ALL aspects of 1914 doctrine are now problematic from a Scriptural point of view

[Arauna]

In field service we are in the business of changing peoples way of thinking and learning to think for themselves.  However, freedom of thought comes with responsibility and self-control.  Satan did not use this correctly and neither did Adam.  He did not control his freedom of thinking and his subsequent desires and broke his relationship with Jehovah.  So NO - in field service we teach people to think for themselves but explore a thinking in line with Jehovah's thinking - not away from Jehovah's thinking.   One can use freedom of expression/thinking in a bad way - just like every other good thing.

I belonged to one of the protestant churches with a 400 year history of dogmatic adherence to teachings that were laid down as law by the church father.  No change to teachings in 400 years.  Thank goodness I now belong to a religion which is prepared to cautiously adapt to new thinking and re-investigate its older core teachings.   Sometimes in the past they have not been as cautious as they should have been and maybe in future too - but at least they are prepared to be open to change and to grow! not stagnate in ancient hoo-ha.

[Arauna]

The first Governing Body did a fantastic job - but when we start looking at the incompetencies in the congregations etc.  (the issue with the bias regarding the feeding of the widows; the issues which arose regarding the circumcision, eating food previously offered to idols etc..)..another picture emerges.  These were all issues that were not immediately addressed and could have caused some distress in the congregations for a period of time.... until the matter was taken up with the GB or other solutions were found.    It was necessary for Paul to write letters and keep a watchful eye on new undesirable things in the congregations such as false teachings.  etc..

Today we have the same issues - nothing has changed concerning the desires of mankind and its endeavors.  To me the test is this:  when other churches come and challenge us with their scholarship - I look at what they are DOING on the ground.  Are THEY fulfilling the prophecy of Matt 24:14 - or are we?   Do they have a slave who is feeding the entire world free of charge - or are we?

So imperfect as we are - we are being obedient to Jehovah and doing the work he gave us to do - miraculously not by our own power.... even if everything is not perfect and needs constant work.

[JW Insider]

6 hours ago, Anna said:

15 hours ago, JW Insider said:

It's true that they literally thought that it was some kind of attack on them if groups of brothers and sisters were meeting together just to read and discuss the Bible reading without Society publications at their side at all times.

If I remember right, is it  those Bible discussions that eventually led to the "dissidency"? I don't think it was just reading and discussing the Bible, but it was coming up with another interpretation, which they liked better than the official JW teaching.....

We are way off topic here (not your fault) but it's impossible to discuss a controversial topic without such subjects coming up. I think that what happened was fairly obvious only to those who watched the tension build up from about 1975 until 1979. The big blow-up actually happened internally in the late spring of 1979 but the repercussions didn't start happening until the spring of 1980, when heads first started to roll. (My work at Bethel started in 1976 and lasted until 1982.)  What really happened is much more complex, and I don't think it had much of anything to do with the popularity of group Bible reading. I think the crackdown on group Bible reading was just a knee-jerk response. If I had to simplify it, I'd say . . . . . we need another topic to discuss this, because it's just not that simple.

[bruceq]

10 hours ago, Anna said:

Ummmm...I hate to sound critical, but I will ask the obvious question, what about those teachings that weren't actually true and we taught them as truth, until we found out otherwise. Are you hereby saying Jesus was lying?

    Thank you for the question I do not believe asking it is being critical.  No Jesus does not lie, Satan is the father of the lie. He wants people to decide for themselves without a divine governance. Jesus is not a taxi-driver. He does not go wherever we want because we pay him. Christendom's clergy do that. Why the Pastor next to our Kingdom Hall gets $300,000 a year to preach what the members of the Church want him to preach to have their ears tickled. But we as Jehovah's Witnesses believe Jesus is in control of the Chariot as the Head of the Congregation, not a taxi driver. It is possible to believe in something that later is decided by Jesus as being the truth. But it is up to him to make that decision at the PROPER time not our time. We are not in a taxi. If one presumptuously decides to go to the "right" before the driver does then such a one would have to leave the vehicle and be outside while the Chariot continues on. Oh perhaps you were right after all but is it not better to stay in the vehicle than to be roadkill like a squirrel on the road? Jesus is the HEAD of the Congregation and the Celestial Chariot is NOT a taxi.

     As for teachings that were not true but later were the same thing applies. Jesus is head of the Congregation. Certainly he knows the road ahead better than we humans do and sometimes can make decisions that according to our limited human viewpoint from the back of the bus seem wrong or actually is wrong. For example Jesus told people to eat his blood and flesh. Not only was that wrong according to Jewish Law but common human decency. Yet who was right? And when Moses was directed to go in the opposite direction back toward Egypt to go to the edge of the Read Sea...well who was right then? You see we must have faith that Jesus is the HEAD of the Congregation and HE decides when to move in any given direction. Jesus does not drive a taxi.

   Sometimes the driver can go over bumps in the road or swerve to avoid certain things but it is not wrong if the Driver knows what he is doing. Do you not think Jesus knows what he is doing? We may become anxious or get vertigo from the changes made by the Chariot but a true follower of Christ will follow him no matter where he goes without complaining to him about the road taken. 1 Cor. 1:10.

“These are the ones that keep following the Lamb no matter where he goes.”—REV. 14:4.

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2009123

[bruceq]

4 hours ago, Nana Fofana said:

I'm not a Greek scholar either [or ANY kind of scholar?] but the word translated "them" ,autois, seems to be in other verses, translated "to them" and "unto them" over and over.  

I'm probably missing something obvious, but why is autois a personal possessive pronoun?

  But, aside from that,  I'm wondering if "we the living" [anointed ones, that is] will  [each, individually at death] be caught away in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and to be together with them, those who are dead in union with Christ,  who will have risen first. "?  {in 1919 or so}? 

Or was that already what was understood?  [b/c frankly, I'd never  quite understood that verse.]

   But now, having noticed for awhile how slippery most translations seem to be, for instance, falling all over themselves to make things sound trinitarian, and having noticed also, that the NWT doesn't seem go out of it's way to make things unrecognizable to longtime readers of other translations, though still changing things where necessary, to render them accurately from original Greek, I wouldn't be surprised if every single parallel version of that verse, on Biblehub site, e.g., is wrong.

It's late at night, and I didn't read whatever you're responding to , and don't quite understand what you're saying, probably because too tired, but I still want to get in there and start arguing, because I feel the 'opposition' is usually so over the top, and typically will have already been so for a  long time , that there's no time to lose assessing things coolly, but a need to plunge right in arguing.[!]

   Good questions. I flunked English once in Jr. High so I may not be the one to ask. {although the teacher flunked more than half the class that year]. So its all Greek to me. Anyway our current understanding is that the First Resurrection comes in stages over a period of time. Firstfruit is Jesus. Then the anointed are raised beginning in 1918 up to today as they die as "certain firstfruits" {think on Jewish harvest periods"}. Then there is the final part at the very end of the second phase of the Great Tribulation { attack of Gog} where final surviving anointed {who survived the first phase of the GT - attack on religion} as they are  "caught away" to join the others already resurrected. {Known in Christendom as a "rapture" although we do not use that term since it describes a Bodily resurrection whereas of course we believe flesh and blood cannot go to heaven}. Now there could be changes in this entire mode of the period of time such as all the First Resurrected ones being raised "at the same time" "sama" {of course Jesus was already raised now wasn't he} but that contradicts other Scriptures so we will wait and see what our Head Jesus has to say at the "Proper" time for it. Of course it does not matter either way now does it? No matter what they will ALL be in heaven for the Marriage of the Lamb. Praise Jah. - 1 Cor ch. 15; 1 Thess. ch. 4; Rev. 6:11; Rev. 14:13; 1 Thess. 1:7.....

So the question is how much time is involved with the word "afterward" at 1 Thess 4:17.

[JW Insider]

23 hours ago, bruceq said:

On 8/23/2017 at 10:01 PM, JW Insider said:

. . . Russell never predicted the start of the Great War we now call World War I.

Yes he did. I have read it several times in my own Studies in the Scriptures and Watch Towers of that era He said in 1914 there would be worldwide "turmoil" "universal anarchy" "war" "time of trouble"  and many other words to describe that year as different than any previous. 

I'll get to those references soon. The point I am making is that you can't say you predicted something for 1914 if 100% of the predictions for that year failed. Even the so-called prediction that it would see the end of the Gentile Times failed. The only way we could pretend that it worked was to redefine what the "Gentile Times" were.

It's as if we had predicted that the Oakland A's would beat the Boston Braves in the 1914 World Series (baseball). But then the Boston Braves swept the Oakland A's that year by beating them in four games (4 to 0). So, to still be right, we simply redefine what we meant by the term "beat."  Let's say that we choose to say that, by the word "beat," we really meant that in the long run the tide would start to change for the Boston Braves in that fateful year and that within a generation, no one would hear about the "Boston Braves" anymore but that the "Oakland A's" would go on to be a world-renowned name.

We may have changed the meaning of the terms, but at least we could not say that we correctly predicted that the Oakland A's would beat the Boston Braves in 1914. In fact, we could go to the history books and prove that the Boston Braves, after sweeping Oakland 4-0 in 1914, finally lost their lease of the "South End Grounds" in 1914 and started playing at the new "Braves Field" in Boston. Then, within a  generation, they became the Milwaukee Braves, and finally went to Atlanta. Yes, the Boston Braves were "beaten" in 1914, just like we predicted. How fantastic is that??!!??

With that in mind you will understand exactly why I made the point about 100% of the predictions for 1914 failing. To see what I mean, just start with your National Labor Tribune article, which carried a 1910 sermon by Russell  . . . [next post]

[bruceq]

9 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

I'll get to those references soon. The point I am making is that you can't say you predicted something for 1914 if 100% of the predictions for that year failed. Even the so-called prediction that it would see the end of the Gentile Times failed. The only way we could pretend that it worked was to redefine what the "Gentile Times" were.

It's as if we had predicted that the Oakland A's would beat the Boston Braves in the 1914 World Series (baseball). But then the Boston Braves swept the Oakland A's that year by beating them in four games (4 to 0). So, to still be right, we simply redefine what we meant by the term "beat" (or "Oakland A's" or "Boston Braves" or "World Series"). Let's say that we choose to say that by the word "beat" we meant that in the long run the tide would start to change for the Boston Braves in that fateful year and that within a generation, no one would hear about the "Boston Braves" anymore but that the "Oakland A's" would go on to be a world-renowned name.

We may have changed the meaning of the terms, but at least we could not say that we correctly predicted that the Oakland A's would beat the Boston Braves in 1914. (In fact, we could go to the history books and prove that the Boston Braves, after sweeping Oakland 4-0 in 1914, finally lost their lease of the "South End Grounds" in 1914 and started playing at the new "Braves Field" in Boston. Then they became the Milwaukee Braves, and finally went to Atlanta. Yes the Boston Braves were "beaten" in 1914, just like we predicted. How fantastic is that??!!??

With that in mind you will understand exactly why I made the point about 100% of the predictions for 1914 failing. To see what I mean, just start with your National Labor Tribune article, which carried a 1910 sermon by Russell  . . . [next post]

Yes I agree that not everything they expected would happen but a global war did and that is all that I was talking about. {sorry i'm not into sports}.  Of course we don't need someone from over a hundred years ago to tell us that the prophecy came true that "peace was taken away from the EARTH" at Rev. 6:4. BTW thanks for keeping your comments to 30 sec or less. 

The Gentile times in 1914 did not fail unless you no longer believe that Jesus is at the helm as Head of the Congregation and Jehovah's Witnesses is not the true faith.

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-teach/1914-significant-year-bible-prophecy/

[JW Insider]

On 8/24/2017 at 8:25 AM, bruceq said:

These 2520 years we believe will expire with October, 1914; at that time we believe the Gentile lease of power will expire, and that the God of heaven will set up his Kingdom in Israel. We do not expect universal peace to immediately ensue because Christ is styled the Prince of Peace. On the contrary, to our understanding the collapse of the nations will be through a fierce strife, "a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation," in which "there shall be no peace to him that goeth out, nor to him that cometh in," because God will set every man’s hand against his neighbor. Our belief is that the warfare between capital and labor, emperors and peoples, will be short, sharp, decisive, and bring untold calamity upon all concerned. If people could only discern it, they would avoid it, but their eyes are holden; they see not, neither do they understand. All the parties to the conflict are plunging into it, each intent on gaining its point, and each oblivious to its own best interests. -- "Times of the Gentiles", The National Labor Tribune, July 11, 1909.

5 years before the outbreak of World War I, the Watch Tower publications had already begun to change their tune about the original prediction. The original prediction, of course, was that a great time of violence, chaos and upheaval would begin happening well before 1914, and that 1914 would see an outbreak of PEACE!

• Watch Tower (July 15, 1894, p.226)
• "But bear in mind that the end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble.

This is very different from dozens of statements being made in our publications for a 100 years after that prediction. For example:

• *** g73 1/22 p. 8 Who Can Accurately Predict ManÂ’s Future? ***
• JehovahÂ’s witnesses pointed to the year 1914, decades in advance, as marking the start of “the conclusion of the system of things.”

You will also notice that not one of your quotations of these "predictions" actually comes from more than 5 years in advance. In fact, the claim that Jehovah's witnesses pointed to 1914 as the "start" of a time of trouble "decades in advance" is a false statement, and therefore a false teaching.

But what about these statements from up to 5 years in advance? At the risk of going well over 30 seconds, I'll start with the first sentence here:

On 8/24/2017 at 8:25 AM, bruceq said:

These 2520 years we believe will expire with October, 1914; at that time we believe the Gentile lease of power will expire, and that the God of heaven will set up his Kingdom in Israel.

So the "Gentile Times" were defined as the "Gentile lease of power" that would expire in 1914. In 1914 the nations, the gentiles, would have no more "lease of power." Only the nation of Israel would now have a lease of power because God's Kingdom would be set up in Israel. These powerless nations would fall into chaos, and a great time of trouble. It will be a "collapse" of nations. Obviously they would not have the power to fight wars on the scale of World War 1. No nations could emerge victorious from such a war, because the nations, the Gentiles, would have "collapsed." The violence was a violence of anarchy and chaos, because all human institutions will also have lost their power. The collapse would be quick and would effect every nation and every "neighbor" on earth.

On 8/24/2017 at 8:25 AM, bruceq said:

God will set every manÂ’s hand against his neighbor. Our belief is that the warfare between capital and labor, emperors and peoples, will be short, sharp, decisive, and bring untold calamity upon all concerned.

This did not happen. There was no short, sharp, decisive calamity upon every man in that year. The nations did not all collapse into powerless beds of chaos in that year. Instead a huge 4 year war broke out with many nations coming out with even MORE power at the end of it. Oddly, the one thing Russell forgot to predict here was a war where nation would fight against nation and kingdom against kingdom. Instead, the kind of powerless chaos that his predicted collapse entailed would have been emperors against their own people, business owners against their own labor forces. These would be the only remaining bits of power conflict because nations and institutions would have all collapsed in 1914. 

[TrueTomHarley]

Nobody has any problem with God. It is always with his human organization.

This is true even with Judas. He and God were tight. But Jesus looked pretty human to him.

[bruceq]

Again praise Jah. Rev. 6:4 came true. A Global war DID happen in 1914. Not just JW who say it even Google agrees that there was a Global War and calls it World War 1.  And Jesus is in control of the Chariot, not a taxi. 

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-teach/1914-significant-year-bible-prophecy/

 Happy Dance

[TrueTomHarley]

In the absence of human authority, when God says something you don't like, you simply interpret it away. 

No harm done.

[JW Insider]

On 8/24/2017 at 8:25 AM, bruceq said:

And there are literally hundreds more quotations that he made showing that 1914 would stand out as a unique date in Bible prophecy and would be indicated with a War.

If there are really hundreds more quotations he he made saying 1914 "would be indicated with a War," then you should at least be able to find ONE, wouldn't you agree?

So far, you are "batting 0." Perhaps that's why your cartoon above needed to give the appearance of a "home run"?