Review: Draw Close to Jehovah Book

by Sirona 27 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Fleur

  ah, talk about "proper food at the proper time" ;) thanks so much Sirona and Ezekiel3 for your insights. A relative suggested this book to me saying it would 'restore my damaged faith' in Jehovah's love.

  They just get sneakier and sneakier, don't they with this stuff?

  "Even if we cannot at first understand a certain account or see how it fits in with God?s personality, our study of the Bible has already taught us more than enough about Jehovah to enable us to see that he is unfailingly a loving, fair, and just God."

  Yeah...I was just saying to my mom that I don't understand all the killing that went on in the OT and she said "Don't ask me to explain it, I don't understand it either" then in the same breath went on to say "but I'll die before I leave the organization."
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  bikerchic

  Sirona that is an excellent review and you know as I was reading your summary it occurred to me that one could use your outlined strategies to almost every WTS publication.

  Strategy One: A new format

  Strategy Two: "Relax. We?re Christian just like you"

  Strategy Three: "We know something you don?t

  "

  Strategy Four: "There are true Christians and there are False Christians"

  Strategy Five: "Questions for Meditation"

  The subtle way the WTS puts a spin on everything to gently guide you to their way of thinking is so apparent to me now that I'm out but I must say when I was "in" I couldn't see the forest for the trees. It still amazes me and I dare say it's brainwashing at it's best.

  This is a review of just the first few chapters. I will review the rest of the book where time allows. The book does continue to exert more influence upon the reader until they feel that simple faith in God and love for others isn?t enough and they must be part of the Watchtower organisation. Towards the end of the book it is suggested that preaching the "good news" is also what Jehovah requires, aswell as attending meetings to "worship Jehovah". Hence the Watchtower introduces the idea that if you don't follow the Watchtower you are not following Jehovah.

  Jehovah = Watchtower.

  Thanks Sirona for your review, can't wait to see the rest of it.
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  Leolaia

  Sirona....That was brilliant. Here's another point: That "To the Reader" letter that opens the book is an act of intimacy on the part of the Watchtower Society with the reader. The reader is encouraged to respond with intimacy with Jehovah.
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  euripides

  Sirona, your analysis is excellent. The entire presupposition behind a book entitled "Draw Close to Jehovah" is that either a) the author(s) know the answer because they have indeed done such already, or b) by "Jehovah" is meant "Watchtower." You already figured out that the institutionalized working for the writing committee and the FDS have no clue what drawing closer to God really means or entails, so then it must be choice b). I suspect that the book is written using a different structure because it is an empty discussion otherwise, in that the theology of the WT is elitist and exclusive, rather than accessible and inclusive, the very essences of what a universal understanding of God engenders. Having nothing left to write about God, Watchtower's primacy is all that's left.
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  AK - Jeff

  Good review Sirona - Thanx

  This comment in an old Watchtower sums up what they want people to put their faith in:

  *** Watchtower 1964 May 1 p.277-8 Building a Firm Foundation in Christ ***

  8 God's Word is the basis of our faith. As we pore over its pages our mind is communing with God's. Our faith is established and strengthened. We are "always ready to make a defense" by offering "a reason for the hope" that we hold, and we are thereby equipped to teach others the way of life. (1 Pet. 3:15; 2 Tim. 2:2) Why, though, is such emphasis placed on "accurate" knowledge? Why should such care be exercised in our study of the columns of The Watchtower, and of our application of the Scripture texts to the material under consideration? It is through the columns of The Watchtower that Jehovah provides direction and constant Scriptural counsel to his people, and it requires careful study and attention to details in order to apply this information, to get a full understanding of the principles involved, and to assure ourselves of right thinking on these matters.

  Did anyone ever notice that much more print and type is devoted to teaching us to have faith in the Watchtower than to have faith in God and Christ - the headlines are always misleading -as above. Not much has changed in the past 40 years huh?

  Jeff
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  wizedup

  Did anyone ever notice that much more print and type is devoted to teaching us to have faith in the Watchtower

  Shouldn't that read....................................print and hype?
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  rocketman

  Nicely summarized and analyzed Sirona.
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  garybuss

  Good thread, Thanks!
  
  The sweet thing about encouraging meeting attendance is it's at meetings that the Witness people are a captive audience to the Watch Tower Publishing Corporation to promote it's goals. It's at meetings that public distribution of Corporation produced literature is taught and literature is distributed to members for a donation, and literature is a profit item.
  
  It's at meetings that donations are received in provided boxes and donation boxes are a profit item. It's at meetings that conventions are promoted and arranged and conventions are a profit item. It's at meetings that workers are recruited to work at Bethel, and Bethel is a very nice profit item.
  
  It's at meetings that building campaigns are organized to build buildings and construction is a profit item. The meetings are the starting point, not the end. GaryB
  
  
  
  
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  snbdye2000

  This is wonderful, and I'll print out the stuff you write. I noticed my husband has this book now, just started reading it. He's not a JW, but is meeting with one on his lunch breaks and got it from him. Maybe the stuff you write will help me show him that they're not just innocent little books to help him understand the Bible.
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  jgnat

  They are up to page 199 now, and the warm, fuzzy paragraphs about Jehovah's nature are morphing in to specific Watchtower agenda. The "Sacred Secret" and the "New Covenant" is revealed on pages 195 to 198. Three guesses what magic number is introduced. I notice there are a lot of scripture fragments. What are they leaving out?

  Para 15 About Jesus' appearance as fulfillment of prophecy, they quote Luke 1:31, 32, 35. (What does it say in 33 and 34?)

  Para 17 Satan's followers will be crushed Revelation 20:1-3, 10, 15. (What does it say in 4-9, 11-14? In proportion, how often did Jesus talk about the Kingdom of Heaven and how Christians are to live? Why the emphasis on destruction? Is not Jesus the author of life, not death?)

  Para 19 the anointed "experience 'a new birth to a living hope...reserved in the heavens' "(1 Peter 3, 4 What is missing in the dots?)

  1Pe 1:3-5 (Darby)

  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead, to an incorruptible and undefiled and unfading inheritance, reserved in the heavens for you, who are kept guarded by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

  I SEE why they didn't quote the whole thing. All these references to "us" and "you" might fool the reader in to thinking that this promise is for them as well.