While the Society have certainly printed much regrettable material I believe it is fair to admit that there was fine material too – as was noted by other posters in different threads almost all of us were initially attracted to JWs and I trust it often was because of good stuff printed.
One quote from the Commentary on the Letter of James I found appealing:
Discussing James 3:17 the book says:
The wisdom from above makes a person reasonable, yielding, moderate or forbearing, not fanatical in his zeal . (Phil. 4:5; 1 Tim. 3:3; Titus 3:2) Saul (Paul), directed by worldly wisdom, was mislead by unreasoning fanaticism before he became a Christian. (Acts 9:1, 2; Gal. 1:13,14) Unlike Saul, the reasonable person will not insist on his way or on the letter of the law, but will look at a matter kindly, considerately and Scripturally, making effort to reason out the matter as Christ would.
The reasonable teacher will not be dogmatic. […] A teacher recognizes that disciples, from the beginning of their Christian course, have many ideas, habits and customs that are not fully right. But they will change these habits when their hearts and consciences see clearly that they need to change. It is primarily God’s spirit that has to induce them to make the change – not the teacher . If the one taught changes because his teacher says he must, instead of being motivated from the heart by the scriptures, this will be of no value to him, because he is following, not God’s Word and spirit, but a man.
Therefore, a good teacher will never lay down his own rules or regulations. He will let the Scriptures be the guide, with changes in their personality and ways being made by learners as they come to a clear understanding.
Guess that by these standards the life courses of many JWs are ‘of no value to them’ since they are merely following what the WT (human fallible teacher) tells them. In other publications the JWs are actually encouraged to do just that – to ‘trust’ the earthly organisation and carry out what it tells them, even if they do not exactly understand why they have to believe or do this or that. The commentary was released in 1979. Ed Dunlap, who wrote it, was soon disfellowshipped for apostasy, but the book continued to be published.
Fred Hall, this is for you: if you believe Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE you are merely following a human teacher (since noone outside that human teacher could show that 607 is a biblically valid date). This is of no value according to the Society’s publication above quoted. Also, according to the principle there is no use in the Society’s forcing me to accept that date, since even if I do, this will not be because I’d be following… God’s Word and spirit, but a man’.
Dru