servant of God that thinks he can also serve yet another master, sin, and be saved -- should die? Do you really think for a moment that your baptism will save you, that your baptism and having committed to memory John 3:16 and John 14:6 will merit Jesus' resurrecting you from your grave during Judgment Day? Really?!?
It's ok for you to be gay, but what is not ok is for a servant of God to be practicing sin. I don't know if you are a "top," a "bottom" or a "sideways," but my hope is that you are celibate, for if you should have a lover and you even marry the person, you would still not be free, because "every doer of sin is a slave of sin," according to Jesus. Being gay may not be a choice, but deciding to have sexual relations with someone to whom you're not married constitutes fornication and that is a choice.
As the years pass, and your flesh has begun to wrinkle and otherwise lose that vitality it once had when you were younger, when your body begins to do things it has never done before, you're going to want to know that your celibate lover is right by your side, and committed to you "in sickness" and "for worse." Infidelity is a plague on gay couples so if he should decide to leave you all alone to fend for yourself, especially if through unfaithfulness during your "marriage," his cruising leads to a sexual liaison with someone else so that he also leaves you to have to deal with diseases associated with oral sex (like chronic Hepatitis B, cytomegalovirus, genital herpes, genital warts, Herpes simplex, HIV/AIDS, pubic lice or scabies) and/or diseases associated with anal sex (like amoebiasis, cryptosporidiosis, E. coli infections, giardiasis, gonorrhea, granuloma inguinale, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis C, human papilloma virus (HPV), Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpes virus (HHV-8), lymphogranuloma venereum, syphilis, trichomoniasis, salmonellosis, shigella and tuberculosis). Sin doesn't love anyone. Sin and death have been working their will on mankind since the beginning, and Jesus has been given the power to stop these "fiends."
You claim to have read the gospels, and I believe that you have read them, but when I referred you to Matthew's gospel -- to the passage at Matthew 12:1-4 -- you were out of your depth and were as completely clueless as those Christians associated with Christendom's churches would be over the point that Jesus had made there when he spoke to the Pharisees. Is it not permissible to perform good works on the sabbath? I have done a good work toward you, @TimothyT, and today is not a sabbath day, a work that you do not appreciate, but I've done it anyway.
I hope you found me to be engaging here, for I just wanted to try to make you understand how inadequate you are spiritually when you are exchanging posts with a spiritual man, to demonstrate to you what it really means to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses, to let you know what it means to be a part of that "third" that exudes a confidence that is often mistaken for arrogance, hoping that by all of my questions here you would appreciate that it isn't all that simple for any of us to gain life. It's a narrow door, Jesus said, and one must struggle to get though it; it's not as easy as committing to memory two scriptures and you're through. I know more than two and yet the door's still narrow, and I'm still struggling to get through it myself, so what good can knowing two scriptures do to get you through that door when you don't even know them very well?
As to that comment you made about identifying God's organization and serving God as a "part" of that organization being contradictory to how you understand John 3:16, what can I say? God has always dealt with man through one group, not many different groups either, just one group, first it was through the nation of Israel to whom he gave his law, and then through the Christian congregation to whom God entrusted to his son, Jesus Christ.
Just as the nation of Israel had been organized to worship God, likewise the Christian congregation has been organized to worship God, no one doing their own thing, but the congregation as one group considering one another to incite to love and fine works, and not forsaking the gathering of themselves together as a united body worshipping God with spirit and truth.
This is what John 3:16 means by "exercising faith" in Jesus' name, since preaching the word is our solemn charge before God and Christ Jesus.
@djeggnog wrote:
If you know that Jehovah's Witnesses have the truth, why not let yourself be wronged and keep on serving Jehovah?
@keyser soze wrote:
I don't know where you got this idea from. I don't know that they have the truth. In fact, I know the opposite to be true.
Ok.
@djeggnog wrote:
Maybe you will discover that you have been wrong in painting every one of the elders with the same brush....
@keyser soze wrote:
I haven't painted anyone, with any brush. You obviously missed my point. I don't believe that all elders are corrupt. In fact, I will concede that the majority of the ones that I dealt with personally were good men, doing thankless jobs.
Ok.
But whether an elder is good or bad, right or wrong, the congregation is at their mercy, subject to their whims. This is the power that has been granted them by the FDS. If an elder decides that something is a rule, such as the way disfellowshipped ones should be treated, then it is a rule.
And for the record, you are being rather disingenuous in implying that it is only a handful of elders who take such a hardline stance with regards to the disfellowshipped. It is far more than that. It is the majority. You know it as well as I do.
@djeggnog wrote:
I think you should hold your ground and write a letter about the matter to the branch, but what do I know?
@keyser soze wrote:
LOL. Yeah, I should do that....
Putting the onus squarely on the wronged, and their seeming lack of faith, is far easier than acknowledging that many of the men they select to take the lead are incompetent, or power-hungry jackasses, who, despite what the WT itself says, are neither appointed, nor guided, by holy spirit.
Ok.
@djeggnog wrote:
You say that you heard these things said about our refusal to stand for the National Anthem from the folks at whose doors you knocked on "Saturday mornings"? Jehovah's Witnesses do not refuse to stand for the National Anthem, for that would be disrespectful for any US citizen to do, and if you were told as a child when you were attending school by either your parents or by someone else that you should not stand for the National Anthem, you were given some bad advice and taking such a position no doubt unnecessarily annoyed and aggravated people that thought what you were doing to be disrespectful to them and to the country.
@Mary wrote:
Once again egghead, your stupidity and ignorance shines through as apparently you don't even know what the hell it is you're following.
When you read something in one of our publications, a suggestion, an experience, some admonition such as would appear in a Watchtower article, you are not reading the Bible, and nothing you read in our publications is inspired or should be regarded as a substitute for God's word. Nothing. What someone else might decide to do in a particular circumstances may not be what someone else elects to do under that same circumstance because one's conscience may permit one to do things that another's conscience may not.
Now you are a dishonest person, @Mary, because you quoted something from an article entitled "Salvation Belongs to Jehovah" that appeared on page 24 of the Watchtower, dated September 15, 2002, which was taken from a brochure called "School and Jehovah's Witnesses, that was released at the Kingdom Unity District Convention back in 1983. To make your point, you quoted only a small portion from the article, no doubt thinking that by selectively quoting from the article, no one would realize you have testicles the size of a bull's (and I'm pretty sure, @Mary, that Jesus would have appreciated my use of this metaphor in describing such daring on your part):
"...When national anthems are played, usually all a person has to do to show that he shares the sentiments of the song is to stand up. In such cases, Christians remain seated."----- September 15, 2002 Watchtower p. 24
Now above, you characterized me as being 'stupid and ignorant,' but just your thinking that you could actually get away with this stunt doesn't make you come off as being all that bright to me. At least now I know "what you're working with," as they say.
You see, Jehovah's Witnesses are taught to follow their consciences, and I follow my conscience, not someone else's, which is something that you evidently never learned to do, as you no doubt just followed along in doing what things you were told to do by your parents and by others, never using your own mind to think about what things you did and why you did them, never really appreciating what Christian neutrality means and what it requires of a Christian.
In my previous message, I asked you, @Mary, about a piece you had quoted from the Kingdom Ministry, and I asked you if "upon your reading this piece, you [concluded] that you should do to your mother what this man did to his mother because this is what he did" in shunning your mother? I then asked you "[o]n what basis would you do something like this to your own mother?" You didn't answer me, but here's the point I was making then and now:
What you might read in the Watchtower or in any of our publications might be talking to you and might not be talking to you, depending upon your own conscience. Hebrew 5:14 talks about our having our "perceptive powers [being] trained to distinguish both right and wrong." 1 Corinthians 10:20 talks asks the question, "why should it be that [our] freedom is judged by another person's conscience?" Why get all upset with the elders and their "rules"? They are only trying to help, but what they interpret one way may not apply equally to you, and they wouldn't know what is applicable to you, but you would.
Why make a fuss over petty things as many of you did that ended up with many of you getting expelled and shunned? Jehovah's Witnesses must learn and are learning now how to get along with others, for bitching and moaning with the elders, whose personalities and idiosyncracies and manner rub you the wrong way, and griping all "disgruntedly" against the governing body -- people you really do not know -- are the kinds of things that we have to learn how not to do. Try to get the sense of what it is I am saying here and consider coming back to Jehovah's organization before it becomes too late for you to do so.
Here's the entire quote taken from the brochure and from the Watchtower you cited that quotes from this brochure, and I would like both you and the lurkers to please take note of those portions that I've highlighted in red:
"So then, while others salute and pledge allegiance, our children stand quietly during the flag salute ceremony. But if, for some reason, the flag ceremony is conducted in such a way that simply standing gives evidence of one’s participation in the ceremony, our young ones remain seated....
When national anthems are played, usually all that a person has to do to show that he shares the sentiments of the song is to stand up. In such cases, Witness youths remain seated. However, if our youths are already standing when the national anthem is played, they would not have to take the special action of sitting down; it is not as though they had specifically stood up for the anthem. On the other hand, if a group are expected to stand and sing, then our young people may rise and stand out of respect. But they would show that they do not share the sentiments of the song by refraining from singing."
School and Jehovah's Witnesses (1983), "Flag Salute, Anthems and Voting," pp. 15, 16.
@Mary wrote:
It's viewed with such horror that in Canada at least, when a Witness baby needs a blood transfusion, the court steps in if the parents refuse to try and save their child, and will do all they can to save that baby's life. And thanks to the media, whether the radio, newspaper or the internet, most people are more than aware of Jehovah's Witnesses and the issue of blood.
@djeggnog wrote:
There is no "baby" that has ever needed a blood transfusion. Just because a doctor wants to administer medical treatment to someone that includes blood transfusions doesn't meant that such blood transfused into a baby's body is guaranteed to save its life, and no doctor will give such a guarantee to the parents of any child.
@Mary wrote:
Yet another mindless comment from a retard who doesn't apparently can't read. No baby has ever need a blood transfusion eh?
Perhaps you thought I had stuttered, but I didn't stutter, @Mary: No "baby" nor an adult has ever needed a blood transfusion. Just because a doctor should opine that a blood transfusion is needed doesn't mean at all that a blood transfusion is needed.
In one of my previous messages, I pointed out how an infant had contracted hepatitis at birth as the result of a blood transfusion "because this is what the doctors have always done," not because the baby needed hepatitis. There is actually a significantly higher risk of complications developing when patients are given blood that is more than two weeks. As a result, an adversely impacted immune system in critically ill patients led to things like colorectal cancer recurrence and organ failure.
The point I was making is that a blood transfusion lowers the host's immune response and its ability to fight off infections, so that it predisposes the sick patient -- like the baby that receives transfused blood -- for the inset of infections that their immune system could have fought off were it not for the transfused blood.
@djeggnog wrote:
Did @jgnat grind me to death on the subject of eating blood?
@Mary wrote:
Actually, we all contributed to it and you were left looking like the fool that you are.
Ok.
Oh well.....I hope you're counting the time you spend on this apostate website as time on your Field Serve-Us Report.
Two (2) things:
(1) About a year ago, I recall you making the suggestion that I only come to JWN to count the time I spend here when not one of Jehovah's Witnesses can in good conscience report the time spent on websites like this one, and just as I told you then, I'm telling you again (because you evidently have a problem remembering the things I tell you) that if you choose to continue believing that I come to JWN to "count time," then I suppose I'll have no choice but to go on being that fool you think me to be.
(2) As to your opinion that JWN is an apostate website, did @Simon, the owner of this website, inform you to this effect? I'm just asking because you seem to be of the opinion, as are many others here on JWN, that JWN is an "apostates-only" website. I am not an apostate, so why would @Simon allow me to post message here if what you believe JWN to be were true? I would not be here it what you said here about JWN was the case.
As long as @Simon permits me to post messages here to his website, as long as he doesn't declare JWN to be an apostate website, it remains a website for anyone that wishes to discuss topics that are either peculiar or related to Jehovah's Witnesses, including those who are actively Jehovah's Witnesses; those who aren't exactly Jehovah's Witnesses any longer, but are in "fade" or are "fading," and for whatever reason do not wish to officially sever their association with Jehovah's Witnesses; those who have studied with Jehovah's Witnesses, but have never been baptized; and those who are merely interested in topics that are peculiar or that relate to Jehovah's Witnesses.
Contrary to what you believe, JWN is not an "apostates-only" website, and until @Simon does make such a declaration, you're just going to have to accept the fact that I will at times post messages here -- maybe not to you since you really soiled yourself with this "selective quote" stunt above and I don't like dishonest people -- but to others on this website.
We're probably the closest thing to a friend you actually have.
Actually, no, my closest friends -- Jehovah and Jesus -- don't actually live here on earth. (Luke 16:9) I don't think I could ever regard you as a close friend of mine, @Mary. I need to be able to trust my friends and I couldn't trust you, and if my children were still minors, I wouldn't trust someone like you being anywhere near them.
@Billy the Ex-Bethelite:
@DJHolidayNog - No, I didn't actually read all of your posts, I just did a search for my name. And in case you didn't notice my post was specifically addressed to Timmy.
I didn't care about whether your post was directed to me. I directed my post to you.
@Billy the Ex-Bethelite wrote:
Often the pharisees doctored the written law to make it easier for the people.
@djeggnog wrote:
Where in the Bible is there mention of the Pharisees doing what you suggest here?
@Billy the Ex-Bethelite wrote:
Many of the pharisees "rules" actually made the archaic law tolerable for the Jews.
@djeggnog wrote:
How so, @Billy the Ex-Bethelite? I'd like to see an example -- just one would be sufficient -- of a rule imposed by the Pharisees that made the Mosaic Law more "tolerable" for the Jews as you just suggested here.
@Billy the Ex-Bethelite wrote:
Imagine you are driving your car and accidently strike a bicyclist. The cyclist loses an eye in the accident. We know the Mosaic Law says "an eye for an eye" no "ifs", "ands", or "buts"! Get ready to have your eye gouged out DJ!... Well, unless your judge happens to be a Pharisee rather than a Sadducee...
An example of this differing approach is the interpretation of, "an eye in place of an eye".... The Pharisees and their "Oral Law" said that you would have to pay financial damages to the injured person. You would get to keep your eye... but I guess you'd be disappointed, eh? It would be more "tolerable" for you to get your eye gouged out and you could keep your money, eh? [¶] So there's one example.
I told you that I'd like to see one example of a rule imposed by the Pharisees that made the Mosaic Law more "tolerable" for the Jews. I know of not a single such example in the Bible, but instead of a Bible citation, what do you do? You make reference to the "Oral Law" and talk like you believe that when I asked you to provide "one example," that I'd be ok with an example from that which eventually came to be called "the Mishnah." Son, the Mishnah is not the Bible.
Now if you couldn't provide an example to me from the Bible, you could have just said nothing, since I never ask anyone questions like this one to which I don't already know the answer: You made a statement that I knew you wouldn't be able to prove scripturally. But what do you do? You substitute the Mishnah for the Bible! Did you really think I wouldn't notice the word "Oral Law" in your response? Did I ask you to provide an example from the "Oral Law" or from the "Mishnah"? You know that Jehovah's Witnesses do not use the Mishnah'; we use the Bible, so what could you have been thinking? How old are you, @BillyEB? 20? 14? What I am not is 14 years old.
@Billy the Ex-Bethelite wrote:
Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.
@djeggnog wrote:
Like what exactly? You say Jesus lifted nearly all of the sabbath restrictions, believing the Mosaic Law should be interpreted "more liberally" than the Pharisees had interpreted the Law, but please provide an example of Jesus having lifted any of the sabbath restrictions. I don't believe you can name a single one since Jesus kept the Law; he didn't abrogate it as you are saying here.
@Billy the Ex-Bethelite wrote:
Christian followers of Jesus are not obeying sabbath restrictions today!
Oh, my! We don't? Are you sure about this, @BillyEB? I want to make sure I get this commandment right. <:-J>
You, as a JW, really believe that Jesus' sacrifice didn't end ALL of the sabbath restrictions?!?!?
What you wrote what that Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions." You didn't mention a thing about "Jesus' sacrifice" at all! Now you are asking me if I don't believe Jesus' sacrifice brought all sabbath restrictions to an end.
I didn't believe you could provide a single example of Jesus ever lifting or abrogating the sabbath, because, like I said, "Jesus kept the Law" during his ministry and at no time did he ever abrogate it, which is why I had asked you to provide an example of Jesus having lifted "any of the sabbath restrictions" because you had written that "he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions," which is just not true.
First, there's @Mary's dishonesty, with her "selective quote" stunt, and now there's your dishonesty, with you trying to spin what you actually wrote into something you did not write:
What you wrote:
Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.
What you did not write:
Jesus often condemned the Pharisees because he believed the Mosaic Law should be interpreted even more liberally, his sacrifice lifting nearly all of the sabbath restrictions.
How old are you, @BillyEB? 20? 14? 8? You're old enough to know better than to try to fool another adult by such pretentiousness on your part. Rather than pretending you said something that you really did not say, just say what you mean the first time. However, if you mess up the first time, you can always come back later with the words, "I'm sorry, but what I meant to say is...." It might be a good idea to think before you try pulling this stunt again, @BillyEB.
@djeggnog
