Hi there Lone Wolf:
Glad to have you join us. This little puppy yapping and nipping at our heals was getting tiresome. He needed a good swat. You did that with reasoning and your experiences, with a firm hand.
He sounds like a spoiled little bully who needs to bolster himself up by picking on others. I told him to read many of the horror stories of those of us who have been victims of the harsh, unyielding, brutal ways of some elders in power. I too have known very loving, kind, empathetic elders in my time, my own father being one of the best, but he too was done in by those wielding the sword and not the Word of God. Unfortunately, the good these elders accomplish is muddied by the dirt of the ones that have an attitude like StiLLinTruth.
I told him that "possibly one day you will be on the receiving end of what many of us here have experienced. If not I can guarantee, you will be among the ones handing it out the hurt... and you then will have to answer to God for that."
I fear for the ones subjected to his kind, if he becomes an elder with his 'holier that thou' attitude. The effect that loving treatment has on the flock, can NOT be so easily, and sarcastically dismissed as StiLL did in the first thread.
Elders like that, as we who have been there and seen it all, are so far removed from Jesus' loving example as the caring shepherd who leaves all the rest to go searching for the one lost sheep. He treated the lowly, weak, suffering ones with kindness and his yoke was light, not burdensome with rigid man-made rules.
Many, many of us are here, NOT because we want to lead degenerate lives, but because of things that don't make sense in the WTS' interpretations of scriptures taken out of context and the fact that they won't bend when questioned.
Anyway it was interesting reading your post and looking forward to many more.
Had Enough