I’m under considerable time constraints today, so I’ll leave all the commenting to the forum membership as regards this week’s BS, TMS, and SM.
As always, we look forward to upbuilding comments to help us deepen our understanding of Scripture.
One member sent in the following images showing the differences between the old and new Draw Close book. The changes seem to be so trivial that one wonders what all the fuss is about.
MIL GRACIAS POR PONER ESTOS Himnos Y PODER ACCEDER,
A ELLOS, DIOS LOS BENDIGA Y LES DE MUCHA FORTALEZA PARA SEGUIR
EN SUS CAMINOS.
Importa quee religion debes seguir?, Jesus cuando vikno a la tierra, vino a unir o a separar?.
El Hombre le dara solucion a los problemas que tenemos?.
Quien gobierna veredaderamente este mundo?
Hasta cuando?
Gracias, Kristie. Es nuestra intención en el nuevo año poner un sitio web en español equivalente a Beroean Pickets para compartir con nuestros hermanos de habla hispana, las verdades biblicás que hemos descubierto juntos aquí.
Bienvenido y gracias por tu bendiciones! Que’l Padre te bendiga tambien.
Es claro que ningun hombre puede darnos soluciones a nuestras problemas, solamente Cristo. Por eso, es EL que seguimos!
I agree with your comments SW1 and D . However I personally don’t believe that any of the comments on have been negative. This whole site is full of scriptural opinions. So are the publications from the WTBS. Unlike the WTBS however, I don’t think anyone is demanding that anyone put faith in them. I agree balance and modesty should prevail at the end of the day. Changing the word is neither positive or negative IMO. It’s just a change.
For everything there is an appointed time, even a time for every affair under the heavens: 2 a time for birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot what was planted; 3 a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build; 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to wail and a time to skip about; 5 a time to throw stones away and a time to bring stones together; a time to embrace and a time to keep away from embracing;… Read more »
Nice Meleti 🙂 point taken
Yes! yes! yes! “And what is Jehovah asking back from you but to exercise justice and to love kindness and to be modest in walking with your God?” (Micah 6:8 …. the amen to all of my rants!)
Maybe I’m missing what others are seeing, or perhaps I’m not understanding the issues that others are having, but isn’t a positive that the wording was changed to something less than definitive? Should it always have read “understood to mean” rather than “literally means”? Yes, probably so. I would suggest that some making comments here are doing the same as the GB has done. For example: “Surely we would be wiser and more correct to follow Jesus example of addressing God as our “Father” ( 2 Cor 1:3) rather than Jehovah.” I think there is plenty of scriptural support that… Read more »
Oh I think you hit the nail on the head, D. We should look more closely at “definitive” because this reflects the attitude our religion has been built upon. If Rutherford was right about anything, “Religion IS a snare.” And because we allowed ourselves to be ensnared, we now have opinions so definitive that we built an entire religion upon exposing flaws in others that we cannot see in ourselves. So really then what defines our attitude better than our attempt to extract the straw from all other religious eyes before seeing the rafter in our own?
We have never been ones to admit too much Bible scholarship, but Moses was a compiler, not a writer, of pre-flood events. There were at least two creation accounts, the second beginning at Gen. 2:4, where we first find “Jehovah” as the divine name. The earlier account came from a source where God and verbs had only two time senses: complete and not-yet-complete. Thus the first account highlights this Godly power to become or cause-to-become. Further, in a scientific sense, light with its energy and water in its liquid state are two requirements to sustain life. Day 1 and Day… Read more »
So the meaning of the name is almost synonymous with the title Creator. But it goes beyond Creator because it involves not only the creation of things but also the creation of events (fulfilling his will).
The truth is I have always understood the divine name as being more than just about Jehovah himself becoming what he wants to become. I always understood it as also being about him being able to cause other things to become. I was always a bit puzzled about why the focus of the meaning of his name seemed to be solely on him becoming what he wants to become and very little attention being given to the rather obvious fact that “He causes to become” also perfectly matches his ability to cause his will to occur and to create whatever… Read more »
In fact, I believe the creation account at Genesis 1 actually poetically reveals and describes God’s name before it is first introduced at Genesis 2:4. To illustrate what I mean: “And God proceeded to say: “LET light COME TO BE.” Then there CAME TO BE light.” – Genesis 1:3 “And God went on to say: “LET an expanse COME TO BE . . . And it CAME TO BE so.” – Genesis 1:6,7 Genesis chapter 1 has a series of verses where God says “Let . . . come to be” followed by “and it came to be so”. This… Read more »
Jude I doubt that it’s taken a long time to realize it. I think the answer to the puzzle lies in what motivation there might be to hang on to a very specific, but unsubstantiated, definition. Since Rutherford made the move of labeling us with the Hebrew Divine name, we have had a lot invested in being the custodians of it. As such it was important for us to demonstrate that we knew exactly what it meant. Not only that, but as usual we had to maintain a difference between us and the rest of Christendom. If they allowed for… Read more »
Apollos – very good and accurate observation IMO
My only comment during the BS was on paragraph 8 where it says, “In response Jehovah revealed a thrilling aspect of his personality, something that is related to the meaning of his name. He said to Moses: “I shall prove to be what I shall prove to be.” (Exodus 3:14) Now I am really feeling dumbed down. It’s as if we are being retaught even more childishly the elementary things of grammer school. For a fact we should already know that Hebrew has only two verb tenses, “past perfect” (action begun and completed) and “past/present imperfect” (action begun but incomplete).… Read more »
I made a comment on this site about the watchtower last Sunday saying how I need and to praise Jehovah more . That being said …Song 119 bothers me . The entire song is not in anyway praising Jehovah. The lyrics are : “We live in a world that is wayward and lost;The way of our God is not known.We need sure direction to safeguard our steps;We cannot succeed on our own.Our meetings refresh us and brighten our hope;They help us build faith in our God.They move us with words that incite to fine deeds,They give us the strength to… Read more »
With regard to the pronunciation of God’s name the Divine Name brochure has this to say on pages 6 and 7 “The truth is, nobody knows for sure how the name of God was originally pronounced. Why not? Well, the first language used in writing the Bible was Hebrew, and when the Hebrew language was written down, the writers wrote only consonants—not vowels. Hence, when the inspired writers wrote God’s name, they naturally did the same thing and wrote only the consonants. While ancient Hebrew was an everyday spoken language, this presented no problem. The pronunciation of the Name was… Read more »
I conducted the Close book intro last evening, and after asking repeated questions on the prologue, was unable to elicit any answer mentioning Jesus Christ as the key to open the door to knowledge of God. In fact, Jesus is the only way to understand and approach our heavenly father. The error of thinking we “know Jehovah” because we know his name was the same mistake addressed by God in his answer to Moses basic question, (Exodus 3:13) 13 Nevertheless, Moses said to the [true] God: “Suppose I am now come to the sons of Israel and I do say to… Read more »
You’ve just given me the basis for an excellent comment. Thanks.
I really enjoyed your comment!
yes, I printed out the changes, and I thought, what is this! I really think its to make the b/s feel that the GB is living up to its name as a FDS, providing any food at any time, after all its the 100 anniversary of 1914, little gifts, every one is a buzz with this year, and this just adds a few more candles to the cake.
I have had a few b/s say its the 100th yr since the Kindom was born. I cant laugh, I actually feel sick about it. Love all our brothers.
Due to the inclement weather conditions my meeting was cancelled again. It is rare for our meetings here to be cancelled in a row like this. The frigid weather conditions are unbelievable here! What stood out for me in preparing for the meeting was the Reasoning book’s heading “Members of the Right Religion are Active Witnesses concerning God’s Kingdom”. The GB is clearly drawing the line in the sand when it comes to other religions. It specially cites three qualifiers to be considered an active member of the right religion : proclaiming God’s kingdom as the only solution to man’s… Read more »
*** na págs. 17-19 El nombre de Dios y los traductores de la Biblia *** El nombre de Dios y los traductores de la Biblia A PRINCIPIOS del siglo segundo, después de la muerte del último de los apóstoles, empezó en serio el apostatar de la fe cristiana predicho por Jesús y sus seguidores. Filosofías y doctrinas paganas se infiltraron en la congregación; surgieron sectas y divisiones, y la pureza original de la fe fue corrompida. Y el nombre de Dios dejó de usarse. A medida que este cristianismo apóstata se esparció, surgió la necesidad de traducir la Biblia de… Read more »
Thanks Meleti
The comment I would make is regarding our part in the service meeting regarding our magazines for January. I see in the km we continue with the self promotion of our website. It seems that we are not asking people to read the bible for help or comfort, but instead to read publications written by men. True they are based on the bible, but if the bible is truly important why don’t we just use that to help ones with problems?
The ever growing push to praise men is troubling.
Comparing the 1984 vs. 2014 information on the divine name, we see how the quality and quantity of our instruction at the mid-week meetings has fallen off – from the sublime meat of God’s Word, to the infantile milk presently being offered: (Hebrews 5:13-6:1) 13 For everyone that partakes of milk is unacquainted with the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to mature people, to those who through use have their perceptive powers trained to distinguish both right and wrong. 6 For this reason, now that we have left the primary doctrine about the Christ, let… Read more »
Well just looking at the side by side comparisons of the two versions of the book the differences are not quite so slight. It looks as though they are trying to revise the wording that concretely states that Jehovah’s name means “he causes to become”. It’s more of ” we believe it means this”… “instead of it means this.” Why that was such a huge deal for THEM to change the wording is beyond me. Either people agree with their translation or they do not.
I wonder if they are getting backlash because of the “silver spear”.
I barely could tell the difference with the wording. However in our congregation many talked about how the GB can now update things in a short time by using ePub.
Could this be an exercise in this regard? Only time will tell as we go forward.
Hello hezekiah1 🙂 The wording is definitely different to me. I don’t know what motivated them to change it. There is no difference in the conclusion…the conclusion being that they are sticking with meaning of Jehovah’s name to be “he causes to become “. In paragraph 8 they essentially state that Jehovah himself explains that in Exodus 3:14 the meaning of his name. In the new version they retracted that statement totally. In paragraph 7 it goes from saying Jehovah literally means “he causes to become “….to it is understood that it means “ He causes to become”. No one… Read more »
There has been a concerted effort by the GB to give the impression we have made great advances under holy spirit and the direct hand of Jehovah to understand the divine name and draw closer to him. Here’s a quiz from the exercise of the first nine paragraph’s: 1. Since 2002, what increase in insight and understanding of the divine being has been provided by the “faithful and discreet slave” as “food at the proper time?” Answer: See difference in versions: 2002 to 2014. 2. What Is The History Of The Development Of The Divine Name “JEHOVAH”, Prior To The… Read more »