Posts by Doug Mason

213

Ask Fred E Hathaway, a.k.a. Q. Bert

by Fred E Hathaway in

for those who feel that i've hijacked your thread(s), i'm still relatively new here, so your forgiveness (based on this acknowledgement and apology) is appreciated.

i'm posting this link, http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/131766/2343640/post.ashx#2343640, on the other threads as soon as i can.

bear with me as i attend to the necessary housework involved.. fred/q..

Doug Mason

Hi Fred!

Search ("Google") the www for the words of the song: "Your Grace Still Amazes Me".

Doug

3

Earthquake strikes the Solomon Islands!

by Doug Mason in

a massive earthquake struck the solomon islands in the western pacific in the morning of monday april 2 2007. this was followed by about thirty aftershocks during the day, some quite strong.

news reports to date do not indicate that the local residents realize that this is giving them the good news that gods kingdom is now ruling from the heavens.

perhaps the islanders are not sure if jesus was talking about quakes measuring 8.2. perhaps jesus said it had to be stronger.

A massive earthquake struck the Solomon Islands in the Western Pacific in the morning of Monday April 2 2007. This was followed by about thirty aftershocks during the day, some quite strong.

News reports to date do not indicate that the local residents realize that this is giving them the Good News that God’s Kingdom is now ruling from the Heavens.

Perhaps the Islanders are not sure if Jesus was talking about quakes measuring 8.2. Perhaps Jesus said it had to be stronger.

They probably do not know how many people have to die before the event comes under the ambit of Jesus’ answer at Matthew 24. Since only 22 were killed by the collapse of houses, it might not qualify on that account.

Some thirteen villages (communities) were wiped away by a 15 foot tsunami, but this might not count since Jesus did not mention these waves. So the number of deaths caused by the massive wave might not be part of the message God is giving about his God’s Kingdom.

At the moment, rescue services only deliver food, shelter and medical services. They should first have sent Bible scholars to give the victims the good news that God was sending with the earthquake.

There is no mention on the news services of Witnesses rushing in to tell the people the good news that the death and destruction brings. The victims should be told to praise God because their loss, deep sadness, and misery shows his Kingdom is now here.

The Witnesses could tell the people hiding in the high country that Jesus said that with the Presence of the Kingdom there would be many strong earthquakes, with many deaths. They could tell these people that Jesus said there would be huge wars, long wars, with many casualties. Maybe the Witnesses are not going there because they know it is not true.

Doug

213

Ask Fred E Hathaway, a.k.a. Q. Bert

by Fred E Hathaway in

for those who feel that i've hijacked your thread(s), i'm still relatively new here, so your forgiveness (based on this acknowledgement and apology) is appreciated.

i'm posting this link, http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/131766/2343640/post.ashx#2343640, on the other threads as soon as i can.

bear with me as i attend to the necessary housework involved.. fred/q..

Doug Mason

Fred Hathaway,

Some people have, in response to your Post, provided several key issues that any Witness or prospective Witness must address.

I believe there are two fundamental issues that underlie these key issues.

Firstly, is the mental stranglehold exerted by the GB. Through several means, the GB ensures that a Witness is not able to express their own thoughts. A Theocracy is, after all, a government exerted by priests, a dictatorship.

Secondly, is the immoral and unethical manner in which the GB presents its views.

During my first serious encounter with Witnesses at my front door in 1964, I discovered their basic error with the neo-Babylonian chronology. I was delighted, since their authority, their very reason for being, relied on information that could be proven to be false outside of any subjective interpretation, such as of passages in Scripture.

Not only were the Witnesses being given false information, but their books provided them with partial quotations, misquotations, misrepresentations, misinformation, and so on.

So, armed with original material obtained from the library, I showed the Witnesses where the organization was being less than honest with them. But I was absolutely staggered when they looked me in the face without being affected in any way.

After much thinking, I came to realize that Witnesses believe anything the GB told them because of who it claims to be, regardless of what it is saying. (How the GB could argue about other churches teaching error was beyond me.)

I saw the impact of 1975, where Witnesses sold their homes, gave the money to the organization and went far and wide to declare the “final” message. Shortly afterwards, I saw hundreds in Melbourne leave the organization.

Later, when I undertook a point-by-point analysis of the statements made in the booklet “Jehovah’s Witnesses Answer Questions on Blood”, I discovered that it provided false and misleading information, deliberately misrepresented authorities and facts, and misrepresented quotations. This should make anyone very angry, that the GB was prepared to put people’s lives at peril by deliberately providing information that is less than honest.

One can reason about Chronology, Blood, and so on, but in the end one must come face to face with the manner in which the GB behaves, and how Witnesses are deceived by them.

No wonder the GB is fearful of “independent thinking”!

Fred, be convinced in your own mind. No two people will ever agree on every point (we are not clones), but we should respect one another when we live according to our own genuinely held convictions. When we do this, we should respect one another on that account, using our differences to hone our own thoughts and to trim the fact from our beliefs.

Doug

6

Help needed with a drawing

by Doug Mason in

for the past few weeks, i have been developing a picture i have called "authority model".

i would appreciate any constructive comments and criticisms that will help me produce a picture that is both accurate and meaningful.

it can be viewed at .

Doug Mason

Paralipomenon,

Thank you for your observations, which I appreciate. This is exactly what I need. It is difficult for me to be objective since I have been so involved inventing the picture. I will try hard to resolve the issues you raise.

Not only am I not an artist, but I am red-green color blind, so I often get color combinations "wrong".

I would also appreciate any technical corrections. I have gone through mental gymnastics before getting to this stage. Looks like I need to go through a few more.

Thanks,

Doug

3

One Parable, Two Appearances

by Doug Mason in

block 1 of teaching material.

block 2 of teaching material.

block 3 of teaching material.

Doug Mason

Jeshurun,

Maybe I should have put quotation marks around "final generation" since I was thinking of the WTS's idea that we are in the last of the last days.

I am no eschatologist and am focused on witnessing to the free gift of salvation offered by God to any who asks.

Prophetic speculation, especially one that includes the application of contemporary history, is to me quite wrong, and history has shown this, over and over.

I employ the WTS's prophetic speculation to destroy its claimed authority and I employ its history of its speculation to show that it is less than honest.

The Disciples and Paul taught that they were living in the "Last Days". The only rapture I know of is that joy in heaven when just a single sinner repents.

Doug

4

Agape

by Doug Mason in

i another post, i offered to provide some helpful words on agape from william barclay.

i thought it best to provide his words as a separate post, since they are so helpful and i did not want them to get lost somewhere in the middle of another post.

the following are from william barclay: .

Doug Mason

I am not here to defend the way in which Barclay applied his Christianity. Remember that he was a product of his time, in which Christians were very insular. I hope that today we have a much broader view of God. This does not diminish the worth of his contributions, such as in word studies and in Biblical commentaries.

God is the great Judge and is quite capable of offering salvation to Jews (my ancestry), Christians (my upbringing), Arabs, Muslims, and so on.

It is my understanding (as per Brash Bonsall) that when man is said to be "in the image of God" it means God and Man are both persons, thus having Thought, Feeling, Will and Conscience. (It is on those criteria that Trinitarians determine the "holy spirit" is a Person.)

It seems to me that if Agape were a natural attribute of human nature, there would have been no need for Jesus' greatest teachings about love to God and love to man.

I am glad there is still much room to think, ponder and grow.

Doug

3

One Parable, Two Appearances

by Doug Mason in

block 1 of teaching material.

block 2 of teaching material.

block 3 of teaching material.

Doug Mason

In a previous post, I asked for reasons why the Parable of the "Faithful and Dsicreet Slave" appears in different contexts in Matthew and Luke, with totally different audiences. The following are some thoughts I would like to share. Nothing I write is set in concrete and I am keen to learn more.

One Parable, two locations.

The Parable of the “FDS” is located in very different contexts by Matthew and Luke. And it does not even appear in Mark.

Matthew provides the Parable as part of the Olivet Discourse, where there was an audience of just four disciples. Although Luke also provides the Olivet Discourse, he places the Parable in a different context, where there is a crowd of thousands.

In Matthew, the question raised referred to the Parousia and the “end of the ages”. In Luke, the Parable is presented as the answer to the question: “are you saying these things to us Disciples or to everyone who is here?”

In Matthew, Jesus says the Parable teaches that when the Master comes, “he will put [the faithful servant] in charge of all his possessions” (Matt 24:47, NIV). If however that servant is not faithful, the returning master will “cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (verse 51, NIV).

When Luke wrote the Parable for his Hellenistic readership, he has Jesus confirming the explanation of the Parable this way: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12: 48, NIV).

The FDS Parable is not innately eschatological. The requirement for the believer to deliver in accordance with the degree of God’s investment remains true at all times for every believer, not just to the members of the final generation.

Mark’s Gospel was written first, followed by Matthew and then Luke. They were not written to provide a linear narrative of Jesus’ life and ministry, nor were they were eyewitness accounts.

Mark appears to have structured his Gospel to be read in accordance with some of the Jewish festivals. Matthew structured his Gospel so that a teaching could be read at each Jewish festival throughout the full liturgical year:

Block 1 of teaching material. Sermon on the Mount. (Chapters 5 to 7. Concludes with “when Jesus had finished”.)

Block 2 of teaching material. Instructions to the Twelve. (10:5 – 11:1. Concludes with: “when Jesus had finished”.)

Block 3 of teaching material. Common theme of harvest. (13:1 – 53. Concludes with: “when Jesus had finished”.)

Block 4 of teaching material. Preparing the disciples. (18:1 – 19:1. Concludes with: “when Jesus had finished”.)

Block 5 of teaching material. Apocalypse (chapters 24 and 25. Concludes with: “when Jesus had finished”.)

These are the only times Matthew wrote “when Jesus had finished”.

Goulder suggests these teaching blocks relate to the five great celebratory festivals in the Jewish liturgical year: Pentecost, New Year, Tabernacles, Dedication and Passover. He argues that the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke were designed to be a series of Christian “lections” (or gospels) designed to be read in public worship week by week.

Since Mark’s Gospel catered for only part of the Jewish liturgical year, Matthew expanded that work to encompass the whole year. (It was Matthew who introduced the Parable of the “FDS”.)

Luke’s Gospel is structured differently from Matthew’s. (Recall that the “synoptic” Gospels are not literal narratives, but each is structured according to the writer’s purpose.)

Spong suggests:
“The Gospel of Luke was written to illumine the Torah with occasional references to the prophets and the psalms, with a bow to the liturgical year of the Jews and with an attempt to harmonize the texts of Mark and Matthew. But above all, it was to illumine the Torah, to show Jesus as the fulfillment of all that Moses wrote. This was the work of a convert to Judaism. He did his work well, so well indeed that only eyes trained to see things from a Jewish perspective will be able to see the meaning of the gospel that bears the name of Luke.” (Liberating the Gospels, pages 164 – 165).

So, Matthew's and Luke's objectives were quite different. One aligned to the Jewish liturgical year, the other aligned to the Torah. They had different purposes in mind, so Luke took Matthew's Parable and placed it where it best suited his needs and those of a Hellenized audience, rather than a Jewish one.

Doug

4

Agape

by Doug Mason in

i another post, i offered to provide some helpful words on agape from william barclay.

i thought it best to provide his words as a separate post, since they are so helpful and i did not want them to get lost somewhere in the middle of another post.

the following are from william barclay: .

Doug Mason

I another post, I offered to provide some helpful words on Agape from William Barclay. I thought it best to provide his words as a separate post, since they are so helpful and I did not want them to get lost somewhere in the middle of another post. The following are from William Barclay:

AGAPE AND AGAPAN: THE GREATEST OF THE VIRTUES
In English we have only one word to express all kinds of love; Greek has no fewer than four. …

1. The noun eros and the verb eran are mainly used for love between the sexes. They can be used for such things as the passion of ambition and the intensity of patriotism; but characteristically they are the words for physical love. Gregory Nazianzen defined eros as 'the hot and unendurable desire'. …

2. The noun storge and the verb stergein have specially to do with family affection. They can be used for the love of a people for their ruler, or for the love of a nation or household for their tutelary god; but their regular use is to describe the love of parents for children and children for parents. …

3. The commonest words for love in Greek are the noun philia and the verb philein. There is a lovely warmth about these words. They mean to look on someone with affectionate regard. They can be used for the love of friendship and for the love of husband and of wife. Philein is best translated to cherish: it includes physical love, but it includes much else beside. It can sometimes even mean to kiss. These words have in them all the warmth of real affection and real love. …

4. By far the commonest NT words for love are the noun agape and the verb agapan. …

We must ask why Christian language abandoned the other Greek words for love and concentrated on agape and philein. It is true to say that all the other words had acquired certain flavours which made them unsuitable.

Eros had quite definite associations with the lower side of love; it had much more to do with passion than with love. Storge was very definitely tied up with family affection; it never had in it the width that the conception of Christian love demands.

Philia was a lovely word, but it was definitely a word of warmth and closeness and affection; it could only properly be used of the near and the dear, and Christianity needed a much more inclusive word than that. Christian thought fastened on this word agape because it was the only word capable of being filled with the content which was required.

The great reason why Christian thought fastened on agape is that agape demands the exercise of the whole man. Christian love must not only extend to our nearest and our dearest, our kith and kin, our friends and those who love us; Christian love must extend to the Christian fellowship, to the neighbour, to the enemy, to all the world. …

We speak about falling in love. That kind of love is not an achievement; it is something which happens to us and which we cannot help. There is no particular virtue in falling in love. It is something with which we have little or nothing consciously to do; it simply happens. But agape is far more than that.

Agape has to do with the mind: it is not simply an emotion which rises unbidden in our hearts; it is a principle by which we deliberately live. Agape has supremely to do with the will. It is a conquest, a victory, and achievement. No one ever naturally loved his enemies. To love one's enemies is a conquest of all our natural inclinations and emotions.

This agape, this Christian love, is not merely an emotional experience which comes to us unbidden and unsought; it is a deliberate principle of the mind, and a deliberate conquest and achievement of the will. It is in fact the power to love the unlovable, to love people whom we do not like. Christianity does not ask us to love our enemies and to love men at large in the same way as we love our nearest and our dearest and those who are closest to us; that would be at one and the same time impossible and wrong. But it does demand that we should have at all times a certain attitude of the mind and a certain direction of the will towards all men, no matter who they are.

What then is the meaning of this agape? The supreme passage for the interpretation of the meaning of agape is Matt. 5.43-48. We are there bidden to love our enemies. Why? In order that we should be like God. And what is the typical action of God that is cited? God sends his rain on the just and the unjust and on the evil and the good. That is to say - no matter what a man is like, God seeks nothing but his highest good.

Let a man be a saint or let a man be a sinner, God's only desire is for that man's highest good. Now, that is what agape is. Agape is the spirit which says: ‘No matter what any man does to me, I will never seek to do harm to him; I will never set out for revenge; I will always seek nothing but his highest good.' That is to say, Christian love, agape, is unconquerable benevolence, invincible good will. It is not simply a wave of emotion; it is a deliberate conviction of the mind issuing in a deliberate policy of the life; it is a deliberate achievement and conquest and victory of the will. It takes all of a man to achieve Christian love; it takes not only his heart: it takes his mind and his will as well.

If that is so, two things are to be noted.

(i) Human agape, our love towards our fellow men, is bound to be a product of the Spirit. The NT is quite clear about that (Gal. 5.22; Rom. 15.30; Col. 1.8). Christian agape is unnatural in the sense that it is not possible for the natural man. …

Christian agape is impossible for anyone except a Christian man. No man can perform the Christian ethic until he becomes a Christian. He may see quite clearly the desirability of the Christian ethic; he may see that it is the solution to the world's problems; mentally he may accept it; practically he cannot live it, until Christ lives in him.

(ii) When we understand what agape means, it amply meets the objection that a society based in this love would be a paradise for criminals, and that it means simply letting the evil-doer have his own way. If we seek nothing but a man's highest good, we may well have to resist a man; we may well have to punish him; we may well have to do the hardest things to him - for the good of his soul.

But the fact remains that whatever we do to that man will never be purely vindictive; it will never even be merely retributory; it will always be done in that forgiving love which seeks, not the man’s punishment, and still less the man’s annihilation, but always his highest good.

(“New Testament Words” by William Barclay, pages 17 - 23. SCM Press Ltd, 1964)

8

Does Ray Franz teach/believe in the Trinity doctrine???

by beavis in

i have heard recently that raymond franz teaches or believes in the trinity doctrine?

is this a true statement?

from all of the research i have done, i have found this to be untrue?

Doug Mason

Nowhere in the Bible do I read that God saves on the basis of doctrinal purity. He does not ask me to sit for a test on topics such as “The Nature of God” or “Eschatology”, for salvation is a GIFT based solely on the finished work of God through Jesus Christ.

Since we possess a human nature, it is impossible for us to fully comprehend what it means to possess the infinity of the divine nature, whether we are a Trinitarian or not. So one’s theological confession, regardless of what it is, contains some flaws.

Has the GB authorized a systematic theology that defines the attributes of the Divine Nature? That is, do they have a list showing the essential qualities of Deity?

Similarly, has the GB provided a listing that defines Jesus’ essential attributes prior to his birth through Mary, during the earthly ministry, and then following his ascension?

When the GB provides clear, detailed lists they are in a position where they may hurl barbs at those holding opposing views. Until they do this, I believe their taunts are nothing more than a diversionary tactic designed to hide their lack of definition.

In 1894, CTR wrote:
“The distinctions of nature – that our Lord left a higher nature, and took a lower nature, when he was made flesh. … As a reward for that great work, he was given the divine nature in his resurrection – a nature still higher than the glorious one he had left, when he became a man. … The distinctions between the perfect human nature to which the obedient of the world will be restored during the Millennium, and the divine nature to which the little flock, the sacrificing elect of the Gospel age, are soon to be exalted.” (Extra Edition of Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence”, April 25, 1894, Pages 113, 115, “Harvest Siftings”)

By calling the 144,000 the “brothers of Christ”, do the GB mean that the 144,000 share the same divine nature that Jesus Christ possesses? If so, what happens to their present human nature?

Doug

37

What is love?

by onacruse in

"love my enemies.".

"love those who love me.".

"love my family.".

Doug Mason

I do not know if the book is still available, but William Barclay provides a most comprehensive discussion of Agape and Agapan in "New Testament Words", pages 17 to 30. My copy is copyright SCM Press, 1964. He includes discussions on eros, storge, and philia.

I will try to get time to provide some quotes from the book.

Barclay says "Agape has to do with the mind: it is not simply an emotion which rises unbidden in our hearts; it is a principle by which we deliberately live. Agape has to do with the will. It is a conquest, a victory, and achievemnt. No one naturally loved his enemies. To love one's enemies is a conquest of all our natural inclinations and emotions" (page 21)

Doug