by brotherdan 111 Replies latest watchtower bible
"I feel this way about the Bible.....all of us can have a different view of what the Bible is trying to say...But going to our Creator in prayer and asking for guidance from his Holy Spirit will please him more, with or without the Bible. ..."
I think you nailed it, Ri... Too bad Charles Taze Russell lacked your perception - or allowed his arrogance and greed to over-rule any desire to "serve God" that he may have had...
Zid
While I agree that a relationship with God is the most important thing, I still do not think that you can do it without His Word. Without the scriptures you cannot be fully equipped. His word is a sharp sword and is necessary for our relationship with Him. It's one way that He talks back to us.
AGuest, Followers of Christ, and I am one, always end their prayer... "In the name of your Son Jesus Christ"... God's Holy Spirit is our helper to understanding. That is my feeling...I don't know if anyone shares what I feel...but prayer is the way I connect to our Creator.
Brotherdan, The Bible is a guide, no doubt about that! The Old testament gives us an insight to God's directions and education of his people he chose to continue until Christ came....the new testament is a record of Jesus Christ life and teaching for us to follow. Prayer is the key.
Errrr, I kinda took Ri's comments to mean that he'd refer to the bible and personally ask for guidance in prayer, as opposed to letting some group of self-proclaimed "experts" tell me what the bible means...
And that's coming from a Neo-Polytheist atheist, by the way...
Zid
Oh...I guess I get it.
NO!
Man can't understand anything without the Watchtower ... that's why the world is so messed up, they aren't reading all of those Watchtowers, they must be throwing them away.
1.) As I understand it, Charles Taze Russell was of the opinion that the natural Jews were going to be restored to Israel and that his preaching was centered with that in mind (especially in his later years). It sounds strange considering what WT is today.
2.) Remember, "The Bible" is just the name given to the cover wrapped around 66-72 (depending on who's counting) books. Think of it this way: you could take a number of books on any topic, say math or gardening, arrange them in some arbitrary order then publish them under one cover, kind of a "best of" volume. That's the idea behind "Bible". Now "Scripture"; that's a different thing altogether! When you read "...all scripture is inspired by God..." don't think of it as meaning each and every line of "The Bible"; think of it more as the stuff in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The other book in what some call the "Old Testament" aren't even on par with the God-inspired stuff in the first five, and the stuff in the "New Testament" is more like "what we thought and did once we got interested in the "scriptures"", a journal of how people took what they'd read in "scripture" and applied it. That's a *very* loose explanation; I hope it serves to highlight the difference between "Bible" and "Scripture". The two concepts are not interchangeable.
3.) Oh, rats! I had a third point in mind but it's taken me so long to write the first two that I forgot what it was! If it comes to me in the time allotted for editing a post I'll come back and add it in. If not, well...you'll know it when you read these lines!
I agree that there CAN be a difference between "the Bible" and "Scripture". However, I haven't seen (personally) any apocryphal books that carry the same tone and truth that the Bible does. Maybe that will change one day, but I think that although men put together the 66 books, God was directing their hand.
So much emphasis is put on numbers. Doesn't something seem odd that there are 66 books in the Bible? Wouldn't 77 make more sense?
