Get out of her My People.. Jeremiah 51:45 / Revelation 18:4

by objectivetruth 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • BackseatDevil
    BackseatDevil

    @objectivetruth I'm going to slightly attack your methodology of progress on this one.

    Jesus (at the time) didn't present “truth” to anyone. What he presented was NOT the organized religion of the time – Judaism. As an example, imagine going to the doctor with a lump and you ask, “what is it?” He says, “Well, it's not cancer.”

    Great, it's not cancer. “Then what is it?” you ask, naturally. The doctor is going to respond with a variety of different tools, machines, methods, and tests that they can perform to find out what the lump actually is. A lump can be different things to different people depending on body DNA, lifestyle, etc.

    Jesus worked in much the same way. This is why he spoke mainly in parables and in storytelling. He wasn't presenting a path to truth, per se. He was presenting tools so that we can find our own, personal, path to truth without the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, the weight of (any) imperial nation... without the weight from each other. This is a general theme throughout all the gospel accounts of the bible and those not included in the bible except one: The Gospel of John.

    Written in the 1 st century, it is the only Gospel account that retroactively puts Jesus in the role of the Divine where “I am the way, the truth, and the light,” originated. It's also written in different language. So it's understandable if you want to make declarative statements like “He simply stuck to the truth, and taught the truth.“ But understand that collectively, The Gospel of John is the odd man out on this. What Jesus really stuck to were tools to create our own personal truth. It wasn't until centuries later with books like John and Paul's letters that Jesus began to take that of the 'one true way' and there was (per Paul) a rather structured road applied.

    If you take the bible's authorship literally then this is a lost argument, and I apologize for wasting your time.

    If you do not, then please understand the nature through which Jesus taught. If you focus less on the man and who he was and more on the words he spoke, you might be able to understand why there are many truths to many people, varied through time and forged from experience all based off the strong tools Jesus provided. It's almost like 'the truth you seek will finally be revealed once you stop trying to seek it.'

    Philosophically speaking. Like I mentioned, if you are more rigid in structure of bible interpretation, this is the wrong argument and (again) I apologize.

  • objectivetruth
    objectivetruth

    Backseat - I feel that a lot of people become obsessed with "Truth". And you are absolutely correct Jesus did provide a lot of tools.

    This is the reason, Millions of people believe in their own version of the Truth, based on what the Bible Says.

    A prime example, "Hell" and eternal torment, are in the Bible - Revelation 20:10 - " 10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever"

    The Trintity is in the Bible John 1:1

    You are also right, it is Difficult to Start with Biblical Hebrew, and 1000s of years later to arrive at English.. I'm sure people that can read Biblical Hebrew have an easier time grasping the meanings.

    It seems that there are tests in the bible, tests that measure our faith.. Example John 6:56 " Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him." This could have been explained in so many ways, but by saying it this way there could only be 2 outcomes. The listener would either become stumbled and stop walking with Jesus.. Or the listener would say to himself "I don't understand this saying, but I know Jesus, and I know that his way is upright, I will be patient and hope to understand it better later"

    The Bible has multiple messages built into it. You can get a little or you can get a lot from it, you can also get stumbled by it, or stop believing completely because of it.

    Faith combined with Holy Spirit , will allow anyone to read it, and understand, what is required of them to gain Salvation.

    As for Truth,only God possesses absolute Truth, he can can reveal it or hide it in any way that he sees fit. If we focus on the Fundamentals of the Word, and we humble our selves we can understand all that God allows us to.

  • BackseatDevil
    BackseatDevil

    I get what you are saying. I'm glad to see you explain your thinking a little more. There is a lot of residue that comes from the JWs that we have to wash through. Yes, there is a lake of fire, but only the devil, the false prophet, and the beast are "tormented forever..." not the people they tricked... it's assumed that everyone gets the same treatment, but it's not mentioned, plus it doesn't make sense to have the devil, the false prophet, and the beast treated on equal levels as tiny humans who follow them. The harlot of Revelation 17/18 is assumed to be religious, but there is not mention of it being a religious entity. John 6:56 is assumed that the testing of the crowds about salvation, but he mentions as an interchange "and I though you." it could mean a localized version of our phrase "through my blood, sweat, and tears... and though yours as well" (he clarifies that he is speaking metaphorically with " not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead."

    Ridding the JW influence is hard. I had less trouble... I'm atheist... so my path was easy... LOL. But if you really want to grasp "truth" let go of everything. The false will fly into the breeze. The truth won't go anywhere.

    Why would it go anywhere? It's TRUTH. It has nowhere to go and certainly nothing to prove. lol.

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