Evacuated

Your assertions seem to lack logical and scriptural substance.

5 hours ago, Cos said:

Remember Jesus called the Kingdom of God “my Kingdom” and tells His contemporaries to put their faith in Him, and to Him they should offer their love. Bold words from someone you say is a creature

Why would the boldness of these words have significance? And what connection does this have with nature of the one uttering such words?

David, a creature, who ruled in Jehovah's name and sat on Jehovah's throne referred to that Messianic kingdom as "my kingdom". (2Sam.3:28)

The Israelites put faith in Jehovah and in Moses, a creature, (Ex14:31) and this at the encouragement of Jehovah himself! (Ex.19:9)

Jehosaphat, a creature, encouraged the inhabitants of Jerusalem to put faith Jehovah's prophets , other creatures. (2Chr.20:20).

Peter, a creature, encouraged fellow Christians to have love for the whole association of brothers (creatures) which included himself. (1Pet.2:17)

And of course, the Lord Jesus made it clear that love for fellow Christians, creatures, which he exemplified, would identify his true followers. (John 13:34-35).

13 hours ago, Cos said:

But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins

Matt 28:18: "All authority has been given me in heaven and on the earth....

John 5:22: "For the Father judges no one at all, but he has entrusted all the judging to the Son,..."

Hi Cos. See you are still battling on. These scriptures don't really need exposition do they?

By the way, I see you are referenced as female on the forum somewhere. Is that a fact or a misunderstanding? 

On 04/04/2018 at 11:08 PM, tromboneck said:

Why is that?

Definition of class:

a set or category of things having some property or attribute in common and differentiated from others by kind, type, or quality.

I won't over elaborating on the historical background to this avoid repeating other posts. 

Jesus illustration at Matthew 24:45, “Who really is the faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time?" speaks of a"faithful and discreet slave" taking care of the feeding of his masters household ("domestics").

For a considerable time this was felt to apply to all anointed Christians with the hope of going to heaven to rule with Christ. The Bible of course speaks of another group of Christians, coexisting, yet having a hope of living on a cleansed paradise earth, referred to as "other sheep" at John 10:16.

In differentiating between these two groups of humans, united in worship but differing in destiny, the term class was attached to both designations for the purpose of clarity in discussing differing aspects. It would have been just as easy to use the word "group" or "type", both synonyms for the word "class". Perhaps "class" was felt to be a more suitable word? Just a style choice that stuck?

However there was always an uncomfortable aspect to the notion of the "faithful and discreet slave" being the anointed,  and the "domestics", who they feed, being the anointed as well. An odd picture with a confusion of roles always lurking in the background, people serving and eating at the same time, a "too many cooks" scenario in a way. 

Anyway, it was all cleared up nicely in the Watchtower 15 July 2013 p26 in the article "Who really Is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?"

A few points that stand out:

• The question only has relevance to the last days as there was no doubt who the Chiristian Congregation was in the 1st Century.
• Not all anointed ones have a teaching assignment inside the congregation.1Cor 11:3; 12:29, 1Tim 2:12.
• The task of preparing and distributing spiritual food is clearly carried out under the oversight of the Governing Body.
• The "domestics" are all those who are fed. This includes individual members of the Governing Body, the rest of the anointed, and all others who respond to the Christian message to gain evelasting life on earth.

So the illustration now makes perfect sense. The Governing Body are the faithful and discreet slave, with the responsibilty of providing spritual food for all anointed Christians, and anyone else who wishes to "take life's water free".

With such a simple definition now, it seems unecessary to refer to them as a class. In fact, it might even have a negative connotation in view of other associations with the word.We know who they are as individuals and, thanks to the JW Broadcast, we know what they look and sound like. Even with modern technolgy it would be difficult to have that same personal awareness of each one of the anointed.

7 hours ago, Matthew9969 said:

Jesus even forgave those who put Him to death.

Was that these ones? John 11:53?

8 hours ago, Matthew9969 said:

Only a jehovahs witness would presume it's the grandmother who is refusing to have anything to do with her grandchild.

This appears to be a presumption on the part  of the poster.

14 hours ago, John Houston said:

I have wondered why this topic has such blow back

This is actually a valid musing. I see the outrage regarding the child abuse issue as an evidence of one of the last sparks of morality in a dying and corrupt civilisation. 

This issue has extraodinary emotive power in many circles. Despite the prevalence of institutionalised wholesale abuse in the form of abortion; confused censorship; inadequate, inconsistent legislation; resistance to proper investigation; recruiting of child-soldiers; human trafficking; inequitable access to food, medicine, education, and whatever else one cares to list, there's nothing so attention grabbing as accusations of child abuse and/or the suggestion that such depraved and appalling behaviour should be tolerated and allowed anywhere.

In the light of the Scripture's presentation of Christians as prime targets of a spiritual enemy, with toxic influence far more dangerous than Novichock, why should we think their institutions would be immune to infiltration by that most insidiously deceptive of all criminals, the child abuser? Or why would individuals within their ranks be any less susceptible to the torrent of living-room piped,  immoral effluent found on the internet? Even a most conservative estimator of this content, Dr. Ogi Ogas, commented "Fourteen per cent of searches and 4% of websites devoted to sex really are very significant numbers, when you stop to ponder it." And then of course , in birth itself there is no religious discrimination in it's apportioning of genetic malfunction.

But that spiritual enemy is expert at fanning sparks of humanity into flames of bigotry and intolerance as he aims his fiery missiles into the unwary and unguarded hearts of hapless men. By means of this issue, he reduces rational, decent humans into prejudiced, unreasonable witch-hunters, clawing at each others throats, trading accusation and insult, deflecting attention to any one but the real enemy, whilst his worm-like minions advance unchecked, the cries of his victims continue, as if unheard.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/18/cases-of-child-sexual-abuse-up-31-says-nspcc

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/services-and-resources/research-and-resources/statistics/

http://www.nationalchildrensalliance.org/media-room/media-kit/national-statistics-child-abuse

https://www.statista.com/statistics/639375/number-of-child-abuse-cases-in-the-us/

For anyone stumbling across this sad little cameo, the embroidery of text, both in the youtube and forum posting creates puzzlement. The video is about the family relationship problems that some elderly folk brought on themselves by dissassociating themselves from the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Their issue seems to be around their regret over the estrangement this created in their relationship with their granddaughter.

It is difficult to see a relevant connection with the post title "Why does the governing body lie?" or the reference to issues involving a disfellowshipped husband and his Witness family.

2 hours ago, Jack Ryan said:

Whenever there is a closed society with an inherent power imbalance, the potential for abuse is there

Gobbledegook

2 hours ago, Jack Ryan said:

She said she would be raising the issue in parliament and demanding that the government take action to make sure all children were safe.

Excellent. About time someone in authority made a stab at earning their pay in this area.

2 hours ago, Jack Ryan said:

If even half the allegations coming to light are true then it’s clear that an entrenched culture of cover-up and flawed in-house investigations continues to this day

More repetitive cliches. Let's have some proven facts. Please.

2 hours ago, Jack Ryan said:

MPs are demanding government action after more than 100 people contacted the Guardian with allegations of child sexual abuse and other mistreatment in Jehovah’s Witness communities in the UK.

"There were over 58,000 children identified as needing protection from abuse in the UK in 2016"  NSPCC

Have MPs (and the Guardian for that matter),  put 580 times as much effort into demanding government action in behalf of the 58,000 people identified as needing protection from abuse in the UK in 2016?

In fact, can we have a list of names of perpertrators, victims, and measures now taken since 2016 in order to protect this 58,000?

How many of these 58000 are currently still at risk?

What is the religious affiliation breakdown of this 58,000?

How many have been identified at risk since 2016?

On 30/11/2017 at 4:38 PM, JW Insider said:

persons living for whom this injustice, even if later corrected, had affected their lives and is still affecting their lives.

For the sake of clarity:

Do you mean, for example, persons (brothers or sisters) who got secularly divorced, but who were  "left on the shelf" unecessarily due to incorrect views on what constituted fornication? The later correction of those views might have restored their marriage eligibility technically, but their "shelf life" may have expired.

And do you include others who might have been driven to real fornication and, if unrepentant, experienced congregational discipline, all due (in part) to the holding of the same incorrect views? They may have decided to "throw in their (spiritual) towels" as a result of the rule changes.

There may be other examples, but how many do you think were affected? 10s, 100s, 1000s? And how many remain affected still today?

9 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

"We should be peacemakers ... a turtle is a peaceful animal, but it is not a peacemaker ... we need to be peacemakers!"

The Peacemaker, also called the Frontier, the Model P, and the Equalizer was firstly widely used by the army. During the mid-1860Â’s the army was looking to replace their slow and fragile percussion pistols, so they tested the .44-caliber Colt revolver, which they rejected for being robust and unreliable. However, during the 1870Â’s William Mason and Charles Brinckerhoff designed and created the .45-caliber centerfire Colt Single Action Army. The army immediately recognized the gunÂ’s potential: they used it as their official service weapon until the World War II.

8 hours ago, Nana Fofana said:

You say -Lego , purveyor of plastic, is the org?  And "inventory" is the anointed?

You are complicated aren't you? I don't actually say....anything.

The little Lego brother was just objecting to being left off the "Slippery Slopes" list provided by @James Thomas Rook Jr.

However, now that you mention it, there may be lessons to be learned.

Locally, 4 complete sets of Watchtower Bound Volumes, 1970- 2000 were recently donated to the rather bendy-shelved KH library. That's actually 120 volumes! That's to say nothing of a number of other sets that lately graced the paper dump mountain at the local municipal recycling centre! Some others, I hear, were sent skywards in garden bonfires. And there are the many other items of WTS literature that turn up in these and other places, once their former owners overcome their guilt and release them from garage and loft repositories.

" "Inventory is the anointed" ", (to borrow your phrase) seems a little off the mark, but there does seem to be room for more appropriate allegory here.

Maybe there is room for another topic then? What should become of, or even, What do you do with, unwanted theocratic"Inventory"?

1 hour ago, Nana Fofana said:

But I don't understand what you mean by this.

Clue?

Too many bricks in the wall? Lego slashes inventory

On 3/12/2018 at 3:31 PM, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I do not think you have ANY IDEA that all Assemblies are profit centers.

You didn't use your spell-checker again!!!!!

5 hours ago, JW Insider said:

speaking of them as much less worthy, and less spiritual persons who had squandered their opportunity to be part of the 144,000 through their lack of spirituality, lack of dedication, and lack of consecration.

The old "booby prize" syndrome. Garbage then, garbage now.

3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

But it will be a cold day in hell (by anyone's definition of hell) before I wear a Memorial tee shirt.

A cold day anyway where I come from so....no T-shirts here!

On 3/12/2018 at 3:31 PM, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I hear 2018 will be a good year.

Don't forget us!!! We might be able to get a few more bricks in the wall!!!! 

This is excellent

On 3/9/2018 at 3:01 AM, Nicole said:

Independent investigators in the United Kingdom are weighing whether to launch a new investigation into the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the U.K. after receiving a “considerable number” of abuse allegations.

The only honest response is "bring it on!"

Can you see how this applies?: 

“Every kingdom divided against itself comes to ruin, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. In the same way, if Satan expels Satan, he has become divided against himself; how, then, will his kingdom stand?"

Matt.12:25-26

"Several appropriate applications"....@JWInsider

I like this one:

Regardless of any homespun ideas and highfalutin' aspirations held by the religious leaders of Jesus day, the basic "denarius" wage they had agreed with the master of the vineyard was that described early on in the history of the "vineyard" at Exodus 19:5-6:

"Now if you will strictly obey my voice and keep my covenant, you will certainly become my special property out of all peoples, for the whole earth belongs to me. You will become to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ 

To realise this would involve far more than the miserable attempt they made of justifying themselves as righteous by keeping a set of self-invented legal interpretations  that had the effect of obsoleting the instructions given by the master. "you make the word of God invalid by your tradition" Mk.7:13.

Peter made it clear that another group would become recepients of that "denarius" at 1Pet.2:9:

"But you are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation",.

In speaking to his fellow anointed Christians (spritual Israelites), Peter showed the "denarius" to include the responsibility to: "declare abroad the excellencies” of the One who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light".

Of course there was no way that the religious hypocrites who had engineered the death of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:36) would take any delight in this "denarius". In reality, it would include accepting the one who they had wilfully murdered to be their King & High Priest, (Acts 2:36), submitting to water baptism in his name, (Acts 2:38.) And then there was his ransom sacrifice. This served  as the only genuine means of obtaining a "righteous"standing before God, invalidating their fake certifications. They would have to acknowledge that they had been duped into the engineering of the payment of this ransom, (Acts 5:30). Additionally, with submission to Christ's role as head of the Christian congregation (spiritual Israel), they would be required to testify publicly to all of this in taking the message of the "kingdom" to the entire inhabited earth. (Matt.28:18-20).

To make matters worse, they would have to accept the same "denarius", all shoulder-to-shoulder, as that paid to a rag-tag group of "unlettered and ordinary", "accursed" ones, late arrivals on the scene, with no pedigree or credentials! In fact, they would have even to submit to one of these as holding the "keys to the kingdom.....!!!!   

On the positive side, some of these 'full-day' workers were quite happy to accept this same "denarius", along with the 11th hour workers, as recorded at Acts 6:7:

"Consequently, the word of God continued to spread, and the number of the disciples kept multiplying very much in Jerusalem; and a large crowd of priests began to be obedient to the faith."

Great minds...................................................

9 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I cannot remember the exact quote

35       Q.   And do you see yourselves as Jehovah God's         

36       spokespeople on earth?         

37       A.   That I think would seem to be quite presumptuous to         

38       say that we are the only spokesperson that God is using.         

39       The scriptures clearly show that someone can act in harmony         

40       with God's spirit in giving comfort and help in the         

41       congregations, but if I could just clarify a little, going         

42       back to Matthew 24, clearly, Jesus said that in the last         

43       days ‐ and Jehovah's Witnesses believe these are the last         

44       days ‐ there would be a slave, a group of persons who would        

 45       have responsibility to care for the spiritual food.  So in         

46       that respect, we view ourselves as trying to fulfil that         

47       role.

5 hours ago, The Librarian said:

unconditional bail

What!!! She is still allowed to beat up JWs??? Hope they have her down as a DNC!

And what is she doing in the picture? Setting fire to her summons?

10 hours ago, Cos said:

stay tuned, I will continue providing Scriptural proof that the Holy Spirit is a real Person who has a will, emotions and intellect.

I will, but on the basis of what has been provided so far, I think we are in for a long haul.................................................                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

7 hours ago, Cos said:

Scripture demonstrates the distinction and personality of the Holy Spirit from the Father in many places

Distinction of course, personality?...........afraid not.

37 minutes ago, JOHN DAVIS said:

what are the inner rooms that isaiah was referring to?

Does not this refer to the action of Cyrus in carrying out the conquest of Babylon? Xenephon records:

"Cyrus then sent the companies of cavalry around through the streets and gave them orders to cut down all whom they found out of doors, while he directed those who understood Assyrian to proclaim to those in their houses that they should stay there, for if any one should be caught outside, he would be put to death. [32]"

Cyropedia. Vol 7 Chap 5 v32.

In answer to your question, the clear lesson is that obedience to Jehovah's instructions is life-important. The detail of just how this will work out during the "great tribulation" remains to be seen.

On 1/19/2018 at 3:14 AM, TrueTomHarley said:

It is an odd use of the word 'righteous.' You would almost expect 'good' or 'kind' but not 'righteous'

He was "righteous" in that he tried to do the right thing, but seemed to be a bit legalistically oriented.

He probably knew that Mary's potential capital crime depended on her being 'promised in marriage'. If the separation was to be done in secret, (presumably without broadcasting the reason), she could  hightail it back to Judah where Elizabeth was and the scene of her "apparent" liason. Then she could possibly get together with her mysterious suitor and cover up the alleged misdemeanour. Or at least, the culprit, if unwilling to marry her, could pay Mary's father the appropriate compensation. Or some other hair-brained reasoning. Who knows?? He just didn't want her to die.

What we DO NOT see Joseph doing is falling on his face before Jehovah, (rather like Hezekiah when receiving the Assyrian threats), and begging Jehovah to make him understand what his fiance was telling him and what he should do under the circumstances. That is more like what a "good"man would have done. All we hear is that he "thought these things over", hatched his plan, .....and went to sleep.

Now, despite the circumstances being way above his pay-grade, he was a fairly decent chap. He didn't have the same level of responsibility as Zechariah the Levite, so didn't get struck dumb (no time for that and no purpose served anyway). But, with this being a pretty important event and all, he got an orientation visit in a dream, but, perhaps, he missed out on an actual angelic one-to-one briefing here. Anyway, never one to be stumped by human inadequacy, Jehovah got it all worked out His way in the end.

On 1/19/2018 at 2:23 PM, JW Insider said:

the 10 commandments themselves stand outside these sets of laws as unique. 

Thinking about this further from a legal perspective, it was a lawyer who stated (Rom.2:14-15):

"For when people of the nations, who do not have law, do by nature the things of the law, these people, although not having law, are a law to themselves.  They are the very ones who demonstrate the matter of the law to be written in their hearts, while their conscience is bearing witness with them, and by their own thoughts they are being accused or even excused."

Wouldn't this seem to add a perspective to the obvious connection between various ancient legal codes?

On 1/19/2018 at 11:56 AM, Cos said:

certainty is via the Scriptures only

Agreed entirely. And yet to be demonstrated in connection with the holy spirit being a person separate from it's originator, the Father, Jehovah.