A serious questions for the Jehovah's Witnesses on these threads.

[DavidB]

Why dispute birthdays and Thanksgiving with someone who sees no problem with merging pagan practices into Christianity via Christmas and Easter.

 

[RLT63]

Jesus was brilliant but he wasn't usually brief. What he had to say was of life or death importance, so brevity wasn't going to cut it. Some of his teaching sessions lasted for days.

I find you skilled in only one of those areas.....not the one you think.

A scripture that you have misapplied since it was Jesus instructing us about prayer....
Have you studied the Bible RLT...? or only theology? Did you know that there is a big difference? It isn't apparent that you do.

Have you ever studied anything other than the JWs view on theology and the Bible? You are very knowledgeable but only about what your denomination teaches. I’d say you’re an expert on the JWs theology and if I wanted to know anything about their beliefs I could ask you

 

[Wrangler]

Being "all things to all people" did not involve joining them in false religious celebrations.

What is the great commission Wrangler?

Not a lot of grace there, AJ. I already quoted the Great Commission. See my post in making disciples of nations. Regarding what "all things to all people" involve, try re-reading Scripture. It speaks for itself.

It’s amazing how you keep falsely equating celebrating birthdays with false worship and religion.

 

[Wrangler]

I didn't say it changed the great commission. We still go to the nations to preach the good news about the kingdom.

The Great Commission is not going to but making nations disciples.

 

[Aunty Jane]

Why dispute birthdays and Thanksgiving with someone who sees no problem with merging pagan practices into Christianity via Christmas and Easter.

Good question.....but in a public forum, we are not only addressing the person we are responding to, but there could be a hundred people standing behind us listening to the conversation.....this is a unique opportunity to address them without directly speaking to them.

We all have decisions to make as these last days draw to a close, so unless people have all the facts, how will they ever be able to decide what is true for themselves? IMO, an uniformed decision is not worth making....

 

[Aunty Jane]

Have you ever studied anything other than the JWs view on theology and the Bible? You are very knowledgeable but only about what your denomination teaches. I’d say you’re an expert on the JWs theology and if I wanted to know anything about their beliefs I could ask you

I wasn’t always a JW.....I chose to become one after an extensive search for answers to my Bible questions in various denominations of Christendom.....but found them to be just different versions of the same unsubstantiated guesswork, along with unwelcome traditions that crept in so long ago that no one questions them....they all claim to be right, but are clearly not following what Christ taught.

I had all the hard questions and empty theology couldn’t answer them..... but JW’s did, without once saying “I think” the Bible says “this” or “that”...they simply opened their Bible and got me to do the same....and every question was answered in context with what the Bible in its entirety, teaches.....it was one story, with one author and for the first time in my life I could see where all the pieces fit.

Most of what Christendom teaches is confused and based on supposition rather than a sound knowledge of why we are here....what went wrong....and how God gets us back to where we need to be.....and it isn’t heaven.

I smile when I see the “lone rangers” valiantly trying to convince the world that they alone have the true meaning of scripture......the devil is having a lend of those who want to believe only what they want to, without any regard for what the Creator has said from the beginning, is his purpose in putting us here on this very carefully prepared planet in the first place.

So the reason why JW’s have a different “theology” to those many denominations in Christendom, is because the “wheat and the weeds” have been separated during all these “last days”. Christendom’s doctrines have been carefully studied and found to be baseless in God’s word.....one by one, they have been summarily discarded and the truth of scripture put forward.........and so the judge of all of us is ready to send the “reapers” out to collect the “weeds” first, and to destroy them. Who are they? Time will tell. Jesus is the judge, and he doesn’t read labels......he reads hearts. They do not lie to him, they lie only to their owners, who will not know until that day, which road they have travelled.

 

[Aunty Jane]

Not a lot of grace there, AJ. I already quoted the Great Commission. See my post in making disciples of nations. Regarding what "all things to all people" involve, try re-reading Scripture. It speaks for itself.

It’s amazing how you keep falsely equating celebrating birthdays with false worship and religion.

Wrangler, “the nations” belong to the devil....he is in control of all of them...this is what the scripture you quoted tells you, (1 John 5:19) yet you again overlook the obvious. It is the people of all nations that are to be made disciples as Peter says in Acts 10:34-35....

After the conversion of the first Gentile, Cornelius and his household......
“.....Peter began to speak, and he said: “Now I truly understand that God is not partial, 35 but in every nation the man who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

No “nation” can be deemed to be “Christian” because many of its people will not be Christians except in name only. It takes more than a label to make one a genuine footstep follower of Christ. (1 Peter 2:21-23)
It is “the world” (satan’s world) who will hate Christ’s disciples and persecute them....people of all nations, no matter what they call themselves, will demonstrate clearly to our judge, whose teachings they follow.

John 15:18-21.....Jesus said...
“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, for this reason the world hates you. 20 Keep in mind the word I said to you: A slave is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have observed my word, they will also observe yours. 21 But they will do all these things against you on account of my name, because they do not know the One who sent me.”

Are members of your brotherhood being persecuted by those who purport to worship the same God? The first Christians were....and so many in my brotherhood are languishing in prisons around the world for doing nothing more that what Christ instructed his disciples to do....to peacefully fulfill “the great commission”......to take Christ’s message about his kingdom to all who will listen. There is hatred for the ones who dare to tell an unpopular truth, but Jesus said we must. It is the only way for the “sheep and the goats” to manifest themselves. That preaching will continue to be done until “the end comes”. (Matthew 24:14)

The ones pointing out the errors and exposing the lies are the same as the first century Christians...a hated minority who were held in contempt because what they said went against everything the Pharisees taught the people. Jesus warned them about how they would be received. (Matthew 5: 10-12)
This is our reality.....

 

[BARNEY BRIGHT]

The Great Commission is not going to but making nations disciples.

Wrong, Jesus didn't say that, you are wrangler. Jesus said go make disciples of all the nations. He didn't say go make all nations disciples.

 

[Wrangler]

Wrangler, “the nations” belong to the devil

It doesn’t change our mission. You seem content to forsake those our lord commanded us to reach by becoming ‘all things to all people’ so that some may be saved.

 

[Wrangler]

Wrong, Jesus didn't say that, you are wrangler. Jesus said go make disciples of all the nations. He didn't say go make all nations disciples.

Semantics! It means the same thing,

 

[Wrangler]

yet you again overlook the obvious. It is the people of all nations that are to be made disciples

Of course it is! For some reason, you are attempting to parse the people from their nation. The nation of Israel is nothing without the people of Israel. They are synonyms.

Maybe you are attempting to truly parse people from their government?

A cursory examination of the 10 Commandments shows its connection to government. Don’t murder, steal or ‘bear false witness,’ which means perjury, NOT a general prohibition against lying. ‘So help you God’ is in the context of court, telling the truth and not taking the LORD’s name in vain.

Watched a World Cup game the other day. One of the nations flag seemed familiar. Do you suppose the people of this nation are Muslim or Hindu or Taoist? Or do you suppose one cannot tell anything about the people of this nation in looking at the nations flag?

 

[Wrangler]

No “nation” can be deemed to be “Christian” because many of its people will not be Christians

Circular Reasoning. Italy is only 84% Christian (with 11% no religion). I suppose JW invoke minority rule with the above axiom.

 

[The Learner]

I am not talking to goldfish.....those too lazy to read, will miss important Bible truths.....and that is not my problem.
I answer each point as precisely as I can because details are important to me.....as are the scriptures.

Jesus said that “the sheep” know the voice of their shepherd (John 10:27)......so the genuine truth seekers will want to know the real truth, not what masquerades as truth in a multitude of bickering denominations......or the words of the “lone rangers”; those individuals who see themselves as the only one who can interpret scripture correctly, yet they have no brotherhood who believes what they teach (1 Cor 1:10).......so in that setting, this will mean that the genuine truth seeker will want to dig for the hidden treasures that are found in the Bible. They are hungry for the food that Jesus told his disciples to “feed” others. (Matthew 24:45)

The “weeds” are in the world and there are a multitude of them.....but the “wheat” are also in the world....”few” in number, but they are out there preaching what Christ told them to spread into all the world. (Matthew 24:14; 28:19-20) Our judge is separating them as we speak. The time for the “harvest” is upon us.

The “sheep” will see the futility of Christendom’s complete lack of cohesion, and are sick of wading through all the material that is put out by “a house divided” but who all claim to follow the teachings of the Christ. They fail to teach what the Bible does.
Like the Jews of old, they substitute the “traditions of men”, without any regard for how God feels about those things.
The “sheep” are the people who will want to know the truth, even if it means relinquishing long held beliefs because they see where they came from....and how God feels about them.

The Bible is not a brief book...therefore it’s truths cannot be expressed in 50 words or less....

ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL

I have a very high IQ and I skip over your posts because they are illogical and lack coherence --- I do not read long posts because I have limited time online to get things done in the real world.

 

[BARNEY BRIGHT]

Semantics! It means the same thing,

No wrangler it isn't semantics and it doesn't mean the same thing You're just showing another example of how you will twist the scriptures for your own personal benefit.

 

[The Learner]

Certainly he is. Jesus was given all authority.

Revelation 1:18​

​

I have the keys of Death and Hades.​

Revelation 1:8
International Standard Version
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” declares the Lord God, “the one who is, who was, and who is coming, the Almighty.” The one to come is Jesus at the Second Coming.

 

[The Learner]

2 Thessalonians 2:1-2
International Standard Version

2 Now we ask you, brothers, regarding the coming of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, and our gathering together to him, 2 not to be so quickly upset or alarmed when someone claims that we said, either by some spirit, conversation, or letter that the Day of the Lord has already come.

The word Lord in both places is Kurios. The grammer is the same in both verses. KIT translates Day of Jehovah. Because of what just pointed out the correct translation is also Jehovah Jesus. There is no way around this.

 

[The Learner]

continued

"Even though the modern pronunciation Jehovah might not be exactly the way it was pronounced originally, this in no way detracts from the importance of the name. While many translators favor the pronunciation Yahweh, the New World Translation and also a number of other translations continue the use of the form Jehovah because of people's familiarity with it for centuries." The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever p.10

 

[The Learner]

Since you have more time then most here, study this

https://www.calvarychapelboston.com/Biblical%20Basis%20Trinity%20Bowman.pdf

OR do you want me to post it in multiple posts?

 

[The Learner]

What is the great commission Wrangler? Give us the details of what you believe Christ told his disciples to do and say in carrying it out?

Being "all things to all people" did not involve joining them in false religious celebrations. Nowhere are we told to appropriate the pagan's customs or rituals in order to sway them over to our way of thinking. You cannot contaminate God's worship with the worship of foreign gods. @2 Cor 6:14-18, Paul could not have been plainer.....unless of course you think he contradicted himself....?

What was the prime example that Paul used to show what he meant when trying to be "all things to all people so that he might save some"? Wasn't it his address to the philosophers at Acts 17:22-28?

“Men of Athens, I see that in all things you seem to be more given to the fear of the deities than others are. 23 For instance, while passing along and carefully observing your objects of veneration, I found even an altar on which had been inscribed ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you are unknowingly worshipping, this I am declaring to you. 24 The God who made the world and all the things in it, being, as he is, Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade temples; 25 nor is he served by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. 26 And he made out of one man every nation of men to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he decreed the appointed times and the set limits of where men would dwell, 27 so that they would seek God, if they might grope for him and really find him, although, in fact, he is not far off from each one of us. 28 For by him we have life and move and exist, even as some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his children.’"

This is masterful.....Paul used an "unknown god" that was already acknowledged by the people he was addressing, and he simply identified this "unknown god" as Yahweh. He then described him to the audience so that the existence of this unknown god was acknowledged and explained.....and this God was different to all their other gods.

Illogical you should stop using the faulty logic of Full text of "Weigall, Arthur The Paganism In Our Christianity"

It is known as the copy cat thesis very funny reading

 

[The Learner]

I didn't say it changed the great commission. We still go to the nations to preach the good news about the kingdom. But just as the majority of the Jews didn't believe Jesus or his apostles the majority of the people in the nations want believe today.

"In the name of"