As Paul Drones on, Eutychus Falls Three Stories to his Death

The mid-week meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses are roving through the Book of Acts and Eutychus recently came up. He’s the kid that fell asleep during Paul’s talk and plunged three stories to his death! (Acts 20:9) (Tom Irregardless would have had them all snoozing.) Says the Watchtower-published book, ‘Bearing Thorough Witness,’ “Paul could not rightly be blamed for the death of Eutychus. Still, he did not want the young man’s death to mar this important occasion or to stumble anyone spiritually.”

No. Can’t have that. It is not hard to envision the joke that might have dogged Paul thereafter throughout his entire life—along the lines of ‘Buckle up when that bore comes to town!’ And—let’s face it—you cannot read the account without wondering what sort of speaker Paul was. Was he a bore? There is a verse that suggests it. Paul acknowledges it of himself: “For they say: ‘His letters are weighty and forceful, but his presence in person is weak and his speech contemptible.’” (2 Corinthians 10:10)

Contemptible? At first glance one might think he admits to being a bore, but I think the answer lies elsewhere. I think it lies with the intellectuals hanging out in Athens, guys given to philosophy, who said of him: “What is it this chatterer would like to tell?” (Acts 17:18) The word literally means ‘seed-picker.’ It suggests a bird that picks up a seed here and poops it out there. I mean, where’s the respect? But that’s how that contemptuous lot was and it is from a similar lot as the “super-fine” apostles who so disparaged Paul at 2 Corinthians 11:5–guys envious of his position (but not his work), phonies, really.

My guess is that they were contemptuous of Paul in that he did not follow their strict rules of philosophical logic. Today, it might be seen in the strict rules some have that everything be “evidence-based,” with their equally strict rules as to just what constitutes “evidence”—“anecdotal evidence” doesn’t count. I’ll bet Paul simply didn’t defer to equally manmade standards and they dissed him for it.

It is another matter entirely with Tom Irregardless, from my first book, ‘Tom Irregardless and Me.’ Not only is he a horrifically bad speaker, but he says irregardless so often that Shem Sheepngoats has downloaded an app to keep track. When I bring my Bible student (Ted Putsch) to his first public talk—having carefully ascertained that the speaker will be a good one, that speaker calls in sick and Tom Irregardless is the substitute! I mutter under my breath why God hates my Bible student. But, as I slink into my seat, losing count after 17 irregardlesses, Ted weathers it well. After the meeting, he is seen chatting up several persons in the congregation, even exchanging a few words with Tom Irregardless.

It is a gag drawn from long-ago memory. It would not happen today. The quality of public speakers has markedly improved through the decades and the worst you will ever do today is hear a speaker who is ‘adequate.’ Clunkers have long since been weeded out. One never hears a bad talk these days, and I am dating myself when I approach the elder I love to tease and tell him that I would be scared to deliver a really hard-hitting message but it might help if I had some practice—therefore, would he mind if I was the one to announce his public talks?

To so improve speakers is a significant accomplishment, for it is peers ‘policing themselves,’ something that is very difficult to do because you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings—and you also worry that they may turn around and say your talks suck, too. But it has been done. The accomplishment means little to one used to the church model in which a paid preacher is employed and no one else has any role beyond listening. But, in an organization in which all are encouraged to both preach and teach, it is significant. I even think the local speakers are as good, sometimes better, than those on the app, with more spontanaity. But this might be just a personal preference for non-televised talks.

 

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Just Two Scriptures: Source Material for that 5-Minute Talk for Husbands.

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.

 

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A Watchtower Study to Settle the Faith-Works ‘Debate.’

Reference was made at yesterday’s Watchtower Study about how “For centuries, the relationship between faith and works has been hotly debated in Christendom.” Some insist it is saved by faith, and some insist by works. So the Study explored that topic, and it is a big ‘Duh.’ A child can understand it. Barely any ‘education’ at all is required. It is different ‘works’ in different contexts that Paul and James refer to.

[‘Faith and Works can Lead to Righteousness’—December 2023 issue]

So you begin to wonder why the learned one haven’t been able to settle it “for centuries.” Is it that “debate” is their method of choice, as though the way to settle anything is through triumph of the intellect? One brother pointed to a faulty silver lining in that approach; it enables professional debaters to say that it’s okay never to reach resolution because the Bible writers themselves couldn’t agree! However, said that Watchtower (paragraph 9): “Jehovah inspired both Paul and James to write what they did. (2 Tim. 3:16) So there must be a simple way to harmonize their statements. There is​—by considering their writings in context”—and, without fuss, they did it.

Or is it that God blesses those who put obedience first? As in, ‘obedient ones are blessed with understanding, but the ‘great thinkers’ never figure it out?’ As in, “Look! To obey is better than a sacrifice,” (1 Samuel 15:22) in this case, the ‘sacrifice’ of brainpower. As in, ‘You don’t have to know everything, but act upon what you do know.’

I suspect that’s why the scholars will never be running the show at JW Central. It’s too easy for scholars to take refuge in their scholarship and be unconcerned that no practical application is ever made of it. Said Jesus to the learned of his day: “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?” (John 5:44) The first activity interferes with the second—it is a trap scholars can easily fall into. Run with what you have, instead. If you don’t have everything, as you never will, figure it out on the fly.

Or is it some other factor? Is it that the faith people are such because they don’t want to do any works? Or the works people are such because they don’t have much faith, but do like to shine before others? At any rate, it is very strange that the relationship between faith and works can be cleared up in a single Study at the Kingdom Hall (it was just a refresher study anyway, not anything new) whereas the theologians have debated it “for centuries.”

Some of these points came up in field service the day before. ‘Here you are going door-to-door,’ one evangelical man said to us, ‘but don’t you know that salvation is by faith and not by works?’ ‘Yeah, everyone knows that,’ I replied. None of Jehovah’s Witnesses think they’re ‘earning’ anything. It’s just a matter of showing appreciation for a priceless gift. If you receive such a gift and it makes no change whatsoever in your life afterwards, one might justifiably wonder just how much you really do appreciate it.

This fellow also went on and on about the pastor of his church. The pastor will quote this or that from the Bible and then you should not just take his word for it, he would say, but you should check it. ‘Yeah, we’re trying to make all our people pastors,’ is what I would have said had I thought of it in time—our best lines always occur to us too late. Of course, not all our people are pastors—we too have plenty of weak or immature Christians—but the Witness organization doesn’t cater to them by appointing just a single person to serve as the ‘pastor.’ There’s no reason everyone can’t attain to the role. Besides, a pastor is always at risk that his special qualifications and background doesn’t go to his head. Sometimes it does.

 

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The Scene of the World is Changing: a Watchtower to Ease Adjustment.

At breakfast in our Ithaca hotel, a Chinese family sat a few yards from us. Most likely they were here to scout out Cornell for the teenage son. As they got up to leave, I nodded friendly to them and each smiled friendly back. The teenage boy encircled grandma with his arms, nowhere touching, as though to safeguard her as she walked. You got the impression it was standard practice.

That’s not a bad intro to a discussion of one Sunday’s Watchtower Study, is it? [‘Treasure Our Faithful Older One’s—Wt September 2021] That study, and the one preceding it, tackled the challenge of gracefully aging and how the generations interact with each other. The old people need learn to let go, not easy because, like everyone, their self-worth gets tied up in what they do. So they must adjust in viewpoint, and this the WatchtowerStudy encouraged them to do.

“The Bible is like an owner’s manual for the product that is us,” I told the young woman in the dog park that I regarded as my own personal territory. “It gives good guidance on coping with the hassles we all face, while we await a better world.” The young woman conceded that was as good a summary as any she had heard, and even approached me later to say she had enjoyed our short conversation.

Sometimes I’ll be working up a head of steam on this or that subject, telling people how things ought to be as their eyes glaze over. “Yeah, they just think I’m an old fart,” I say to myself. It is a good check. You can’t guide the younger generation if you bowl them over. Paragraph 3 of the study even cited Ecclesiastes 7:10: “Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ for it is not out of wisdom that you ask this.” Who would have thought it would be in the Bible that you should not drone on and on about the good old days? What young snot of a writer snuck that one in?

The ‘scene of the world is changing.’ That same paragraph quoted this 1 Corinthians 7:31 verse as well, and young people can wrap their heads around new things quicker that old ones. They simply have minds more flexible.

“Isn’t there anything youngsters are better at than old people,” the restless college kids asked Lil Abner creator Al Capp (who didn’t think much of them)? “Yeah, they’re better at carrying luggage,” he admitted. Naw—they’re better at all kinds of things, and within the Christian congregation is found about the best encouragement as to how the old can honor the young same as the young honor the old.

(Fast forward to another Sunday meeting: The speaker called for a picture displayed on screen, but Brother Allthumbs was at the controls! The pic displayed in time, but it was a very very long time, during which the speaker made his point without it. Fortunately for Allthumbs, the adjoining WatchtowerStudy specifically included a pic and paragraph about commending such a new attendant for his efforts rather than chewing him out for his blunders.)

A modest person knows when it is time to “change to a lower gear,” the study said, “so that he can continue to be active and productive in Jehovah’s service.” Another paragraph cited Barzillai, ducking out of an assignment from David because (at 80) he thought himself too old and fretted he would just slow things down. (2 Samuel 19:35) I laughed aloud (Zoom-muted) at the elderly sis who said it was tough to let go as we begin to decline “soon after 40.” Yikes! She’s not known as a jokester, either.

About the only one who can’t get away with doing less is Sam Herd, forever quipping and playing the grumpy old man card. He mutters that, as one of the Governing Body, he would like to retire “but they won’t let me.” He does get to sit, though; I’ve seen it. But he didn’t sit taking his turn as GB speaker at the 2019 Regional—the last physical convention before they went virtual for the pandemic. They made him work.

The speaker preceding that Sunday’s Watchtower Study was a bro who could be charged about rattling on about the good ol days. 8ACF032F-3D5F-4009-A90D-94CF8D24CB67He is a Beatles fan, and he has been known to contrast those tunes favorably with those of today. Alas, we all know that the day they stopped making good music is the day we stopped listening to it. But there was plenty of rubbish back then, same as there is today.  I think he’s trying to live down his image, but others tease him about it, and in post-meeting Zoom chit-chat he did succumb to “hoping he had passed the audition.”

(Photo: LindsayG0430–Wikipedia)

He’s a good speaker—a pleasant man who keeps things lively. His talk was “Making a Good Name with God” and it included much discussion of just what’s in a name. Before he came onboard, in pre-meeting chit-chat, we had been batting around just that. For the longest time, I was the only Tom in the congregation, but now there are two. What that means, the other Tom said, is that anytime you hear your name mentioned, you are not sure it is really you being addressed and you risk looking dumb if you cheerily acknowledge a greeting that is not yours. This happened to me once in high school. The fact I still remember it shows it made an impression. A teacher approaching in the hall said, ‘Hi, Tom!” I happily answered right back, but he had meant it for the teacher just behind me, also named Tom. Feel stupid, or what?

Think that’s bad? said Joe. “You know how many people are named ‘Joe?’” But I observed that he could always take consolation in their being an expression, ‘he’s a good joe,’ whereas there was no corresponding expression about being a good tom.

Except at Thanksgiving, one sis chimed in.

 

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“Is It Later Than You Think?” - a Public Talk Updated

The talk title was, “Is it later than you think?” I’ve heard it for decades. I suppose if it was later than you think 40 years ago, it still is. Alas, the people of God are destined to be chumps, eternally expecting the end which does not come until it does.

Notable in this talk rendering was the torching of some straw man arguments. The speaker one by one considered, then discarded, objections to his main points.

Not everyone will know what a strawman argument is. The speaker did not use the term. But I, who am on top of every nuance of critical lingo, except for the ones too crazy to get one’s head around, am in the know. There is even Bernard Strawman, from Tom Irregardless and Me, whom everyone but me knows it is absolutely pointless to call on because all he does is spout off his learning. Bernard Strawman—who is working on his memoirs, with the running title ‘Portrait of a Man.’ Bernard Strawman—whom my firebrand Bible student, Ted Putsch, a college political science major, took an instant dislike to, even tearing a page out of that manuscript and hurling it into the fire to illustrate that ‘everlasting fire’ destroys what is thrown into it, rather than torturing it forever as that windbag maintained Revelation teaches, even as he is far above such an interpretation himself.

A straw man argument is an argument your adversary does not make. Therefore, shooting it down is not the big deal you think it is. Usually the straw man argument is employed dishonestly. The trick is to persuade the uninitiated that your opponent does rely upon it, so that your pulling the rug out from under him causes great injury—hoping no one will notice that he was never on the rug. Since he’s not standing on it, it causes no real trouble at all, expect for diminished reputation in the eyes of those who fell for the ruse.

‘Is it Later than You Think?’ zeroed in on five items of those ‘last days’ parallel passages from Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. For each item, the speaker defused objections to it.

The 5 ‘last days’ items considered were 1) nation rising against nation, 2) earthquakes, 3) food shortages, 4) pestilences, and 5) increase of lawlessness.

The objection to each is that, ‘Duh—of course we hear about this more! There is better communication today’ and/or ‘There are more people today. Of course more will be affected!’ But—and here is where discarding the straw man comes into play—you can acknowledge the above and still the 5 points are meaningful.

Take earthquakes, for example. Are there more of them that ever before? In 2002, the Awake magazine (March 22) let stand without molestation the U.S. National Earthquake Information Center report that “earthquakes of 7.0 magnitude and greater have remained ‘fairly constant’ throughout the 20th century.” It didn’t try to correct that august body with, ‘Oh no!—They’ve been on the increase—the Bible says so!’

Instead, discarding the straw man, they say, ‘Who cares? Is it the Richter number that makes for ‘great earthquakes’ or the people affected? Does anyone pull out their hair about the Sahara desert earthquake that affects nobody?’ The prophesy stands.

Same thing with food shortages, pestilences, the increase in lawlessness. A key ingredient for these things to be notable is that there be more people to notice and be affected by them. That still doesn’t mean the signs are not valid.

You can spin a lot of corollaries, some of which the speaker did. Yes, of course you can say pestilence affects far people because there are far more people. But you can also say—‘Sheesh, you’d think science (unheard of back then) would have made more of a dent. Instead, human mismanagement, even with science, compounds the problem—witness the current debacle over Covid-19. You can even go conspiratorial (which the speaker did not, though I do) and picture Pharma contemplating, ‘Do you have any idea how many drugs we could sell if we could break down the human immune system under the guise of helping it?!’

You can even go for the added terror of ‘nation shall rise against nation’ by pointing out how science makes it worse—with lethal weapons that affect you though you be far removed from the battlefield.

It made me think of a certain atheist cheerleader at the door who leaned into me, with “Why do you Jehovah’s Witnesses always think that things are getting worse? What is it about that view that does it for you?” I answered that It helped me to explain why the Doomsday Clock is set at 100 seconds to midnight and not 10:30 AM.

Things are getting worse because 1) people are getting worse, or 2) they’re no more odious than they ever were but, whereas you could once put elbow room between you and they, now with a shrinking world and greater communication reach, you cannot.

In the end it makes no difference. Under either scenario, things get worse. Torch that strawman. The only ones who don’t see it are the exJWs on the internet who think, now that they have broken free from the cult, the world is their oyster. Everyone else knows it’s going to hell in a handbasket.

ED8008B7-EECD-4823-AB61-3BCD96CC5761

 

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The Quirky Talk About the Resurection.

145F08E8-23BB-48E6-ABB0-4FFA8EDB6465“You look just like your dad,” one person met the speaker in the parking lot. Thanks a lot! was his reaction—“white hair and pink face.” He burns easily and groused from the platform that as a kid his mom dressed him in long sleeve shirts on blazing hot days to stop that from happening. He doesn’t tan. He burns. His dad didn’t tan. He burned. His granddad didn’t tan. He burned. But his son tans nicely, he being the product of a mom who tans nicely, and the speaker muttered about that.

(photo by Jen Theodore @ upsplash.com)

He also got all pumped up over John 8:44, the verse that calls Satan a murderer, a liar, and in fact, the father of the lie who when he lies speaks ‘according to his own disposition.’ I thought of that bro who used to give that super long talk on Jesus’ trial and execution. Supposedly, he was asked to cool it because he got so worked up people began to fear for his health. Apocryphal? Could be. There was such a bro and talk, though.

Anyone who died—it was as though the speaker took it personally. His grandma at 97, and she’d been in the same rural congregation all her life—he took it personal, as you would if any murderer took your relation, in this case Satan being the murderer, as a consequence of his first lie.

It was a quirky talk. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. It was—but it was quirky. He is the 3rd generation Witness of a stalwart family. I met his daughter, who if I ever saw her before it was as an infant. My wife worked with her in cart work a few days later. When the fellow’s dad, now deceased, gave the public talk some years ago and I said I liked it, he responded with ‘What did you like about it?’ Yikes! It’s a good thing mine was a genuine comment and not just some boiler-plate pablum. I was able to tell him what I liked about it—that it was presented so clearly and simply that I could reconstruct it all in my head without having taken notes. ‘Yeah, it’s just the way he was,’ the son recalled. ‘It could come across as though he was full of himself, but he just wanted feedback so he could improve.’

Oh, okay—it just comes to me now the significance of what the present speaker said. Though he took it real hard when his grandma died, he did not cry at all when his childhood friend died at 16. It was because his pal’s death was “foolish and preventable,” not the result of murder from the first lie: “You will not die. For God knows that in the day of your eating it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and bad.” A lie. They did die. God had said they would. “And so death spread to all mankind,” Romans 5:12 says, in the same way that epigenetics decrees you can pass along an acquired trait.

He’s sad in both instances, you understand, his grandma and his 16 year old friend, but the sadness with his grandma was heightened with rage because God had not said, ‘Be fruitful and become many, fill the earth and subdue it—and then die.’ No, their life would have been unending had they not fallen for the big lie. That’s why grandma’s death moved him more than that of his pal, though offhand you would think it to be the reverse: the kid died young and grandma had a long life. But Satan didn’t kill his chum. His own recklessness did, a tragedy to be sure, but less so than that of a murder victim.

The talk was on the resurrection hope. He hit all the familiar scriptures but personalized most of them. If he didn’t do that, he’d put some unique twist on them. He said how the eleventh chapter of John was his favorite scriptural passage, which pleased me because it is also mine. It’s not necessarily my favorite scripture—I don’t know if I have one of those—but it is my favorite scriptural passage. You can explain so much without hopping around in the Bible from one place to another. It’s all there in one chapter: Jesus’ friend dies. He likens it to ‘sleep’ and goes to wake him up. Although the fellow had been dead four days (and ought to smell by now, his sister said) he brought him back. The guy didn’t get all grouchy because he’d been yanked down from heaven onto earth again (Why would you do that to a friend? the speaker said). Neither did he go hunting around for a bucket of water in which to cool his scorched behind because he had just escaped purgatory. You can do a lot with that passage of John 11.

The resurrection hope is part of the baseline of what it means to be Christian. It’s not an add-on, but it’s part of the basic passage, the ‘foundation.’ The speaker pointed to Hebrews 6:1-2:

“Therefore, now that we have moved beyond the primary doctrine about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying a foundation again, namely, repentance from dead works and faith in God, the teaching on baptisms and the laying on of the hands, the resurrection of the dead and everlasting judgment.”

The resurrection—and he explained just how that works, how Jesus paid the ransom price to undo the effects of Satan’s lie, like-for-like, and so forth—is what undoes the sad present state that “you are a mist, appearing for a while and then disappearing.” (James 4:14)

It also—he laid stress on this—makes people immune to manipulation. It frees people “who were held in slavery all their lives by their fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:15) People have done horrible things for fear of being put to death themselves. Perhaps this explains why the resurrection teaching is especially opposed by critics; they don’t want to lose their hold over people. But they have lost it with those who fear God and embrace the resurrection hope. No Witness of Jehovah wants to die. It is inconvenient and it makes people feel bad. But death itself holds no terror for them. They know what it is. They are fortified all the more so because the Bible likens it to sleep from which one can awake.

 

…..No further meeting notes this week. An account from the midweek meeting from 1 Samuel 1-2 inspired a post of its own (which hasn’t posted yet), so I’ll let that suffice.

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Defending Jehovah’s Witnesses with style from attacks... in Russia, with the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why’ (free).... and in the West, with the book, 'In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction'

The First Physical Meeting in Two Years

I wasn’t sure how I would feel about returning to the Hall. I’m starting to get up there in years. Zoom is convenient. You don’t have to travel. You don’t have to worry about the attire of your lower half. 

But no sooner did I walk through the door than I knew it was the right move. Our attendance was very solid and enthusiasm ran high. The hybrid Zoom tie-in was seamless. 

The speaker read that familiar passage of 2 Timothy 3:1-5. Though he did not dwell on “not open to any agreement,” it resonated with me. There is scarcely any point today, no matter how trivial, that people to not debate over and even argue to the nth degree. I can see why some avoid the news, though I am not one of them. It’s exhausting. 

It was so refreshing being in that Hall where not a trace of that contentious spirit was to be found. It is not even that everyone agrees—they just know enough how to yield and not to squabble. Given the state of Covid in our community today, I personally think the strong mask recommendation is a bit dumb. But the majority apparently does not feel that way. I’ve been asked to wear one, so I do. It’s not that big of a deal.

Of course, given the size of the crowd I did begin to think maybe its not such a bad idea after all. I have not been in such close proximity to large groups of people in two years.

I also wasn’t sure how easy it would be to avoid handshakes. I like not having been sick in two years and I had resolved not to do it. But some in-your-face people are very insistent and the alternative elbow bump just seems too stupid to initiate. But it fact, a forearm glance proved pretty easy to do. Some shook hands with others. Some didn’t. It wasn’t any big deal.

Alas, not all is peachy. I did see something to complain about. The speaker played a two-three minute video, and afterwards everyone clapped!

I’m not playing this game anymore. I know how it starts . Someone well-respected thinks it is fine to “show appreciation.” He claps and others follow suit. People usually follow suit. I know this from the rare occasions that the music was not cued up and the attending servant can’t find it. If I knew the tune, I’d just belt it out. You’re only out there a split second or two before others follow suit. (It’s an unsettling split second, though—what if they don’t?)

In the past I’ve given two or three half-hearted claps. No more. It’s silly. The video doesn’t know you’re clapping for it. We don’t clap every time some gives a demonstration on the platform. The Watchtower reader doesn’t earn an applause. It is enough to applaud the speaker, for that is customary and is the way things are done everywhere. 

I don’t squabble over such things but neither do I have to follow suit. It is sort of like when brothers approach stage by disappearing behind that quarter wall and then appearing again. That drives me nuts. Just walk up on the platform. Do it right, brothers!

Ah well. This is our version of problems. A bit less serious than those that hamstring the greater world, I think.

 

***The bookstore

Defending Jehovah’s Witnesses with style from attacks... in Russia, with the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why’ (free).... and in the West, with the book, 'In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction'

‘What You Sow is What You Will Reap’—a Public Talk in 16 Tweets

The public talk in 16 tweets:

What you sow is what you will reap’ is the #publictalk title. All centered around Galatians 6:7.

“Do not be misled: God is not one to be mocked. For whatever a person is sowing, this he will also reap.” (1)

good background summary. Galatians freed from the Law wanted to go back to it, “choosing certain defeat” since no one could live up to a perfect law. Embrace those freedoms of the Christ, Paul encourages, but then a cautionary note that ‘you will reap what you sow,’ (2)

“because the one sowing with a view to his flesh [playing into our imperfection] will reap corruption from his flesh, but the one sowing with a view to the spirit [imposing reasonable self-discipline] will reap everlasting life from the spirit.” Gal 6:8 (3)

That Gal 6:8 verse empowers us, says the speaker. Plant a seed and you know what you will get. (4)

Use, don’t abuse those freedoms, speaker says, then illustrates how teen with a new license has greater freedom but also greater responsibility. Will balanced Christians all make the same choices? No, he says. Balance allows some room for movement. (5)

An illustration: Golden Gate Bridge—the road can swing 21 feet in either direction, 40 feet of flexibility, flexibility keeps it there. So the Scriptures are flexible to cover the times spans, cultures it must span. Flexibility of scripture keeps it alive and useful to us. (6)

F0A2A9E4-866C-4843-B245-F62E33EF9BE0Now a reference to ‘unified—not uniform’ as some balanced Christians will lean more conservative, some more relaxed. It’s okay, and will characterize even bodies of people—what a drudgery is everyone is the same. (7)

Alas, people are given to extremes. You ‘don’t want to be with someone who is always digging up the rules’ as though he thinks “Jehovah forgot something.” Such harping not only not necessary, but is harmful, the speaker says. (8)

Other extreme: persons too loose, and now speaker reads cautionary list of Gal 5:19: “Now the works of the flesh are plainly seen, and they are sexual immorality, uncleanness, brazen conduct, idolatry, spiritism, hostility, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, (9)

dissensions, divisions, sects, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and things like these.”
“Would you say that much of what the world offers today fit into this list?” speaker asks. “Yeah” (10)

Heard people say, “until you can show me this scripture that says….I don’t see anything wrong with it?” It is going back to Galatians—people who want a bunch of rules. (11)

Principles are fundamental statements of truth. “Bad association spoil useful habits”—not a rule, it is a principle. (12)

vs 19… “and things like these”….is this list all inclusive? No. “God dignifies us that we can apply principles to these new developments [that crop up in the modern age of “TV, Hollywood, video games” etc. Re vs 22 (reads list)….. “against such things there is no law.” (13)

‘A lot of this is a matter between us and Jehovah, the elders are not going to come and police us,’ says the speaker, “but we will reap what we sow.” (14)

Adds: ‘Like children in schoolyard, we are free to pursue own interests on earth. But 1) all have to get along, 2) must stay within boundaries. Upon observing the preceding two points, “have a blast” is how the speaker puts it. (15)

Everlasting life or corruption of Galatians 6:8. We make that choice for everlasting life every single day through the other choices we make. (16)

 

For those encouraged by this talk, they may be encouraged to know it was given by the bro who conducts the pioneer school. That means he trains those who will train others.

 

***visit the bookstore:

Defending Jehovah’s Witnesses with style from attacks... in Russia, with the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why’ (free).... and in the West, with the book, 'In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction'

Object Lessons at the Memorial Talk.

The Memorial speaker spent more than the usual time (so it seemed to me) in discussion of how many had the heavenly hope, and, if they did not, were they stuck with some second-rate inferior “earth” promise? Moreover, if anyone did need hand-holding on this matter, it was okay. Adam left us all to die, he pointed out. It is okay to need reassurance.

How many Senators are there in the United States, he asked. 100. How many Representatives? 435. How many in total constitute the government? 535. How do we know that? Because it is written. Where is it written? In the Constitution. You can see where this is going. The number of humans to rule in the heavenly government is also written in the Christian “Constitution.” It is 144,000.

535 to represent a nation of 330 million. 144,000 to represent a nation of ultimately several billion. It’s about right. Close enough. Furthermore, since the beginning of time, God has determined where his creatures will serve him. Angels will serve him in heaven, humans on earth, and “no one has ever had an issue with this.” We don’t choose where we serve him, he pointed out, but we do choose if we serve him..

I haven’t figured this out yet, and it wasn’t part of the talk, but one of the four groups of Jews active in Jesus’s day (Essenes—the only ones not specifically mentioned in the Bible, in contrast to Pharisees, Sadducees, and a political type sometimes called Zealots) is described by Bart Ehrman as Jews who didn’t think or carry on as though their home were in this world, but in the next. They lived on earth, of course, but didn’t feel they belonged. They tended to hole up in separate colonies, where they hubbubed with each other. This so reminds one of an uptick over the last 2 or 3 decades of those partaking of emblems, although they do not fit the “profile” (faithful Christians with a long track record of faith and works) that you wonder what is going on. Not all of these ones remain in the congregation. There are some who depart, like Essenes themselves, and thereafter express concerned that their anointed status is not more widely recognized.

Or speaker next talked about his home life as a teen. He does this a lot and most in the circuit have come to feel they know his father. The telephone would ring. They didn’t have each one his own smart phone like people do today, he said. There was one phone in the house. He, our speaker, said how he always hoped it was one particular person, one especially sweet someone. Dad would always pick up the phone. By his tone and initial words, our speaker knew the call was not for him. It was for dear old dad. Thereafter, he didn’t have any interest in it—it wasn’t for him. He certainly had no need of asking his Dad—was the call really for him? much less reassuring him that the call was or questioning him on how he knew it was.

This is the same dad who played it cool when our speaker said how, as a teen, he had announced he would no longer go to meetings because they were repetitious. The old man took it in stride. The son was relieved. He had no idea that it would go so well.

That evening he even made the boy peanut butter sandwiches. The kid loved peanut butter sandwiches, and Dad didn’t pinch pennies with the peanut butter, as he sometimes did, to say nothing of the jam.

The next day the boy made his own peanut butter sandwich, as he did each day. “What are you doing?!” Dad asked incredulously, as though the boy has taken leave of his senses. He was not satisfied with the boy’s answer. “I forbid you to eat that sandwich,” he decreed, with all of his dadhood authority.

Of course, the problem was that it was the same old food he’d eaten yesterday—it was repetitive. And with that, Dad reasoned the boy back to the meetings. He might have made the kid go back on any account, until the boy turned of age, and was off on his own. That’s what parents do. If you do not teach your child, it does not mean that they grow up free and unencumbered, and, when of age, select their own values from the rich cornucopia of life. No. All it means is that someone else will teach them. Why should a parent relinquish that God-given responsibility?

He spins a yarn like this from his boyhood each time he comes, and he comes every 6 months. He is our circuit overseer and how we snagged him as our Memorial speaker I haven’t a clue.

Everyone greeted him on the Zoom squares beforehand. How are you doing? they wanted to know. “I’ll feel better after an hour,” he said. He was just making polite humble banter. But I took him at his word. “If even Jack is nervous,” I said, “what hope is there for rest of us?” Jack is a gifted speaker.

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Defending Jehovah’s Witnesses with style from attacks... in Russia, with the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why’ (free).... and in the West, with the book, 'In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction'

Don’t Ask Me to Interpret the Watchtower Artwork

Don’t ask me to interpret the artwork. I’m not good at those type of things. From a prior Watchtower study:

A brother commented on the pictures during a Watchtower study.

He said they portrayed a brother getting strong counsel from two elders, after which he pondered it, after which he met with one of those elders at the cafe (no hard feelings), after which he was busy in the ministry with the same elder!

But a sister saw it differently.

A brother was asking for spiritual help from two elders (maybe he was a chicken in field service), then he thought over their advice, then one of those elders encouraged him further at the cafe, then he was happily working in the ministry with that elder!

"These pictures are open to many interpretations," the study conductor observed.

His observation emboldened me to offer my take:

Brothers were meeting as a threesome as a gesture to the trinity, then one of them pondered that symbolism, then he met one of those elders at the cafe where they discussed this year's prospects for the eternally dismal (but lately revived) Buffalo Bills, then he worked in service with that elder's twin brother, who had flown in the night prior from Boise, Idaho.

After my comment there was a pause.

For several minutes.

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Defending Jehovah’s Witnesses with style from attacks... in Russia, with the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why’ (free).... and in the West, with the book, 'In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction'