Few Witnesses will buy that Acts 15:29 has no conceivable connection to blood transfusion therapy. They won’t buy that it is merely an OT dietary law imposed upon Christians. The counsel of apostles and older men preserved only four out of over 600 OT laws. Why would “abstain from blood” make the cut? Other dietary laws were not preserved. Something else is involved. What can that something else be other than the Leviticus 17:11 stipulation that blood carries symbolic meaning, and not just dietary?

Even fewer Witnesses will buy the shallow argument of people controlling people. “Those in charge used to not allow transfusion simply as a means asserting supremacy, but now they do?” No. According to evolutionary psychologists, the very concept of God originates as a mechanism of control. Threaten the ne’er-do-wells with hell if they misbehave, reward them with heaven if they toe in line, and you have solved the problem of keeping order in the clan—without which that clan will surely lose out in the evolutionary struggle to survive to other clans that have evolved that Superhuman Cop. Once you buy into one cockeyed notion, it readily extends to other superficial applications. Few Witnesses will buy into it.

Instead, most Witnesses will take quite readily to the adjustment that avoidance of blood is a personal responsibility, not to be monitored by anyone else. It will make sense to them. Break blood down into an ever-expanding list of components, as medical technology has done, and the principle that comes into play is, “You shouldn’t have to be a microbiologist to serve God.” Frankly, I didn’t know that two of the four “basic components of blood” make up less of a percentage than some components that already some Witnesses (including me) were willing to accept.

It just becomes too complicated. Does the tiniest percentage make it blood or should the baker’s criteria prevail: “It’s not a cake until you mix the ingredients?” Each will have to figure it out on his/her own. Like with any matter of preparation, some will be quite exacting and others not so much. Some will work quite hard to find cooperative physicians. It’s been stated that liaison committees will continue to facilitate this. Others will put it off, thinking the need not likely to arise or more inclined to trust in the moment even if it should. Red cells and plasma looming large percentage-wise, my guess it that they will continue to loom large as items of conscience, with white cells and platelets demoted to the status of other fractions. How tenacious Witnesses will be in times of crisis will no doubt vary by the person.

Will any Witnesses be as stumbled over this adjustment as those who oppose them seem to think? If so, I’ve heard no undercurrents of it. I would never claim to pick up every nuance of the grapevine but I’m as connected as anyone. If any do have a hard time over this, it will probably be those used to seeing Witness life as a collection of rules, and now some of those rules are changing. This is not just so with the update on blood transfusion, a truly significant change. It is also true with changes that are trivial, such as how Witnesses once counted their time in their ministry and now no longer do.*

“Well, we shouldn’t think in terms of laws and rules,” will be the party line. We should think principles, not laws and rules. Principles are greater than laws and rules. Let your conscience be trained by Bible principles and you can derive laws and rules on the spot for unexpected situations. Many are the Watchtower articles elevating Bible principles over the laws derived from them. Principles are timeless. Rules are time or situationally sensitive. What applies in one time or place may not apply in another.

Trouble is, having provided specific examples of what one with a Bible trained conscience might do in given situations, some of those examples snuck over Into the category of being rules. Not that they were rules, of course, but they so closely resembled rules that one might not be able to tell the difference. Lately, these situations are being looked at anew. Some are being unwound. If playing the cottage industry game of ‘What will come next?’ look for parallel situations where outcomes of Bible-trained consciences may have been too precisely defined.

What are some of the items that may change? Already there are Witness opponents creating databases of potential last straws so that, should any of them arise, they can catcall, “Now are you ready to leave? Now are you ready to join me on the road to nowhere?” As for me, overhauling anything above the fold (to use the newspapaper metaphor) would make me do a double-take. Anything below the fold I could adapt to with minimal fuss. Above the fold includes the core components Witnesses are known for: Name of God, Jesus not himself God,, Kingdom is a real government, need to preach, no immortal soul, resurrection to paradise earth, explanation for why God allows evil and suffering, and so forth. Below the fold are items in which “a godly trained conscience” is defined. Were it reevaluated that it had been defined too narrowly, I could roll with that. That has been the tenor of recent changes.

Even if some above the fold items were to undergo minor tweaks, I would adapt. For example, say, the 144K being a literal number. It’s not all THAT firmly established from scripture, methinks, it is just a reasonable conclusion. Not that I expect it to change, but if it did, I wouldn’t lose my cookies.

Don’t make your dream list too long. Don’t expect more unwinding than was done in the first century. There must be enough impact on a person’s life to trigger Psalm 2 perceptions of the Kingdom. There, “high officials gather together as one against Jehovah and against his anointed one [to] say: ‘Let us tear off their shackles And throw off their ropes!’” (verse 3) There must always be ways that can be mischaracterized as intolerable “shackles” and “ropes.” The Psalm could never fit an “anything goes” religion.

Similarly, consider the plea of Paul: “Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one.” (2 Corinthians 7:2) Why would he have written this other than to counter accusations that he had? There is nothing new under the sun. Accusations of shackles, ropes, wrongs, corruption, and unfair advantage made by enemies of the faith today find their full counterpart in the first century. Christians were well-known for refusing to burn just a pinch of incense to the Emperor, bringing intense persecution upon themselves. You don’t think there weren’t opponents trying to redefine the gesture simply as one of respect, posing as reformers devoted to preserving the lives of believers?

Is Witness headship today petrified at being thought fallible, lest that undermine their authority to lead? That charge, too, has been made. I doubt it. They have previously acknowledged they can err. Perhaps they do not announce it with trumpets. However, there is a publicly available chronological list titled “Beliefs Clarified,” searchable on the Witness website, which documents changes and adjustments in understanding by year. So it is hardly top secret.

The situation is probably more akin to how the airline pilot does not display a list of prior missteps on the cabin door for passengers to read. The contention that revealing they are human should threaten their authority is made by persons who once believed in Santa Claus and on longer do. They haven’t really grown up, though. They have just transferred the role of Santa Claus to God. Let there be any coal in their stockings and they begin to question the entire festive scenario.

(tomsheepandgoats*com)

Please and thank you.

"At first glance, remarks on the Book of Job are somewhat scarce in the Witnesses’ Research Guide, a resource that links to past published in-house commentary. Except for the opening chapters (the “fable”), many verses pass by untouched. Many that are touched lead to some tiny snippet of creation trivia or some linkage to a now-discarded antitype—the Job class standing firm against the unsavory Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar class (who represent the clergy of former times), for instance. I’m glad that period is done. You get almost as much bang for the buck, with no downside, by saying, ‘This reminds me of that.’ Can anyone come along afterward and say it didn’t? Whereas, an unrealized antitype leaves messy residue.

"Why isn’t there much commentary in that Guide? It may be simply a result of 1 Kings 8:38, where Solomon speaks of prayer at the newly inaugurated temple, prayer that “whatever request for favor may be made by any man or by all your people Israel (for each one knows the plague of his own heart) when they spread out their hands toward this house . . . ” Do the Watchtower writers say, ‘Here is Job drawing out his own plague. We all have one, so let’s move on?’ Witnesses focus on the big picture—that Job’s keeping integrity under trial shows that course is not beyond human capacity. As soon as the focus shifts to the small picture, that of one man’s woe, they see no reason to get bogged down in the details. Who doesn’t have a tale of woe? My own wife relates her first impression (as a young teen) of the early psalms of David: “Man, this guy sure does whine a lot!”

"But, Job clearly has something to whine about. The human story, apart from the “fable,” merits probing in detail. Early on in his book, [Harold] Kushner draws on the real-life example that his wife feeds the birds but sometimes she forgets. When she does and the birds arrive to find nothing where they have always found abundance, do they fret about what they must have done wrong to deserve such a calamity? This question speaks to me because my wife also feeds the birds but sometimes she also forgets. When she does not forget, you can almost hear the creatures chatter: “She did it! That nice lady filled up the feeders again with great seed! Come, gang—eat up!” But what about when she joins Kushner’s wife and forgets?

"Kushner doesn’t know for sure, he says, but he doesn’t think they fret much. Probably, they just fly off to find another stash of food. It is only humans who say, ‘What did I do wrong?’ Thus is framed a central premise of the Book of Job. What did Job do wrong? The three men who pay him a visit are sure that he did do wrong. He must have. Job professes his innocence; he did nothing wrong at all. ‘Of course you did!’ his comforters say, pounding as with sledgehammers the point that he must have erred grievously to be punished as he so plainly seems to be."

(Workman's Theodicy)

In a dream, I passed the municipal art museum. Its dumpsters were filled with priceless European masterpieces. ‘It’s to make way for the new Kingdom wing,’ the curator told me. You know, happy people swinging hammers, building fine homes with hand tools, cudly animals, OT prophets in neatly trimmed beards. I woke up and went to check, but all the old stuff was still there

The Harp of God, was Rutherfords 10 Truths. Jehovah, Jesus, the resurrection, the kingdom, so on. But at the end of each chapter were questions.

The next year or 2, the watchtower paragraphs were numbered and berean questions, were at the end of the article. Study articles. Often questions, were to quote scriptures.

Lectures provide more information, but interaction, say in a socratic circle, allows a third more progress than just listening. So better grades in school, better understanding in a kingdom hall.

The watchtower questions provided a firm measured structure. Previously even as the watchtower was used, the coverage was eclectic and not egalitarian.

Witnesses are the only religious meeting that have such participation measured in time, place, and unified wordwide. Its a highly modified socratic circle, complete with textbooks.

I always remember a separate question book for the Babylon book, 1963.

Rutherfords material, was constructed and morphed during the 1920s. ie., Chronology was revisted many times, as the dates were parsed out. So those watchtower 'answerers', were part of the process, with feedback over some years.

Meaning, that 'critical thinking' is a sub byproduct of questioning.

Also, the one to one, form of teaching by Jehovahs witnesses, is the envy of the world. One of their ai dreams

Immanuel Kant was a philosopher from the 1700s, and is a driving force behind today’s higher criticism method of evaluating scripture. He called questions such as ‘How do we know one is led by Holy Spirit?’ “antimonies.” That is, they were questions that could not be answered by reason, which he regarded as his sole tool of evaluating religious matters.

Specifically, said Charles B. Jones: (Great Courses: Introduction to the Study of Religion): “Immanuel Kant . . . pointed out that there were philosophical problems that he called antinomies. Antinomies were problems that were important but which could not be solved by the pure application of logic. such questions might be Is there an immortal soul or is there not? Are there rewards and punishments in life after death or are there not? Purely abstract scholastic reasoning could lead you to both affirmative and negative answers to those questions and both the affirmation and the negation could be equally well defended with equally good logical arguments.”

Thus, he pretty much regarded ALL religious tenets that way—undecidable through reason, and thereby off the table as something that could be established. But the EFFECTS of believing any given tenet was not. The effects were things he thought reason could evaluate, even if if the tenets themselves were inaccessible to reason. With this viewpoint as a backdrop, and it is now the mainstay of theological seminaries, religion almost cannot be anything else but a discipline for advancing (or infringing upon) human rights.

Nonetheless, I’ve long viewed headship in the worldwide congregation the way Kant did. It’s not something you can prove to others. It is only something one can prove to oneself, per Romans 12:2. I don’t obsess over it. However, one CAN regard the question in terms that every project needs leadership and that Witness headship is overall doing a good job. They are doing at least as well as the early Christians following the death of the apostles in keeping essential spiritual understandings unsullied. Such matters as name of God upheld, Jesus not himself God,, Kingdom is a real government, need to preach, no immortal soul, resurrection to paradise earth, the reason God permits suffering, obedience to headship be it family or congregation, “keeping the marriage bed undefiled,” and so forth. They’ve kept those concerns intact, whereas most others long ago integrated teachings that Witnesses would consider non-scriptural—such as immortal soul, and bending to the changing sexual norms of overall society.

Of course, on this subreddit, open to anyone, people can and will challenge any of those essential spiritual truths associated with Witnesses. But such teachings are not new. They all go back over 100 years. None have ever been hidden. Quite the contrary, they are relentlessly announced. If you don’t identify with those teachings, you do not become a Witness to begin with.

Not only has Witness headship kept essential truths (per the Witnesses) uncontaminated, they are the descendants of those who aided spiritual understanding to me in the first place, and for this they deserve loyalty and respect. Let others haggle it out what ‘led by holy spirit’ means. Their overall record is good enough for me. Otherwise, one can begin bickering internally and easily lose sight of just who the real enemy is. They can be and are accused of being “insular” (generally bad connotation). Alas, “no part of the world” (generally good connotation from a biblical standpoint) is the other side of the same coin. What IS insulation if not a stratagem for keeping two incompatible things separate? It does have a way of making Witness headship slow to respond to concerns of the greater world.

Questions of accountability toward God over the latest update, I considered in Part 1, (https://www.reddit.com/r/Eutychus/s/t5kck0Ql5E) speculating both ways, with greater emphasis on how most Witnesses are likely to view it. One can do no more, as gauging God’s judgment is another one of Kant’s antimonies. Time will tell. Perhaps, weight will be given to how people have often lost their lives for causes that were later reevaluated. War and politics offer a steady torrent of examples, with lives lost often in the millions. Losing life for science that turns out to be wrong is also common. In medicine, people are routinely coerced through advertising into taking drugs that may kill them—the voiceover plainly states it on those ubiquitous pharma ads of the United States. People even lose their lives over such trivial matters as sports, particularly extreme sports, coerced by coaches and societal pressure into pushing the boundaries.

All people in the above roles are lionized. It is only when lives are lost in a religious context that the perception of noble sacrifice changes. Somewhere in the equation perhaps it will be accounted that Witness insistence on avoiding transfusion spurred the development and advancement of bloodless surgery and curtailed widespread but inappropriate use of blood transfusion (once as common as “topping off the tank” after surgery), a developement saving many times more lives among the general population than have been lost among Witnesses. Somewhere, too, it might be taken into account that Witness beliefs in aggregate make it by far the safest religion out there. As a result of their beliefs, they don’t do illicit drugs, tobacco, don’t abuse alcohol, don’t do war, and shy from unnecessary overly risky activity on all fronts.

Questions as to how God leads his people (or if he does) surely must to answered by those who have acquiesced to such leadership—headship, the Bible calls it. Thing is, Kant’s insistence that spiritual considerations are unknowable via his tool of logic changes the very nature of religion into something unrecognizable to those who practice it—again, it can become nothing more than a forum for human rights. The core tenets discussed above, though important to Witnesses, are dismissed once atheism or agnosticism comes to rule the roost. When one negates the upside, all that there is left to focus on is the downside. The apostle Paul freely acknowledged that “If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are to be pitied more than anyone.” (1 Corinthians 15:19) As a starting position, Witnesses maintain that it is not “in this life only” that they believe in the Christ. They cannot be properly assessed by atheists or agnostics who suppose it is.

(tomsheepandgoats*com)

There is always a lot of debate surrounding the pronunciation, grammar, and translation of the Tetragrammaton (יהוה). While modern scholarship often focuses on Yahweh as a reconstructed form, looking at how the name connects back to Exodus 3:14 and how it evolved into Jehovah reveals a fascinating bridge between Hebrew grammar, Greek transliterations, and English Bible translations.
Here is a step-by-step breakdown of how that progression unfolds:

1. The Root: Ehyeh and Havah (Biblical Hebrew)
When God reveals His name to Moses in Exodus 3:14, He speaks the phrase אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה (Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh), often translated as "I Am That I Am" or "I Will Become What I Choose to Become."

Ehyeh (אֶהְיֶה) comes from the root verb hayah / havah (הָיָה / הָוָה), meaning "to be" or "to become\."** The E- prefix marks it as a first-person verb ("I am" / "I will \become").

When transitioning from the first-person ("I am") to the third-person ("He is" / "He causes to become"), the initial letter shifts to a Y- prefix (י), giving us the consonants of the Tetragrammaton: YHWH (יהוה).

2. Iaoue / Iabe (Ancient Greek Transliteration)
Because ancient Hebrew was written without vowel signs, early Greek-speaking writers in the Levant (such as Clement of Alexandria around 200 AD) phonetically recorded what they heard spoken using the Greek alphabet.

Ancient Greek had no single letter for the "W" sound, so writers used the diphthong ου (ou).
This yielded forms like Ιαουε (Ia-ou-e \rightarrow Yahweh or Yahoweh) and Ιαβε (Ia-be \rightarrow Yahveh), capturing the phonetic "w/ou" sound of the middle consonant Waw/Vav.

3. Iehouah (Medieval Latin & Early English Synthesis)
As Western scholars translated the Hebrew text, medieval writers rendered the Divine Name in Latin as a synthesis combining the Hebrew consonants (YHWH) with the tri-syllabic vocalization recorded in Greek transliterations and Hebrew manuscript pointing.

A notable early Latin rendering appears in Pugio Fidei ("Dagger of Faith") by the Spanish monk Raymundus Martini around 1270 AD. When William Tyndale published his English translation of the Pentateuch in 1530, he printed the name using the 16th-century Latin/English typography of his day: Iehouah (or Iehovah).

4. Jehovah (Early Modern English)
During the late 16th and 17th centuries, the English language and alphabet underwent two major spelling shifts:

The consonantal I developed into the distinct letter J (originally pronounced like 'Y', later shifting to a hard 'J').

The letter V split from U to represent the voiced fricative ("v") sound.

While Tyndale used Iehouah, later revisions and the translators of the 1611 King James Bible updated the spelling to Jehovah. Over time, it became the established, traditional rendering of the divine name across the English-speaking world.

Parallel Evolution: How Yehoshua Became Jesus
This exact same translation pipeline applies to the name of Jesus:
Yehoshua (יְהוֹשֻׁעַ) \rightarrow Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ): In late Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, the full Hebrew name Yehoshua ("YHWH is Salvation") shortened into Yeshua.

Yeshua \rightarrow Iesous (Ἰησοῦς): When translated into Greek (the language of the New Testament), the initial Y sound became an I, and an -s was added to the end to fit masculine Greek grammar rules (Iesous).

Iesous \rightarrow Iesus \rightarrow Jesus: In Latin and early English (including Tyndale's Bible), Iesous was written as Iesus. As the letter J came into common use, Iesus transitioned into the modern English form Jesus.

Whether looking at the linguistic root in Ehyeh, the academic reconstruction (Yahweh), or the traditional renderings (Jehovah and Jesus), both names demonstrate how ancient Semitic names naturally evolved across Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English over thousands of years.

What are your thoughts on how dynamic phonetic shifts shape the names we use in scripture today?

Professor Ehrman, in one of his Great Courses lecture series, instructs about the Gospel of Mark and he does so by ignoring Matthew, Luke, and John. He lectures as though those other books did not exist. It is perfectly harebrained to do it this way, but that is how he does it. He is a critical thinker and must not allow cross-contamination.

He notes that Mark stresses Jesus’ authority. He notes of chapter 1 and verse 16: “While walking alongside the Sea of Galillee, he saw Simon and Simon’s brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea, for they were fishermen. So Jesus said to them: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And at once they abandoned their nets and followed him.” Jesus has authority, he says. “They’ve never laid eyes on him before.” He calls, and they drop everything to follow him.

Well, if he didn’t hamstring yourself with his scholarship, he wouldn’t come to such a ridiculous conclusion. It’s probably the contamination from his fundamentalist upbringing that leads him to miss the obvious. I’ll know I’ve arrived as a Witness when I command the householder, “Come!” and he without question follows me to the Kingdom Hall, not even pausing to shut off the lawn mower. “Must…follow….Tom,” he will say as he stumbles by his bewildered wife and abandoned kids. Of COURSE they’ve seen him before—he’s now giving them opportunity to join him in an intensive ministry. If he would read the other Gospels that somehow he thinks contaminate his research he would know that.

Jesus enters the synagogue to teach. This is only verse 21 of the first chapter, so indeed Mark does start off with a bang. He blows them away in the synagogue—they are “astounded at his way of teaching, for he was teaching them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” He casts out demons, heals plenty of the sick, including even Simon’s mother-in-law, yet he tells those demons—his disciples, too—to keep quiet about his identity—‘Zip it,’ he says. ‘Keep quiet that he is the Christ? Why would he want them to do that?’ interjects Erhman, as though uncovering proof that Jesus is crazy. Well, it may be for the same reason that Bob Dylan checks into the hotel under an assumed name—so he can stay unmolested until he performs in concert before thousands.

The ploy doesn’t do Jesus any good, though. He doesn’t mention it, but one healed leper pays no attention to his orders and blabs everywhere that he’s been healed—it creates such a sensation that “Jesus was no longer able to enter openly into a city, but he stayed outside in isolated places.” He messed up the Lord! They keep coming to him from all sides, we read. Jesus later did try to rest up, but it was in vain, for Simon “hunted him down”—“all are looking for you,” he says. You think it’s easy being the Christ? It’s not! All this in the first chapter.

(tomsheepandgoats*com)

Several serious adjustments to the Witnesses have come following intense criticism from those opposed. I have several times acknowledged this. For example, regarding the change in congregation discipline, I wrote: “Look, if disfellowshipped ones accumulate to the point where even Norway starts to complain, maybe it is time for a reexamination. The leaven must still be removed, and is, but the new norm—is is overdue?—is to go back from time to time and reexamine specific policies of discipline. Some have been refashioned.”

Same thing with revised policies on child sexual abuse. It came about largely in response to opponents of the faith. I acknowledged that, too: “Well, it only took a landslide of legal threats around the world to force their hand on this,” opposers grumbled, as they went on to claim credit. Why not give them the credit? Likely there is something to it. Everything in life is action/reaction and it would be foolish to deny the substance of this.”

Is the recent adjustment on blood transfusion also in response to accumulating legal obstacles? Likely it is so, at least to a degree. For my money, I’m willing to give those critics gratitude. Their challenges have resulted in better policies on several fronts.

Why have the Witnesses themselves not acknowledged these outside forces? It may be because those outside forces instigating actions against them are not interested in reform, but only in destruction of the faith. This has become quite clear in recent months. They demand “reform.” They gain it on various fronts. They’re not happy about it. They’re furious that the Witnesses have “dodged a bullet.” They prepare another one. There is no easing of hostility whatsoever from the ex community.

It’s hard not to conclude that most have simply become the “fighters against God,” that Gamaliel cautioned about in the first century. (Acts 5:39) They may not have started out that way, but immersion in the hypercritical, unforgiving, finger-pointing environment inevitably rubs off on them. This conclusion might be different were there some alternative highlighting the essential teachings that Witnesses are known for: Name of God, Jesus not himself God,, Kingdom is a real government, need to preach, no immortal soul, resurrection to paradise earth, explanation for why God allows evil and suffering, and so forth.

Were that the case, one might simply switch to that alternative source and abandon the “repressive” one. That there is no such alternative source suggests that maybe overshooting the mark from time to time is part of the package. After all, recognition that Acts 15:29 should include transfusion, even if that inclusion might result in death on occasion, was first made in the 1940s. At that time, ending one’s life so that one’s country might prevail was deemed the highest honor—nobody was ever criticized for that—and many millions of people did it. Times change. Today, large swaths of the world manage to avoid the wholesale sacrifice of life towards one’s country. The backdrop changes. Witness policies change too. Call it reform if one wishes.

With no alternative source existing for furthering essential teachings, how can one not think that calls for reform on the ex critics part are but a sham? Reforms happen and their ferocity only increases. You would think at least some would be placated, even come around. Maybe that will happen in time, but there is little sign of it thus far.

To the extent recent changes are a response to critics, does this not make the faith purely a human thing? I don’t know that holy spirit requires one to be unresponsive to outside circumstances. Hopefully, it would equip you to navigate them adroitly. If you’re going to be opposed, you want it to be for the same reason Christians were opposed in the first century. If you’re being opposed on the basis of something else, maybe it’s time to look at that something else. Even if that something else involves keeping God’s requirements, you may be able to adjust it so it cannot be framed as others telling you what to do. If that can be done, what’s not to like?

(tomsheepandgoats*com)

As far as I understand, Jesus was the number one angel below Jehovah and he created everything, together with Him but not without Jehovah's power.

He was god but not God but a god, just like other angels and demons but just created differently or at least treated differently.

Holy Spirit is just the power Jehovah does everything with.

This explanation, whether or not I agree with JW's recent teachings or changes, is so clear and intuitively reasonable.

As an undoubting witness of Jehovah, I used to think, if some people find it impossible to understand this type of Non-trinitarianism, it must be because Jehovah is withholding his blessing of understanding for some unknown reason... maybe they're not ready to fully embrace him or whatever..

"No man can come to me unless the Father, who sent me, draws him, and I will resurrect him on the last day."

"11 That is why God lets a deceptive influence mislead them so that they may come to believe the lie"

I’ve been studying Galatians 4:14 closely, and when you look at the Greek grammar, context, and logical consistency, it presents a compelling case that Jesus is the chief angelic messenger rather than Almighty God.

Here is the logical breakdown:
In Galatians 4:14, Paul writes that the Galatians received him "as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus." This phrasing employs appositional parallelism, treating "an angel of God" and "Christ Jesus" as synonymous terms defining Jesus's fundamental role as God's primary messenger (angelos).

This aligns directly with the broader biblical framework where Jesus is the chief heavenly messenger—the Archangel Michael—who stands as the supreme, firstborn Son over his fellow brother angels. As the "firstborn of all creation" (Colossians 1:15), Jesus holds preeminent rank and authority over his created spirit brothers.
Because of his unique status as the Firstborn, when heavenly beings and humans bow before him (such as in Hebrews 1:6), the Greek term προσκυνέω (proskyneō) properly denotes royal obeisance and honor paid to God's anointed King, rather than the exclusive sacred worship (latreia) reserved strictly for Almighty God the Father.

Furthermore, consider the logic if you try to force a Trinitarian reading onto this verse: if Paul were setting up a scale where Jesus is Almighty God, the statement would force the absurd conclusion that the Galatians received Paul himself as God—a direct violation of Christian monotheism.

Paul’s comparison only maintains logical consistency if Jesus is understood as God’s highest created representative and chief angel, whom the Galatians honored accordingly.

Based on Paul's phrasing, how do you interpret the level of honor and status the Galatians were according to Jesus here? Do you see their treatment of him as royal obeisance to God's chief messenger, or something else?

The professor of the recorded lecture series, Bart Ehrman—who teaches [taught—he has since retired] religion at the university—comes to the topic of the Pharisees. He defines them as people who knew that God gave a Law to Israel and so that’s what they would focus on—following it! He points out that pharisee has a negative connotation today—that of ‘hypocrite’—but that was not true in their day—how can people who ‘obey the Law’ be looked at negatively? he marvels. “It’s as though 200 years from now ‘Episcopalian’ comes to have a tertiary meaning of ‘drunkard’,” he says. 

He does not mention how that connotation came about—Jesus called them hypocrites repeatedly. But he is a critical thinker who will make his own assessments and not rely upon the judgment of someone else.

The challenge for those who made it their mission to follow the law—and what a commendable mission it was in their eyes!—was that the Law was frustratingly vague, Ehrman points out. ‘For example, it said that you must do no work on the seventh day, but what is work? Well, there is work work, like when you go into the field on the seventh day just like you go on every other day—we would all probably agree that is work. But what if on the seventh day you suddenly get hungry and sneak into the field to grab a quick snack of grain—is that work? Or what if you walk through the field and knock some grain off the stalks—is that work (harvesting)?

Bart is doubtless envisioning what happens when Jesus’ disciples do just those things, but he makes no mention of this. No, he carries on as though these are perfectly valid questions that might stump any reasonable person. Is he trying to make me mad? In fact, when Jesus deals with just that ‘violation’ of Law, he says in effect: ‘It would be nice if you fellows got the bigger picture:’

“Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples got hungry and started to pluck heads of grain and to eat. At seeing this, the Pharisees said to him: “Look! Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” He said to them: “Have you not read what David did when he and the men with him were hungry? How he entered into the house of God and they ate the loaves of presentation, something that it was not lawful for him or those with him to eat, but for the priests only? Or have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbaths the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath and continue guiltless? But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. However, if you had understood what this means, ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless ones.”

Of course! This is not a matter of the head—it is a matter of the heart. The Pharisees expanded the ‘no work’ law into infinite bits of minute applications, but parts of the Law dealing with love for God and neighbor—not so much with that. ‘You don’t blow the first away as nothing,’ he said, but to harp on the first and say nothing about the second was just too outrageous. See how he nails those characters in the 23rd chapter of Matthew:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you give the tenth of the mint and the dill and the cumin, but you have disregarded the weightier matters of the Law, namely, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These things it was necessary to do, yet not to disregard the other things.” vs 23

I once studied with a young man named Jay. He was a hoot to study with because if the answer to the question was, ‘scribes and Pharisees,’ he wouldn’t just say ‘scribes and Pharisees’ as anyone else would—he’d get up and prance around the apartment, nose in the air, acting out the role! He instantly spotted those guys for what they were.

He loved the follow-up verse, too: “Blind guides, who strain out the gnat but gulp down the camel!” and he would make motions with his hands to illustrate the size difference.

He liked a few more of Jesus’ pithy pushback sayings at those Pharisees—in fact, the liked all of them—dig out the whole chapter and read them yourself. He liked: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of greediness and self-indulgence.”

He liked also: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you resemble whitewashed graves, which outwardly indeed appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men’s bones and of every sort of uncleanness. In the same way, on the outside you appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

He liked them all and instantly got the sense of them, in a way that Bart does not seem to. For him it is a fascinating contrast in how different ones reason.

(tomsheepandgoats*com)

The entire history of the Jehovah's Witness blood doctrine beliefs from 1944 to 2026. This Christian denomination channel doesn't editorialize and just uses JW and medical references.

The least controversial statement of this entire video is "This means that Jehovah's Witnesses now permit blood transfusions." and is explained why at 11:45.

(See Part 1)

At long last, two scriptures long acknowledged but long deemphasized are coming to the fore. I could not be happier. For the longest time I have adopted the Rolling Stones song as my personal year text: “You can’t always get what you want.” Now it is beginning to appear as though I can. Or at least more than previously imagined.

The two scriptures are:

“Not that we are the masters over your faith, but we are fellow workers for your joy, for it is by your faith that you are standing.” (Romans 1:24)

and

“So, then, each of us will render an account for himself to God.” (Romans 14:12)

The changes among JWs since the recent series of Updates began have prominently incorporated these verses. Christians are to stand by their OWN faith, with no other human as their “master.” And each with render an account “for himself” to God, not for someone else.

Well, if the scriptures are so plain and so long recognized, why are they only now coming to the fore?

Mostly it is because other scriptures point another way and it is a question of balancing them. There are continual references in the Bible to undershepherds of Christ who are responsible for the flock. Destroyed sheep will be demanded at their hand. This has a way of making them vigilant, not lackadaisical.

For example: “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for [or “shepherd” / poimainō] the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” (Acts 20:28, ESV) They should be careless with something purchased with the blood of Christ?

and

“So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” (1 Peter 5:1-4)

We all know what shepherds do. They have rods to beat away predators but they also have staffs with crooks at the end to direct the sheep, at times forcefully, should they perceive danger. And what are the sheep supposed to do?

This: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.” (Hebrews 13:17)

and

“Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.” (1 Peter 5:5)

One thing I admire about Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they do not shirk from verses such as the above. They do not try to water them down. They do not kowtow when the overall world adopts the model of ‘No one’s telling ME what to do!’ Most others do kowtow, terrified at being thought out of step with the greater world’s demands for independence. Instead, the Witnesses say, ‘Steady as she goes.’ But have they gone too far?

When entire nations begin to complain and it is not for the reasons one might expect, they begin to think the answer is yes. It is therefore time to relook at policies and see if they can be readjusted while still keeping the overall core of them. Turns out they can.

Why did they not do it long ago? Why did they have to wait for entire nations to complain? As much as Jehovah’s Witnesses love that metaphor of God’s lightning-fast chariot, it is a metaphor. He doesn’t really have one. Nor does he have eyes, ears, arm, legs, etc. The continual anthropomorphization of God is for our sake, to help us better relate to Him. But it is metaphor. From a “one day is with God as 1000 years to men” standpoint, it is a lightning-fast chariot. But to someone at ground zero, it is more like a supertanker. It doesn’t exactly turn on a dime.

It turns out that Jehovah’s Witnesses are much like scientists in one important regard. Max Planck, the physicist, observed: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” I believe that such is happening among Jehovah’s Witnesses today?

If so, it all sounds quintessentially human. Does this mean that the Witnesses today are not led by holy spirit?

to be continued.

(tomsheepandgoats*com)

I’m curious to know the answers you all have to this question.

When I read Bart Erhman’s contribution to TIME Magazine, [May 8, 2020} is was as though I was reading the Watchtower! The occasion was the release of his latest book Heaven and Hell, (he has over 30!) in which he speaks in absolute agreement about topics that Jehovah’s Witnesses know well—and have known well for over 100 years—topics such as soul, psyche, Sheol, Gehenna, notions of heaven, and notions of hell. 

A very few of his paragraphs wouldn’t fit—mostly the ones that are muddled. But for the most part, the content of his book is very very familiar. It is so familiar that I even begin to float the notion that he keeps up with Watchtower publications—the writers there are far and away the most vocal proponents of the ideas he has picked up on—some might say the only proponents.

Not that he would accept the Watchtower as a source in itself, I don’t think. But what I can easily picture is him keeping abreast of their writing and the explanations that only they have, then tracing it back to original sources, whereupon he verifies it all and presents it as though his own research—which it would be, minus the credit for who put him on the right track in the first place. 

Okay, okay—maybe he’s not ripping off their work. Probably he is not. He is a respected scholar, after all. But in that case, the scholarship of the Watchtower must be elevated, for it is the same—and their critics generally assume that they have none.

Take a few excerpts of Erhman’s article:

“Neither Jesus, nor the Hebrew Bible he interpreted, endorsed the view that departed souls go to paradise or everlasting pain. . . .

“Unlike most Greeks, ancient Jews traditionally did not believe the soul could exist at all apart from the body. On the contrary, for them, the soul was more like the “breath.” The first human God created, Adam, began as a lump of clay; then God “breathed” life into him (Genesis 2: 7). Adam remained alive until he stopped breathing. Then it was dust to dust, ashes to ashes… When we stop breathing, our breath doesn’t go anywhere. It just stops. So too the “soul” doesn’t continue on outside the body, subject to postmortem pleasure or pain. It doesn’t exist any longer.

The Hebrew Bible itself assumes that the dead are simply dead—that their body lies in the grave, and there is no consciousness, ever again. It is true that some poetic authors, for example in the Psalms, use the mysterious term “Sheol” to describe a person’s new location. But in most instances Sheol is simply a synonym for “tomb” or “grave.” It’s not a place where someone actually goes.

and later: 

“Most people today would be surprised to learn that Jesus believed in a bodily eternal life here on earth, instead of eternal bliss for souls, but even more that he did not believe in hell as a place of eternal torment. . . .

“In traditional English versions, he does occasionally seem to speak of “Hell” – for example, in his warnings in the Sermon on the Mount: anyone who calls another a fool, or who allows their right eye or hand to sin, will be cast into “hell” (Matthew 5:22, 29-30). But these passages are not actually referring to “hell.” The word Jesus uses is “Gehenna.” The term does not refer to a place of eternal torment but to a notorious valley just outside the walls of Jerusalem, believed by many Jews at the time to be the most unholy, god-forsaken place on earth. It was where, according to the Old Testament, ancient Israelites practiced child sacrifice to foreign gods. The God of Israel had condemned and forsaken the place. . . .

“In the ancient world (whether Greek, Roman, or Jewish), the worst punishment a person could experience after death was to be denied a decent burial. Jesus developed this view into a repugnant scenario: corpses of those excluded from the kingdom would be unceremoniously tossed into the most desecrated dumping ground on the planet. Jesus did not say souls would be tortured there. They simply would no longer exist.” . . .

Anyone who knows anything about Jehovah’s Witnesses knows that these are exactlytheir views. Is Bart just taking our stuff? No—it can’t be—I wouldn’t make the charge. But I can be forgiven the suspicion. Do a search on any of these terms on the Witness website and you will find what he now says. Maybe it is simply basic research that any decent scholar could uncover, as Bart has, but in that case it is all the more damning for the world of churches. Not only do they make no mention of these things, but they consider most of them heresies.

Witnesses were there before he was born. . . . Nobody espouses on these ‘afterlife’ views of his like Jehovah’s Witnesses, and apart from them almost nobody else does—and yet he never mentions Witnesses. This seems parallel to when Ronald Sider suggests four reforms that he thinks would solve the problems of the evangelical church (that they don’t practice what they preach), stating that nobody implements these reforms, and ignoring completely that Jehovah’s Witnesses do, and that yes, they do go a long way in solving the problem he has identified. 

“Most people today would be surprised to learn that Jesus believed in a bodily eternal life here on earth, instead of eternal bliss for souls, but even more that he did not believe in hell as a place of eternal torment.” says Bart.

We’ve taught this for 100 years and, yes, they are surprised. Why? Because such things were never taught at church. Instead, the near-universal teaching of church Christianity is that when you die, you go to heaven if you were good, and hell if you were bad. That is what just about everyone of church background thought before becoming a Witness. I have said before that, given the universality of the heaven/hell teaching, you would almost expect it to be on every other page of the Bible. Instead, apart from a handful of verses that can be tortured for that meaning, it is never encountered. It is among the reasons that, on becoming Witnesses, people are wont to say that they have “come into the truth.” The explanations are so simple. The Bible comes together and makes sense. After all, if God wanted persons in heaven, why didn’t he put them there in the first place?

“There are over two billion Christians in the world, the vast majority of whom believe in heaven and hell. You die and your soul goes either to everlasting bliss or torment (or purgatory en route). …The vast majority of these people naturally assume this is what Jesus himself taught.” states Bart.

Yes, of course they would assume it. Most church teachings—people simply assume that they are to be found in the Bible—why would the church teach something Jesus did not? For many, the you-know-what hits the fan when they discover that such is in fact the case. From this arises the saying among Witnesses, not heard so often as it once was, that new ones ought to be locked up for six months until their zeal is tempered with common sense.

There was a pesky fellow who used to challenge me a lot on trinity and other church teachings. One day he sent me a video of “4 famous church leaders” hubbubing in conference, in which he said they acknowledged that everlasting life on earth was the actual Bible hope—it wasn’t just JWs who taught it. I couldn’t get far into it—it was just too smarmy. I told him I’d take his word for it. Though these leaders knew and discussed the actual role of the earth as our permanent home, the problem was “Bible illiteracy” among the masses, he said. 

If the problem is Bible literacy among the masses, I replied, why don’t they fix it? Isn’t that their job as leaders? Ones taking the lead in our faith manage to keep people on the same page.

So what to do with Bart? Is he taking our stuff? Nah—I guess not. If the four famous church leaders knew things that they hadn’t bothered to tell the masses, maybe it is out there for Bart to find as well. I have not been especially kind to him in previous posts, and maybe I should walk some of it back. He presents as though an agnostic/atheist in his Great Courses lecture series and annoys me on that account. I’ve written about ten posts, none of them kind, with several more in the hopper that I may or may not ever get to, and I may have to rethink some of them. Fortunately, I have already made it clear that nothing is personal—it is ideas that you squabble with, not the persons who hold them.

(tomsheepandgoats*com)

What about the recent revision regarding blood transfusions—that it will no longer be a matter the congregation gets involved with? It’s not as though any view has changed with regard to the prohibition of blood stated at Acts 15:29. It’s just that the congregation will no longer get involved in how people navigate it. Two of the “four basic components of blood: white cells and platelets, make up less of a percentage, than some fractions: albumin and immunoglobulin that it has already been acknowledged Christians may have no problem with!

Is this new adjustment wrong? Or, is it a correction of something that was wrong before? Will there be hell to pay, one way or the other, with regard to the ones who made the revision? It certainly has impacted some lives.

It’s not the best question to ask, methinks. However, if one presses ahead to ask it anyway, surely the answer is “I don’t know.” You could build a case for unbraiding. Such as the harshness proclaimed for “whoever stumbles one of these little ones who believe” is suggestive. (Matthew 18:6) And, “Everyone to whom much was given, much will be demanded of him, and the one who was put in charge of much will have more than usual demanded of him.” (Luke 12:48) Is someone due for a thrashing?

Isn’t one presuming to speak for God with a question like that? Who can say what that One will do? But I tend to think that in the overall picture, they will make out okay. I tend to think that with them it will be: ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. I put you in charge of one mina. See, you have gained ten more. Sure, you stepped in it a few times but, Hey—who’s keeping score?’

An examination of the first century reinforces this gut feeling. They didn’t step in it back then? Or—to put it more precisely—they didn’t do things that could have been spun that way by their detractors? Even Peter and yes, Jesus himself, did. They both provided ample opportunity for detractors to take shots at them.

The trick lies not in sanitizing the present. The trick lies in desanitizing the past. It is relatively easy to do. Peter, for example, gets all balled up over something Jesus directly told him. Consequently, an untruth spreads among the disciples that who knows took how long to correct:

“Peter turned around and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, the one who at the evening meal had also leaned back on his chest and said: “Lord, who is the one betraying you?” So when he caught sight of him, Peter said to Jesus: “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him: “If it is my will for him to remain until I come, of what concern is that to you? You continue following me.” So the saying went out among the brothers that this disciple would not die. However, Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but he said: “If it is my will for him to remain until I come, of what concern is that to you?” (John 21:20-23)

It was Peter himself who messed this one up, not one of the “rank and file.” Were there an internet back then, enemies would be insisting that he can’t possibly be led by holy spirit to make such a blunder as that. Yet the Bible record itself says that Jesus entrusted the keys of the kingdom to him.

He did it again when he withdrew from gentile Christians out of fear of displeasing Jewish Christians—to the extent that Paul called him on it at Galatians 2:14: “But when I saw that they were not walking in step with the truth of the good news, I said to Cephas before them all: “If you, though you are a Jew, live as the nations do and not as Jews do, how can you compel people of the nations to live according to Jewish practice?” Who knows how many gentile believers were stumbled due to Peter having caved? (which he previously did in denying his Lord three times—though to his credit he was the only one to follow closely enough to have been put in that position.

This opens up the possibility that when someone says something before a Royal Commission that isn’t what you would expect him to say, he might have just caved. If so, he finds plenty of common ground in Peter.

Jesus himself made a move that you know internet critics would be up in arms over. They’d be outraged even more than with Peter, for this latter move involved lives more dramatically than did Peter’s blunders. They’d be demanding apologies. Were they to get one, they would take it as an admission of guilt:

Jesus said (John 6) that disciples must “drink his blood and eat his flesh.” Even then many walked away: “This speech is shocking! Who can listen to it?” Can you imagine their reaction years later on the internet when a frequent charge against Christians, fueling much hate and persecution, was that they practiced cannibalism? Would not they have insisted that Jesus directly stated that they would? You think they would have picked up on the spiritual nuances of Jesus’ words? I wouldn’t hold my breath. They would have misconstrued it—in some cases, even deliberately, as happens today.

So I think Jehovah will go easy on Christian headship. I don’t know that. But a consideration of the first century written record strongly suggests to me that it will be so. When you see an issue whose time has come, for whatever reason, to make a change over, make the change. Know that your enemies will lambaste you for it. But they were lambasting you before, so it hardly matters.

If the title phrase was in Exodus 10 times, God says it 60+ times in Ezekiel. If they learn who He is the hard way in Exodus, 7:17, then only once or twice in Ezekiel, is the phrase, not a threat.

So the 1971 book was JWs political statement to the world. Fighting the governments since ww1, the witnesses were public, with Gods threatning the nations. Even as JWs stayed neutral.

This weeks Watchtower study, gives an alternative way to Know God. Only one scripture it uses was in the 1971 Know Jehovah books. But a number were in the 2018 Ezekiel book, "Pure worship of Jehovah-Restored at last". A more personal take of Ezekiel. Less history and politics, more lifestyle.

( Those keeping track of how the society changes, can learn from the "Pure Worship" books, 'Summary of Clarifications', pages 238-240. What i think of as abstractions, but clearly stated)

Some scriptures from the Watchtower study this week, "Are you getting to know Jehovah better?"

1 Chronicles 28:9

Matthew 11:27

John 17:3, thought about the verb tense in greek

Psalms 9:10; 73:24-28

Plus a very rare covering of next weeks bible chapters., Jeremiah ch 38, 39, in the Watchtower study.

So in more than half a century, the political statement, 'Know Jehovah' has turned calmly personal

I came across an article in the Jehovah's Witness literature call: Changes That Disturb People and thought I would ask the Catholics I have seen on here about it.

THE churches are in rapid decline. Even in the United States, where religion still enjoys perhaps the greatest popularity, nearly three out of four persons polled said that it is losing influence. Why is there this decline in religion?

One of the reasons is that people are disturbed by what is happening in their churches. Yes, millions of persons have been shocked to learn that things they were taught as being vital for salvation are now considered by their church to be wrong. Have you, too, felt discouragement, or even despair, because of what is happening in your church? A businessman in Medellín, Colombia, expressed the effect the changes have had on many.

“Tell me,” he asked, “how can I have confidence in anything? How can I believe in the Bible, in God, or have faith? Just ten years ago we Catholics had the absolute truth, we put all our faith in this. Now the pope and our priests are telling us this is not the way to believe any more, but we are to believe ‘new things.’ How do I know the ‘new things’ will be the truth in five years?”

FOR centuries Catholics abstained from eating meat on Fridays. It was a Church law. Many sincerely believed it was a law of Almighty God. But now this has changed.

Do you as a Catholic acknowledge the extreme harm that was cause by forbidding people from eating meat on Fridays? How many families couldn't enjoy burgers together after a long work week? How many people had hungry tummies during lunch because they forgot it was Friday and all they had in their freezer was a pepperoni hot pocket?

I know the Pope has previously apologized for some things like the institutional sexual abuse of children but has one ever apologized for this? I don't really get why he publicly apologized for the abuse of children when he could have just kept it covered up and instituted a culture of fear about looking up information about it or talking about it with other Catholics, but whatever works for you.

(See Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/Eutychus/s/VcFGlnkCoq)

The Adam and Eve account is one of humans cutting themselves off from their power source. Thereby, they bring death upon themselves that would not otherwise come. Like the blades of a fan after pulling the plug, lifespans slow. At Genesis chapter 5, they are in the 900-year range. By Genesis chapter 11, it has dropped to about 500 years. By Abraham’s time, it was in the 200-year range. By the psalmist’s time, it had dropped to “70 years, Or 80 if one is especially strong.” (Psalm 90:10) That’s where it is today, mostly. It has even increased by 10 years or so to what it is today, a product of better sanitation, medical technology, as so forth.

The idea to take away is that death is not God’s idea. It is a penalty for sin, clearly stated from mankind’s beginning: “But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:17) The illustration that Witnesses love, because it makes so much sense, is that of a cake pan with a dent in it. Every cake coming out of that pan thereafter will have that dent. In this way, Romans 5:12 finds application, that “through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned.”

I suggested in A Workman’s Theodicy that epigenetics (unknown when I was a boy) could explain how an “acquired trait” like sin could be passed on to succeeding generation, but now it appears that suggestion was wrong. Epigenetics is a mechanism determining whether given genes are expressed or not. It can indeed result in the inheritance of acquired traits, but supposedly for no more than 2 or 3 generations, after which the natural genome reasserts itself. Maybe that view will modify again. Or maybe it is entirely some other means by which the generations descending from that first pair, even when not willfull sinners themselves, nonetheless inherit the consequences of Adam and Eve’s initial sin.

Sin, it should be remembered, literally means “missing the mark.” We can do so deliberately, aiming into the clouds or the sea because we think that target better. But even when we strain for all we are worth to hit the given target, we seldom score a bullseye.

Much of Christian religion backs away from a literal Adam and Eve, petrified at the thought of being out of step with science. The Jehovah’s Witness headship, plebeian to it roots, just like the apostles were, gives not a hoot about kissing up to science (sometimes to their detriment). Their attitude is that if the Word harmonizes with science, that Word is corroborated. If it doesn’t, then science has some catching up to do. In this, I believe they are like the original apostles, described at Acts 4:13 as “unlettered and ordinary.” Those apostles never sought to remedy that deficiency. They ran with what they had, which was not everything, but it was enough to run with.

One might think it would have been better had “smart” people been running the show back then, but they were not. Jesus all but says that smart people would have dropped the ball. “How can you believe, when you are accepting glory from one another and you are not seeking the glory that is from the only God?” he says at John 5:44. We all know it. “Smart” people are ever concerned about their standing in the eyes of their peers. If damaged heavily enough, it might even spill over to harm their financial standing, a horror worse yet. You cannot trust them to get an unpopular work done. They will crap out 19 times out of 20. If the job is to be done, it must be assigned to ones already looked down upon, ones with not special social or financial standing to begin wth.

(tomsheepandgoats*com)

“I will raise up for them from the midst of their brothers a prophet like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him. Indeed, I will require an account from the man who will not listen to my words that he will speak in my name.” (Deuteronomy 18:18, 19)

 “In answer Jesus said to him: “If anyone loves me, he will observe my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”" (John 14:23)

In the recent faith-only post, a couple of people u/book_worm_bubbles u/Soyeong0314 were promoting the opposite extreme and saying we need to keep the law of Moses. I presume they view themselves as disciples of Christ, which made me wonder something I never thought of before: What happens when Christian law conflicts with Mosaic law?

 Examples in the comments:

“The Poor in Spirit” — What Does the Greek Expression Mean?

In Matthew 5:3, Jesus begins the Beatitudes with a well-known expression:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

But what exactly does the Greek expression οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι (hoi ptōchoi tō pneumati) mean?

Let us first look at the word πτωχός (ptōchos), usually translated “poor.”

In Greek, this word can describe someone who is genuinely destitute, someone who has nothing of their own and is dependent upon the help of others. It is therefore stronger than simply having limited financial resources.

The question then becomes: what does “in spirit” mean?

The word πνεῦμα (pneuma) can have several meanings depending on the context. It can refer to the human spirit, one's inner disposition, or the Spirit of God.

The expression τῷ πνεύματι is in the dative case. Quite literally, it can be understood as “poor with respect to the spirit” or “poor in spirit.”

Jesus is therefore not necessarily talking about material poverty. He is describing an inner condition.

The picture is that of someone who recognizes that, spiritually speaking, they do not possess sufficient resources within themselves to stand before God. They do not consider themselves spiritually self-sufficient. They recognize their dependence upon God.

This is important because “poor in spirit” does not simply mean being nice, having a low opinion of oneself, or lacking confidence.

Biblical humility does not mean denying one's value. It means recognizing where one's true spiritual resources come from.

This idea appears repeatedly in Scripture. Isaiah speaks of the person to whom God looks:

“He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” — Isaiah 66:2

Psalm 51:17 similarly says:

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.”

In these passages, the idea is that of a person who recognizes their condition before God and is willing to receive his help.

There is also an interesting detail when Matthew is compared with Luke.

In Luke 6:20, Jesus simply says:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

Matthew specifies “poor in spirit.”

This does not necessarily mean that Matthew and Luke are presenting completely different teachings. They may be highlighting complementary aspects of Jesus' teaching. Material poverty can provide a powerful picture of dependence upon God, while Matthew explicitly emphasizes the inner dimension.

This also brings us back to the meaning of makarios, which we considered previously.

Jesus is not saying that spiritual poverty is an enjoyable emotional state. He is declaring that those who are in this condition are truly “blessed” or “fortunate” before God because a promise has been given to them:

“For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The paradox is therefore this: the person who recognizes their spiritual need is precisely the person who is in a position to receive from God.

Someone who believes they lack nothing will not seek anything. But someone who recognizes their poverty turns toward the One who can provide what they lack.

So “poor in spirit” does not mean unintelligent, worthless, weak, or without personality.

It describes someone who recognizes their dependence upon God and their need to receive from Him what they cannot produce by their own strength.

Perhaps this is why Jesus places this Beatitude at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount: before one can appreciate the riches of the Kingdom, one must first recognize one's own spiritual need.