HOW TO TURN A HOME BIBLE STUDY into an underground railway

by TerryWalstrom 9 Replies latest watchtower bible

TerryWalstrom

Are you crazy?
You find yourself 'awake' to the truth about the 'Truth' and all you do about it
is sulk? That's crazy and worse: it is self-defeating.
IF you are a male in a Jehovah's Witness household you have incredible POWER.
For one thing, if you are smart and not lazy, you can use the Family Bible Study to get your wife and children on a kind of latter-day 'underground railway' to freedom.
The question is, HOW DO YOU DO IT?
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Begin at the beginning by visualizing the OUTCOME you most desire!
1. Awakening your family to the truth about the Truth: that's your goal.
2. Equipping each of you to handle the delicate transition from absolute thinking into freedom TO think.
3. Planning your gradual escape by avoiding confrontation and detection.
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Okay--how do you begin?
You start by accurately assessing status quo.
It's like map reading: determine exactly where you are; where EACH of your family members stands (in regard to belief, conviction, and rational thinking.)
How do you do this?
ASK QUESTIONS
What better and safer context is there for asking questions but the home family Bible study?
As the head of the family, it is your duty to determine the status of each member's 'spiritual health.' Right?
Carefully craft some easy questions in the context of getting each person to reveal where they (think) they stand in regard to the 'Truth.'
LIKE WHAT?
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1. Demonstrate the need for self-awareness.
2. Point out the difference between thinking and knee-jerk indoctrinated answers.
3. Ask 'why?' questions to create a step-by-step kind of pathway rather than lock-step herd mentality.
4. Give practical examples of other religious groups' brain-washed thinking (which is easy for them to see) and break it down for what it is: LOYALTY to men.
5. Explain the difference between making CLAIMS and trusting contrasted with TESTING CLAIMS and holding the results accountable!
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1. Who is the Mediator between us and Jehovah?
(They will automatically say: "Jesus" because that is what the Bible says.
Read the scripture.
"… one mediator between God and men, a man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a corresponding ransom for all."
1 Timothy 2:5,6
Now, read what the Watchtower says which CONTRADICTS the scripture:
"So in this strict Biblical sense Jesus is the"mediator" only for anointed Christians."
Watchtower 1979 Apr 1 p.31
ASK THEM TO TELL YOU WHAT THEY THINK about this.
NOTE:
Having already discussed how OTHER religions trick their members into believing false teachings by getting them to TRUST men and show LOYALTY to leaders who are men, you have laid a contrast-and-compare TEMPLATE before them.
NOTE: Do not TELL them what to think. Lead them into using evidence to conclude for themselves!
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Ask them what the word 'WORSHIP' means.
Discuss the spontaneous nature of admiration and how emotional it is.
Discuss how natural that reaction is: seeing and meeting somebody who is so incredibly talented, wonderful, and admirable.
Ask them what their reaction would be if they suddenly met Jesus face to face.
Read this excerpt from the Watchtower:
"Jehovah God commands all to worship Christ Jesus because Christ Jesus is the express image of his Father, Jehovah, and because he is the Executive Officer of Jehovah always carrying out Jehovah's purpose (Heb.:3-6)." Watchtower 1939 Nov 15 p.339
Point out this was under the President J.F. Rutherford.
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Now go to the time of Brother Knorr's leadership.
"Now, at Christ's coming to reign as king in Jehovah's capital organization Zion, to bring in a righteous new world, Jehovah makes him infinitely higher than the godly angels or messengers and accordingly commands them to worship him. Since Jehovah God now reigns as King by means of his capital organization Zion, then whosoever would worship Him must also worship and bow down to Jehovah's Chief One in that capital organization, namely, Christ Jesus, his Co-regent on the throne of The Theocracy." Watchtower 1945 Oct 15 p.313
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Have them read the Watchtower's original Charter out loud:
(1945 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses)

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Ask your family how they feel about worship personally--what does it REALLY mean to them?
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Discuss this quote in the Watchtower (Pastor Russell's view):

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Consider this scripture:
"Hence let no one be boasting in men; for all things belong to YOU, whether Paul or Apol'los or Ce'phas or the world or life or death or things now here or things to come, all things belong to YOU; in turn YOU belong to Christ; Christ, in turn, belongs to God." 1 Corinthians 3:21
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What does it mean--'boasting in men'?
What does an 'organization' consist of but men?
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Have them read this excerpt from the Watchtower:
"Ask yourself now, Did Christ Jesus, who set our example and told us to follow his example to gain life, join any church organization in his day? No, God does not require us to do that, but he requires us to worship him... We have the Bible to show us the right way. Certainly it is not necessary for a person to become a member of a church to gain everlasting life." Watchtower 1953 Mar 1 p.143
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The next lesson should begin with the HUGE CHANGE which took place
between 1953 and 1954.
Suddenly Jesus was removed from 'Jehovah's Organization,' and to worship him was forbidden. In fact, the Society called it 'idolatry.' Idolatry is worship of a 'false god.'
Yet, in John 1: 1 the New World Translation reads ". . . and the Word was a god."
Ask how worship of Jesus could possibly be idolatry and yet it is called "CHRISTianity?"
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The above is just my own peculiar examples of how this Family Bible Study
could be used.
The object is to use headship authority under the pretext of family study to
achieve a common ground in which one might EXPOSE the irrationality of Watchtower
claims.
Only by actuating the thinking process can your family board the underground railway to freedom.
goingthruthemotions

Sounds like a great idea....but, my wife is so brainwashed and has such a low I.Q. When it comes to the washtowel. if i was to guess it's probably around 78 and i am high balling it. if it's not coming from the washtowel mag or the eggyoke magazine it's not gospel.
i think she worships the GB and elders....they are gods to her, maybe even rockstars.
i hate this religion....worse mistake i ever made, if i could turn back time!
shalom
GTTM
Crazyguy

Yeah your right, if I had it to do over again I would of stayed in and did a family study to help wake them up. But I got so pissed after what I learned concerning their blood doctrine I stopped going and have been on the spiritual outs with the family ever since. Learning ttatt is a very emotional process so one doesn't necessarily react the way one should.
OneEyedJoe

Yeah your right, if I had it to do over again I would of stayed in and did a family study to help wake them up. But I got so pissed after what I learned concerning their blood doctrine I stopped going and have been on the spiritual outs with the family ever since. Learning ttatt is a very emotional process so one doesn't necessarily react the way one should.
I started to write a similar post, but didn't because I didn't want to rain on Terry's parade. This approach is really good for elders/pioneers or other super men who give the appearance of being super spiritual. For folks like me who never was all that into it, and never did the family study, it's useless. If I were to try to get my wife to do a family study and came in with any information that seemed to go contrary to the cult, she'd immediately snap into cult personality (this happens even if I so much as mention a scripture that conflicts with what they just said at a meeting).
But like I said, if you're an elder that's woken up, this seems like a really good start.
TerryWalstrom

I hear you and I understand what you are saying.
Try this as an alternative.
Use ONLY exact quotations.
Under the general guise of taking a WALK THROUGH the history of the 'TRUTH' you can assemble a BEFORE and AFTER comparison.
On the left-hand side put the older 'truth'
On the right-hand side the "new light."
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No commentary is necessary.
Even a turnip with a brain stem can see what's going on with this.
It is best to use photographic 'captures' of the quotations straight out of the Society's actual publications.
This is one resource:
http://www.a2z.org/wtarchive/archive.htm
carla

Aren't most jw's suspicious of old literature? don't their apostate bells go off?
When I was fighting the good fight (trying to reason with my jw) he would not believe ANY old literature quotes and even if I had an old wt he thought it was a fake made by an apostate to be sold on ebay or elsewhere just to make jw's look bad.
Trying a different tack and making the mistake of telling him that some jw's had left the org just by reading the Bible, particularly 2 books of the Bible and asking him if he would be willing to read one of those from start to end he declined saying, "why would I want to read them then?" (meaning some jw's had left due to reading one of these 2 books of the New Testament). So even the Bible itself was off limits if read with an open mind.
TerryWalstrom

My oldest friend (former) who got me into the cult to begin with once said to me, "Why would I ever want to read anything which would cause me to change my religion?"
I stared at him.
"Well duh--what if every householder whose door you knocked asked you that? What would YOU reply?"
Naturally he deflected. "But, I've already got the Truth."
Exasperated with him and prevented by law from strangling him to death, I said:

"Well, of course, you do. But just think how disappointed this makes me.
You were my hero when we first met. Did you know that?
No matter how many questions I could come up with--you were ready with an answer! I was impressed and I wanted to be just like you!
But, I had to read and study and dig in to understand what you were presenting to me as the 'truth.' I had to risk being wrong.
I had to put my ego on the line and make evidence more important than my fear of being wrong about everything. Remember?
And now, after all these years, the tables have turned.
Yes. I didn't stop studying and digging and examining and learning.
You see, I'm not a12-year-old and ignorant of how you pulled off the trick. I know where the false bottom is in the hat where you hid your Watchtower bunny!
You only showed me the truth. You hid the whole truth and nothing but.
And that makes what you have fragile; a house of cards; a matchstick kingdom on a shaky surface. You don't dare touch it or it will topple--and you fear how mighty that fall might be!"
It was exactly at that moment my former best friend shrunk in stature before me. He was just a trickster, intellectually dishonest and fearful his lazy ass might have to start from scratch. He had exposed himself. It wasn't about truth at all. It wasn't about true worship either. He had carved out a place of comfort which allowed him to appear masterful. It was hollow pretense. He'd become an actor reading lines mugging for applause before a witless audience.
Well, it was time for me to stand up and walk out on his performance. He saw the light die in my eyes that day. I made certain of it.
He was exposed.
OneEyedJoe

Aren't most jw's suspicious of old literature? don't their apostate bells go off?
Yep. Even showing my wife something straight out of WT library, she wanted to go to JW.org for the "latest information."
Ding

I once had an elder condemn many of those "old light" publications as apostate literature!
I asked him when something published by the WT stops being the truth and turns into apostate literature.
That's the last I ever heard from him...
Fernando

I do believe it can be done Terry.
As you say, it does take planning, strategy and effort to set prisoners free.
At the end of 2005, our family was fortunate to have been introduced to, and to have pursued, the solution rather than the problem/s (which we had been well taught to rationalise with thought stopping platitudes anyway).
This allowed our whole family to remain loyal to the Watchtower whilst studying and being changed by the liberating unabridged gospel (morsels) in their own publications.
We quite naturally (organically) and gradually grew apart from the Watchtower.
Mid-2009 our whole family walked out intact for good.
Only then did we begin to discover how deceptive, corrupt, rotten and apostate the Watchtower ruling religious clergy class, hierarchy and organisation really are.

HOW TO TURN A HOME BIBLE STUDY into an underground railway

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