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yes I came into the truth by studying this wonderful book.
Colin

yes I came into the truth by studying this wonderful book.
Colin

does anyone have these videos yet

Yes, precisely. But we know it shouldn't be like this. There was a talk a few years ago at our assembly, you may have heard it too, which kind of addressed this problem.  The talk was "Is your conscience truly guided by Bible principles" The brother used a few nice illustrations, one of them was about a coffee machine. You can program it to have coffee ready at a certain time in the morning and so when you come down you can smell the aroma and go "Oooh, that smell of coffee!"  But will you think or say "what a good little coffee machine for making that coffee!" ? Probably not. However, if you come down and see your wife/husband lovingly made you a fresh cup themselves (which ever way they did it is irrelevant to the point) you will most likely appreciate the gesture. This is the difference between a programmed situation and one which was done voluntarily, out of love and the goodness of the heart. Similarly, because we are not programmed, the way we act reveals to Jehovah our true feelings.  The other illustration was about a car and a bus. He said that to get to a certain destination, we can either be passengers on a bus or the drivers of a car. The bus is on fixed time and is driven by someone else. How the bus driver drives is up to him, he could be speeding, running over old ladies etc. However if you are the driver of a car, you control the situation.
So he kind of compared Law/rules to the rider on a bus, and principles to the driver of a car. And this is the point I really liked: If we live by law, Jehovah knows you are obedient, and that is good. However, if we live by principles, Jehovah knows a lot more about our person, it reveals our heart; our love for him and the intensity of our desire to please him. Romans 12:2,
We are no longer under many laws/rules and that is good. Laws are time specific and situation specific, however principles are good anywhere, anytime. We should not be looking for a rule or law on a matter, but seek Jehovah's view and standards.
Jehovah treats us like adults, he lets us drive the car, he does not have us drive the bus like children. However, some evidently prefer to ride the bus! Hebrews 5:11-14

A Sunday meeting worksheet I made today for my young Bible student! I wasn't sure what he would think of it... But he loved it! It helped him pay attention and get so much out of the meeting!
- Contributed
 

I want to use this post to examine a purely moral problem that pops up occasionally in discussions. Let’s take a quote from an internet forum as an example. After a long and hateful tirade on the evils of Jehovah’s Witnesses and their teachings, a Mr. Jordan ends with this line:      Do you notice the immediate problem here? Here is a man, who is trying to convince us of the truth of his own position while tearing down the truths held by his opponents. Here is a man launching moral condemnation at Jehovah’s Witnesses with no holding back. Here is a man trying to take the righteous high ground. But what does his last line really show him to be?    Nothing less than a moral coward. A hypocrite to end all hypocrites. A man who tries to pluck straws out of the eyes of Jehovah’s Witnesses while forgetting the rafter in his own eye.    Let me explain with a pair of stories:   There was recently a young man living in the Fiji islands. As the young man was sitting under a tree meditating, he was approached by one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The two had a long conversation, and by the end the young man was deeply interested in what these Witnesses had to teach. He returned to his home island and, excitedly, tried to tell his friends and family and neighbors about these wonderful new teachings, but they would have none of it. Witness teachings were contradictory to official church teachings of the village, and could not be tolerated. His friends quickly abandoned him, his family cut ties with him, and his neighbors even set fire to his crops. But the young man never relented in publicly declaring what he thought to be true, even in the face of loss and persecution. He kept pursuing truth openly and in whatever way he could, even crossing miles of open sea every week just to attend Witness meetings and learn more. He placed a very high value on truth and was not afraid to sacrifice for it.    I myself chose to pursue Witness teachings in my late teens. It brought a lot of tears and grief. My own parents turned violent against me and threatened to throw me out on the street. My grandparents turned against me and wrote me out of their will entirely. My grandfather, who was my childhood hero and best friend, went to his grave declaring disappointment in me. I had to watch my own mother break down in tears in front of me, begging me to stop my association with these people, and it felt like a knife through the heart. But I did not ever quit pursuing what I felt to be the truth just because of the fear of losing relationships. I was willing to sacrifice if it came down to it, because to me it meant intellectual integrity and the attainment of ultimately higher ends.    And if I ever come to disagree with the Witnesses enough that it merits a break, then I would not hesitation to break with them, even if it meant loss of more relationships. There are no regrets as long as one stays consistent with one's own values, and truth ought to be one of man’s very highest values.
Even the 1st century Christians understood this lesson well. Jesus himself said The original disciples of Christ understood that they would lose much and suffer greatly if they chose to pursue what they felt to be the truth, and yet they made the choice anyways. They never hesitated to speak publicly and openly defend their beliefs. They were true examples of courage and conviction, even if one doesn't agree with Christian theology.

Now let's go back to our original quote, where we have Mr. “I hate everything that Witnesses teach yet I still pretend to be a Witness” Jordan.    Mr. Jordan keeps himself shoulders deep in what he clearly considers to be lies. He considers Witness teachings immoral, unloving, evil, a rebellion against nature itself, and yet there he is, King of Hypocrites, still pretending to be one of them and publicly associating with them.    I myself would never, under any circumstances, publicly pretend to hold values that I secretly detest, solely for the sake of maintaining relationships. It would be utter hypocrisy and moral cowardice, a violation of integrity. It would be outright lying to and deceiving those whom I sought to maintain relationships with, drawing them to myself on false pretenses and with a false face. It would be an outright rejection of truth as a value.   These types of people try to tear others down and argue truth while they themselves, through their actions, show that they despise truth and place no value on it. They try to turn Witnesses away from their faith while they themselves are too cowardly to walk away or declare their opinions in the open. In my humble opinion, ones like Mr. Jordan deserve no respect and no attention from anyone, Witness or non-Witness.    by Tears of Oberon

>"I know you probably worked hard on your illustration, but it seems to me to be out of harmony with what the Bible reveals at 1 John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. "
I"m sure you worked hard on your response as well, but I fail to see how my illustration conflicts with John 1:5.  You gave no explanation. What is true however is that though we may progress in our understand of the scriptures, that in no way conflicts with the fact that God is Light and in him there is no darkness.  I fail to see any connection between those facts and the fact that we try to progress in our understand of the scriptures.   
The same would be true as regards James 1:17 ( Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. ).  You seem to be trying to say that since Jehovah gives perfect gifts and good things means that our attempts at understanding the scriptures must be perfect from day 1, but that doesn't make logical sense nor does it harmonize with other scriptures.  Need I list scriptures wherein Biblical characters grew in knowledge?
And you misunderstand Russell.  He did said, "any knowledge or light coming from God must be like its author. A new view of truth never can contradict a former truth."  But he was speaking about truth and not about the attempts at understanding it.
Further, you misinterpret my illustration.  It simply shows that what may appear to be one thing in the darkness, may prove to be something else entirely in the light and upon a closer examination.
Moreover, does it really makes sense to you that Jehovah would "speak from the heavens", so to speak, on every little point?  Is that how you see him, as a micro-manager being sure that every single nuance of every single act at understanding the scriptures is rigorously correct at every point in time?  
Or is he not a God who let's folks grope for him and search for him.  Isn't he in fact a God who reveals things progressively, Jesus stating that there were certain things that the disciples were "not able to bear" at a certain point in time.
Doesn't progressive understanding make much more sense?  If pertinent, it would perhaps be wise to not allow pride to get in the way of logic and reasonableness.
 
 

My Dad used to take me deer hunting when I was a teenager.  We'd go out when it was dark and be in a deer stand in a tree as the light began to come up.  At first you could make out precious little, but as the light slowly intensified, the tree stump that may have initially looked like a sleeping bear, became more easily identifiable.  Once the morning had broken, much more became clear.  Now if someone had asked me at that point if I felt I was required to believe that what I had thought was a bear really was a tree stump, the question would make no sense.  Of course, it was a tree stump.  Why would someone ask a person was required to believe it was tree stump when that was so obviously clear?
But what about the seedling that was growing out of the ground 30 yards away?  Well, at first, that was not even visible when  there was little light.  But then at mid-morning, one could see the seedling, but still it was unclear exactly what it was.  Likely a relative of a nearby plant or tree.  But upon returning to the sight a while later and doing some in research into the leaf shape, etc, we might come to some pretty good conclusions.  But even then, the passage of time made the identification more discernible. 
Of course, in some situations, identification of the plant could have been mistaken or need to be altered if one realized that there could have been a slight error at the initial or subsequent examinations.  
Likewise, JW's understanding of the scriptures continues to grow and mature.
This is one of the great advantage that Jehovah's Witnesses have over most other religions.  It is their willingness to change or adjust based on new insights or investigations.  That is in fact how science works (or at  least is supposed to).  How silly it would be to be required to, for instance, be bound to the beliefs astronomers had back in the 1900's.  As Hubble peers into space and other bits and pieces of information are discerned, our knowledge of the stars and space grows.  Likewise with the scriptures.  
The question as to whether we are required to believe the new insights might be best rephrased, "Does one want to progress in knowledge or not?"
By way of contrast, it is most apparent that most churches are mired in the doctrine of the third - sixth centuries. They cling to, for instance, the Athanasian Creed.  It's as if they are required to believe that the tree stump is really a bear!
Now as to which camp one chooses to belong, that is a choice for each individual.  But as for me and my household, we choose continual progress.