Melinda Mills

WITH RESPECT TO 'GOING BEYOND THE LAW'
(Matthew 5:40-42) 40 And if a person wants to take you to court and get possession of your inner garment, let him also have your outer garment; 41 and if someone in authority compels you into service for a mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one asking you, and do not turn away from one who wants to borrow from you.
I sometimes think of this scripture when it seems that the courts want us to 'air our dirty linen' (our inner garment) by asking for information we have tried to keep secret.
 

Don't forget that the apostle Paul also  did great work in "legally" establishing the good news (the right to call on others and share faith).  Also don't forget that most of the freedoms now established in USA were spearheaded by humble Jehovah's Witnesses, who took the cases to court, tested the cases in court, and won these cases, thereby establishing rights for all including themselves. This fact has been established and acknowledged by many scholars, historians and jurists.
 
Things were pretty wild in the USA at one time as well.  No wonder people are accustomed to having lots of guns even now. Let Rook and other USA brothers talk about this. I am from a small island that used to be British. Most human rights were recently established in the last 100 years or so.

Don't forget that the apostle Paul also  did great work in "legally" establishing the good news (the right to call on others and share faith).  Also don't forget that most of the freedoms now established in USA were spearheaded by humble Jehovah's Witnesses, who took the cases to court, tested the cases in court, and won these cases, thereby establishing rights for all including themselves. This fact has been established and acknowledged by many scholars, historians and jurists.
 
Things were pretty wild in the USA at one time as well.  No wonder people are accustomed to having lots of guns even now. Let Rook and other USA brothers talk about this. I am from a small island that used to be British. Most human rights were recently established in the last 100 years or so.

I think that the wars of the first Israel were wars for the land, territory.
But let us recall on some important details i have found before some 20 years ago when faced with this historical reports in Bible. Abraham, a forefather of the future nation of Israel, was extremely wealthy and gained possession over large areas of land. But as time passed, there have been several things. That land that Abraham acquired or bought during his life, and legally left to his successors/heirs after his death, somehow was went to, passed on other individuals, families, people, tribes, and nations.
Please recall, for example, how he bought land for grave , for his wife. I can imagine how that was not some small piece of land, but huge territory. After long time, we saw how his tribe and grandsons moved to Egypt and left or sold territory. But we also must think about how many people in time of Great Famine sold possessions they have for food. Well, many people gave "money", sold animals, gold, silver, houses, sold land, territory and finally themselves to Pharaoh ( and Joseph) for food. Such sale was "legitimate" and many lost their property under these circumstances. 
I suppose how some part of the territory or perhaps all that land that once belonged to Abraham,  Israel slaves want back, in this way or that way, because they consider themselves as  "legitimate" heirs.  But, because that land has been in the possession of others for several hundred years already, question was: how to return land back to them? Only by war and conquest.
Issue of religion, worshiping and gods has been of second importance, or another good reason/motivation why to go to war. Fighting for "Freedom" and  for "Homeland" and for "Own People" was always powerful force that leads people. 

Re making interest by way of bank or stock market:
(Matthew 25:24-27) 24 “Finally the slave who had received the one talent came forward and said: ‘Master, I knew you to be a demanding man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not winnow. 25 So I grew afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 In reply his master said to him: ‘Wicked and sluggish slave, you knew, did you, that I reaped where I did not sow and gathered where I did not winnow? 27 Well, then, you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my coming I would have received it back with interest.
 
Jesus acknowledged the bankers' work (and the methods they use to get interest). If the bankers gamble with your money (in the stock market  - every single bank [international development bank and commercial bank] has a department that invests in stocks) and make interest you don't usually complain and ask how the interest was made and wherein they invested your money.  You put out your hand and take the interest.  It is like what Paul said:
(1 Corinthians 10:25, 26)" 25 Eat whatever is sold in a meat market, making no inquiry because of your conscience, 26 for “to Jehovah belong the earth and everything in it.” 
 

Since all these parables are explained in the context of working for kingdom interests—largely, in the preaching and disciple-making activity, I think this line translates into the “wicked” slave refusing to do that work and throwing it back in the Master’s face, as though to say:
”You want disciples? Then get off your lazy rear end and make them yourself!”

Re making interest by way of bank or stock market:
(Matthew 25:24-27) 24 “Finally the slave who had received the one talent came forward and said: ‘Master, I knew you to be a demanding man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not winnow. 25 So I grew afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 In reply his master said to him: ‘Wicked and sluggish slave, you knew, did you, that I reaped where I did not sow and gathered where I did not winnow? 27 Well, then, you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my coming I would have received it back with interest.
 
Jesus acknowledged the bankers' work (and the methods they use to get interest). If the bankers gamble with your money (in the stock market  - every single bank [international development bank and commercial bank] has a department that invests in stocks) and make interest you don't usually complain and ask how the interest was made and wherein they invested your money.  You put out your hand and take the interest.  It is like what Paul said:
(1 Corinthians 10:25, 26)" 25 Eat whatever is sold in a meat market, making no inquiry because of your conscience, 26 for “to Jehovah belong the earth and everything in it.” 
 

Re making interest by way of bank or stock market:
(Matthew 25:24-27) 24 “Finally the slave who had received the one talent came forward and said: ‘Master, I knew you to be a demanding man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not winnow. 25 So I grew afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 In reply his master said to him: ‘Wicked and sluggish slave, you knew, did you, that I reaped where I did not sow and gathered where I did not winnow? 27 Well, then, you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my coming I would have received it back with interest.
 
Jesus acknowledged the bankers' work (and the methods they use to get interest). If the bankers gamble with your money (in the stock market  - every single bank [international development bank and commercial bank] has a department that invests in stocks) and make interest you don't usually complain and ask how the interest was made and wherein they invested your money.  You put out your hand and take the interest.  It is like what Paul said:
(1 Corinthians 10:25, 26)" 25 Eat whatever is sold in a meat market, making no inquiry because of your conscience, 26 for “to Jehovah belong the earth and everything in it.” 
 

Re making interest by way of bank or stock market:
(Matthew 25:24-27) 24 “Finally the slave who had received the one talent came forward and said: ‘Master, I knew you to be a demanding man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not winnow. 25 So I grew afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 In reply his master said to him: ‘Wicked and sluggish slave, you knew, did you, that I reaped where I did not sow and gathered where I did not winnow? 27 Well, then, you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my coming I would have received it back with interest.
 
Jesus acknowledged the bankers' work (and the methods they use to get interest). If the bankers gamble with your money (in the stock market  - every single bank [international development bank and commercial bank] has a department that invests in stocks) and make interest you don't usually complain and ask how the interest was made and wherein they invested your money.  You put out your hand and take the interest.  It is like what Paul said:
(1 Corinthians 10:25, 26)" 25 Eat whatever is sold in a meat market, making no inquiry because of your conscience, 26 for “to Jehovah belong the earth and everything in it.” 
 

Well, both of you are writers. Lots of information and emotion there. So start writing. Even pictures.  Something about that elegant picture reminds me of James Bond. 

Well, both of you are writers. Lots of information and emotion there. So start writing. Even pictures.  Something about that elegant picture reminds me of James Bond. 

If you break that gazillion dollar bill ... be sure to get in in $4's and $8's.
The $4 dollar bill has BrunHillary's picture on the front, and the $8 dollar bill has her picture on the front AND back.

And it is how it always has been. And it is how it should be.
The “uneducated and ordinary” governing men of Acts 4:13 always remained uneducated and ordinary. The “For you see his calling of you, brothers, that there are not many wise in a fleshly way” of 1 Corinthians 1:26 always remained the case. The “wise and intellectual ones” that do not think Jesus’ teaching worth their time never reassesse their view.
Those identifying themselves as Christian are often embarrassed over this, and seek to present it as a distressing circumstance that they grew out of—“Yes, we may have started out lowly, but look at how we have pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps!” they say. They should not reason this way.
If the education of this world was worth the paper it was printed on, it would have been reflected in better conditions today. Surely today’s education model must take responsibility for the world is has collectively created. Very seldom are national leaders poorly educated. Typically they have gone to the finest universities.
Usually when something doesn’t work, it is discarded. In the case of “education,” however, the assumption is that more of it is needed—education is the way out, its advocates say. 
Generally speaking, those of the greater world are smarter than us. However, most of their schemes will come to nothing because they do not know how to get along; they do not know how to overcome greed; they do not know how to overcome class division or racial division. They sell what knowledge that they do have—you’d better have substantial funds on hand, or plan on going into deep debt—to benefit from their knowledge. One “educated” person in the Witness organization is worth 50 in the overall world because they do not put up pay walls, nor engage in turf wars. They discard the baggage of education that so plainly has not worked and cherry-pick the parts—subjects of pure practicality and applied science—that do work.
A main subtheme that lies just below the surface of those who look down upon Witnesses is the latter’s sense of superiority due to having “higher” education—elitism is as strong as any force, and as misplaced, as any of the other ones that divide people and keep them from reaching but a fraction of their potential.

“THAT WAS MY DRINK I WANTED SHAKEN NOT STIRRED, YOU IDIOT, NOT MY CAR!
MY BEAUTIFUL ASTON MARTIN—WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO IT?!”

Actually I do not giggle... I laugh out loud at HIS obsession. 
It's HILARIOUS!
( in a creepy sort of way ...)
I never noticed such things existed .... and since I found out (courtesy TPT ...) I have never seen any, anywhere.
...and I don't remember the Bible saying anything about ridiculous clothing ... like a Jew wearing a skirt, with tassels on the bottom with alternating bells and pomegranates, as an example, and walking down the street with a phylactery bumping you in the forehead.
Now THAT is the stuff of comedy routines!
 

You actually cut a pretty fine figure. Whatever happened?
This pic suggests that you were with Moses, and that whereas he led all the other Israelites out through the Red Sea, you hightailed it in your fancy car.

This is the only full length photo of me I could find, but it was taken about 1968, when I had more hair.
Of course, that was 50 years ago, but you can see the resemblance ....
*coff*
 

 
 

....sigh ... I sure miss that car ....
 

You bring this up so frequently (and HOW old are you?) that I have become curious over something:
Please post a full-length photo of yourself.
If, as I suspect, it shows you wearing spray-on pants, that will explain a lot.

Of course this would never happen. The org. is not some kind of talk show or democratically run establishment.  You either take it or leave it.

Wouldn't happen - too much would have to be referred to the Service Desk and the lawyers. Forget it.
 

I remember my Scoutmaster, Mr Riley, speaking of John, when I was in my teens, during a Scout Troop campfire.
Someone who appeared quite dead had asked him if he was going to be here when John  got here?
He replied, yes he would be here when John got here.
Then an apparition appeared, dragging chains while floating above the ground, and asked the same question. "You gonna be here when John gets here?"
He again replied he would be here, when John got here.
Then ......  a huge two ton scaly monster appeared with bloodied fangs and claws and glowing red eyes, covered in stinking gore appeared in the campsite, and asked
"You gonna be here when John gets here?
Mr. Riley replied  "If you ain't John ... I'M GONE!".

The lines would get jammed by GiBbering idiots!

I don’t like the present series of tracts, but that does not mean that they are no good. I am very far from being typical. Nobody on this forum that claims to be a Witness is typical. I’m just carrying on some because I would love to see the ministry more fruitful that what it seems to me to be.
I and many others here write more in a day that most people write in a month. So I can hardly expect the tracts to cater to me. The last CO cited figures from somewhere that the average youngster today spends 7 minutes with print (as opposed to 10 hours or so on some form of screen time) Going simple is obviously the way to go. The fact that I do not like it does not mean that it is not just the ticket for reaching the majority. Education is usually a last-place priority in today’s world. 1/6 of the world’s population cannot read. Most people barely know that these persons exist, and count them as nothing. Watchtower produces simplified versions of material already written simple so as to reach them. 
I defend the use of (vastly) simplified writing, even as I do not personally like it. “They can learn to read a few grade levels beneath them, if they are not too full of themselves,” is a line I put somewhere. I’ve learned to work around what is unpalatable to me, telling the high-brow people to consider this or that bit of writing as an outline, nothing more. Or telling them to not worry about whether this or that in the Bible is literal, but instead to take it as a metaphor and see if they can discern the underlying meaning of it. Mathematicians do something similar all the time: assume that this or that condition is true just to see where that assumption leads them. If it proves fruitful, then they come back and reconsider any initial objection to it.
Just after 911, when people were unusually subdued, I grabbed that tract ‘Who Really Rules the World’ and had several good discussions with it. I’ve always liked Luke 4 for its clear explanation of Jesus declining Satan’s offer of gov’t control but acquiescing that it lay in his power to make the offer. Yes. There is a place for tracts.
Everyone here beefs about everything under the sun, so I have joined in on what is our main mission—the ministry.  I probably shouldn’t. It really is true that ‘bad association spoils useful habits.’ I’ll put it all on this thread and then do my best to zip it. The Bible is not a template for democracy, with every Tom Dick and Harry telling HQ how it ought to be.
 

Wouldn't happen - too much would have to be referred to the Service Desk and the lawyers. Forget it.