Furuli's new e-book: "My Beloved Religion - And The Governing Body"

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

2 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

A laughing emoji! 

I already had to send myself back to Bible 101 on account of this fellow. I fear that upon graduation, I will have to take the course all over again. He is both hateful and stupid. I can deal with one or the other, but the combination......

And how am I both hateful and stupid My Harley ?  Is it because I find you very funny. Is it because i do not take your comments seriously ?  I wouldn't have thought it would bother you in the slightest. 

[JW Insider]

42 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

Please explain or enlarge upon your use of the word 'overseeing' here. 

I meant it exactly in the ways that the Bible uses the word "episkopos" which literally means overseer. It can be used of elders who oversee a congregation. Perhaps the needs of all the congregations in Achaia or Galatia, for example, would have needed an overseer of several congregations, much like a "circuit overseer." Titus, for example, had to qualify as an overseer of elders and overseers in city after city:

(Titus 1:5-9) 5 I left you in Crete so that you would correct the things that were defective and make appointments of elders in city after city, as I instructed you: 6 if there is any man free from accusation, a husband of one wife, having believing children who are not accused of debauchery or rebelliousness. 7 For as God’s steward, an overseer must be free from accusation, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not a drunkard, not violent, not greedy of dishonest gain, 8 but hospitable, a lover of goodness, sound in mind, righteous, loyal, self-controlled, 9 holding firmly to the faithful word as respects his art of teaching, so that he may be able both to encourage by the teaching that is wholesome and to reprove those who contradict.

An overseer is like a shepherd who looks after a flock, a congregation. Jesus looks after the whole world of congregations in a way that these local overseers and bodies of overseers cannot possibly do on their own. He is the great shepherd, and thus the great overseer.

(1 Peter 2:25) . . .For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

Yet, humans can be called overseers and shepherds, too:

(1 Timothy 3:1) . . .This statement is trustworthy: If a man is reaching out to be an overseer, he is desirous of a fine work.

BTW, Titus 1:7 shows that all overseers should also be faithful and discreet slaves, "as God's steward, an overseer must be free from accusation," etc.

[JW Insider]

44 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

Quote, " The ones who excel at teaching, and speaking, and decision-making will naturally take the lead for such a useful position. "

No mention of excelling in spirituality then ? You talk as if it's running a worldly business.

Who said they wouldn't be spiritual? See the qualifications for elders and overseers in Timothy and Titus. What type of teaching did you think the Bible was referring to where I highlighted "teachers" in 1 Cor 12? If you require a book attached to each post, to cover all the bases for you, and fill in all the imaginary gaps, then you might just assume that I am using Bible definitions unless otherwise noted.

[JW Insider]

54 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

And then you finish up with  " we find that we should be able, as you said, to identify WHO really is a faithful person taking the lead "   

But can we ?

Yes. The scripture in Hebrews 13 said very clearly we can do this by watching how their conduct (acts, activities) turns out, and then imitating their faith. If you want to argue that some scriptures have no meaning outside of the first century, then go ahead and throw those parts of your Bible away. Personally I find nearly ALL scripture useful and beneficial for teaching, etc.

[TrueTomHarley]

39 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

. If you want to argue that some scriptures have no meaning outside of the first century, then go ahead and throw those parts of your Bible away. Personally I find nearly ALL scripture useful and beneficial for teaching, etc.

JWI is not there yet, and it is but wishful thinking from me that he will get there—but he is showing signs of the strain. I almost saw Space Merchant flame out the other day—not quite, but almost. 

It is lonely here in Bible 101, with my dunce cap attached.

[Srecko Sostar]

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

So the GB’s reluctance to acknowledge human imperfection is completely within the spirt of the times.***

 

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Here, @Arauna comes to the rescue with the common-sense point that the geniuses completely ignore—everything must be judged in the historical context of its time.***

*** bold from me.

Does this spirit and historical context of the times have something with flood of various information from ex-JW's and other people? With so much video materials and WT historical publications, books on internet? With JW's members who came to inside state of more cautious - more open perception on themselves and Organization?

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And few more words about "higher education", and that would be all in this topic about education, from me. WTJWorg warning continuously ONLY about "higher education". According to strong and frequent warning ONLY about that, it seems how other parts of "Worldly educational system" are all right with JW's. Kindergarten, Elementary and High school are not under WTJWorg "attack". I don't recall any article that giving warning about dangerous in this levels of education, and or how JW parents are warned how it will be wise to not send their children to such education.

I would like to ask JW members and JW parents, why they think how children of age 3,4 to 7 or from 7 to 14 or from 14-18 are not in such dangerous of "devil's" influence..... but young people from 18-24 are ??

[Arauna]

5 hours ago, JW Insider said:

recognize who is the right kind of slave. To

Just a change of one word and one can change the meaning of the sentence. Kinda sneaky I would say.

The question about WHO the slave is: is not a parable; it is about identifying a slave by the job that is being fulfilled........ providing food to all the rest of the slaves... it is like an identifying mark.......of this slave in the last days....

3 hours ago, JW Insider said:

ALL scripture useful and beneficial for teaching, etc.

So do I believe this.... but we are talking here about the slave that will be doing a specific job in the last days.... and the scripture in Luke 12 indicates that he is 'appointed' to do so by the one to whom he is accountable.  if he does not do a good job he is accountable. 

2 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

would like to ask JW members and JW parents, why they think how children of age 3,4 to 7 or from 7 to 14 or from 14-18 are not in such dangerous of "devil's" influence..... but young people from 18-24 are ??

 I feel that young children are in grave danger too! Especially with the new UN based curricula.   This is why it is imperative for parents to speak to their young children a lot and daily..... to counterbalance the sexual rubbish and other junk they are learning in school. Parents need to be very vigilant right now.  Homeschool if it is at all possible.

33 minutes ago, César Chávez said:

I will disagree with Brother Furuli on higher education for a spiritual life. For a secular life, there will never be a guarantee, but with a spiritual life, God guarantee’s everlasting life to loyal

Agree.

"We know we all have knowledge Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. ²  If anyone thinks he knows something, he does not yet know it as he should know it. ³  But if anyone loves God, this one is known by him." .  1 cor 8: 

One does not need higher education to have the love Jesus showed.  In fact education is a barrier to be trusting like a child.  

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

Billy the Kid. CC. Quote "Once again, show me where Jesus obligated the apostles to receive higher education to gain spiritual knowledge?"

Totally different situation in 1st century. And Jesus supplied much for the Apostles. 

When people advise against higher education it kind of reminds me of the scripture about saying 'keep warm and be well fed' but doing nothing to help in that respect. 

Here in England most industry has gone. Most jobs are either retail or office. Then there are the high tech jobs. For many jobs qualifications are needed. The responsibility of the family head is to supply not only spiritual food but physical food. We know the 'bits of paper' are quite useless but many employers require them or you won't even get an interview. 

By the way the Apostle Paul was basically saying there is a time for using education and a time for just being spiritual. 

As for your idea of disloyalty to God. You seem to be getting your GB mixed up with the real GOD. 

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

•  hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

Please explain or enlarge upon your use of the word 'overseeing' here. 

I meant it exactly in the ways that the Bible uses the word "episkopos" which literally means overseer. It can be used of elders who oversee a congregation. Perhaps the needs of all the congregations in Achaia or Galatia, for example, would have needed an overseer of several congregations, much like a "circuit overseer." Titus, for example, had to qualify as an overseer of elders and overseers in city after city:

A Circuit Overseer and / or Elder does oversee, but under the rules of the GB. 

I think you were referring to the GB themselves, hence I asked for your further explanation of the word Overseer regarding the GB..

The CO and Elders do not make the rules, whereas the GB do. The CO and Elders do not govern, whereas the GB do. 

Who do you think appoints the members of the GB to their positions ?  

 

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, Arauna said:

Homeschool if it is at all possible.

When my homeschooled son entered community college at age 16, he said in all innocence, “I had no idea that there were so many stupid people.”

[JW Insider]

5 hours ago, César Chávez said:

You seem to want to make a point here. It appears you are discrediting my assessment about Zondervan not being a good spiritual publishing house. As usual, this continues to be a mistaken stance you have shown for many years.

All But Invisible

By Nate Collins, Wesley Hill

·  Publisher: Zondervan

I believe my inference was about churches that are now allowing gays (LGBT) (HOMOSEXUAL) into their churches in the name of unity. I have no idea what you are trying to articulate.

I think you are being dishonest again. So, if you are, consider this to be a case of "reproving before all onlookers." (1 Tim 5:20)  I could be wrong, of course, so just think of it as merely trying to follow the qualities Paul spoke of:

(Titus 1:8, 9) . . .a lover of goodness, sound in mind, righteous, loyal, self-controlled, 9 holding firmly to the faithful word as respects his art of teaching, so that he may be able both to encourage by the teaching that is wholesome and to reprove those who contradict.

So to answer you: yes, I want to make a point here. Yes, the facts have discredited your assessment about Zondervan. As usual, you were "hoisted by your own petard," again. As usual, you love to project your mistakes onto other people. When proven wrong, you have never admitted it directly, but nearly always create a new diversion, or try to make yourself look better, often by twisting words.

When you say, "As usual, this continues to be a mistaken stance you have shown for many years," technically, I agree. I have now exposed this same type of mistaken stance for many years.

Then you bring up the book "All But Invisible," just as I thought you might, but I think you did this dishonestly.

Then you said: "I believe my inference was about churches that are now allowing gays into their churches in the name of unity."

I believe this is also dishonest, as your statements indicate that this was NOT what your inference was about, and I'll indicate why I think this below.

----------------

I suppose some readers here might be wondering what this is all about. So I'll provide a quick review, if anyone is interested or concerned.

First, Cesar Chavez (CC) said the following about Furuli's book.

On 5/31/2020 at 8:08 PM, César Chávez said:

I will admit, I love his references like authors from the Zondervan publishing house. A publishing house that printed the Satanic Bible. This just tells me, Furuli didn’t do a thorough research.

http://www.holywordcafe.com/bible/resources/Zondervan.htm

The implication is that Furuli should not have quoted from any books from Zondervan publishing, just because they also published the Satanic Bible. The problem with that claim is that the Satanic Bible was never published by Zondervan. It came out in the 1960s from another publisher (Dell), and HarperCollins sold books from that other publisher.

Zondervan claims, I believe, to have published two-thirds of the best-selling Bibles. Zondervan was bought by HarperCollins in 1988, and associated since the early 1980s. Zondervan has become the Christian Publishing division of HarperCollins. In fact, if you were to write about this controversy, you would probably get a response like the following, as found on their site:

But this controversy has been all over the web, and there might be tens of thousands of references to this idea about the "Satanic Bible," and probably THOUSANDS of them also make a point about Zondervan also publishing a book called "The Joy of Gay Sex."  As crazy as that first point was, I wondered why CC didn't bring that up, too. In a sense he already had, because CC provided the link http://www.holywordcafe.com/bible/resources/Zondervan.htm as shown above, which also says the following:

Now Zondervan, the largest Christian house, is under fire again, for publishing a Bible translation with more gender-neutral language, and some Evangelical competitors think they see the influence of its secular parent, HarperCollins. "There is  of the Southern Baptist Convention. HarperCollins, he noted, also publishes books offensive to Evangelicals like "The New Joy of Gay Sex."   But Jane Friedman, chief executive of HarperCollins, which acquired Zondervan in 1987, said it operates with complete autonomy out of a separate headquarters in Grand Rapids , Mich.

Since CC had put this controversy in the context of doing "thorough research" I assumed he might know that BOTH of these two books are paired thousands of times by evangelicals and fundamentalists, often as a way of dismissing the NIV and other translations from encroaching upon their revered KJV translation. (As an aside, in 2013, the Watchtower Society also published a revised "Bible translation with more gender-neutral language.") 

So after showing CC that Zondervan hadn't actually published the Satanic Bible as CC claimed, he then responded with the associated claim about homosexuals, just as one might have expected:

On 6/1/2020 at 3:42 PM, César Chávez said:

The fact Brother furuli didn't do due diligence in his research puts a black mark on it since that publishing house not only published the "Satanic Bible" but has published material meant for homosexuals. If you research the history, there was nothing here for you to clarify to begin with.

The primary point I had tried to clarify was not "nothing" but that the original claim was wrong, false, and also pointless, as the Watchtower has also quoted from Zondervan publishers several times.

But, I was also concerned that CC might have purposely left off the title of the book about homosexuality, not just because it's an uncomfortable title, but because I figured CC might later try to say he was referring to a different book if I pointed out that he was also wrong about the one mentioned in his web link. (You'd have to know more about CC's history to understand why I thought I needed to prepare for such deviousness.) So I responded carefully:

On 6/1/2020 at 3:52 PM, JW Insider said:

Harper Collins published the Satanic Bible and also a book about "gay sex." . . . When Harper Collins bought Zondervan, it still didn't mean that the Zondervan suddenly became the publisher. . . .  However, it is very likely that discussions about homosexuality as a issue related to religion have been published by Zondervan.

To which CC responded:

On 6/1/2020 at 4:01 PM, César Chávez said:

Funny, Harper Collins published the Satanic bible, while Zondervan published gay sex.

So now this is actually an admission that HC published the Satanic Bible, but CC insists that Zondervan published "gay sex." Of course, they didn't. So now knowing about the book "All But Invisible" and knowing that he might say this is what he was talking about all along, I figured it was OK to let him know I was talking about the original book CC had already sent a link about. I knew by the term "gay sex" that CC was not referring to Zondervan's books on homosexual acceptance in churches and their struggle against sin. So I was more clear:

On 6/1/2020 at 7:03 PM, JW Insider said:

there is a common complaint all over the Internet that Zondervan published the Satanic Bible and the Joy of Gay Sex. ... But unfortunately the gay sex book was not published by Zondervan. Perhaps you have done more research into the other books on homosexuality published by Zondervan, but from what I can tell, most of them are about gay persons trying to live a celibate lifestyle and the potential conflict between grace and sin.

But CC, who can never fully admit a mistake, went for it anyway, claiming that he never knew what I was talking about and that this book "All But Invisible" was the one he meant all along. You can see him saying that in the opening quote from his last post on the topic.

The problem with that is that "All But Invisible" is not a book about gay sex at all. Quite the opposite, it is about the experience of a person who although homosexual does not believe in gay sex, because he believes sex should only be part of a monogamous marriage. His form of Christianity is the source of his belief. He speaks of the loneliness, but also the understanding he has of other homosexuals going through the same experience.

As this author repeats in several ways:

------------------

So, back to you directly CC. That is why, in my opinion, you were not being honest. 

[Witness]

10 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

As in keeping with this thread about scholarship, it’s well to point out that at least two of them freely reveal themselves to be among the least scholarly persons on earth.

"A man has made great progress in cunning when he does not seem too clever to others." ~ Jean de la Bruyere

2 Cor 11:13