by jgnat 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
You mean tens of millions of Christendomites spreading false religion.
I didn't say that.
I don't know them, and don't know their heart and relationship with Creator, so saying something like that about people I don't know anything about would be slanderous.
A slanderer is practicing false religion.
My video on the subject for those interested....
(I use last year's figures, but I plan to do a new version with this year's stats).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAmnZ4nxspA
Cedars
jgnat,
China - In the northeastern part of the country, there are some buildings that serve as Kingdom Halls... I f you e xclude Hong Kong and South Korea , there are over 500 congregations and groups in Chinese worldwide.
Algeria - There are about 100 Witnesses here.
Egypt - J Ws now gather in larger groups. JWs have been doing some street work without getting in trouble. Congregations in all major cities.
Iran - Small groups of JWs exist here.
Iraq - Small groups. JWs work cautiously.
Morocco - I haven't heard of any JWs activity here recently.
Vietnam - There are over 1,000 publishers in this country. Many Bible studies are conducted. There are a dozen congregations in the Ho Chi Minh City area.
Yemen - I haven't heard of any activity.
I assumed, Joker 10, with such a shortage of Witnesses that they would miss a fair number of ethnic groups in China.
Do you have any insight why statistics are not published for Egypt or Vietnam?
The small groups in the rest of the countries seem consistent with what I've learned about other missionary groups. In the absence of door-to-door work, do they similarly participate in charitable work like running orphanages, schools, and hospitals?
God is a God of justice, and the scriptures state that the time will come when "every knee shall bend" and "every tongue confess Christ." And the apostle Peter wrote: " For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water." (1 Peter 3:18-20) Here Peter states that when Jesus died, His body lay in the tomb, but that He was made alive in the spirit, by which He preached to the spirits in prison who were disobedient in the days of Noah.
He later added: " For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." (1 Peter 4:6)
This would not be possible if the Jehovah's Witness doctrine of "soul sleeping" were true, for Peter tells us that the gospel is preached to the dead and that Jesus instituted it when He was crucified. Thus, a man can live on Earth, die, be taught the gospel and can be judged according to men in the flesh, yet be in the spirit.
hy7l. The JW doctrine that men don't have spirits needs to be revised, and that the dead who die not in Christ are taught the gospel in the spirit world. So in this way they can be judged as if they were in the flesh, yet they abide as spirits.
Revised, you think?
Slightly...but to play Devil's Advocate, Jesus stated: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." It doesn't say that every person has to hear the gospel message; merely that it has to be preached in all the world. Jehovah's Witnesses and other religions preached in China before it became communist. They preached in Hong Kong before it became communist and I'm sure elsewhere. There are still some nations to go, but a case could be made for the gospel being preached in most of the world. It's not easy getting anything, including food and medicine, into North Korea.
The Muslims will kill you if you come into their countries with the idea of converting them. Even in the Philippines, where there's a high degree of religious freedom, it's difficult to get Muslims interested. Even if they are, they many times fear their own family, neighbors and/or friends due to their quaint sense of...let's see, what do they call it? Ah, yes, honor. It's like, "Ahmed, I saw you talking to some Christian missionaries yesterday. I want to tell you that as your best friend and as your only sister's dear husband, that I love you as a brother, and from the bottom of my heart I would deeply abhor having to cut off your head and stick it on a pole placed on the road outside your loving mother's home. So please accept my advice, my friend, we don't want to see you doing that anymore! It's a bad example. Stick to the loving, patient, benevolent and kind, merciful sayings of Jehov...er...Allah, and do not dishonor your family. It's not a good idea."
Unlike the Jehovah's Witnesses, they're not a very understanding or open-minded people. They don't want their members reading anything contrary to their own religious views and will seek to punish those who leave the faith.
