"Jehovah ALWAYS has worked through ONE organization!" (page 2)

under_believer

Arthur, that was an excellent post, really sums everything up very tidily. Thanks. EDITED TO SAY: You too, jwfacts. Thanks. :)

OnTheWayOut

I believe this was addressed on another thread. Someone mentioned the years before C.T. Russell.
What was the one organization in the time between the 1st Century and the 19th Century?

As mentioned above, the Bible says that God used many individuals.

Jesus was an individual, opposed to the established groups.

A favorite topic of mine, since this subject is the one that finally awakened me. Yes, I'd been dealing with a few issues, but it was when I read Tom Cabeen's "Does God Work Through an Organization," that I was finally shaken from my Watchtower coma. I now realize that the WTS cannot usually convince you that they have The Truth until they first convince you that "God has always worked through an organization." For most of us, that point was accepted without our challenging it--and led briskly into all the manufactured reasons why theywere that organization.

I remember many JWs used to remember the date of their baptism as the most important date of their lives. I don't actually remember that date. But I do remember September 15th, 2004: the day I read the above Tom Cabeen article and knew for certain that I'd been misled, and that the WTS was not what it claimed to be.

OUTLAW

The name Jehovah was created in the 14th century by the Catholics..There was no Jehovah before that..The WBT$ would`nt have a name for their Fictional God ..Or..A name for their Cult the Jehovah`s Witness`s,without the Catholics...OUTLAW

B_Deserter

"God has always worked through an organization" OR "We have always been at war with Oceania"

greendawn

Organisations are bad, they are made up of many people many of whom seek to use them to promote their own interests, as a means to control and exploit something the FDS excells at. Jesus said wherever there are two or three gathered in my name there I am in their midst no mention of organisations and hierarchies. But look at the very hierarchical WTS: deacons (ministerial servants) elders, CO's, DO's, Zone overseers, GB members, are they not all about control? Why so many levels of authority? In the early church it only reached up to the bishop (overseer) whose authority was strictly local over his city or town and not beyond.

And why don't the JWs like using the term church and instead go for organisation? Organisation of Jehovah and not Church of Christ. Church means intimacy to serve and be served, organisation, a cold impersonal term, means to be controlled from above by dubious humans.

erandir

Yeah, except for when he hasn't.

Pre-flood, pre-Mosaic covenant (although the temple arrangement is a far cry from the 12-member governing body--i.e., 1 high priest vs. 12 high priest/kings) post-1st century thru "supposedly" late 1800's, and even now from late 1800's onward the structure of the JW-org has changed several times.

MegaDude

My standard reply is:

How many times has Jehovah destroyed his Organization?

or

Jehovah has always destroyed his Organization.

TheListener

Hi Dagney,

I asked this same question a couple years ago. Here is the link to that discussion.

Good luck.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/87078/1.ashx

AuldSoul

According to the Biblical narrative, Moses was the judge and leader for the nation of Israel.

Moses father-in-law, Jethro, a pagan priest of Midian, recommended that Moses delegate. (Exodus 18:1, 17-24) Even according to the narrative, this recommendation did not come from God, it came from a man who imagined that God was not able to accomplish His purposes through Moses alone.

Jesus is the Greater Moses. C.T. Russell, J.F. Rutherford and others who insist on the necessity of organization become a modern day Jethro, to insist that God is not able to accomplish His purposes through Jesus alone, however many Scriptures directly show that it is only through Jesus that all things will be made yes.

I think this is pretty simple. I don't think First Century congregations looked to elders as spiritual authorities. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23) They more likely thought of them as spiritual aids, mentors, of a sort. But, unlike among JWs and some other religions, the First Century elders are not spoken of as having the authority to make judgement decisions that were binding on the individual congregants.

It isn't just a question of whether there was organization, it is also a question of the degree to which God grants authority to organizations. Among JWs, the authority they believe was granted to the organization by God exceeds, by far, the authority God conferred on any other organization, ever.

Respectfully,
AuldSoul

"Jehovah ALWAYS has worked through ONE organization!"