Apostles, Judas, GB, Raymond, Satan, Holy Spirit

[JOHN BUTLER]

5 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Come, come. This is why your side becomes disorganized rabble, each person flailing away, and ultimately accomplishing little. Worse, they soon take sides over the many divisive issues of this system and are presently at each other’s throats—despite each one’s ‘personal relationship with Jesus.’

Every project needs direction and someone to lead. It is no more complicated than that. Refraining from critiquing them over every little thing is not the same as ‘worshipping’ them.

Many have tried to explain this to you, to no end. For the life of me, I cannot bring myself to explain something so obvious.

You poor man. You cannot stand the point that I AM AN INDIVIDUAL.

You always harp back to things like "your side becomes disorganized rabble"

Tom, i do not have a 'side'.  Please get it through your head that i act totally ALONE. 

Um Tom, does that cause you a problem with your BOOKS ?  Does it mean you may have to rethink and rewrite some of it ? 

You pretend that you know everything about ex-JW's, or apostates as you like to call them. But in truth you probably know very little, or more to the point you only know what you want to know. 

"Every project needs direction and someone to lead.    8 basically American men, where you could have 12 or more men from around the Earth. The Anointed are many and widespread it seems. 

And, the GB / Writing dept / JW Org, leaves itself wide open to inspection and criticism. 

[TrueTomHarley]

43 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

Tom, i do not have a 'side'.  Please get it through your head that i act totally ALONE. 

Well, there you go then. Coordinated effort such as under the direction of the GB can result in real spiritual benefits to people around the world, particularly in developing lands.

You sitting ALONE in your hut cannot, even if you are tight with Jesus.

I think it is the selfishness of the independent course that most annoys me. 

[JOHN BUTLER]

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Well, there you go then. Coordinated effort such as under the direction of the GB can result in real spiritual benefits to people around the world, particularly in developing lands.

You sitting ALONE in your hut cannot, even if you are tight with Jesus.

I think it is the selfishness of the independent course that most annoys me. 

you would be funny to some distorted minds. 

I was part of the JW Org. I am now on my own as someone seeking truth. But you would just be happy to distort everything I say because you know I'm right in most things. 

I think the Catholic church have  'Coordinated effort' too, and possibly the Protestants / Anglicans and more. So coordinated effort does not mean much. Even armed forces from different countries get together to go and kill people. You might call that coordinated effort. 

" particularly in developing lands. " Of course you mean less educated and more desperate people. Easier to 'convert' to JW's. 

If the GB were really the F&DS then yes, and if they told the truth, and if they were guided by God's Holy Spirit, and if they kept the Org clean instead of 'only washing the outside of the dish', then yes. But they are not, and therefore cannot. 

It's not my selfishness that annoys you TTH, it's my strength. My faith in God and Christ is still strong even though I have no human I can trust. 

[TrueTomHarley]

48 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

It's not my selfishness that annoys you TTH, it's my strength.

Yesterday in service there was one of those pissy little yappy dogs nipping at my pant leg. I was annoyed with its strength.

You overestimate yourself, John.

[JOHN BUTLER]

13 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Yesterday in service there was one of those pissy little yappy dogs nipping at my pant leg. I was annoyed with its strength.

You overestimate yourself, John.

From you I take that as a compliment.

However I don't overestimate God and Jesus Christ. They will sort it all out in their own time. 

Have a good day Tom.  

[JW Insider]

On 2/6/2019 at 8:37 AM, FelixCA said:

I imagine you have dismissed the OPED I submitted, with how many in charge would be frank and open with their responses.

I can't tell for sure who you are talking to here. You addressed the post with the Op-Ed to @TrueTomHarley, but this current post that I'm quoting from directly responds to some points that I made. So if it's all the same to you, I'll try to address some of the points you made with reference to the Op-Ed especially.

On 2/5/2019 at 8:50 AM, FelixCA said:

Also, with this illustration, it should be able to give more clarity to other issues.

It could only add clarity if it were made clear what you had presented.

The July 8 1931 Golden Age referred to in the Op-Ed had already made clear that no Bible Student/JW should be listening to the Frank & Ernest radio program that had previously been on WBBR and which was now being broadcast by Dawn Bible Students in 1931. The president of the Dawn Bible Students was Norman Woodworth, and the editor of the Golden Age was Clayton Woodworth.

This bit of confusion had led some to need more clarity, as the name "Jehovah's witnesses" was not yet so well known, and both groups were still called Bible Students, and both continued to sell Millennial Dawn books, and both had a famous "Brother Woodworth" as an editor. The Dawn Bible Students published a brochure called "Bible Students Radio Echo." Brother Norman Woodworth was its editor, not the Watch Tower's Golden Age editor, Clayton Woodworth.

The July 8 1931 Golden Age (Clayton Woodworth) published a lengthy article about this "Bible Students Radio Echo:"

. . . He will to accomplish His purposes; and we
have full confidence that the Watch Tower Bible
& Tract Society is the one and only instrumentality
which the Lord is using to proclaim the
kingdom of God in the earth at this time.
As respects the dialogues of "Frank and
Ernest", it is a matter of record that these
dialogues were broadcast for several years from
Radio Station WBBR, the WATCHTOWER; and
it is as apparent that during those years "Frank
and Ernest" were greatly used and highly
honored by the Lord . . . But those who are wise toward
God will now have nothing to do with "Frank
and Ernest" or with the "Bible Students Radio
Echo", now that these men have ceased their
association with the instrumentality God is
using in the earth to perform his work at this
time, and this regardless of what they broadcast,
whether it be good, bad or indifferent. We
are publishing this notice so that the feebleminded
(1 Thess. 5: 14) may not be deceived.

So the openness that you point out from Russell's day is contradicted by the Golden Age in 1931. You point out that Russell had said: "and many have come to a knowledge of the Truth and into full relationship with the Lord as a result of these ministries outside of the Society."  [Emphasis yours.] But until recently, even during your own and my own lifetime, we continued to refer to the Dawn Bible Students as the "evil slave" and Witnesses were not trusted to even pick out what parts were good and what were bad or indifferent. The opening paragraph of the Golden Age article of July 8th had compared the "Dawn Bible Students" to the demons, and the article continued putting them in the Haman class, the Korah class, etc.

The response to that article is, of course, the Op-Ed you presented, and it was from Norman Woodworth's "Dawn Bible Students." It was actually from Norman Woodworth himself speaking out against these statements from the Watch Tower Society. It was in a publication called "Witness Bulletin" in its very first issue in October 1931 (released in September, I believe). Clayton Woodworth published a response to it in the October 14, 1931 Golden Age. The very title of the article is indeed an echo of some of the points that Raymond Franz made in the book "In Search of Christian Freedom." C.Woodworth's response complains that the term "Christian liberty" (Christian Freedom) was used so many times that it's obvious that the writer of your Op-Ed preferred Christian liberty over obedience. The Golden Age response was titled "Liberty or Obedience -- Which?"  It's easy to guess which side the Watch Tower publications would favor here. 

(In truth, of course, we should never seek unlimited freedom, which is a point that R.Franz makes, too. Obedience to Jehovah and Jesus are actually a part of our Christian freedom, even though Jesus said "his load was light." It's proper obedience that produces the joy we find in the freedom for which "Christ set us free.")

Only a portion of that Op-Ed was ever reproduced in the WT publications. The response was to clamp down and denigrate, even to literally "demonize" the persons who continued to remain in a "cult" to Russell. Of course, Dawn made many valid points, too. And Rutherford was correctly trying to move "Jehovah's witnesses" away from this "cult" status, at least for those Bible Students who would remain loyal and obedient to the Watch Tower Society.

On 2/5/2019 at 8:50 AM, FelixCA said:

This is the kind of openness the Watchtower framers had.

Quite the opposite. It is a monument to the close-mindedness that had developed, and which was already developing in Russell's time as president of the WT Society. The real differences between Rutherford's and Norman Woodworth's views could have been easily explained. There was no need to just simply demand "obedience" and demand that this "Dawn" group be called "evil." A major problem, too, was that there was a financial issue in the way, and it was causing a division among brothers especially after the "Crash of 1929" and the Great Depression. Rutherford had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Russell's books in warehouses and he wanted to continue with several months' worth of selling campaigns to recover the money from these. (The WTS had continued to print them by the hundreds of thousands up until 1927, and for a few years, they still sold better than Rutherford's books.) Both groups, "Dawn" and the WTBTS, were competing to sell Russell's books, even though Witnesses were beginning to question this practice, asking why they were selling books that were full of known falsehoods (and exactly the same books being sold by the "evil slave).

Of course, Rutherford demanded obedience. The "Bulletin" would say, in effect: 'If the Lord wants us to sell Russell's books, then that's what we'll do.'  It even added that if one were to be disobedient to Rutherford, it would be the same as being disobedient to the Lord.

The ka book says, simply:

*** ka chap. 17 p. 347 par. 33 The “Slave” Who Lived to See the “Sign” ***
Later in the year 1927 any remaining stocks of the six volumes of Studies in the Scriptures by Russell and of The Finished Mystery were disposed of among the public.

What it doesn't mention however, is that it actually entailed many months of campaigns over a period of several years --even past 1933. Here's an example from the Bulletin of December 1931:

 

[TrueTomHarley]

Let me check. Is this the open or the closed JW forum?

ahhh, it’s the open forum.

HEY @James Thomas Rook Jr.! HERE’S SOME GOOD COUNSEL FOR YOU!

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

We
are publishing this notice so that the feebleminded
(1 Thess. 5: 14) may not be deceived.

It’s  GAME ON, YOU PORK CHOP!

And after I was so nice to you on the closed forum.

(sorry)

”the riot squad is restless; they need somewhere to go”...Bob Dylan 

[Witness]

On 2/7/2019 at 10:37 AM, TrueTomHarley said:

Well, there you go then. Coordinated effort such as under the direction of the GB can result in real spiritual benefits to people around the world, particularly in developing lands.

You sitting ALONE in your hut cannot, even if you are tight with Jesus.

I think it is the selfishness of the independent course that most annoys me. 

My, you give Jesus little credit.

I know I’ve posted these scriptures; but here I will quote it from the International Children’s Bible 😊

Then the angel who was talking with me came back. He woke me up as if I had been asleep. ² He asked me, “What do you see?”

I said, “I see a solid gold lampstand. There is a bowl at the top. And there are seven lamps. There are also seven places for wicks. ³ There are two olive trees by it. One is on the right of the bowl. And one is on the left.”

⁴ I asked the angel who talked with me, “Sir, what are these?”

⁵ The angel said, “Don’t you know what they are?”

“No, sir,” I said.

⁶ Then he told me, “This is the message from the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘You will not succeed by your own strength or by your own power. The power will come from my Spirit,’ says the Lord of heaven’s armies.

⁷ “No mountain (the “mountainlike organization”) can stand in Zerubbabel’s way. It will be flattened. Then he will bring out the topmost stone. There will be shouts of ‘It’s beautiful! It’s beautiful!’”

(Definitely we are not talking about a corrupt organization that calls itself "Zion".)  

⁸ Then the Lord spoke his word to me again. He said: ⁹ “Zerubbabel has laid the foundation of this Temple. (Not the Watchtower “temple”, but that which is built upon faithful anointed “living stones” 1 Cor 3:16,17; 1 Pet 2:5,9)  He will also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of heaven’s armies has sent me to you.

¹⁰ “The people should not think that small beginnings are unimportant. They will be happy when they see Zerubbabel with tools, building the Temple.

“(These seven lamps stand for the eyes of the Lord. They look back and forth across the earth.)”

¹¹ Then I asked the angel, “What are the two olive trees on the right and left of the lampstand?”

¹² I also asked him, “What are the two branches full of olives? The olive oil flows through the two gold pipes to the lamps.”

¹³ He answered, “Don’t you know what they are?”

“No, sir,” I said.

¹⁴ So he said, “They stand for two men. They have been appointed to serve the Lord of all the earth.”

 

A symbolic “two” will complete the work God has outlined for them. Rev 11:1-6  Do you know how many that is?  Do you think it is 8 million people?  Doubtfully.

 

“Also, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about something, then you can pray for it. And the thing you ask for will be done for you by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ This is true because if two or three people come together in my name, I am there with them.”  Matt 28:19,20

 

 

 

 

 

[TrueTomHarley]

2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

can't tell for sure who you are talking to here. You addressed the post with the Op-Ed to @TrueTomHarley, but this current post that I'm quoting from directly responds to some points that I made. So if it's all the same to

It was probably for you. I had no idea what he was talking about and only responded to what I knew.

[TrueTomHarley]

3 minutes ago, Witness said:

IMy, you give Jesus little credit.

Jesus with the organization that he leads results in persons of developing lands possessing modern Bible translations that, if need be, are free.

Jesus ‘in the hearts’ of renegade anointed who refuse to cooperate with an arrangement because they think they are not given their proper place results in those persons stuck with an archaic translation that they can neither understand nor afford.

That’s why I think he operates in the first way.

My, you give Jesus little credit.

[Witness]

6 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Jesus ‘in the hearts’ of renegade anointed who refuse to cooperate with an arrangement because they think they are not given their proper place

Tom, who do I bring out constantly that have not been given credit as to their proper place?  The anointed ones.  I speak for THEM.   Since these priests have been supplanted by those not priests, not spiritual Israel, but spiritual "Gentiles" ruling over them, then how can you say Jesus is in agreement "with an arrangement" that men have formed?  Uninspired men?    

Jesus, who is the Head of his anointed body and the Temple.  Eph 5:22-30  These scriptures explain who the anointed are to be "submissive" to.  It isn't to men.  

What does Rev. 11:1-3 say?  Have you read it?  

[Witness]

32 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Jesus with the organization that he leads results in persons of developing lands possessing modern Bible translations that, if need be, are free.

The organization that he leads is built on his body with "living stones". Eph 2:20-22   Perhaps you've got the wrong organization.  Rev 13:1-10   Notice..."this demands perseverance and faith of the saints".  Why? Because this "organization"/Beast is bent on conquering them.