jw meaning please

A Paduan

What do the wtbts / jws think this means ?

"When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest; and finding none he says, `I will return to my house from which I came.'

Midget-Sasquatch

***

w52 3/15 p. 191 Questions from Readers ***

?

What do Jesus? words at Matthew 12:43-45 mean??R. D., California.

A man who has been possessed with a demon and gets rid of it has a vacuum left. This vacuum or emptiness left by the evacuation of the demon is to be filled with the Lord?s spirit, with a faith backed up by works in harmony with God?s Word. Then when the demon returns he would not find the person, likened unto the demon?s house, "unoccupied but swept clean and adorned." Instead, he would find the place he had vacated filled with a stronger spirit, Jehovah?s active force, and the demon spirit would not be able to reoccupy this person. Apparently in the case Jesus was discussing the person freed of a demon left the vacuum unfilled, not taking up Jehovah?s service and making room for Jehovah?s spirit in his life, but merely cleaning himself up and adorning himself in a visible show of piety. Such a person will not be able to prevent the return of the demon spirit, and in his relapse his plight worsens, more demon spirits than before occupying him.

czarofmischief

They pulled this scripture out during my JC's when I was reproved -that if I didn't repent and fill my life with good works my unclean habits would return and become worse than ever.

I know for a fact that while the scripture might be true, the filling of your life with JW "Good works" doesn't do diddly against the awe-inspiring Booty Demons. I mean, the more tired from a day of service I was, the MORE likely I was to get sloshed and go chasing young women around.

CZAR

lawrence

Czar-

Doesn't sound like field service agreed with you? Banging too many doors made you wild. Think about some of those folks behind the doors, and the houses we went into. Especially the housing projects in the States and the hood.

czarofmischief

Think about some of those folks behind the doors, and the houses we went into. Especially the housing projects in the States and the hood.

You ain't kidding. I guess I saw both extremes. We did plenty of inner city. I went to a book study in a poor black neighborhood - took about half an hour to get there. And right after Rodney King, one of the other white brothers had a bunch of angry black men surround his car and rock it back and forth. He escaped unharmed, but he refused to go into that neighborhood again! It was a shame, because after that I had to do all the reading. I think I was about nine or ten...

The other extreme: I went "farm to farm" in rural PA - talk about dirt roads, compounds, and rebel flags every damn place? God help you if they thought you were the revenoo... Old steel towns have a lot of rebel colors, too.

CZAR

euripides

The issue is one of literal spirit possession, which in the context of the words of Jesus as exorcist make complete sense. In the context of Jesus as moral guide they seem less clear, or rather the analogy becomes stretched, when you become aware that JWs interpret it to mean that a person is in a vacuum-like state if they have not filled their bodies with the "soul" of pure worship, i.e. the body is a temple. The reason this does not make sense from a JW perspective is that it seems to acknowledge possession while rejecting (in other dogma) the notion of soul/body dichotomy. Yet, the problem of God's breath (ru'ach) persists, and this apparently goes into and out of people freely when they're alternately alive or dead, while yet an individualized soul does not exist. But think about this...if everyone is endowed with God's ru'ach while living, it isn't God's ru'ach which is being corrupted/overtaken by the unclean spirit, is it? If not that, then what?

In Jewish thinking of the first century, unclean spirits are apparently vying with their clean counterparts like battling swarms of locusts to inhabit people's bodies, and if you're corrupt on the inside (cf. Jesus' analogy of the Pharisees to white-washed graves) then it's as if you have a "For Rent" sign on your body for the demons! Unclean spirits were likely used to explain common tragic human woes, like mental illness, etc. Clearly, the depressed were not memorizing enough Scriptures!

A Paduan

I knew that I would never agree with jw interpretation, even before knowing it - I read it as an elaboration of "he who does not gather with me scatters" and not "he who does not gather, scatters" but specifically "he who does not gather with me, scatters"

Being those who go out to gather, but not with Him and not among those who have drank spiritually - it isn't easy to plant in a dry place - and finding this, they can only rest in the percieved comfort of their own efforts at 'tidiness' (ie. the 'almost perfect' self); then the spirits who come and live in that 'house' make the last state worse than the first.

Anyone seen it before ?

el jarocho mayor

jw=just wacky

jw meaning please

Share this