Stocwach,
Some quick comments while I eat my lunch:
While it is true that in the early history of the Christianity, a dispute erupted between the circumcision faction and more liberal elements of the church, the comparison this individual is attempting to make falls flat for the simple reason that the older men of the Jerusalem congregation, the so-called “governing body” made the correct decision. A decision that from a JW perspective at least, has certainly stood the test of time. In other words, they didn’t first decree that every male must be circumcised and then 10 years or so later, reverse themselves without a word of apology to those that had been thrown out of the congregation for noncompliance with the prior, faulty decision.
This is the problem Jehovah’s Witnesses must eventually deal with. They have, at the very highest levels of the organization formulated doctrine and established rules, which were then presented as the TRUTH without equivocation. In too many instances, these teachings have not stood the test of time and subsequently have had to be modified, reversed, or abandoned completely. There are abundant examples within their teaching on blood alone, where individuals have laid down their lives remaining faithful to rules that were modified or reversed entirely at a later date. There is certainly no moral equivalency between this and the actions of the Jerusalem council in the early church.
With this simple fact in mind, the indictment against the leaders and policy makers of the Jehovah’s Witnesses grows stronger with every word this individual writes and it amazes me that an adult in full possession of his or her reasoning faculties could be so blind.
For example, he states:
However, when the gentiles were allowed to become Christians, there was confusion (Confusion among the 11 apostles, Paul and the elders in Christs time) as to whether the non Jews needed to be circumcised like the Jewish Christians already were.Ask him what misguided rules arose out of this confusion. Ask him to show you in the Bible where anyone was thrown out of the congregation for failure to comply with these incorrect rules. Ask him if maybe, just maybe, the early Christians waited for the issue to be resolved before they issued any sort of decree.
Some APOSTLES believed that they should be, whereas other APOSTLES thought they should not.Names? Verses in which they appear?
To me, if anything was to stumble me out of the christian religion is how these apostles that knew Christ and spoke and walked with him would not know the answer to something as simple as this.He has created a dilemma here that cannot be scripturally shown to exist. A squabble arose, it was presented before the Jerusalem council, it was resolved quickly and accurately and it did not involve a reversal of Christian doctrine. There was no protracted period of confusion, let alone a period of years where a false teaching was promoted and enforced as Christian orthodoxy.
Certainly one could reason since these apostles changed their mind that everyone needed to be circumcised and the whole circumcision issue that they couldn't be the true religion could they?This comment and the rest of his reply from this point on is patently false. The Jerusalem council took great pains to distance itself from the unnamed “certain men” (verse 1 ) “of the sect of the Pharisees” (verse 5) that were teaching circumcision as a requirement for Christians. They explicitly pointed out (verse 24) that these ones had acted without instruction.
To reiterate, the situation with Jehovah’s Witnesses is not comparable, as their doctrinal reversals have not been for the purpose of undoing the unauthorized teachings of certain rogue elders.
Further, although it is pretty clear that Peter was afraid of offending the circumcision faction, there is no record that any of the apostles changed[/I] their minds on what was important enough to be officially taught as Christian doctrine.[/I] Ask him to show by name from the Bible which apostles had taught that circumcision was necessary and then changed their minds.
Out of time, hope this helps
Tom