Obey the Superior Authorities God says / God says Satan is controlling the Superior Authorities.?

by smiddy 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • smiddy
    smiddy

    Romans 13 : 1-4 Clearly states that the Superior Authorities are an arrangement from GOD , defy them and you are working against the arrangement of GOD at your own peril.

    Christians are to be obedient to the Superior Authorities ,"for their is no authority except by GOD , the existing authorities stand placed in their relative positions by GOD .Therefore he who opposes the authority has taken a stand against the arrangement of GOD "

    Matt. 4 :8-10 Shows that all the kingdoms and Governments are under Satan`s control , Jesus never disputed that claim . 1 John 5 : 19 says that" the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one".

    2Cor.4 :4 names Satan as" the God of this system of things"....John 12 :31 ..."the ruler of this world will be cast out".

    Is it just me ? or is their something drastically wrong here.?

    On the one hand GOD /Jehovah is responsible for the superior authorities , and woe & behold if you go against it .

    On the other hand , it is Satan the Devil who is in charge of the superior authorities being the ruler of the world , having charge over all the Kingdoms of the world , and not denied by Jesus.

    I look forward to my learned friends as to what you make of this post with your comments.

    smiddy

  • kaik
    kaik
    In the Jewish religious beliefs, Satan is a good guy. It is not antagonist between G-d and himself, nor it is a symbol of evil, or punisher of sinners in hellish eternity. Jews do not believe in devil, this is Christian invention. Jews consider Satan as someone who is employed by G-d and used to do work on His behalf like collecting evidence on someone misdeed. As heavenly being, he can't be evil while be at the presence of the creator at the same time.
  • prologos
    prologos
    The problem is that the bible is being treated as the infallible product of one author. like the four corners of the earth in it's circle; another example of contradictory bible quotes They just calculated pie to millions of places.
  • David_Jay
    David_Jay

    Catholic and non-Fundamentalist theology does not interpret the Devil's claim of controlling the political nations as the same as being in charge of them. The Devil's influence is seen as limited and interfering in contrast to the Watchtower view that "the father of the lie" is somehow telling the truth about "kingdom ownership" during the temptation of Christ narrative. References to "the world" being under Satan's control are interpreted as speaking of individual persons and portions of society when they act against divine providence, not in general. "System of things" is generally rendered in Bibles as "[current] age," meaning Satan's interference is limited to the current period of history.

    Fundamentalists swing from this mainstream view to an exegesis closer to the Watchtower's, but few accept that the Devil is telling the truth in the temptation narratives.

    Coming from a Jewish family (and hearing from them often on this point), in line with Kaik's comment most forms of Judaism have no "Satan" or "Devil" whatsoever in their theology. Texts in Scripture which make references to "ha Satan" are seen as referring to angelic creatures who, in cooperation with God, played an "adversary" role to help God "argue a point to logic" in cooperation with the heavenly court. Judaism did not start suspecting the existence of demons until the Second Temple era.

    Roman Catholicism has adopted this Jewish view. It is incorporated in the recent release of the official NABRE translation in Job and its footnotes throughout the Old Testament. Catholcism acknowledges that Jesus took the developing view of those in Judaism who were accepting demons as real and added the insight that the "prince of the demons" was a chief demon who acted as a primary "ha Satan," though not necessarily ever the adversary found in Old Testament texts.

  • James Mixon
    James Mixon

    Reporting child abuse to the Superior Authorities, hummm.

  • Vidiot
    Vidiot

    @ smiddy...

    I think a simpler form of the question would be, "how can the 'superior authorities' be ordained by God (according to Romans 13:1-4), yet completely under the control of Satan (according to 1 John 5:19)?"

    x

    (The fundy's answer is, of course, "because STFU, that's why!")

  • prologos
    prologos
    For at least one Concentration Camp survivor, That was a live and death question, not just theoretical theology. Of course, wt had simplified, or complicated that problem by declaring the "superior authorities" to be the Big J and the smaller Jesus. Creator and created in one piece. making the worldly government non-entities, a mindset that the likes of Himmler would not ignore.
  • David_Jay
    David_Jay

    Vidiot and prologos bring up good points.

    The Watchtower religion is good at creating paradoxes due to what is often termed as "radical Sola Scriptura." As most of you know, "Sola Scriptura" in its most elementary form is citing Scripture as the final authority regarding the definition of Christian dogma. It recognizes that Christian doctrine arose simultaneously with the writing of the Scriptures and, because of this understands that even primary doctrine is not often defined in dogmatic or explicit terms in Scripture as a result; however it appeals to Scripture as having the final say in defining how such doctrine should be shaped, explained, and employed. The "radical" form sees Scripture as the basis for religion, not solely as its interpreter.

    The "radical Sola Scriptura" employed by the Jehovah's Witnesses is actually a product of the Second Great Awakening, the religious revival movement in North America of the 19th century. What are termed by religious academics as "new religious movements" or NRMs were often founded by lay persons of other Christian traditions or even those who were only "nominally Christian" until having some sort of emotional experience during this revival period or some time thereafter.

    Moving forward on little more but the emotional experience brought on by the revival or their own personal reawakening, these persons, well-intended as they might have been, went forward without academic training in religion, Scripture, theology, and generally without formal training in anything like professional clergy were. Some were absent of even the basic training from religious instruction such as was offered in basic catechism classes or even Sunday school attendance. Where taught to distrust and even despise the clergy, some of these religious founders even went so far as to purposely avoid formal education.

    From these came the likes of Joseph Smith (founder of the LDS movement) and Charles Taze Russell. Both shared a common misunderstanding that was often found among the uneducated in North America, generally that the Bible itself was the ultimate and final revelation from God. This was contrary to the dogma in Christianity that the person, Jesus of Nazareth as Christ, was himself the ultimate source of revelation from God. (For Jews this has been the Great Theophany at Mount Sinai and other smaller personal theophanies of the patriarchs.) Scripture was a written testament to these religious traditions, a part of the deposit of faith, but never the source of their systems, let alone the founding ingredient to religion or doctrine itself.

    Mistaking "Sola Scriptura" as the belief that the written word of God was the first and final form of revelation from God, religions like the Jehovah's Witnesses grew popular among the NRMs. Offering an interpretation limited to the pages of Scripture, new and often radical interpretations came forth. Free from the historical and traditional understanding that shaped them, the Biblical texts became "proof texts" for odd and often very hard-to-sustain doctrines, often in need of constant revision. (Joseph Smith went one step further and "discovered" a new text that was "added" to the ultimate authority of written testimony.)

    Dropping Christianity's traditional dogma from the picture, one cannot make sense of the texts regarding the Temptation of Christ, the Roman epistle's call to obedience to world authorities, and Johannine texts that describe the "world" as both being under Satan's control yet "so loved" that Christ died for it.

    Obviously the original authors and the Church authorities that formally canonized these texts never imagined that the same Scriptures would be read free from an understanding of basic Christian doctrine. Yet the Watchtower brand of religion demands such a reading, and because of this one is left with a conflicting picture that cannot be reconciled in the vacuum in which such a theology resides.

  • Beth Sarim
    Beth Sarim
    It's always about ''obedience'' always. Led along like cattle.
  • Crazyguy
    Crazyguy
    To many contradictions in the Bible to be able to answer the question with any clarity.

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