You don’t use John chapter 6 to make the point that everyone partakes at the Memorial. Was that the overall point of the February 16, 2025 Watchtower Study? It was a continuation from last week, a thorough look at that Bible chapter. The study article was entitled: “Everlasting Life for You—But How?” The theme scripture was John 6:40.. “Everyone who recognizes the Son and exercises faith in him [will] have everlasting life.”​

Who was Jesus speaking to when he made the “new covenant”—the wine and bread ceremony? It was to those who had “stuck with him through all his trials.” They numbered twelve at the time. Read the whole chapter of Luke 22. He was speaking to the twelve:

“However, you are the ones who have stuck with me in my trials; and I make a covenant with you, just as my Father has made a covenant with me, for a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom, and sit on thrones to judge the 12 tribes of Israel.” Luke 22:28

Who was he speaking to a year earlier at John 6? They were just people who showed up for free food! Kind of like the visitors who drop in at suppertime. You know what they are hoping for. To them, Jesus said: “you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate from the loaves and were satisfied.” (6:26)

He’s not going the make a covenant for a kingdom with those dullards! If he did, the heavenly kingdom would be just like the earthly governments today! It would be populated by those in it for themselves, populated by those obsessed with ‘power’ and if there was any beneficial spillover from them to the general populace, it would be just coincidence!

He didn’t even indulge those people! He told them to “work, not for the food that perishes, but for the food that remains for everlasting life.” (vs 27) There’s no reason he could not have added, “but as long as you’re here . . . Watch this!” and done a repeat of multiplying the bread and loaves. He didn’t do it! He was working to cultivate spirituality in them but they don’t have a clue about anything, and don’t care to obtain one. And he’s going to hand over the kingdom to these ones? I don’t think so.

They exercised no faith in him at all. The second group, his disciples, with whom he one year later instituted the new covenant, was nothing but faith.

Confusion reins today in the overall world of religion. Apparently, there are some among the Witnesses themselves who come to feel that everyone should partake at the Memorial, and whether they are to rule with Christ in the heavens or not is immaterial. Do they pick it up from the “air” of evangelicals for whom partaking of the body of Christ means something entirely different? Will they, in time, go the way of Catholics, who want to partake every day? Will they, in time, eclipse them and want to do it with every meal?

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Upon some kickback from the gallery, I added:

As for me, I sort of like a snippet that long ago appeared in the Yearbook relating how in some tiny African country a Memorial celebration that many villagers attended, but the talk was extremely convoluted and the speaker not very polished. The villagers all knew each other and as one of them got all befuddled and hesitant when the emblems came his way, a voice from the back hollered, “You don’t drink the wine, dummy!”

People will do what their conscience dictates. I suppose it is not the worst thing in the world to partake based upon a different understanding than the group norm. It is not as though there is any practical significance to partaking or not partaking. But I don’t know why anyone would do it. To me, it smacks of spiritual one-upsmanship, as though saying to one’s neighbor, ‘My relationship with Jesus is so much tighter than yours.’ Many times in Witness literature it has been stated that those of the great crowd can be just as spiritual, just as zealous, just as studious, love Jehovah and Jesus just as much, as those of the anointed. I can roll with that and always have.

If it turns out that I, with the earthly hope, should have been partaking because the Lord expects all to do that, I am not worried about being forgiven. The group norm of the people of God who brought Bible understanding to me is that I do not. If I came to have the heavenly hope, with all that such hope entails in the JW context, I would partake, but only then. Meanwhile, I take refuge in the group norm. Were it not for those who brought Bible understanding to me, I would probably be hogtied by the trinity, which paints God as incomprehensible, someone you cannot know, or hellfire, which paints him as cruel, someone you would not want to know. Or, more likely in my case, I would have tossed the Bible in the trash, frustrated by trying to read doctrines into it that are not there.

The Study article was convincing to me. But it is only 16 paragraphs, enhanced by congregation discussion. It clearly is not going to be able to explore the ins and outs of everything.

*****The bookstore