Has anyone seen this Watchtower article before?

by T.F. 27 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  T.F.

  Hi, my first post here. I stumbled across something in the Watchtower 1981 magazine (in my WBTS Library CD) showing the Faithful and Discreet Slave is "a composite individual". I have never seen this anywhere before, but the WBTS set-up of the FDS as "a composite individual" looks somewhat similar to the Trinity of Three Divine Persons in One True God. The JWs have argued with me about the Trinity before in other sites, but I never thought they had a similar composite unity made up of one individual slave, and each member are fully slave, somewhat like the Trinity is One God, and each member are fully God.

  Watchtower 1981 12/1 p.26

  "Jesus Christ foretold that he would put this "faithful and discreet slave" in charge of all his belongings to provide spiritual food for his followers. The foregoing facts prove that this "slave" is a composite individual and is associated with the Christian witnesses of Jehovah.—Matt. 24:45-47."

  What do you all make out of this?
• 

  Meeting Junkie No More

  GREAT FIND!

  They would pretty well HAVE to say something as bafflegabeous as that to make the literal number of 144,000 FIT into an entity called the 'slave' (singular). They accuse the Catholic Church of contortions to make theology 'rational' and do the very same themselves. HYPOCRITES!

  By the way, a very big WELCOME to the BOARD - we need fresh insights from thinkers like you!
• 

  possible-san

  Hi, T.F.

  I had never considered that that explanation is somewhat similar to the "Trinity."
  I think that it is an interesting viewpoint.

  Jehovah's Witnesses sometimes drive themselves into a corner by their own explanation.

  possible
  http://godpresencewithin.web.fc2.com/
• 

  T.F.

  Thanks...I have been to other forums before but this is officially my first day's work here at jehovahs-witness.net . I should add that the word "individual" in my Webster's Dictionary defines as a "being" among other definitions. It would be interesting if they placed down the words "a composite being" and make it so strikingly similar to the Trinity as it is a composite being of Three Divine Persons in One God.
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  Morgana

  This is currently the standard doctrine. But as with almost everything taught now by the WTS, this has not always been so. In the early days, at least until 1923, it was "Pastor" C.T. Russell himself as an individual who was understood to have been the FDS.

  See, e.g., Watchtower (WT) 1917-03-01 p1 (p6049 in the 1879-1949 CD collection: "The Watch Tower unhesitatingly proclaims Brother Russell as 'that faithful and wise servant'."); WT 1920-04-01 p100f; WT 1922-03-01 p74; WT 1923-03-01 p68.
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  BluesBrother

  Should we be asking them, if 1 plus1 , 144000 times over, still = 1?
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  oompa

  Welcome Quebec!!!!!!!!!!!!...and an interesting comparison.....i so hope you just signed up recently....did you?.......bet not................oompa

  tell some of your story soon.......
• 

  Black Sheep

  This idea wasn't new in 1981

  This is from WT July 15, 1957, page 436

  4 Likewise today Jehovah has an organization channel through which he makes known his will and purposes and through which he directs the work of preaching the good news of his kingdom. Even as Jesus foretold, today we see a “faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics to give them their food at the proper time.” The facts show that this slave that God is using is not a single person but a composite individual, a group, an instrument, an organization, which uses as its legal instrument the Watch Tower Society.—Matt. 24:45-47, NW.
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  T.F.

  Thanks Black Sheep, and I still have one more article showing the FDS as "one composite person"...wow!

  Watchtower 1958 1/15 p.46
  Since 1919 this “faithful and discreet slave,” who is a composite person made up of all anointed Christian joint heirs of Jesus Christ, has been taking care of “all his belongings” on earth.
• 

  T.F.

  My story? Not much to say except I had an elder with another JW visiting my home every 2 weeks until I whopped him with his embarrassing beliefs. I had another group from another Kingdom Hall about once a month, they all stopped their visits 3 years ago, so I'm working my apologetics online, studying the Greek Scriptures, Hebrew Tanach, etc... and I like to discuss topics with Christadelphians, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.

  It is interesting how the JWs will argue against the Hebrew word "echad" and Greek word "heis" in the Bible, when they often use a composite unity to describe the 144,000 anointed ones as the Watchtower CD suggests.