Weekend Meeting:

Yikes! In pre-meeting chit chat, the visiting speaker’s wife mentioned how as a child she had beaten up one of our cong members! “Good thing I changed,” she said, as she apologized.

The public speaker’s theme is ‘Good News in a Violent World..’ He can be forgiven if he dwells a bit longer than others would on violence, for he lives in what has been called the (per capita) murder city center of the country.

Accordingly, he begins with a recent local example of 16 shot at a house party. You’ve got to admit, that’s a lot.

Proverbs 4:14-17 “Into the path of the wicked ones do not enter….

For they do not sleep unless they do badness, and their sleep has been snatched away unless they cause someone to stumble.”

Let no one say the Bible does not to sarcasm & hyperbole.

What can we discern from all the reports of violence? the speaker says. Good news. ‘Thank you,’ my wife says, for he had been drawing the topic out. On the other hand, there is no end of material to draw on.

He speaks of the trauma of a person when their spouse unexpectedly dies and it is poignant for him because years ago his wife unexpectedly died

Watchtower Para 4: on tips for a long trip, those need-greaters home from Myanmar mentioned how easy travel to a distant city here is & how quickly the time flies. ‘Are you comfortable back there?’ their US friends ask….1/3

‘We are riding in the back seat of a BMW sedan. Of course we are comfortable. Do you have any idea where we have been?’…2/3

We don’t have a spring sticking in our back or a chicken sitting on our lap or a sack of vegetables poking us in the side or…’ the list went on and on….3/3

Para 6: In asking a viewpoint question, there is no right or wrong answer, one sis says. Another bro adds that viewpoint questions don’t need an immediate answer.

Wt Para 7: “Be careful not to compare your student with someone else by saying, ‘If he can do it, you can do it too.’” Times change. We get refined. That was the trademark expression of a certain CO from 40 years back, who even offered it in several permutations.

Para 8: “according to the glorious good news of the happy God, with which I was entrusted.” (1 Tim 1:11) I like ‘happy’ vs the more common ‘blessed’ in most translations. Of COURSE he is ‘blessed.’ He’s God. Who is going to ‘bless’ him? …1/2

That’s just pious for the sake of being pious. Happy’s better. (Footnote to self to research that root word)…2/2

Isa 47:18—“If only you would pay attention to my commandments! Then your peace would become just like a river And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.”  Many verses work better for rural people attuned to nature. …1/2

It reminds me of a circuit overseer who illustrated industriousness and harmony by saying ‘kicking mules don’t work’ and ‘working mules don’t kick.’ Wildly popular in the country, but then he got to the city where nobody knew what a mule was….2/2

Mark 10:29 Jesus said: “Truly I say to you, no one has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not get 100 times more now in this period of time—houses, brothers, sisters, ….1/2

mothers, children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the coming system of things, everlasting life.”

Worth noting for Christians who get a lot of kickback on the home front. It has happened that new ones have been excluded from their own family—often the storm blows over but not always….2/2

One sis commented on how opposition, when faced, often quells once people see the believer is serious about it. Maybe there is something to it, they say, and may look there themselves. It was true of my father-in-law. Fiercely resisted, he came to be a figure of much respect.

You could almost like the personal home Bible study to the merging lane onto the expressway, the expressway being the congregation meetings. It’s not going to run forever and everyone on the expressway makes minor adjustment to ease that one’s path on.

“Would that be Sis Harley?” the conductor asked.

“No, Tom didn’t put his hand down,” my wife threw me under the bus, as I  shrugged and grinned in the background.

Some discussion in after meeting chit chat on how cong members often become the go-to members in time of crisis for the extended family. Not surprising, since they are trained to be people-persons and are not unhinged at the prospect of dying….1/2

Nobody wants to die. It’s inconvenient and it makes people feel bad, but other than that, it holds no terror for JWs, whereas many people in general can hardly bring themselves even to speak of it….2/2

Midweek Meeting: Bible Reading: Deuteronomy 22-23

Animal-friendly laws in Deuteronomy : You must not plow with a bull and a donkey together.” (too rough on the weaker animal) Deut 22:10, also, vs 4 and 6, though 6 is a mixed bag. #MidweekMeeting Assigned Bible reading: Deuteronomy 22-23.

The speaker just made the point of Paul’s application. ‘Do not become unevenly yoked with an unbeliever.’ 2 Corinthians 6:14. updating Deut 22:10. A source of avoidable conflict,

“…Then you should return it to him.That is what you should do with his donkey, with his clothing, and with anything that your brother has lost and you have found. You must not ignore it.”  (Deut 22:1-3) …1/3

they dropped from the back pocket of the stylish shorts my wife bought me that I no longer wear on that account. Even in Canada, when I lost my wallet (from after paying a taxi) and had to cross over to the US without it…2/3

(an endeavor that is NOT hassle-free), someone phoned later to say they had found it. But when I asked about the money inside it he said, “What money.” No matter. I was glad to get it back…..3/3

“If a man is found lying down with a woman who is the wife of another man, both of them must die together, the man who lay down with the woman as well as the woman.” Deut 22:22, This may be why, on a recent trip to the Batavia NY city museum,…1/2

we learned that its foremost citizen laid in wait to catch his wife cheating on him, surprised them both, shoved the man and he fell down the stairs and died. The prosecutors thought they had an open-and-shut case, but the jury would not convict him….2/2

“You must not hate an Egyptian, for you became a foreign resident in his country.” Deut 23:7, —even though some of that time was in slavery! Thou it was good times before that. A good verse as to what it is good to reminisce on.

“A peg should be part of your equipment. When you squat outside, you should dig a hole with it and then cover your excrement.” Deut 23:13, Wisdom ahead of its time, I think this is called. …1/2

And to think in the Middle Ages, people were flinging pots of you-know-what out the window and into the street. Wonder why there were so many plagues then?….2/2

“You should not hand over a slave to his master when he escapes from his master and comes to you. He may dwell among you in whatever place he chooses in one of your cities, wherever he likes. You must not mistreat him.” Deut 23:15….1/2 A good verse to keep in mind…1/2

for those zealots who condemn the Bible because it did not outlaw slavery, but instead regulated it. If Jehovah corrected every human injustice the moment it manifested itself, there wouldn’t be anything left, for the system is inherently unjust and is in need of replacement2/2

“If you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat enough grapes to satisfy your appetite, but you should not put any in your container. “If you go into your neighbor’s field of standing grain, you may pluck the ripe ears with your hand, but you should not put a sickle to …1/2

your neighbor’s grain.” Deut 23:24. This reminds me of the hoboes of decades past who would steal you blind —“and every lock that ain’t locked when no one’s around”—but only enough for their immediate needs….2/2

I remember reading some historian saying that it was the Jews of America were the ones who first introduced the idea of public assistance based upon verses like this one.

The Jade and Nita video. Nita pronounces ‘Isaiah’ the British way, with two long ‘i’s.

The reader of the old Bible reading cassettes pronounced it that way, too. As School overseer, I told everyone that we were saying it wrong. (but corrected matters the next week)

Only once did I kill an animal. Chums in school were going squirrel hunting  & invited me, giving me a shotgun. High, high up in a tree I spotted one and fired. It fell dead at my feet. ‘What did I do that for?’ I thought. I never hunted again, as I had never hunted before.

Ooh ooh! When Mike came into the truth he became an unbearable fanatic and would plague Keith night and day that he should get rid of everything, even his dog! to pioneer. Finally, Keith latched onto Proverbs 12:10 in self-preservation: “The righteous one takes care of his domestic animals.”….1/2

Mike was perhaps the very reason for the saying among JWs that “new ones should be locked up for sixth months until their zeal is tempered by common sense.”…..2/2

“Now the servants of the king of Syria said to him: “Their God is a God of mountains. That is why they overpowered us. But if we fight against them on level land, we will overpower them.” 1 Kings 20:23 (quoted for the local needs part) Turns out that Jehovah was pretty good in the flatlands, too.

Did the conductor really call on his father with “Dad-man?”

I once counseled.a student against saying “a Jehovah’s Witness” for I think obvious reasons, but was afterwards corrected by the DO who said there was nothing wrong with it. I still think I was right, but its not the hill I am willing to die on. ….1/2

Language changes. I say it myself now…..2/2