Watchtower lying by omission

by Cygnus 2 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Cygnus
    Cygnus

    Check this out:

    *** w84 12/1 pp. 13-14 Happy Are Those Found Watching! ***

    16 Since “the more established Christian churches” were no longer on the watch for Christ’s presence and his receiving Kingdom power, it was left to what those churches called “heretical groups” to do so. In the 19th century, several such groups appeared in lands where the Bible and the means to study it were available to the common people. . .

    18 Yet, Jesus told his disciples: “Happy are those slaves whom the master on arriving finds watching! . . . Who really is the faithful steward, the discreet one, whom his master will appoint over his body of attendants to keep giving them their measure of food supplies at the proper time? Happy is that slave, if his master on arriving finds him doing so!”—Luke 12:37-43.

    19 Among the so-called heretical groups who were watching for the sign of Christ’s return in the latter third of the 19th century was a Bible-study class presided over by Charles Russell in Pittsburgh, United States. Russell wrote: “From 1870 to 1875 was a time of constant growth in grace and knowledge and love of God and his Word. . . . However, we were then merely getting the general outline of God’s plan, and unlearning many long-cherished errors. . . . We felt greatly grieved at the error of Second Adventists, who were expecting Christ in the flesh.”

    20 Russell and his associates quickly understood that Christ’s presence would be invisible. They disassociated themselves from other groups and, in 1879, began publishing spiritual food in Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence. From its first year of publication, this magazine pointed forward, by sound Scriptural reckoning, to the date 1914 as an epoch-making date in Bible chronology. So when Christ’s invisible presence began in 1914, happy were these Christians to have been found watching!

    For those who are new or just lurking and don't know, in 1914 the Bible Students had believed Christ was already invisibly present since 1874. This is admitted in a few Watchtower publications. So how could these persons be found "happy" when the event they were looking for had already occurred decades before? This particular article blasts "Christendom" for not being on the watch for Christ's arrival, yet the Bible Students were completely mistaken. The last sentence I bolded in red that is a complete and utter lie by the Watchtower Society. How could a person with standards that includes forsaking lying possibly teach such a thing as "truth" to other people at their doors?

  • AuldSoul
    AuldSoul

    Vomit alert woulda' been nice....

    ...how do you spell the sound bile makes while rising?

    Blurg-bluch-BLUUGHHH!

  • bennyk
    bennyk

    They were emphatically NOT "happy...to have been found watching!" They were, in fact, distressed to find that their prophecies were proven false. As you say, even if we were to consider true the Society's current claims regarding 1914, the fact remains that the Bible Students held NO such view IN 1914. Indeed, most Associated Bible Students currently believe the "parousia" occurred in 1874, and that Jesus was enthroned in the Heavens in 1878. Those Bible Students who abandoned Russell's teachings but remained with the Watch Tower Society did not come to believe that Jesus was enthroned in the Heavens in 1914 UNTIL 1925 (WT article: "Birth of the Nation"), and continued to believe that his invisible "Parousia" dated from 1874 UNTIL 1929 (WT publication "Prophecy").

    Hmmm.... It is also interesting that the Society made the claim in the "Greatest Man" book that only Jesus' true disciples saw him return in 1914. If we were to allow that statement to stand, it would PROVE that the Bible Students (and their break-away sect, the JW's) were NOT Jesus' true followers.

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