@peacedog:
Did I miss your [response]?
You probably did, but that was because I probably didn't respond.
[Given that Russell believed the "parousia" to have occurred in 1874, and the establishment of the kingdom and Christ assuming power as king to have occurred in 1878,] what did he mean by COMPLETE establishment of the (already established since 1878) kingdom for 1914?
Tell me this: What did Jesus mean at John 9:41 when he said to the Pharisees, "If you were blind, you would have no sin"? Answer my question correctly, and I'll answer your question.
@Psacramento wrote:
DJ, IF you are going to quote me, to NOT change what I wrote by bracketing my words [A LA] the NWT in Colossians, ok?
@djeggnog wrote:
I won't tell you why brackets are used in the NWT, but I used them in quoting you for a very different reason that such are used in the NWT. Perhaps it would be good for you to ask someone that you respect the reason or maybe you could just visit a community college somewhere (assuming that you at least have a high school diploma!) and take a class in English grammar, which would be better than your remaining in your current state of literacy. I readily admit that I'm a bad typist -- I'm the typo king! -- but what excuse do you have really for the illiteracy you exhibit? Did you have to quit high school or elementary school to take employment somewhere in order to take care of your siblings or what? Or do you even have an excuse?
@sabastious wrote:
Every single JW apologist I have read resort to personal attack, it's quite astounding. Carry on, there are many that are reading and have read this thread and I would wager you are helping a lot of them out by opening their eyes to the truth about the truth.
I believe you are confusing invective with personal attack, for I am merely responding to @Psacramento's silly remark whining about my use of brackets "[a la] the NWT," which indicates a failure on his part as to their purpose. Perhaps you are of the opinion that Jesus was personally attacking the religious leaders of his day for their transforming God's temple into "a cave of robbers." I mean, not only do we read Jesus' remarks at Mark 11:15-17, and throws out the people that had set up shop in God's temple, but Jesus upsets the tables that had been used by the money changers as well as the benches on which their "turtledove" merchandise had been exhibited for sale.
Or, you might opine as well that Jesus saying to the Pharisees at Matthew 22:15-18, who had purposes "to trap him in his speech," in his "knowing their wickedness" saying to them, "Why do you put me to the test, hypocrites?" Believe me: I recognized the wickedness that prompted Psacramento's stupid remark, namely, his hatred for anything having to do with Jehovah's Witnesses (or didn't you at all notice his disparaging the use of brackets "[a la] the NWT")?
I wasn't attacking @Psacramento; I was defending against his ignorance that could infect like-minded individuals here lacking both education and perspective, so I wasn't so much speaking to him as much as to everyone here that might think @Psacramento's personal attack against the NWT Bible produced by Jehovah's Witnesses -- which is a personal attack against me and against everyone associated with Jehovah's Witnesses -- to have merit. I saw nothing meritorious about @Psacramento's comment and I could just as well have called him a "hypocrite," in view of the fact that once upon a time even he once used the NWT Bible when he was actively one of Jehovah's Witnesses at which time the brackets it contained in the book of Colossians or any of the other Bible books weren't as objectionable as they are now that he has a problem with my viewpoints, viewpoint that that hypocrite had once formerly held.
I don't care on what you should decide to put your money, @sabastious, because after the revelation of Jesus Christ with his angels from heaven, I won't miss you and your ilk that pretended to accept Christ and his ransom sacrifice that he made on behalf of everyone putting faith in him until you later decided to reject him as your Lord in Judas-like fashion in betraying righteous blood (as if Jesus' blood were of ordinary value! [Hebrews 10:29]), and decided that you would impale Christ afresh for yourself and no longer assist others to become recipients of Jesus' ransom.
Look, Mr. I-feel-I-need-to-come-to-Psacramento's-defense: You should not expect anyone to go out of their way to be extremely polite to someone that betrays their friend (and as John 15:13-15 makes clear, Jesus is my friend!), for I have as much contempt (or more!) for someone that commits treachery as @Psacramento has for Jehovah's Witnesses, and my sincere hope is that everyone's eyes opens to this truth! How you could have the temerity to be defending a man that has betrayed Christ as if his indefensible actions could be defended before Jehovah God without realizing that in your so doing you yourself are taking a stand against Christ and become a sharer in this man's wickedness says a lot about you. BTW, this is not a personal attack, but just an observation I'm making as to the truth about you!
Show me where a prophet of your Bible made a wrong prediction such as Russell's "1874 Christ Presence."
You first: Show me where Russell made a prediction as to Jesus' presence in 1874.
@quietlyleaving:
I'm afraid you do speak of your own originality just as Russell did and just as Jehovahs witnesses do and this is the reason he, you and Jehovahs witnesses are getting called on lies. The lying has been proven here on this thread beyond a shadow of a doubt. All I am saying is to own up to the fact that you are speaking of your own [originality] and that you are doing this for your own edification and faith.
If this is what you choose to believe, then there is probably nothing at all that I could say here that were dissuade you to another opinion, and that's too bad, because what you are characterizing as a Russell's "lying" or speaking of his "own originality," or Jehovah's Witnesses "getting called on [their] lies," is in reality the kind of thing that follows a misunderstanding of his reading of 1 Kings 6:1 as incorrectly stating "four hundred eighty" years instead of "five hundred eighty" years (such as Russell's belief that 6,000 years of mankind's existence ended two years after the year 1872, or two years following Adam's sin in the year 1874 (without his taking into consideration that there was no zero year!), when in 1943 Jehovah's Witnesses later determined the truth that required our (1) doing away with Russell's reading of 1 Kings 6:1 as being anything other than "four hundred eighty" years, (2) taking into consideration that there was no zero year and (3) our not adding an arbitrary two years following Adam's sin, which then marked 1975 as being 6,000 years of mankind existence.
Jehovah's Witnesses are imperfect and have made many mistakes over the years, but they have owned up to their mistakes when it became apparent that we were mistaken in our understanding of the Scriptures and we will continue to make such adjustments until the fulfillment of Bible prophecy becomes apparent to us.
But, @quietlyleaving, if Jehovah has permitted Jehovah's Witnesses to "get it wrong" for a time until they finally "got it right," are you here placing your judgment above Jehovah's? What about back in 64 AD, some six years before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish system of worship that had existed until 70 AD, when the apostle Peter wrote to the Christians at that time at 2 Peter 3:4 to contradict the contrary viewpoint of those that were ridiculing Jesus' presence by saying, "Where is this promised presence of his?"
There were those that, just like you and others here, took the view that the apostles were wrong and that Jesus would not have a second "presence" (although at Matthew 24:3 Jesus did speak about a future "presence"), but these apostates didn't realize back in 64 AD what we realize today, that Jesus' presence wouldn't occur during the first century at all, but would occur some 19 centuries later when the appointed times of the nations terminated in 1914!
Jehovah allowed those Christians to believe what they wanted to believe, since Jehovah had already revealed through His prophet Daniel at Daniel 12:4, 9, that "the words" of his prophecy were "sealed up until the time of the end" at which time "the true knowledge [would] become abundant," so the significance of Jesus word at Luke 21:24 wasn't revealed to God's people until centuries later, but just because Peter and other Christians didn't understand that "the time of the end" was a reference to our day and not to the end of the Jewish system of things doesn't mean that they didn't have the truth.
Speaking to his anointed brothers, Jesus stated at John 15:1-6, "Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it remains in the vine, in the same way neither can you, unless you remain in union with me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He that remains in union with me, and I in union with him, this one bears much fruit; because apart from me you can do nothing at all." Likewise, no matter what faith you believe you have toward God in connection with Jesus Christ, once you have severed your relationship with the "true vine," you are, in effect, "cast out as a branch," even though you may not have been numbered among Jesus' little flock."
If you are cast out, you're 'pitched into the fire and burned,' Jesus said. But maybe, as indicated at Psalm 2:2-4, you are one of those that don't care that you have taken a stand against Jehovah and against His anointed one, or that Jehovah is just laughing in derision over your defiance of His will in connection with the Messianic Kingdom that He had purposed to vindicate His name.
@Essan:
Surely you recognize that you need to show the 'fruits' of someone worthy of such respect as you evidently think you are due? Whereas, all we have seen from you is a [barrel-full] of rotten 'fruit' so far.
You are here judging me as bearing rotten fruit. That's hilarious.
You don't even meet the standards for being seen as an honest and reasonable JWN poster, never mind meeting the standards to be recognized as one truly representing God.
What is a "reasonable JWN poster"? Would that be you or someone like you?
A first step would be to have the humility to admit that you were totally wrong to claim that Russell predicted nothing for 1914 and to admit that he did indeed predict the "Kingdom would come" in that year and that Christ would come to take rulership of the earth in that year.
I don't believe this statement of yours here to be true.
Admit too that Russell's writings have been changed, the originals edited to hide his original failed predictions, and that you have been using such later 'doctored' versions, passing them off as Russell's original writings, first perhaps unknowingly but later definitely with full knowledge.
This is nothing new. Jehovah's Witnesses are always printing newer publications which indicate changes in our understanding of what things we had formerly believed to be true, so there's nothing dishonest about anyone either during or after Russell's death printing any of the same publications that had previously been released, but containing needed corrections based upon their later understanding of matters.
Jehovah's Witnesses re-released the 1953 "Make Sure of All Things" book in 1957, the 1955 "Qualified to Be Ministers" book in 1967, the 1963 "All Scripture is Inspired of God and Beneficial" book in 1983 and again in 1990, the 1985 "Reasoning from the Scriptures" book in 1989, the 1969 "Aid to Bible Understanding" book in 1971 (with changes to "A-Exodus") as "Insight on the Scriptures" in 1988, the 1958 "Your Will Be Done on Earth" book in 1999 as the "Pay Attention to Daniel's Prophecy" book, and the 1963 "'Babylon the Great Has Fallen!' God's Kingdom Rules" book as the "Revelation-Its Grand Climax at Hand!" book in 1988, and again in 2006. Jehovah's Witnesses have never made it any secret that we make adjustments all of the time to what things we believe when we realize that something we were teaching is incorrect, so what's your point, @Essan?
Do that, and you might just claw back some small degree of credibility.
I don't care about gaining credibility here among anyone. What I care about is giving glory to Jehovah God. You see, it's not about me or you, and it's never been about me.
Otherwise, I think you can permanently forget about being taken seriously or given the respect you demand here.
Where did you ever get the idea that I demand the respect of anyone at all here? I don't care if you or others here should fail to take what things I say here seriously. I could hope that one of the lurkers here reading my posts will take what things I say here seriously, but as far as those of you that are bold enough to post such criticisms of Jehovah's Witnesses because you want to hold Jehovah's decision to use imperfect men to accomplish His will against Jehovah, c'est la vie in the last days, and I'm totally ok with it. In harmony with what the apostle Peter stated at 1 Peter 2:23, I, like Jesus, will keep "committing himself to the one who judges righteously," for your judgment is not righteous.
@djeggnog
