by JoshJeffries 69 Replies latest jw friends
Hello there Josh.....you are funny!!!!!!
Loved your post, a big welcome to you!
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Things are not the same in the watchtower as
when I was first in , that's for sure.
You might like this vid ...a bit of Freddy Franz!!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRuRsVKr6RQ
clarity
Welcome to the board.
I left in spring of 1994, and never looked back. The WT is different cult that the one I knew from 1970's-1990's. New doctrines, nonsense explanation, white-washed past, and Armageddon delayed. I still have NWT from that time, but also bible that was in my family for generations. I heard from my relatives about NWT and they did not like it, and secrectly hold on the old book. I think it was about year or two when local KH had asked my parents to bring their old books, prints, and bible for "recycling". Hello! Since when the cult every cared about recycling.
Welcome, I left in 2000. Once you stop going to the brainwashing sessions you quickly realize nothing matters to this organization other than listening and obeying the governing body. Everything is subject to change at their discretion and if you do not support it 100% you are history. The bible doesn't matter, individual JWs don't matter, all that matters is obedience to those men.
It's a cult.
The Jehovahs Witness religion as we knew it no longer exists........
I feel like I’m Charlton Heston come out of a time warp and standing at the foot of what used to be Brooklyn Bethel looking up at the new JW.org sign: “They finally did it. YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! OH, DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!”
Welcome JJ , I love that quote . and the movie by the way. Look forward to more of your posts.
A welcome also to jhi29 , keep your posts coming.
I think their are more people joining sites like this P.A. than their are joining the jehovahs witnesses , which I would hazard a guess means their are more people leaving the JW religion than joining it P.A.
If not a reality now , it wont be long before it is a reality.
smiddy
Welcome JJ - you clearly have way too many active brain cells to have remained in the organization. You have made some very astute observations and are so damn lucky they couldn't hold your family over you. Well done in having got out and got on with your life!
Welcome. It is great to see the religion through the eyes of someone who has been away for so long. I knew it wasn't true in 1995, but hung on for another 10 years, and have now spent another 10 years actively involved from the other side. So the changes appear more gradual and not so shocking.
I had a dicusssion with my brother in law after the 1995 generation change saying that the Watchtower obviously did not believe the end was any time soon. He said "we'll know soon enough." I think he probably had in mind that the end would definitely be here by 1914. I wish I probed him for what date he was thinking, and what he would do if it was no here by then. Like your friends, back then he would have had such a cockey attitude about it he could have declared it was not the truth if the end was not here by 2014, but now he finds new ways to justify this system continuing.
Hi Josh same thing happened to me when I looked at this forum two years ago, I left in '89. Overlapping generations! A different Watchtower for the public. More partakers at the memorial and numbers still rising! My brother and sisters swallowed all of this and are still there, can't get my head around it.
John 17.3 in the revised NWT
"T his means everlasting life, + their coming to know you, * the only true God, + and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ"
That is similar to most of the modern versions
Whereas the WT 1992 3/1 p23 said
“THIS means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.” (John 17:3) So said Jesus in prayer to his heavenly Father, and in this way he showed a vital prerequisite for gaining eternal life. Why, though, does the New World Translation render this verse “taking in knowledge of . . . God” instead of “know . . . God,” as most other translations of the Bible express it?—See also the footnote to John 17:3.
The Greek word here translated ‘take in knowledge’ or “know” is a form of the verb gi·no′sko. And the rendering in the New World Translation is designed to bring out as fully as possible the meaning of that word. The basic meaning of gi·no′sko is to “know,” but the Greek word has various shades of meaning. Note the following definitions:
“GINŌSKŌ (γινώσκω) signifies to be taking in knowledge, to come to know, recognize, understand, or to understand completely.” (Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, W. E. Vine) Hence, rendering gi·no′sko ‘take in knowledge’ is not ‘changing the Bible,’ as critics of the New World Translation have alleged. In a discussion of the various shades of meaning the word can encompass, renowned lexicographer James Hope Moulton states: “The present simplex, γινώσκειν, is durative, ‘to be taking in knowledge.’”—A Grammar of New Testament Greek.
A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament explains gi·no′sko as it appears at John 17:3 as “implying a continuous process.” A further comment on this Greek word appears in Word Studies in the New Testament, by Marvin R. Vincent. This says: “Eternal life consists in knowledge, or rather the pursuit of knowledge, since the present tense marks a continuance, a progressive perception.” (Italics his.) A. T. Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament suggests translating the word “should keep on knowing.”
Therefore, in the original Greek, Jesus’ words at John 17:3 imply continuous effort to get to know the true God and his Son, Jesus Christ, and this is well brought out in the rendering of the New World Translation. We acquire this knowledge by diligently studying God’s Word and by obediently conforming our lives to its standards. (Compare Hosea 4:1, 2; 8:2; 2 Timothy 3:16, 17.) What fine reward awaits those who acquaint themselves with God’s personality and with that of his Son and then strive to imitate them? Everlasting life!
The emphasis is my own, of course .. The WT's do not have long words like that these days .... Thanks Josh for inspiring me to look this up.
The JW religion I lived when the 1975 debacle happened is completely different!
I observe that it's so much more relaxed, up with technology, people for the most part left to make their own decisions according to their conscience. Nowadays it takes an act of congress to get somebody disfellowshipped, and reinstatement happens so fast too!
The JW religion of today is quite tolerable and comfortable. Of course I can only speak of my experience and observations in mine and surrounding congs.
Okay, gotta go get ready for my 2-hr Sat morning preaching work!
Love it!
GC
