The first thing you notice about Psalm 107 is the refrain:

“They kept crying out to Jehovah in their distress; He rescued them from their plight.” It is at verses 6, 13, 19, and 28.

The second thing one notices is yet another refrain, partly explained by the first:

“Let people give thanks to Jehovah for his loyal love And for his wonderful works in behalf of the sons of men.” (vs 8, 15, 21, and 31)

Two refrains! The psalm follows a pattern: They get into hot water. They call to Jehovah to help. He pulls them out from the fire. He dresses up their wounds. They thank him mightily. Then, they dive into hot water again!

Each stanza adds another twist to what is essentially one event in multiple sequels. History rhymes, even if it doesn’t repeat itself. The pattern remains the same, though the details are different. Since the psalm begins with, “Let those reclaimed by Jehovah say this, Those whom he reclaimed from the hand of the adversary,” (vs 2) apparently it applies to anyone leaving God for any reason and later returning. Finding it barren out there, getting beat up in various ways. Sending out an SOS to Jehovah—who reclaims them.

Sometimes they wandered. Sometimes they fell. Sometimes they rebelled. Sometimes they searched for a “city where they could live.” (4, 7, 36) God would bring them into one, but they would not remain. Why do I think of the lyric, “I’m getting bugged driving up and down the same ol’ strip; I got to find me a place where the kids are hip?”

They keep calling out to God and he keeps taking them back. There is not even mentioned the time in Judges that he got fed up with them and said, “I’m done!”

“Jehovah said to the Israelites: ‘Did I not save you from Egypt and from the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, the Sidonians, Amalek, and Midian when they oppressed you? When you cried out to me, I saved you out of their hand. But you abandoned me and served other gods. That is why I will not save you again. Go to the gods whom you have chosen and call for help. Let them save you in your time of distress.”  (Judges 10:11-14)

But, they doubled-down on how sorry they were and how they would change their ways, and he took them back. He’s sort of a soft touch that way.

Though, he isn’t really. It’s not as though he doesn’t let them suffer the consequences. Back to Psalm 107:

“For they had rebelled against the word of God; They disrespected the counsel of the Most High. So he humbled their hearts through hardship; They stumbled, and there was no one to help them.” (vs 11-12)

Of course, the friends fall all over themselves to point out that God does not bring hardship; he just allows it to happen. There is apparently something in the Hebrew grammar that allows one to view it that way, so I always do. The other way does one no good. Why see the glass as half empty when you can see it as half full?

The fourth stanza of this pattern takes a new twist:

“Those who travel on the sea in ships, Who ply their trade over the vast waters, They have seen the works of Jehovah And his wonderful works in the deep;” (vs 23-24)

For some, you have to get around to see it. Stick too close with the home base and you can miss the forest for the trees. Go out to sea a bit; those guys all know it. Though, to be sure, they learn the hard way:

“By his word a windstorm arises, Lifting up the waves of the sea. They rise up to the sky; They plunge down to the depths. Their courage melts away because of the impending calamity. They reel and stagger like a drunken man, And all their skill proves useless.”  (vs 25-27)

What do they do in that event? “Then they cry out to Jehovah in their distress, And he rescues them from their plight.” (vs 28)

***

After the meeting, the brothers fell to chatting. One of them commented on some verse in the 30s. “Who cares about that?” I quipped back. “That wasn’t in the assigned reading (which I had done).” Whereupon, he jibed back at me, “Yes—can’t we get back to talking about me?” What a low blow! Completely unfair! Worse than even my brother who cheats at Scrabble! All I do is think about God! Never anything else!

But, he said later that he said it to me only because someone had said it to him. Let’s face it: The reason it is recommended to notice and comment on the householder’s garden, bumper stickers, pets, etc, is because that gives him an opportunity to speak on his favorite subject—himself! and his interests. It is just the way people are. Dale Carnegie’s career went into the stratosphere upon recognizing that. As long as you apply appropriate checks and balances, you’re okay.

******  The bookstore

The internal discipline now practiced by Jehovah’s Witnesses was practiced in most Protestant denominations until less than 100 years ago, based upon numerous scriptures throughout the New Testament. When it became unpopular, they gave it up. As a result, points out Christian author Ronald Sider, the morals and lifestyle of today’s evangelical church members are often indistinguishable from that of the general populace. That’s not the way it ought to be. The Bible is clear that the Christian congregation is not supposed be a mirror image of today’s morally wandering society. It is supposed to be an oasis.

I vividly recall circuit overseers pointing out that a few decades ago the difference between Jehovah’s Witnesses and churchgoers in general was doctrinal, not moral. Time was when there was little difference between the two groups with regard to conduct. Today the chasm is huge. Can internal discipline not be a factor?

“Church discipline used to be a significant, accepted part of most evangelical traditions, whether Reformed, Methodist, Baptist, or Anabaptist,” Sider writes. “In the second half of the twentieth century, however, it has largely disappeared.” He then quotes Haddon Robinson on the current church climate, a climate he calls ‘consumerism:’

“Too often now when people join a church, they do so as consumers. If they like the product, they stay. If they do not, they leave. They can no more imagine a church disciplining them than they could a store that sells goods disciplining them. It is not the place of the seller to discipline the consumer. In our churches, we have a consumer mentality.”

(the above four paragraphs taken from ‘Tom Irregardless and Me.’)

Jehovah’s Witnesses have withstood the trend. However, a world that increasingly advocates “inclusion” asserts that such discipline should be abandoned. Norway is the first country to so insist. A ruling from that land prompts an internal review. As a result, without abandoning core principles, a few modifications are made, and they were covered in congregation meetings during October of 2024.

***

Discipline policies, which ex-Witnesses seek to portray, with some success, as draconian, have gotten the attention of activist courts—the type that try to mandate inclusion, and look askance at Witnesses for their policies to stay ‘no part of the world.’ Higher courts, where the woke mindset has not yet permeated, overturn these rulings. But, seeing what’s on the horizon, Witnesses learn to adapt. As long as you can do this without abandoning core principles, you’re okay.

Already, Jehovah’s Witnesses were, from a review of Joel Engardio’s documentary Knocking, “an excellent example, perhaps our last hope, of how groups with strongly polarized ideas can yet coexist peacefully.” Despite their public visits, Jehovah's Witnesses are a "live and let live" religion. Their "weapons" are ideas only. Tell them "no" and they go away. Sure, they try to be persuasive, but it's still only words. They don't afterward attempt to legislate their beliefs into law, so as to force people to live their way, much less resort to violence.

But now, a world that increasing embraces conduct from which it once abstained presents new challenges. JWs must revisit their policies of discipline, as these are now under attack. Can they be tweaked without being gutted? Turns out they can. The result is somethng that both improves the Witnesses and permits them to navigate the greater world’s changing standards.

The judge that ruled against Witnesses in Norway observed that he found it perfectly reasonable that teenage boyfriends and girlfriends are going to have sex with one another. You can be sure his ruling would have been different if he did not find such “perfectly reasonable.” He may still have thought the Witnesses’ discipline policies harsh, but he would not likely have found them illegal. It was once commonplace for parents to be greatly concerned that their teens might be sleeping around. It no longer is. These are the shoals the Witness organization must navigate. Temporarily, with new policies on how to deal with teens veering from the family values, they have found a way to do so.

I like that Knocking quote because it presents Jehovah’s Witnesses as the most progressive of organizations, a description they don’t ordinarily enjoy. They are “perhaps our last hope, of how groups with strongly polarized ideas can yet coexist peacefully.” It is axiomatic in this world that ‘strongly polarized views’ in time results in violence. JWs have disproved this ‘axiom.’ Are they given credit for it? No. But they should be. With recent reports of ISIS taking credit for the horrific attack on a Moscow collosium, I posted that several times in ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses; Searching for the Why’ I had observed that one would think ISIS would have taught the Russian government what extremism is. One would still think so.

Far from JWs being the intolerant people who finally received comeuppance in a Norwegian court, as opposers try to present it, they are already bastions of peaceful coexistence who encounter problems with their discipline policies amidst a world that increasingly despises discipline. In the process of adapting, they end up improving themselves. It’s all good.

***

Q: Should the Norwegian government reverse course on Jehovah's Witnesses based on the changes they have made in their disfellowshipping practice?

Favorable government treatment of religion was originally based upon the premise that religion does the government’s legitimate work for them. It improves the calibre of the people, making them easier to govern and more of a national asset. Jehovah’s Witnesses are among the relative few still fulfilling this premise. As a people, they pay more than their share into the public till, since they are honest, hard-working, and not given to cheating on taxes. Yet they draw on that till less, by not abusing government programs and almost never requiring policing. They are a bargain for any country.

Witnesses think it well when this original “contract” is remembered and not superseded by the modern demand of inclusion. While they include races, ethnicities, classes, etc to a greater degree than most (in the US, according to Pew Research, they are comprised of almost exactly 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 Hispanic, with about 5% Asian added) they do not include within themselves persons refusing to live by Bible principles. They respect the right of people to live as they choose—reject Bible standards if one chooses—just so long as it is not within the congregation.

They have made some legitimate tweaks as of late (August 2024 Watchtower, covered at congregation meeting) to address what to do with minors veering from the Christian course—which treatment had become a matter of concern for the Norwegian government. And, as for those who, after help, manifestly refuse to abide by Bible principles, they have replaced a word that is not found in the Bible (disfellowshipping) with a phrase that is (remove from the congregation). A distracting term that is not found in the Bible has been dropped. Thus, it becomes a matter of whether a government recognizes a people’s right to live by the Bible.

Additionally, real changes have been made to address any perception that elders are quick to remove those straying from Bible values, but the basic thought expressed at 1 Corinthians 5 still holds:

“In my letter I wrote you to stop keeping company with sexually immoral people, not meaning entirely with the sexually immoral people of this world or the greedy people or extortioners or idolaters. Otherwise, you would actually have to get out of the world. But now I am writing you to stop keeping company with anyone called a brother who is sexually immoral or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man. For what do I have to do with judging those outside? Do you not judge those inside, while God judges those outside? “Remove the wicked person from among yourselves.” (1 Cor 5:9–13)

“Do you not know that a little leaven ferments the whole batch of dough?” the apostle Paul says just prior, at 1 Corinthians 5:6.

When I was a boy, people watched cowboy shows on TV. The good guys wore white hats, the bad guys word black hats. You were not going to fall into a course of wrongdoing, unless it was deliberate. They were wearing black hats!  You could not miss them! Today, in a world where the batch has fermented, things are less straightforward. People stray, get tripped up, even hardened. It doesn’t mean they’re lost causes. Present adjustments are just updates for the times, while preserving the basic need to keep the congregation adhering to Bible standards. Norway may have been the last straw, a trigger for all that the time to relook at things was due. 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.

******  The bookstore

Just two scriptures listed for the 5 minute student talk last night regarding husbands. Not like the old days, when there might be a few paragraphs for source material. Just two scriptures.

Colossians 3:19 was the first: “You husbands, keep on loving your wives and do not be bitterly angry with them.”

This appears to be a guy thing. There is no reciprocal counsel for wives not to be bitterly angry with husbands. There are other bits of counsel, but not this one. It means that, either women don’t get angry, or guys are so used to people being angry at them that it rolls off them like water off a duck. At any rate, it seems ‘bitter anger’ from a husband wounds more deeply than from a wife, perhaps on account of the sense of betrayal—he being the last person she expects to scream at her.

Not too long before, in the ministry, I had spoken with a divorced woman. She spoke of her ex as not a bad guy overall, but she hadn’t been able to deal with his “anger issues.” Almost as though she knew about the verse—but she didn’t, or at any rate it never came up. Unknowingly, she corroborated it.

Then there was the fact that it is not ‘anger’ that Colossians speaks of, but ‘bitter anger.’ It suggests a darker, more enduring quality, something that may have become default mode. A guy takes his frustrations out on his wife, for example. She is not the source of them—his daily trials are, even his own shortcomings—but he takes them out on her. Don’t think of that dust-up between Paul and Barnabas. They got over it. Think of something more lasting.

Many translations render the Greek word, not as ‘bitterly angry,’ but as ‘harsh.’ In that case, think of Rehoboam, the lout who said his little finger would be thinker than his dad’s hips. Bitter anger or harshness: pick your poison, because both are.

Then there was consideration of how married men in the congregation may diligently apply all the Bible counsel on smooth interacting with others—summarized and refined into that new brochure, ‘Love People—Make Disciples’—to everyone one they encounter except their wives! They feel with the latter that can “be themselves.” No need to apply any artificial traits. What they miss is that the traits should not be artificial, not for one endeavoring to put on the Christlike personality. The effort should be that they be deep-seated and genuine. The first person upon whom to express them should be their wives, not the last.

This was a good lead into the second scripture, Ephesians 5:33. “Nevertheless, each one of you must love his wife as he does himself;”

Even men who are hard themselves will not break a leg and keep walking on it. In the final analysis, men accommodate their needs and learn to be kind to themselves. From God’s point of view, your wife is yourself. He is the one who calls husband and wife “one flesh.” So, brothers have to shape up where they have to. We have assignments. We work hard at assignments and hope to get more. Our wives are our first “assignment.” Flub that one up and nothing else really matters.

After the meeting, someone pointed out the latest Watchtower (January, 2025) with an article directed at Christian husbands but nothing following for wives. In the past, if one was discussed, the other one would not be far behind. I thought maybe it was like that talk from the new GB member, either he or the other one, and now both have been rendered veterans by two newer ones still. He related the experience of a sister dressed provocatively at the Kingdom Hall, at least in someone’s opinion, and the suggestion that brothers counsel her. “I think that’s husband territory,” one of them said. So maybe if there is not a follow up article directed at sisters, it is for that reason. Christ (in this case the undershepherds that represent him) has direct headship over the man. Not so with the sisters, however. There is a layer in between. 

Not that I would think they’d let it go over the provocative sister. If she was provocative enough, they might lean into the husband. But what if (gulp) the husband was a non-believer, or if she was single? Then they might put a bug in the ear of an older mature sister, ideally one who does not dress as a sack of potatoes herself and can empathize with wanting to present one’s best appearance.

******  The bookstore