Another week of a "bible study" wherein the bible isn't studied.
The continuing whitewashing re-imagining of the societies history brings us to a study of things that have been discovered to be bad due to the ever increasing light shone upon the bible students.
This week we considered the cross and how the bible students used it for many years before discovering it's pagan roots and unacceptability in pure worship.
Nothing new here.What got me was the end of the study where they used one of the parables of Jesus and applied it in a weird way.
I was going to give my observations on it but Tadua over at borean pickets did it nicely...
The God’s Kingdom Rules portion this week is Chapter 10 para 12-19 pp.103-107
The Theme: ‘The King Refines his People Spiritually’
This week’s portion deals with how the organization treated the Cross.
Like the issue of Christmas, it took from the 1870’s to 1928, nearly 60 years for it to become clear the cross had no place in pure worship. Yet in recent weeks, the claim was made that Christ inspected his people and accepted them as cleansed in 1919, some 9 years previously. The claim just does not hold water. It is another case of spiritual food not at the proper time, with all its implications for the Governing Body as a claimed faithful and discreet slave.
Talking about the Cross (including the use of the Crown and Cross pins) paragraph 14 states “We came to recognize that what we once cherished as symbolic or representative of the death of our Lord and of our Christian devotion was really a pagan symbol”. Have things changed? Not really, in the last few years, the icon JW.org has been promoted heavily. For many Kingdom Halls, the JW.org logo is the most prominent feature on the building’s sign. Casual passersby can be forgiven for thinking the Kingdom Hall is some corporate building or conference hall rather than a place of worship. In addition, while witnessing we are encouraged to point the public to JW.org for the answers instead of directly to the Bible. Do we see a pattern? Cross and Crown pin, Watchtower pin, JW.org pin. The desire to be identified by symbols instead of actions. We should be clearly identifiable by our Bible based conduct, not a piece of jewelry or a corporate style logo.
In paragraph 17 and 18, the kr book briefly examines Matthew 13:47-50. Once again a claim is made that some invisible work has been going on without any proof.
Matthew 13:48 states the “[fishermen] hauled it [the catch] up onto the beach, and sitting down, they collected the fine ones into vessels, but the unsuitable they threw away.”
“Unsuitable” is the translation from the Greek word sapros which means “rotten, useless, corrupt, depraved, overripe, overdone, unfit for use”. Bear this definition in mind as you read the following section to see that the original Greek word has a much stronger meaning than the NWT choice of “unsuitable”.
So the fishermen [angels] are harvesting, not crops but fish.
When are they separated? Immediately.
Does the following sound a bit far fetched? Is there any opportunity for the unsuitable fish to wiggle into the sea, swim off, metamorphose in to fine fish, and come and jump back into the net on the beach ready to be put into the vessels with the rest of the fine fish? Or are they thrown away, discarded as rotten, useless?
In Verse 49 Jesus gives the explanation as “in the conclusion of the system of things [Greek – the consummation of the age] the angels will go out and separate the wicked from among the righteous and will cast them into the fiery furnace. There is where their weeping and the gnashing of their teeth will be”.
Is there any opportunity here for the wicked to say to the angels, “Wait a minute, I want go off to become righteous, then you can re-separate me, and not cast me into the furnace.”? No, there and then they are thrown into the symbolic fiery furnace—destruction, just like the weeds that are burned.
Now contrast the scripture verses you have just read with the explanation in paragraph 18: “Throwing away “the unsuitable” [note: It should be “the rotten fish”]. Throughout the last days [note: It should be the consummation or completion of the age, not a long time period], Christ and the angels have been separating ‘the wicked from among the righteous’”.
The footnote reads in part: “The separating of the fine fish from the unsuitable fish is not the same as the separating of the sheep from the goats.
Why not? No explanation is given or referred to as to why the different interpretation.
“The separating or final judgment, of the sheep and the goats takes place during the coming great tribulation. Until then, those who are like unsuitable fish may return to Jehovah and be gathered into containerlike congregations.” It also references Malachi 3:7 “‘Return to me, and I will return to you,’ Jehovah of armies has said. And you have said: ‘In what way shall we return?’” – par. 18
According to this, the way to return is: the rotten fish dying on the beach in the rubbish heap have a chance to wiggle into the sea, swim off, metamorphose into fine fish, return, and jump back into the net on the beach ready to be put into the vessels with the rest of the fine fish.
Is this not a perversion of the words of our Lord? A fine, instructional parable is being subverted to support the needs of the Organization.
Amen.