Latest Study Watchtower - JW's NEED to confess to elders

by The Fall Guy 38 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  The Fall Guy

  Watchtower November 2017, page 10, paragraph 8 - "Today, a Christian guilty of serious sin needs to seek the help of congregation elders to recover. (1st lie!) Why is this so important? First, the arrangement for elders to handle cases of serious sin comes from Jehovah, (2nd lie!) as outlined in his Word. (Jas. 5:14-16) (3rd lie) Second,...." (Let's quickly move on now brothers & sisters, because these 3 "truths" have been satisfactorily answered from the paragraph)

  The perverting of the James scriptures by the "faithful slave" - in order to reinforce the unscriptural and evil practice of "compulsory confession" - should be proof enough that the WTBTS serves no god except itself.
  

  In the RNWT, James 5:14-16 says this, "Is there anyone sick among you? Let him call the elders of the congregation to him, and let them pray over him, applying oil to him in the name of Jehovah. And the prayer of faith will make the sick one well, and Jehovah will raise him up. Also, if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. (by whom - the elders????????) Therefore, openly confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed"

  1) Sick among you - not a serious sinner.

  2) "If he has committed sins" - the word 'serious' is missing!

  3) "Openly confess your sins to one another". Are J.W. elders obliged to openly confess their serious sins to publishers in their congregations? If not, the org's mandatory confession is a one-way street!

  The Greek word which many Bibles (not all) translate as 'sin', actually means any of the following; "faults, offences, trespasses, to err, be mistaken, miss the mark, or wander from the path."
  

  Jesus' words at Matthew 18:15-17 command Christians how to deal with serious sins - between the people directly involved, and no confession to elders!

  Witnesses - examine the gulf between what the org says and what is really true.
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  UnshackleTheChains

  Yep. You've committed a one off serious sin. Let's say you are a young man on a night out. Youve had a bit too much to drink. You end up having a one night stand. You are deeply remorseful for your error. Totally cut up about it. You go to the elders to confess. What happens? Well that's a big gamble for you. Depending on the whims of your body of elders. They will either

  1. Reprove you privately.

  2. Reprove you publicly

  3. Depending on the circumstances and your past sins taken into account, in a worse case scenario, you get disfellowshipped.

  Great system. No wonder people are afraid/ reluctant to go to the elders!
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  Crazyguy

  Little Catholic church is all the JWs are.
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  pale.emperor

  I read one bible commentary that said that this verse is talking about literally sick people. Like those needing to be healed. And that they believed prayers of others could make them well. Notice that sins being forgiven is tacked on at the end as a side note. The main point of this scripture is about healing the sick.
  
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  ttdtt

  I think it can be interpreted either way.
  Thats why the bible is crap.
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  OneEyedJoe

  I read one bible commentary that said that this verse is talking about literally sick people. Like those needing to be healed. And that they believed prayers of others could make them well. Notice that sins being forgiven is tacked on at the end as a side note. The main point of this scripture is about healing the sick.
  

  I think that's the only honest reading of that scripture. And it makes sense, too, because these writings are all building on top of stories about Jesus and the apostles working miracles and healing people, so why wouldn't there still be some residual faith healing going on? Of course it seems ridiculous to anyone with half a brain these days so that passage gets interpreted as figurative (just like the four corners of the earth, 7 days of creation, and so many more unreasonable passages).

  It's also pretty clear that the bit about confessing sins is encouraging a culture of openness and honesty wherein people are up front about things they do wrong and in return they're also willing to be quick to forgiveness. This goes along with the frequent admonition to refrain from judgement - it's a lot harder to be open about passing judgement on someone when everyone knows all the times you didn't do so well yourself.
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  snugglebunny

  I have to tell you that as young teen I was informed, like my peers, that any unconfessed serious sin ie, a disfellowshipping sin - would result in death at armageddon.

  Consequently much time was spent in discussion about what sort of sin could result in disfellowshipping.

  Masturbation?

  Breast fondling?

  Pussy - willy fondling?

  It just went on and on. One courting couple I knew believed that anal sex was OK as it was a non-divorceable offence if performed outside of marriage so therefore obviously not a disfellowshipping offence either. No confession required!

  Oral? Same thing!
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  blownaway

  Or what you get the comfy chair?
  
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  WTWizard

  And what the heaven about just stopping doing what you are doing wrong? All the hounders are going to do is make extra problems for you--to me, "repentance" means stopping doing the action and removing the source of it (which, given that most of those "sins" are really simply going along with nature instead of with anti-nature joke-hova, is questionable if it is even worth it). What more needs to be done after that? And, if the "sin" is discontinued and the source is removed, why would anyone assume you "got away with it"?

  Then, you need to confess to the hounders? What if they deem stopping the "sin" and removing its source to constitute repentance? Or not? They might insist on exploiting the situation to get you to go along with even worse stipulations, perhaps banning forms of entertainment for you that were not part of the problem. Or, they might just disfellowship you anyways, just to make an example out of you, even after the "sin" has stopped and the source is gone.
  
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  steve2

  James talks about going to one another. There is no top down command. I agree with Crazyguy: JWs have morphed into a mini-Catholic church where confession to leaders is seen as the doorway to everlasting life.