by compound complex 5 Replies latest jw friends
"There are other aspects to the matter of meeting the challenge of loyalty to the congregation and its elders. If there are somewhat troubled conditions in the congregation, this gives us opportunity to display loyalty to Jehovah and those representing him." (italics added)
WT96, 15 March, p. 19
The concept of giving loyalty to men; either individually or collectively is foreign to the Scriptures. If there was anything that Paul was so forcefully trying to convey in his teachings regarding the relationship of Christians to congregation elders was that obedience within the congregation was relative and not absolute.
Obedience was given only to the extent to which elders did not overstep their bounds and attempt to reinstitute legalism, or a Talmudic system within the congregation. The account at Acts chapter 15 is a perfect example of how Paul stood up to the elders at Jerusalem who attempted to impose circumcision on converts. If the modern day Watchtower Governing Body model had been in place back then, their imposing of such a ruling would have been final, and Paul would have been disfellowshipped for apostasy in his opposition to the body. As it turned out, the body of elders actually had to reconsider their position and later accepted correction from Paul; as recorded in Galatians.
Their was also no concept of giving loyalty to a congregational present within the Apostolic writings. Congregations were described as free associations of Christ’s followers with no mention of membership rosters, publisher records, reporting requirements, or arbitrary requirements regarding service hours. Paul in his letters to Timothy described the congregation as a family like arrangement; not a hierarchical arrangement where subordinates were beholden to superiors. Somehow, the modern day Governing Body has glossed over those letters when it comes to their relationship to the flock within the JW congregation.
First century Christianity was a relationship with Christ Jesus, not a membership within a corporate structure. What the Watchtower organization has built in the twentieth and twenty-first century is a corporate business style model whereby Christians are to relate to the leadership as employees would relate to an employer.
Dear Jeremy,
I'm very grateful for your clear and precise commentary. Your posts always give me material that is historical, scriptural yet easy to assimilate and utilize.
Thank you very much,
CoCo
Very nice and straightforward.
Thanks Jeremy.
Brant
I actually learned a great deal by reading Ray Franz’s book: In Search Of Christian Freedom. His chapters on centralized authority, legalism, and the congregational arrangement in the first century were very well researched and helped me untangle a lot of the convoluted JW thinking that I held toward Christianity.
Franz points out that modern day Jehovah’s Witnesses are so deeply ingrained with the organizational concept; with it’s top-down management structure, that they project this view onto the historical accounts of the first century Christians. They filter the New Testament through this lens which seriously distorts the facts. If one takes the time to do research into church history (instead of merely reading WT publications about it) one will find that the modern day JW organizational model is totally absent in the New Testament. It was something that developed after the deaths of the Apostles in the emergence of the Church of Rome.
Why be loyal to that organization? Or God?
Since when was the witless congregation ever loyal to me? Or God? If anything, both were continually seeking my misery so they could exploit the resulting frustration to get me to do ever more work in spreading God's message.
And, if God's message was so damn important, then why the fxxx couldn't He have just set up a web site and put a AOL-type server in place, so He could reach massive numbers of people at once? Instead of frustrating my sex drive (and totally traumatizing the opposite sex in the process) to exploit it in hopes of getting another 50-75 people in (out of which only 10-15 would stay in), He would have been able to reach 50 million or more in a single day, and anyone interested could be able to study (with the probability of getting more in within a single day than I could in my whole life). Plus having the opposite sex more comfortable around me instead of dreading me.
JEHOVAH BAGHEAD, YOU MAKE ME WANT TO PUKE!
