As many of you posters know by now that my mom has been a devout JW for 40 years and just cannot accept the fact that I am no longer a JW and feel that I am being deceived by apostates and will be destroyed at Armaggeddon. Well the other day we had another knock down debate about "false prophecies" and the WTS. My mom insist that the WTS are not false prophets but merely had many "wrong expectations" the same as other bible writers and disciples of Christ. Her new agrument is that a person can be under Jehovah's holy spirit and still make an "error in understanding" as the WTS has done on many occasions. She brought up the example of Nathan the Prophet who was a prophet of Jehovah and he gave David some wrong information regarding the building of the temple. Jehovah told Nathan he was wrong that he did not want David to build the temple and Nathan corrected the error when Jehovah brought it to his attention. My mom argues that a prophet of God can still make errors even though they are inspired by Jehovah and that Jehovah did not reject Nathan but continued to use him even though he gave erroneous info to David. She is comparing the WTS many errors to Nathan the Prophet. I must admit my mom caught me off guard with this one and had me at a lost for words. She also argued that Peter gave erroneous info concerning someone that was going to die in John 20:20-21. She said that Peter misunderstood Jesus' words and jumped to the wrong conclusion and thought that the Apostle John was going to die. Peter went around telling the other disciples that John was going to die because Jesus said it. My mom's point here was that Peter must have said "thus saith the lord" in his error and would have been classified as a "false prophet" according to Deut 18:20-22. My mom argued that Jehovah and Jesus still used Peter even though he gave a false prediction. Another argument my mom brought up was that Agabus a Christian prophet in Paul's day predicted a worldwide famine that was to hit the whole inhabitide earth(Acts 11:27,28) My mom argued that there has never been a worldwide famine in all of history after Agabus made this prediction ( around 40 C.E) so again she feels that a prophet of Jehovah made an error in his predictions and understandings. She argued that Paul gave the impression that Jesus' second coming was to appear in Paul's generation by the way Paul wrote to the Thesselonians. And of course my mom brought up the JW's favorite text at Jonah 4 and argued that Jonah said 40 days not maybe in 40 days or Jehovah will change his mind if the people repent but that Jonah said "in 40 days". My mom feels that born-agains change things when it proves them wrong and born-agains will have to condemn Peter, Paul, Agabus, Jonah and Nathan all as false prophets if they want to condemn JW's as false prophets. I left my mom's house in a total daze. I need help posters out there for our next encounter next week. I truly believe if my mom was a man she would be a JW elder she is very sharp when it comes to the bible and she loves history.
Is there a difference between a "wrong expectation" and a "false prophecy"?
by booker-t 31 Replies latest jw friends
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Narkissos
Interesting.
Leaving aside the details (John 21 implies a misunderstanding among "the disciples", not Peter, that the "beloved disciple" would not die; Acts holds that Agabus' prophecy was fulfilled under Claudius...), my answer would have been very simple:
Errare humanum est? All right, I'm all for it. Why then doesn't the WT apply the same standards to the "errors" it ascribes to other churches? "For with the judgment you make you will be judged." (Matthew 7:2.)
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bebu
One bit of information concerning the example of Acts 11:28. The word used for "inhabited world" has also a limited meaning, as shown below. The end of this verse acknowledges, "This happened during the reign of Claudius;" so the prophecy was understood back then to have meant the Roman world, not the broader meaning of all the inhabited earth as your mother thinks.
http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=3625&version=kjv
Strong's Number: 3625 Browse Lexicon
DefinitionOriginal Word Word Origin oijkoumevnh feminine participle present passive of (3611) (as noun, by implication of (1093)) Transliterated Word TDNT Entry Oikoumene 5:157,674 Phonetic Spelling Parts of Speech oy-kou-men'-ay Noun Feminine - the inhabited earth
- the portion of the earth inhabited by the Greeks, in distinction from the lands of the barbarians
- the Roman empire, all the subjects of the empire
- the whole inhabited earth, the world
- the inhabitants of the earth, men
- the universe, the world
bebu - the inhabited earth
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Narkissos
Acts 11:28 is most probably a reminiscence of Josephus' Antiquities 20, which is actually limited to Judea and refers to the years 46-48 (under Claudius):
But as to Helena, the king's mother, when she saw that the affairs of Izates's kingdom were in peace, and that her son was a happy man, and admired among all men, and even among foreigners, by the means of God's providence over him, she had a mind to go to the city of Jerusalem, in order to worship at that temple of God which was so very famous among all men, and to offer her thank-offerings there. So she desired her son to give her leave to go thither; upon which he gave his consent to what she desired very willingly, and made great preparations for her dismission, and gave her a great deal of money, and she went down to the city Jerusalem, her son conducting her on her journey a great way. Now her coming was of very great advantage to the people of Jerusalem; for whereas a famine did oppress them at that time, and many people died for want of what was necessary to procure food withal, queen Helena sent some of her servants to Alexandria with money to buy a great quantity of corn, and others of them to Cyprus, to bring a cargo of dried figs. And as soon as they were come back, and had brought those provisions, which was done very quickly, she distributed food to those that were in want of it, and left a most excellent memorial behind her of this benefaction, which she bestowed on our whole nation. And when her son Izates was informed of this famine, he sent great sums of money to the principal men in Jerusalem. However, what favors this queen and king conferred upon our city Jerusalem shall be further related hereafter.
Then came Tiberius Alexander as successor to Fadus; he was the son of Alexander the alabarch of Alexandria, which Alexander was a principal person among all his contemporaries, both for his family and wealth: he was also more eminent for his piety than this his son Alexander, for he did not continue in the religion of his country. Under these procurators that great famine happened in Judea, in which queen Helena bought corn in Egypt at a great expense, and distributed it to those that were in want, as I have related already.
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FairMind
Your mother is right; there is a difference between false prophecies and wrong expectations. However, this argument is another example of inserting a red herring. False Prophecies are ?false predictions? and the WTS is definitely guilty of this.
FM
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Euphemism
When you insist that all your followers accept your 'expectation', on pain of disfellowshipping, you can bet it's a 'prophecy'.
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amazin
Hi Booker-t! First let me define expectation and prophecy for you: expectation-something expected to happen; to look forward to something happening; to suppose or to think that something will happen; to anticipate something happening. Doesn't mean it has to happen, it's like 'I was expecting it to snow, but it didn't', that's a wrong expectation. Prophecy-"Thus saith the Lord"; the devinely inspired Word of God; the inspired declaration of divine will and purpose; an inspired utterance of a prophet. BIG DIFFERENCE!!!!!!!! I'll go ahead and define 'Prophet' while I'm at it: one who proclaims God's message or tells a message he has received from God; a prophet announces a message at the direction of the Lord God; God's commissioned spokesman. The Bible says in Matt. 7:15 Jesus is speaking "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves." Rev. 16:13,14 says "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty". We all know who's going to win that battle, matter of fact it's already won, Thank you Jesus for dying on the Cross for the salvation of our sins. Charles T. Russell and Judge Rutherford were false prophets and left behind a whole bunch of others. They prophecied the end of the world, Armaggedon when the Bible clearly says in Matt. 24:34-36 "Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only." The Bible is the devinely inspired Word of God for 2,000 years it has been and these two come along and blaspheme it, and twist the spriptures to just what they want you to believe. No one even recognizes the NWT as a bible but the JW's, don't you think that strange. Don't you think it strange that so many are entrapped by the society or the governing body. News flash, God is in control, not the governing body and no matter how brain-washed you are, you are going to be held accountable at the second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ because you didn't trust Him and have faith in His Word. Tell you mom not to be looking down on "born-agains" and to get her a real Bible which was here first and is the truth and compare it with the NWT (come up with in the 18th century) and see the error in the NWT. You teach that there is no hell when the Bible clearly states that there is, now that's a false expectation and a lie. Question: How is it that you can't fellowship with churches and pray with a Christian, but you can marry outside your beliefs and go to bed with your husband/wife who's a say Baptist and have sex and produce children? Wouldn't you say that that is an ultimate fellowship? Hypocrites!!
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Undecided
Those cases just show that the bible's stories are just stories. If there is a God and he gives spirit direction, what good does it do if you are still wrong? You could make up your own predictions and be just as well off. If a spirit directed bunch of men can be continually wrong, why not just follow your own inclinations and let God direct you?
Ken P.
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amazin
Hi, here are the definitions of 'expectation' and 'prophecy': Expectation-something EXPECTED to happen; to look forward to someting happening, to suppose or to think something will happen. It's like 'I was expecting it to snow, but it didn't', that's wrong expectation. Prophecy-is "Thus saith the Lord"; the inspired Word of God; the inspired declaration of God's devine will and purpose; an inspired utterance of a prophet. Always true, God cannot lie. Prophet-one who utters divinely inspired revelations from God; a spokesman for God. BIG DIFFERENCE, WRONG EXPECTATIONS ARE NOT THE SAME AS FALSE PROPHECY!!!
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TD
My wife and I had basically the same discussion this weekend.
"Wrong expectations" are not "False Prophecies" in and of themselves.
A "Wrong expectation" is just that. An expectation that was wrong. --Entirely forgivable. As you mother has shown, it even happens to the the best.
However a "Wrong expectation" becomes a "False prophecy" at the point where you start running around like an idiot teaching this expectation under the authority of God's name and claiming that it was the product of God's spirit direction.