To Active JWs: Your January 4, 2014 Daily Text Contains an Error
Saturday, January 4
Men spoke from God as they were borne along by holy spirit.—2 Pet. 1:21.D
Over a period of 1,610 years—spanning from 1513 B.C.E. to 98 C.E.—some 40 different men wrote the Bible. The Greek expression rendered “borne along” has the sense “to bear or carry from one place to another,” and it “can be variously rendered: be moved, be driven, let oneself be moved.” Acts 27:15 uses it in describing a boat that was seized and moved, or driven along a certain course, by the wind. Bible prophets and writers were “borne along by holy spirit” in that God communicated with, motivated, and guided them by means of his active force. That being the case, they wrote, not their own ideas, but God’s thoughts. Sometimes the inspired prophets and writers did not even know the meaning of what they foretold or were writing. (Dan. 12:8, 9) Yes, “all Scripture is inspired of God” and is free of human opinions.—2 Tim. 3:16. w12 6/15 4:3 (underlining added)
Opinions?
Paul wrote opinions:
(1 Corinthians 7:25) 25 Now concerning virgins I have no command from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who had mercy shown him by the Lord to be faithful.
(2 Corinthians 8:10) 10 And in this I render an opinion: for this matter is of benefit to YOU, seeing that already a year ago YOU initiated not only the doing but also the wanting [to do];
(1 Corinthians 7:12) 12 But to the others I say, yes, I, not the Lord: If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and yet she is agreeable to dwelling with him, let him not leave her;
But there is a much more important point to be made here and that is that even Paul felt it good and necessary to differentiate between what the Lord had directly told him and what was his opinion. Yet, the Governing Body fails time and again to do similarly. When an article is written in the Watchtower and supporting scriptures are cited there is no demarcation between what the inspired scripture is teaching and what the Governing Body is recommending, what is in actuality their opinion. They do not in the Watchtower say “In our opinion” or “It appears to us” or “In our view”. No, they write every article as if it is written in stone, the same stone Moses carried down the mountain. But then when a change is necessitated, when a teaching they held to is proven wrong because it was actually an “opinion”, an unstated opinion, they back track. Then that “stone” becomes not a stone but a chalk board and rewrites upon rewrites are drawn upon it. The Governing Body requires JWs to view what is written in the Watchtower, even their erroneous opinions, on the same level as the Bible until they are told otherwise. They raise themselves too high, too grand, too loudly.
Humility gives birth to honesty and honesty to respect.
Respect for the Governing Body is declining, in some JW circles declining rapidly. The GB’s lack of humility and honesty is the root cause of this lack of respect.
The Governing Body does well to follow Paul’s example and admit when a statement is an opinion and not based directly on scripture.