This video is similar to one I released in February 2018 to launch the Beroean Pickets channel. It will now serve as the basis for translating the introductory video of the new YouTube channels we’ll be launching in January 2025 in the following languages:
Danish: Berean bibelstudier
French: Études bibliques béréennes
Italian: Studi Biblici Bereani’
German: Beröer Bibelstudien
Greek: Κριτικές Γραφικές Μελέτες όπως οι Βηραιώτες
Hungarian: Bereai Biblia tanulmányok
Mandarin: 庇里亚人的圣经研究
Polish: bądźmy jak berejczycy
Portuguese: Estudios Bíblicos Bereanos
Romanian: Bereenii Studiul în Scripturi
Russian: Верийские исследования - Обзор Писания
Spanish: Estudios Bíblicos Bereanos
These translations are possible due to the willing spirit of many volunteers whose interest is, like mine, in getting the message of the good news of the kingdom of God out to the world. There are still so many yet to be freed from enslavement to the men of organized religion, but we do what we can.
Your donations help to defray the costs of the AI platform that creates the video voiceovers in each language. Thank you so much for your contributions.
My plan is to start with the initial videos published on this channel in English from 2018 onward in which I analyzed and exposed the false teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I will simplify and shorten them for the purpose of translation.
I’ll keep you updated as to our progress. And now, here’s the introductory video which will be translated into the 12 languages just listed.]
Hello everyone.
My name is Eric Wilson. I want to talk with you about a problem that has been facing every member of the Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses since 2012. That was the year in which the men of the Governing Body declared themselves to be the Faithful and Discreet Slave, appointed by Jesus Christ during his presence which they claim was in 1914.
Now before I go any further, I need to give you a little background on myself. I was born in Canada in 1949, and I raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I served as an elder for forty years, preaching in Canada, Colombia, and Ecuador. I worked for the Ecuador branch office near Guayaquil and for the Canada branch office in Georgetown, Ontario.
In 2013, I was serving in the Alliston congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses as the coordinator of the body of elders when I was unexpectedly called by the Circuit Overseer to meet with the entire body of elders in my congregation. When I asked what the meeting was about, he wouldn’t tell me. All he would tell me was that some of the elders were concerned about me. As it turned out, the purpose of the meeting was to determine whether I was unconditionally loyal to the Governing Body.
I explained to them all that I had always obeyed the instructions from the Governing Body and would continue to do so. If I had left it at that, I would not have been removed from my position as an elder. But I felt compelled to add something from the Bible.
Quoting from Acts 5:29, I told them: “But I will always obey God as ruler rather than men.”
I felt that was a safe answer, but the audible gasp from several of my fellow elders told me they were shocked that I would apply that verse to instructions from the Governing Body. Apparently, they felt that the Governing Body was exempt from that scriptural principle.
But can any man or group of men be considered worthy of being our ruler instead of God? Apparently, for many Jehovah’s Witnesses, the answer is Yes! If you doubt this, do a little experiment for yourself. Ask a JW friend whom they would obey if they saw a conflict between what the Bible says on any subject and what the Governing Body tells them to do? Try it! You’re sure to be shocked by the answer.
Since 2012, more than ever before, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been ignoring the scriptural command at Psalm 146:3 that says: “Do not put your trust in princes Nor in a son of man, who cannot bring salvation.” (Psalm 146:3)
For some time now, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been trusting in the men of the Governing Body for their salvation. This is evident by the attitude exhibited by the Circuit Overseer and my fellow elders at that meeting. The Circuit Overseer’s reason for removing me as the coordinator of the body of elders was, to quote his words, “Brother Wilson, it is evident that you are not fully committed to the Governing Body.”
Some close friends in the Canada Bethel urged me to appeal the decision to remove me as an elder, but I declined to do so. In truth, I was relieved that the decision to resign as an elder had been taken out of my hands. You see, I was very conflicted at that time, because of something that had happened three years earlier. Something that affects every Jehovah’s Witness on the planet whether they know it or not. I’ll explain.
Throughout the 20th century, Witnesses always believed that “the end of this system of things,” to use the Watchtower expression, was only a few short years away. The Governing Body under Watch Tower President J. F. Rutherford predicted that “Millions Now Living Will Never Die!” because he had calculated using faulty Bible chronology that the end would come in 1925. He even predicted that the prophets of old would be resurrected to earth in that year. When that failed to happen, the anticipated date just got pushed back. In 1929, Rutherford even purchased a 10-room mansion in San Diego named Beth Sarim (House of the Princes) to house the prophets upon their resurrection.
The next major end-of-times prediction came in 1967 when we studied the new book, “Life Everlasting in the Freedom of Sons of God.” And in that book, we read the following prediction from page 29, paragraph 41 of the English edition.
“According to this trustworthy Bible chronology, 6,000 years from man's creation will end in 1975, and the seventh period of a thousand years of human history will begin in the fall of 1975 C.E.”
Then, on the next page, paragraph 43, the Governing Body got us excited about 1975 by writing:
“This would be most timely for mankind. It would also be most fitting on God's part. For remember, mankind has yet ahead of it…the millennial reign of Christ….it would not be by mere chance or accident, but would be according to the loving purpose of Jehovah God for the reign of Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath, to run parallel with the seventh millennium of man's existence.”
From 1967, every annual convention had parts talking about 1975 and how near the end was. There were also special Awake! issues focusing on that year. So, it pained me to see how in recent years the men of the Governing Body has put the blame on JW publishers for that failed prophecy and not accepted responsibility themselves. In fact, Jeffrey Winder at the 2023 Annual Meeting officially announced that the Governing Body does not need to apologize for any mistakes they make, which is another way of referring to their prophetic failures.
Despite living through the failed prediction of the end of the world in 1975, I never questioned at that time that Jehovah’s Witnesses were the one true religion on earth.
The next test of my faith in the Organization came as a consequence of the Governing Body’s misinterpretation of Matthew 24:34 which reads:
“Truly I say to you that this generation will by no means pass away until all these things happen.” (Matthew 24:34)
According to JW theology, “this generation” referred to the people alive in 1914 who witnessed the events that marked the start of Christ’s invisible presence. Those people would still have to be alive when the end came.
So many Jehovah’s Witnesses, myself included, gave up higher education, pursuing meaningful careers, or raising a family because they believed the end of the world was only a few years away. But the 20th century ended, that generation died off, and in the November 1, 1995, Watchtower, “Questions From Readers,” the Governing Body tried to quietly abandon their previous interpretation. But the explanation was so unclear that they had to issue two clarifications in the May 1 and again in the June 1, 1997, issues of the Watchtower, again under “Questions From Readers.” Did they take any responsibility for affecting the life-course and decisions of millions of their readers? You be the judge:
“There is a tendency for imperfect humans to want to be specific about the date when the end will come.
With similar sincere intentions, God’s servants in modern times have tried to derive from what Jesus said about “generation” some clear time element calculated from 1914.
So the recent information in The Watchtower about “this generation” did not change our understanding of what occurred in 1914. But it did give us a clearer grasp of Jesus’ use of the term “generation,” helping us to see that his usage was no basis for calculating—counting from 1914—how close to the end we are.” (w97 6/1 p. 28 Questions From Readers)
Did that cause me to lose my faith that I was “in the truth” as we like to say in English, referring to being one of Jehovah’s Witnesses? No. I continued to serve as an elder believing that while the men writing the articles would get carried away, the core beliefs of my faith were rock solid, because I believed they were based on Scripture. Failed human predictions about how close or far the end was did not constitute the basis of my faith in the Bible as God’s word.
So, what happened in 2010 to make me change my mind about whether or not I was in the true religion?
That was the year the Governing Body resurrected the generation teaching but in the stupidest possible way. In English, we call it the “Overlapping Generation” doctrine. That is the belief that there are two distinct groups of people whose lives overlap. The first group was alive during the First World War. The lifespan of the second group overlaps with the lives of the first, and it is the second group that will witness Armageddon. That teaching was modified in 2016 to shorten the length of the overlapping generation, but we won’t get into that now. The point is that not only is that a very silly interpretation, but it is also totally unscriptural.
I could not attribute that teaching to simple human imperfection. It was obviously a willful attempt to mislead God’s people. They were fabricating a Bible doctrine out of thin air. The thought that they were capable of such intentional deceit and manipulation rocked me to the core. If they could do such a thing, they could do it again. Or worse, perhaps they had been fabricating unscriptural interpretations since before I was born. How was I to know?
The answer came to me, oddly enough, from one of the Organization’s most famous publications, the book, “The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life.” I had studied this publication with dozens of people whom I’d encountered in the door-to-door preaching work. In fact, between my wife and I, we helped over 40 people reach baptism. I can’t count the number of times I reviewed the five points in Chapter 14 about “How to Identify the True Religion” with my Bible students.
Ironically, I never thought to apply those five points to my own religion, to examine my own beliefs in the same way I was encouraging my Catholic Bible Students to do.
That was about to change.
Here are the five points:
- Christ’s disciples are to love each other as he loved them. (John 13:34, 35)
- The true religion would adhere to God's word, the Bible. It wouldn't deviate. It wouldn't teach falsehoods. (John 17:17)
- True religion would sanctify God's name. (Matthew 6:9)
- True worshippers would proclaim the good news of God’s Kingdom, not a counterfeit good news. (Galatians 1:7-9)
- True religion would maintain political neutrality. It would be separate from the world. (John 17:16)
So, I set about applying those identifying marks to my own religion, and I have found that the Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses has failed to meet even one of them. Now that might seem like a very presumptuous thing to say. Fair enough. All I ask is that you let me prove my case.
I’m going to start with the second of the five identifying marks: “Adhering to God’s Word.”
This channel [enter channel name] is named after the Bereans that Paul praised because they were critical thinkers. Paul wrote:
“Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they accepted the word with the greatest eagerness of mind, carefully examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” (Acts 17:11)
Will you be noble-minded like they were and test everything I’m going to share with you by examining the scriptural proof?
But perhaps you’re afraid. I get that. How will you know that I’m not doing the same thing that false religious leaders, including the Governing Body, have done by applying my own interpretation. I experienced the same fear when I first started to examine the teachings of the Organization. The Governing Body claims to be the one and only Faithful and Discreet Slave in the world charged with feeding the flock of God. All my life, they fed me. I never learned to feed myself. I never learned how to study the Bible without the aid of Watch Tower publications.
There is a saying in English: “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for life.” If you will permit me to, I’m going to teach you how to fish, metaphorically speaking. I’m going to teach you a method of Bible study that every religion claims to use, but which in fact none of them do use. That will be the topic of the next video. I’ll put a link to it at the end of this one.
Please don’t let fear restrain you. Remember what John tells us: “God is love…There is no fear in love, but perfect love throws fear outside, because fear exercises a restraint. Indeed, he that is under fear has not been made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:16-18 NWT)
Thank you for watching.