In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction

The new book is now out. Available in print and digital at Amazon. Soon to follow is Apple, Barnes and Noble, others. From the book’s metadata:

“Those of the Enlightenment laud the “human experiment” that is democracy, Jehovah’s Witnesses laud the human experiment that is worldwide family. Theirs is John Lennon’s brotherhood of man not rejoicing that there is above us only sky but instead seeking direction from that sky. A family all but solving racism, a family uniting nationalities and social classes. Who wouldn’t want a double-shot of it? But even a recent circuit overseer likened it to “one big, united, happy, somewhat dysfunctional family,” a phrase I suspect is not in any outline.

Witnesses are ordinary folk, with all the foibles of ordinary folk, and maybe a few extra thrown in since “They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are ill do: I [Jesus] came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

What makes the Witnesses tick? Examine the pressures facing these ordinary folk who star in a world-stage role that is alternately noble and strange. Some pressure is external: “A large door that leads to activity has been opened to me, but there are many opposers.” Some pressure is internal: “We have this treasure [of the ministry] in earthen vessels.” Translation: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Either way, “Do not be puzzled at the burning among you . . . as though a strange thing were befalling you,” says Peter. Don‘t be puzzled. Tackle it head-on. Start with the pure bonus, ‘Things that drive you crazy about the faith--and how to view them,’ for the goal is to endure: “When the Son of man arrives, will he really find the faith on the earth?” says Jesus. ‘Not if we have anything to do with it,’ reply ever increasing enemies.

"If errors were what you watch, O Jah, O Jehovah, who could stand?” asks the psalm. Is watching errors not the mission statement of today’s culture, typified in its media? Nobody stands as their enemies magnify, enhance, and even concoct evil reports—see it play out on the internet with any public figure, “admiring personalities,” until they destroy them. Ought Christians play that game?

"Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is stumbled, and I am not incensed? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness,” says Paul. Three times the apostle entreated God to remove a “thorn in his flesh” Nothing doing, God said. I look better when you are flawed. If brilliant people achieve brilliant things, it’s easy to see why. But when flawed people do it . . .”

Tips on the ministry within. How did Witnesses fare in the face of COVID-19? How to regard ever-present conspiracy theories that ripple through society? And what about those overlapping generations? How long can they overlap? What is at stake? What facts on the ground identify the times? Venturing to the edge of the universe, rewriting the textbooks, and dressing down the god of good luck is all in a day's work. Meet Mephibosheth, that faithful man of old whom nobody can pronounce his name at the New System Dinner Table. A bad boy turns over a new leaf, a theodicy that works, and my favorite circuit overseer finish up the offerings.”

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CC6DYJRD?tag=namespacebran320-20&linkCode=ogi

Psalm 115: The Apple Clonking Newton in the Head

Within Psalm 115:16 lies a common-sense innocuous verse that has all the impact of the apple landing on Newton’s head.

“As for the heavens, they belong to Jehovah, But the earth he has given to the sons of men.”

Of course. It is the perfect verse you weave into any reply to those who insist we all go to heaven when we die. Such as this person, who asks, “Why are most Jehovah’s Witnesses not born again?” Wrongly answering his own question, he states the reason stems entirely from their reading of Revelation 7:9-10. Does he think the destiny for all good persons is to go to heaven when they die? I asked him that. He did.

I tell him that I asked the question so as to know where he is coming from and better answer his question. I agree with him that Christians who are destined to heaven need to be born again. It is not true for all Christians. I am a Christian whose hope is to live forever on a paradise earth made so by God’s kingdom rule. This is true of the vast majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses today. They are people, to use his words, who “truly trust in, follow, and love Jesus Christ.” But their hope is to live on earth under his kingdom government.

It is not so that this hope rests entirely on how JWs read Revelation 7:9-10, or even mostly. Until the 1930s, Witnesses also thought that those verses referred to a heavenly-destined group. But in time, they came to reconcile the passage with other portions of the Bible.

I can’t imagine living forever in heaven. Whatever would I do there? But I can easily imagine living forever on an earth restored. The earth is a beautiful place. 

“As for the heavens, they belong to Jehovah, But the earth he has given to the sons of men,” says Psalm 115:16. Witnesses believe God put humans on earth, giving them the commission to fill the earth and subdue it, because he wanted them there. If he had wanted them in heaven, he would have put them there directly. To Jehovah’s Witnesses, the earth is not a temporary place, a launching pad into heaven or a trap door into hell. It is given to humankind as a home. Death was not a part of God’s original purpose. Had Adam and Eve not rebelled, they would have continued living where God put them, they along with all their offspring, spreading out to fill the earth, living there forever. But, according to Romans 5:12, “through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned.”

Jesus reiterates this point about earth in the beatitudes. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” he says at Matthew 5:5. The meek do not inherit the earth today. They get stomped all over. Per Jesus’ words in ‘the Lord’s Prayer,’ that will continue until the kingdom comes: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” he says. (Matthew 9:10)

With the resurrection of Christ, a new hope opens up. It is called a “sacred secret.” It takes getting one’s head around because it is so contrary to the earthly hope described above. Fortunately, one does not have to “get one’s head around it.” God directly implants the heavenly hope in ones so called. For example, to the Ephesians, Paul writes of “making known to us the sacred secret of his will. It is according to his good pleasure that he himself purposed for an administration at the full limit of the appointed times, to gather all things together in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth.” (Eph 1:9-10) These ones are destined to rule with Christ in heaven. It is a brand-spanking-new calling. it is called being “born again.” Even John the Baptist, who prepared the crowds for Jesus but died prior to his resurrection, did not have that hope. “Among those born of women, there has not been raised up anyone greater than John the Baptist, but a lesser person in the Kingdom of the heavens is greater than he is,” Jesus says at Matthew 11:11

Plainly, not everyone can be ruling. There has to be people to rule over. The latter can be expected to greatly outnumber the former. This is true of those later recognized as the “great crowd” of Revelation 7:9-10.

“After this I saw, and look! a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes; and there were palm branches in their hands.  And they keep shouting with a loud voice, saying: “Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Rev 7:9-10)

Good things are in store for them: “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. That is why they are before the throne of God, and they are rendering him sacred service day and night in his temple; and the One seated on the throne will spread his tent over them. They will hunger no more nor thirst anymore, neither will the sun beat down on them nor any scorching heat, because the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, will shepherd them and will guide them to springs of waters of life. And God will wipe out every tear from their eyes.” (7: 14-17)

No one can number them. What is the sense of a numberless amount in government? But as one’s ruled over on earth, numberless makes perfect sense.

***

There is another keeper from Psalm 115, verses 4-8. Note the zinger at verse 8. It is as though the punchline of a joke. Only, in this case, it is no joke.

4 Their idols are silver and gold, The work of human hands.

5 A mouth they have, but they cannot speak; Eyes, but they cannot see;

6 Ears they have, but they cannot hear; A nose, but they cannot smell;

7 Hands they have, but they cannot feel; Feet, but they cannot walk; They make no sound with their throat.

8 The people who make them will become just like them, As will all those who trust in them.

That last line is a beaut. Contrast it with the psalmist’s God, who “does whatever he pleases.” (3) Their god does nothing at all. Worse yet, by devoting your life to them, you find yourself in that same predicament.

I am told that when our people speak with Muslims, they are quick to read this verse. It makes their eyes bug out. See, Muslims hate idols and they associate them with Christianity. To read how the God of the Bible also hates them makes a powerful impression.

 

******  The bookstore

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Politics. Do More? Or Less?

Just after the most polarizing election in memory, sometimes I will ask the householder how he weathered it. It’s a good opportunity to add, if conversation lends itself, that we go by the ‘ambassador’ verse of 2 Corinthians 5:20:

“Therefore, we are ambassadors substituting for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us. As substitutes for Christ, we beg: “Become reconciled to God.” Especially might I do this if I sense people just assume we are Trump supporters, since to them anyone going door-to-door must be of a fundamentalist religion—and they mostly went Republican. We actually are neutral, I tell them, taking the term ‘ambassador’ more or less literally. An ambassador may well develop interest in the affairs of his host country, but draws the line at participation in its politics reserved for citizens.

This worked well on a recent call. The man answered my traditional offer to read a scripture with the cantankerous observation—though he did not scowl as he said it—that the Bible has been the greatest impetus for warfare and killing in history. When I countered his remark with my own, that I meant to read a verse that would not kill him, he switched gears to something he avoids even more—squabbling over politics. Whereupon, I explained to him about ambassadors as something he might not know, not that he should necessarily care. 

Conversation got downright friendly. Countering any “recruiting” perception, I said if you have good news, you don’t just sit on it—you go tell people. ‘Just sit on it,’ he said, in a jocular way. ‘That’s their problem if they don’t know.’ If you discovered a great restaurant, my companion said, you’d make sure to tell everybody. ‘Naw, keep it to yourself,’ he said, ‘so it doesn’t get too crowded.’ Then he told us of a great restaurant, low-price because it is run by culinary students, yet delicious, and my companion and I both made a mental note to go there. ‘I’ll tell you something else about Jehovah’s Witnesses you may not have known,’ I said. ‘They can sniff out a deal a hundred miles away.’

Then he invited us to a weekly dinner at the American Legion, where he hangs out. Now, Witnesses and the American Legion used to mix like water and oil, due to our sitting out the wars. But there hasn’t been a “good” war in decades. Legion members these days are mostly licking their wounds, reminiscing of the old days, socializing with families, and dealing with PTSD. Maybe we’ll stop in.

Often when a householder comes to the door and a military past is evident, I will say how I respect a person willing to put his life on the line for what he believes. I’ll even offer to hear out their war stories—no one else wants to. I’ll hear them out with interest, without interrupting, though I may briefly observe that if he was living anywhere else his allegiance would be towards a different country, and isn’t that a crazy way to run a world?

***

Q: I have been wondering whether we, as Jehovah’s Witnesses on the whole, should be somewhat politically literate, at least in the basics?

A: Define “should.”

For the most part, people don’t care about politics. They do so only when it seriously interferes with their lives. With most Witnesses, even when it does that, they are inclined to say it is Satan the devil. Which it is—ultimately. But sometimes you’d think there’d would be some interest in the intervening details.

Q: I think that some Witnesses misunderstand that discussing politics is the same as taking sides with one political party against another. 

A: Yeah, I think so too. I don’t know why more don’t look at it in the same sense as an ambassador assigned to another country, seeking reconciliation to his own government—which in our case means explaining kingdom interests. An ambassador may well take an interest in the affairs of his host country. He just draws the line at involving himself in political processes reserved for citizens. 

No Witness I know of will bring politics into the Kingdom Hall. But, the thinking of many is that they ought not even have opinions regarding it. The easiest way to achieve that goal is to deliberately stay ignorant of it. So, many do.

Politics is one of those things that, unless you devote significant time to it, you are easily diverted by this side or that who pretend to be neutral but are not. Here I am sitting in a living room right now with a boomer relative who hears NBC saying RFKjr, an ‘anti-vaxxer’ and spinner of ‘conspiracy theories,’ has just received Trump’s cabinet pick for Health and Human Service director, to oversee health in America. “Well, that’s stupid!” she says. Like most boomer Witnesses, what little news she watches is network news.

Thing is, if a guy is unfailingly introduced as an “anti-vaxxer,” “science skeptic,” and “conspiracy theorist,” then you hear they put him in charge of national health agencies, it does appear stupid. She is exactly right given the input that she has.

Following politics represents such an input of time to search out a balanced picture and take it in that one must never advocate the course for a Witness. When we studiously ignore things that everyone else knows about, however it can backfire. It’s fine to downplay things that are not your core interest. In fact, it would be strange not to, as though suggesting you had doubts about your core interests. But when you studiously ignore things, as though going out of your way to squelch them, eventually someone finds out that you studiously ignore them and successfully paints you as, at best insular, and at worst, a cult.

A bit more nuanced is what might be the ticket—if you want to go there, go. Maybe enough to do what they say we should do with every other sign of interest we see on the part of the householder. Engage them on their garden/children/home, etc. Read those bumper stickers. Comment on whatever you might see there UNLESS it is politics—in which case, run. Why should it be that way? If the householder eats politics, engage him/her on that if you like. We all know how not to advocate for princes. We all know how the Witnesses’ overall message is validated with every passing day, that humans are not capable of ruling themselves and are thus in need of God’s kingdom rule, the very same kingdom the Witnesses proclaim and the Witness organization facilitates:

‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’

What a trainwreck is this world’s collective efforts to rule itself! It is exactly in accord with the message the Witnesses have steadfastly delivered, amidst considerable ridicule and even some opposition.

 

******  The bookstore

 

Psalm 107: God Saves Them from their Plight.

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

Congregation Discipline Under Assault, with Norway the Flashpoint

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: 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.

 

******  The bookstore

Breakdown at the Assembly Hall Front Door

Great. Just great. My car breaks down exactly at the door of the Assembly Hall as I am dropping someone off!

The downside? It’s embarrassing!

The upside? (which almost became a downside; it was so frequent) For the next 2 hours, until the tow truck arrived, (trust me on this—it needed a tow) brothers kept coming out to see if I needed help. They are all so nice and I am reminded of my non believing dad 40 years ago at my wedding saying to his own brother, ‘C’mon Joe, let’s go out in the parking lot for a smoke. These people are so nice I can’t stand it.’

Being brothers, many of them took for granted that they could get me going right then and there. I had to explain to each and every one that they couldn’t.

Among brothers, there are always some who really are mechanical. One of them quickly diagnosed the issue. No, it wasn’t the slave cylinder, he said, after diving into the interior and pointing out all the possible culprits, but the master cylinder, since the clutch pedal wouldn’t rise on its own. At 194K the car has a right to misbehave. But the tow truck took so long in coming that I sent someone in to the chairman’s office to say if they needed an afternoon interview for the ‘Exercise Patience’ theme, I was available. The Assembly Hall was then being used for the Regional Convention.

No, it wasn’t all the fault of the towing company. Some of it was the roadside assistance app that couldn’t fathom how Tom Harley could possibly be the same as Thomas Harley and so kept issuing denials of service without explanation. With a person, you could straighten in out in 2 seconds, but in the AI world it is not that way. It is, instead, like when your wife, though she has always been friendly, one day locks you out of the house without the hint of a reason and won’t tell you why other than to say that you should have been paying attention.

And no, I hadn’t waited till the last minute to address the issue. I had been nursing it for a few weeks. Sometimes problems go away on their own. Alas, this one did not.

***Revised, in connection with a discussion of ‘the kingdom of God does not come with striking observableness:’

For me, it does come with striking observableness, in the form of a car that breaks down at the Assembly Hall door. You know you have gone directly from last of the last days to last of the last of the last days, perhaps even last of the last of the last of the last days when your car does that. Cars will break down from time to time, maybe on the way to the grocery store, maybe in the grocery store lot, and one does not draw any spiritual conclusions. Even breaking down in the Assembly Hall lot does not make one ‘see the light.’ But when in breaks down at the Assembly Hall front door, Yes—striking observbleness there, no question.

Then, half of all brothers being gearheads, you must suffer a constant onslaught of people sure they can fix whatever the problem there is right then and there, and you have to painstakingly explain to each one that they cannot. Then, one who really does know his stuff, dives into the interior, sees it isn’t the slave cylinder, but the master cylinder, since the clutch pedal won’t rise on its own, and agrees that my goose is really cooked.

Then, the tow truck takes so long to arrive that (this happened during the Regional Convention, not mine, where I had dropped someone off) I send in word that if they need a brother to interview for the any Exercise Patience talk I’m available. Not the tow truck companies fault, but the roadside app, which cannot fathom how Tom Harley could possibly be the same as Thomas Harley and so kept issuing denials of service without explanation. With a person, you could straighten in out in 2 seconds, but in the AI world it is not that way. It is, instead, like when your wife, though she has always been friendly, one day locks you out of the house without the hint of a reason and won’t tell you why.

This is the same car that I used in ‘Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction’ to illustrate the point that you don’t need perfection to get you from point A to point B, only something serviceable and that if it breaks down you can repair it as you go. So it is with Jehovah’s visible organization driving the tangled and crazy roads of this system of things—it need not be perfect, though that would be preferable. It need only be serviceable. I wrote:

“Facts are overrated. You never have them all and if you wait for them all to come in you never do anything. There is no “fact” that is not incessantly resisted and debated by those who don’t want to go in a given direction, so they never do all come in. Eventually, you must just go with what you have, trusting that you can make repairs along the way if need be. You need a serviceable vehicle to get from point A to point B. It need not be perfect. Just like my wife and recently completed a road trip to Florida and back, stopping in at seven sets of friends and one set of relatives along the way. Though I’ve flown several times, I had never driven the distance.

“If you are from up north, as I am, you can depend upon countless friends who have moved south but to varying degrees. In time, they form a series of islands from which you can hop one to another. We only stayed two nights in hotels during our two and a half weeks on the road. All else was the hospitality of friends and the nice thing is that we could do it all over again with a different set of friends. Such is the benefit of spiritual family. Two of them even put us up into their unused time-shares. Our vehicle was serviceable, not perfect, with 180K miles and rust just beginning to peek through. We didn’t feel we had to make it perfect before we left home. We even had occasion for a repair. Blowing out a tire at 70 mph, I limped from the expressway, crossing several lanes when I saw an opening, took the exit ramp, and pulled into the first parking lot I saw. After swapping the bum tire for a donut, locals recommended a nearby shop. They fixed me up with a replacement tire in barely any time at all.

“Hasn’t the worldwide organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses done the same a few times? You think it’s easy holding firm to God in the last of the last days, what with religions seizing upon any misstep as evidence you are a false prophet and skeptics dismissing God because they confuse him with Santa Claus who’s supposed to shower down presents no matter what? It isn’t.”

Now my old car sits in the drive beside a shiny new one, which does the heavy duty. Like Old Jack, Sam Herd’s boyhood mule, I water it every day. I don’t throw if away just because it has grown old. Indeed, my wife hates the new one (you sit down too low and it is less easy to climb in and out) and will only drive the old one. If I protest, she likens herself to old wine that cannot be poured into new wine skins.

 

******  The bookstore

 

The Circuit Overseer Visit: October 2024

From one circuit overseer visit to the next, a period of about six months, new normals begin to develop in the congregation. Subtle ones, not bad, nothing for which anyone would have to say ‘Stop doing that!’ Things just reflecting the different personalities in the congregation. ‘Slight imbalances’ maybe is the phrase to use. Personal innovations, some which work pretty well, others not so much. The CO visit is like fine-tuning, serving to nudge ones into closer cooperation. Nudge—not shove—and people only partly do it. But they all take note and implement the improved focus, at least to a degree. Then other new normals begin to develop, or maybe the old ones begin to reassert themselves, and the pattern begins again.

It is the advantage of organization. Without it, the new normals grow and magnify and innovate and butt heads with competing normals to the point where factions begin to develop. The CO is a feature so that the worldwide congregation pulls unitedly, he being a direct link to the Christian governing body. If you want to get anything done, you organize. It magnifies your ability. It is a latent power that humans have, to coordinate their efforts and thus get more done. Paul used the analogy of directing his blows, rather than striking the air. There is no need to quote the “power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely” line. If you do it right, it doesn’t.

Doing it right involves everyone, from the top down, more notably at the top, since there is where the “power” lies, repeatedly putting on the Christian garment. It is repeated clothing oneself with the fruitage of the spirit, and continually monitoring that appearance in the mirror of James. No one can become too prickly over hearing counsel from another. The CO’s talk, one of them, referred to “the spirit that is now operating in the sons of disobedience,” the spirit that makes people “prickly.” A previous speaker gave the analogy of calling a soft tire to the attention of a brother—it is unsafe, he might be unawares, and it could cause him harm. “Oh, yeah?!” the hothead shoots back. “Well, your car has a dent in the fender!” It doesn’t hurt to develop a forgiving spirit, either, since the psalm says (130:3): “If errors were what you watch, O Jah, Then who, O Jehovah, could stand?” Errors are all people watch in the overall world today, and nobody stands. Don’t bring that niggling mindset into the congregation.

The Watchtower Study for that week (July 2024 issue) contrasted kings of Israel, some of whom were bad, though they did some good things, and some of those who were good, though they did some bad things. Responding to correction was a major factor to determine who was who. David and Hezekiah, particularly David, blundered badly, but responded to correction. Amaziah, on the other hand, shot back at the prophet correcting him, “Did we appoint you as an adviser to the king?” (Para 10)

Another talk during the COs visit touched upon Eve’s words to the Devil in Genesis 3, who is trying to draw her away and she is taking the bait. “Did God really say that you must not eat from every tree of the garden?” he says, knowing full well he did. Eve’s answer as to what God said: “You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it; otherwise you will die.” It’s probably not a bad idea not to touch it, but it is a stipulation God never made. Does upping the requirement show her well on her way to discontent, as in complaining “Sheesh, we can’t even touch it!” even though God never said it? It makes me think of discontented ones today, exaggerating the inconveniences of serving with Jehovah’s people, which do exist, but they are not that bad, so that a third party later reads the complaint and says, ‘Whoa! They can’t even touch it! What an oppressive bunch!”

Chatting with the CO in service, he said the latest brochure, now being used to train pioneers, ‘Love People—Make Disciples’ had changed, not only his interaction with people, but the nature of that interaction. It is a very subtle shift. Never has it been said not to love people.  Always, love has been understood as the motivating force behind what ministers of the good news do. But it is like the tiniest adjustment at the source of a stream that, many miles downstream, produces a torrent in an entirely different direction.

 

******  The bookstore

Psalm 93: Symbolic Rivers

Rivers in the Bible are sometimes symbolic. Maybe, also the ones of Psalm 93.

The rivers have surged, O Jehovah, The rivers have surged and roared; The rivers keep surging and pounding. (93:3)

They have surged. Repeat and add: they have surged and roared. Repeat as continuious action, and escalate to pounding: The rivers keep surging and pounding. 

Jehovah is above them all, triumphant, as though the rivers here are a disruptive thing:

Above the sound of many waters, Mightier than the breaking waves of the sea, Jehovah is majestic in the heights. (93:4) The opening two verses set up that scenario, too. 

The Research Guide doesn’t touch it. The Insight Book does. Sometimes invading armies are “rivers.” Makes sense.

“Therefore look! Jehovah will bring against them The mighty and vast waters of the River, The king of As·syrʹi·a and all his glory. He will come up over all his streambeds And overflow all his banks.”  Isa 8:7

Isn’t that how Babylon fell, when the river literally concealed invading armies?

The comparison I like best is the Devil disgorging rivers of water and the earth swallows it up to save the woman:

“And the serpent spewed out water like a river from its mouth after the woman, to cause her to be drowned by the river. 16 But the earth came to the woman’s help, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river that the dragon spewed out from its mouth.”

So I told Duncan about it, but he didn’t call on me during the gems review. He knew I would just be blowing smoke. Besides, he thought of the river, clear as crystal, that flows from the throne 

Turn the page and rivers are clapping their hands. I’m not sure how rivers can do that:

Let the rivers clap their hands; Let the mountains shout joyfully together. (98:8)

At Isaiah 42:10, the rivers are like unmentionables:

”Sing to Jehovah a new song, His praise from the ends of the earth, You who go down to the sea and all that fills it, You islands and their inhabitants.” We all know what it is that fills the sea.

Much talk about a “new song” about this point in the Psalms, as though a new twist in God’s purpose unfolding. From 91 on, and especially 95, the people trusting in God emerge victorious, an outcome many earlier psalms appear in doubt over.

Meanwhile, and having nothing to do with anything except that the congregation is now in the book commenting on Acts:

It can’t have been easy for Paul, to be followed around for days by a crazy person hollering: “‘These men are slaves of the Most High God and are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.’” To illustrate that it would not be, I told a certain someone at the Hall that I would heretofore do it to him.

Did the demon driving her think he had Paul over a barrel? What’s he going to do—cast it out, upon which the servant would be valueless to her masters and the cops would beat Paul up? But Paul cast it out, the servant became valueless to her masters, and the cops beat him up:

“Now it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a servant girl with a spirit, a demon of divination,l met us. She supplied her masters with much profit by fortune-telling. This girl kept following Paul and us and crying out with the words: “These men are slaves of the Most High God and are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. Finally Paul got tired of it and turned and said to the spirit: “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

“Well, when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the rulers. Leading them up to the civil magistrates, they said: “These men are disturbing our city very much. They are Jews, and they are proclaiming customs that it is not lawful for us to adopt or practice, seeing that we are Romans.” And the crowd rose up together against them, and the civil magistrates, after tearing the garments off them, gave the command to beat them with rods. After they had inflicted many blows on them, they threw them into prisonu and ordered the jailer to guard them securely.” (Acts 16:16-24)

 

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Psalm 90: How Long Will [What] Last?

The reason I believe better sanitation and not vaccines (as has been claimed) resulted in the greater expanded life expectancy during the 20th century is found at Psalm 90:10:

“The span of our life is 70 years, Or 80 if one is especially strong.”

So there it is, written maybe four thousand years ago. Yet, in the year 1900, the average life expectancy in the United States was 47 years. Had humans not deviated from the sanitation principles found in the Old Testament, would it not have been the 70 or 80 from the Bible? Unsafe working conditions also played a part, no doubt, but the role of sanitation is still a huge factor.

Today, that 70-to-80 has improved to 80-to-90, and that probably is the role of modern medicine, which may include some vaccines. But the science zealot who tried to tell me how far we have come, since in the Middle Ages, people “crapped in a bucket and threw it out on the street,” consequently dying at thirty—well, that has nothing to do with science. It has to do with correcting (even if unknowingly) a prior neglect of the Old Testament which held that you’re supposed to bury your poop.

We pull a lot of useful verses out of the 90th psalm, verse 10 among them. However, this time around in the congregation Bible reading, verse 13 caught my attention.

“Return, O Jehovah! How long will this last? Have pity on your servants.”

How long will what last? Is it a special period of anger on God’s part? One might easily think it upon reading 7, 8, 9, and 11:

“For we are consumed by your anger And terrified by your rage.  (7) You place our errors in front of you; Our secrets are exposed by the light of your face. (8) Our days ebb away because of your fury; And our years come to an end like a whisper. (9) . . . Who can fathom the power of your anger? Your fury is as great as the fear you deserve. (11)

And yet, the specific affliction appears to be no more than what verse 10 speaks of, that we get 70 years, 80 at best. See how many verses chronicle the fleetingness of life today.

“You make mortal man return to dust; You say: ‘Return, you sons of men.’” (3) For a thousand years are in your eyes just as yesterday when it is past, Just as a watch during the night. (4) You sweep them away; they become like mere sleep; In the morning they are like grass that sprouts. (5) In the morning it blossoms and is renewed, But by evening it withers and dries up. (6)

That’s just ordinary life he is talking about. No special punishment there. What’s with this psalm?

Unless . . . unless . . could this be one of those passages in which the author reveals truths he is unaware of himself, the Bible being the product of “men [who] spoke from God as they were moved by holy spirit?” (2 Peter 1:21)

People settle for so little today. Totally obsessed with what years are left of their present life, most totally ignore the far longer period after their present life runs its course. Is the psalmist lamenting how that circumstance came about? After all, why does God “make mortal man return to dust [and] say: “Return, you sons of men?” Man was intended to live forever. But rebelling against him, in the oldest transgression of history, in the easy-to-understand act of eating an off-limits fruit—the only thing that was off-limits—had the effect of pulling their own plug from the power source. Thereafter, the blades spinning ever slower, till their offspring many generations downstream, are stuck with a life expectancy of 70 or 80 years that quickly pass by and are filled with trouble.

How long will that “punishment” last, you might picture the psalmist saying, having no knowledge then of the means God would employ to reverse it.

It’s an application I like. Even the aforementioned verses (7-9, 11) of God’s anger could be looked at as that original rebellion being what he is angry about. It is maybe one of those passages that has more than one application. Even if it isn’t, we can assign it one, since the assignment would be in keeping with “the pattern of healthful words.” We used to call such passages antitypes. But now, we drop down to a safer level and say, ‘This reminds me of that.”

***

It’s rare to see life as God sees it. But now that we’ve all learned to do photo montages at memorial talks, it begins to happen. A person’s entire life scrolls by in just a few minutes.  Not too different from the psalm:

 

“For a thousand years are in your eyes just as yesterday when it is past, Just as a watch during the night. You sweep them away; they become like mere sleep; In the morning they are like grass that sprouts. In the morning it blossoms and is renewed, But by evening it withers and dries up. . . . The span of our life is 70 years, Or 80 if one is especially strong. . . . They quickly pass by, and away we fly.” (Psalm 90: 4-10)

 

******  The bookstore

Burn Up Sons in the Fire? Atheists Strike Again

At a home Bible study, the kind that Jehovah’s Witnesses offer, Darrel had a question. He brought up Exodus 22: 29-30.

“You shall give me the firstborn of your sons. You must do the same with your oxen and your sheep.” (New International Version) This meant, he worried, that you burn up your firstborn child for God, same as you would your ox and your sheep. “You must do the same”—he repeated the expression.

He got it from the atheists, I’ve no doubt. They would make a burnt offering of the entire Bible were it up to them. He doesn’t necessarily buy into it. He just doesn’t want to be snowed—by the atheists or by the Witnesses. He even apologizes for raising the question, as though for rocking the boat. ‘What—are you kidding me?’ I tell him. ‘We’d be worried if you didn’t have questions.’

Should one be flustered? The snippet quoted does sort of sound like you’re supposed burn your sons. It will not do just to say, ‘It doesn’t mean that!’ Unless you explain why it doesn’t, it comes across as though you are covering up a crime. The challenge is enough to send the one conducting the study scurrying in search of other scriptures to shed light on the passage—using one scripture to explain another, the tried and true method in the JW world. Me, I’m just the companion, sitting there, taking up space.

Actually, just backing out some and taking the entire passage into account would answer the question, but this is not immediately apparent. The entire passage reads:

“You shall not delay the offering of your harvest and your press. You shall give me the firstborn of your sons. You must do the same with your oxen and your sheep; for seven days the firstling may stay with its mother, but on the eighth day you must give it to me.”

Three things are being compared in the expanded passage, not two: 1) the first offerings of the harvest and [wine]press, 2) your own firstborn, and 3) the firstborn of the oxen and sheep. You must "do the same," not with the manner of sacrifice, but that all are subject to sacrifice. Grain and drink offerings were not done in the same manner as animal sacrifices. Neither would people be.

And here the atheists are trying to get him all pumped up over that passage! 'Well, it sure sounds like you're supposed to burn your son just like your ox or sheep,’ they mutter. 'If it’s not that way, it could have been explained more clearly!' Really? When we read of a celebrity roast, does anyone expect an asterisk explaining that they're not literally roasted (though many of them should be)?

In time, the conductor emerges with a verse from Jeremiah that explains it all. He had one of three to choose from; the prophet makes the point that many times. Referring to when Israel went carousing with their rowdy neighbors (the nations surrounding them) and in time picked up their bad habits, the prophet speaks for God and says, “they built the high places of Baal in order to burn their sons in the fire as whole burnt offerings to Baal, something that I had not commanded or spoken of and that had never even come into my heart.” (Jeremiah 19:5) Okay? If it “had never even come into [his] heart,” he’s not going to command his people do it. It is Baal they are thinking of.

Ezekiel confirms what Jeremiah related. The raucous neighbors did such things. When Israel proved unfaithful to its God, Jehovah, it followed suit:

“Because they did not carry out my judicial decisions and they rejected my statutes, they profaned my sabbaths, and they followed after the disgusting idols of their forefathers. I also allowed them to follow regulations that were not good and judicial decisions by which they could not have life. I let them become defiled by their own sacrifices—when they made every firstborn child pass through the fire—in order to make them desolate, so that they would know that I am Jehovah.” (bolding mine)

These appeals to Jeremiah and Ezekiel fall flat to persons schooled in higher criticism. They will object that Exodus is a work of ‘the priestly tradition’ and Jeremiah a work of ‘the prophetic tradition.’ The two traditions fought like cats and dogs—you wouldn’t appeal to one for support of the other. But Darell is not a person of higher criticism. He is a person of common sense. The point registers with him. Had it not, maybe an appeal to an earlier portion of Exodus (4:22-23) would have sufficed. There, Moses is directed, “You must say to Pharʹaoh, ‘This is what Jehovah says: “Israel is my son, my firstborn. I say to you, Send my son away so that he may serve me.”’” See what God wanted from his firstborn? He wanted service, not burnt remains. Since both quotes are from Exodus, the comparison might work with a higher critic. Though, it might not; even within a given Bible book, they claim to be able to see both the priestly and prophetic traditions squabbling with one another.

Thing is, to the higher critic, any words attributed to God are really human in origin. They cannot prove God by their scientific method, and the scientific method is all they recognize. God, for them, is a human construct. So, necessarily, words attributed to God are merely that of some human spinning his own theology. Moreover, how strong can a human construct be? Strong enough to fly in the face of tribal neighbors who did indeed offer children as burnt sacrifices? The critics judge it is not. Therefore, when Jeremiah and Ezekiel present Jehovah as condemning the practice, they are to the critics just reformers proclaiming what they would like to see, not what is. They are just whistleblowers. Their protests are but the protests of human prophets, not of God himself, who is imaginary. To the higher critics, Jehovah is a tribal god like all the rest. The religious zealots that are Jeremiah and Ezekiel may try to extricate him from the abhorrent practice, but it will not fly with higher critics. All gods to them are really but one god, and all are figments of the common human urge to worship what they can neither control nor understand. The human sciences of sociology and anthropology lead them to conclude that if one god did it, they all did. A passage such as Leviticus 18: 24-25 makes little impression on them: “Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.” To them, it is like the words of an ascending politician explaining why he must beat up on his rivals. He is just talking sweet until he gains power, whereupon he will revert to true form.

Biblical passages drawing a favorable distinction between the God of the Bible and the gods of surrounding nations are defused by the critics in short order. For example, a passage of Deuteronomy: (FN 4:5-8)

“See, I [Moses] have taught you regulations and judicial decisions, just as Jehovah my God has commanded me, for you to do that way in the midst of the land to which you are going to take possession of it. And you must keep and do them, because this is wisdom on your part and understanding on your part before the eyes of the peoples who will hear of all these regulations, and they will certainly say, ‘This great nation is undoubtedly a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has gods near to it the way Jehovah our God is in all our calling upon him? And what great nation is there that has righteous regulations and judicial decisions like all this law that I am putting before you today.  Deut 4:5-8

With no way to ascertain that there is a God, the higher critic regards the above as a concoction of Moses, who was a great man hoping to impose his theology upon a resistant nation. He is attributing his own forward vision to God, saying the ways of his god are best, when he actually should be saying, ‘My ways are best.’

As an exercise, in the following summation of 2 Kings 17:7-18, replace every mention of Jehovah (FN traditionally thought to be Jeremiah, though you won’t be able to ram that by the higher critics, either). with the name of the author writing the account. Doing so moves it into the realm of a political statement, not one of God. Modern critics can identify with political statements. They cannot with statements of faith, so they repackage the latter as the former:

“[Calamity] happened because the people of Israel had sinned against Jehovah their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the control of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshipped other gods, they followed the customs of the nations that Jehovah had driven out from before the Israelites, and they followed the customs that the kings of Israel had established. The Israelites were pursuing the things that were not right according to Jehovah their God. They kept building high places in all their cities, from watchtower to fortified city. They kept setting up for themselves sacred pillars and sacred poles on every high hill and under every luxuriant tree; and on all the high places they would make sacrificial smoke just as the nations did that Jehovah had driven into exile from before them. They kept doing wicked things to offend Jehovah. They continued to serve disgusting idols, about which Jehovah had told them: “You must not do this!” Jehovah kept warning Israel and Judah through all his prophets and every visionary, saying: “Turn back from your wicked ways! Keep my commandments and my statutes according to all the law that I commanded your forefathers and that I sent to you through my servants the prophets.” But they did not listen, and they remained just as stubborn as their forefathers who had not shown faith in Jehovah their God. They continued rejecting his regulations and his covenant that he had made with their forefathers and his reminders that he had given to warn them, and they kept following worthless idols and became worthless themselves, imitating the nations all around them that Jehovah had commanded them not to imitate. They kept leaving all the commandments of Jehovah their God, and they made metal statues of two calves and a sacred pole, and they bowed down to all the army of the heavens and served Baal. They also made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, they practiced divination and looked for omens, and they kept devoting themselves to do what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah, to offend him. So Jehovah was very angry with Israel, so that he removed them from his sight.”

None of the above is God’s complaint, according to the higher critics. It is all the complaint of Jeremiah—or whoever is writing as though Jeremiah.

So destructive to faith is higher criticism that it ought to be as banned as DDT and thalidomide, for it triggers no fewer spiritual stillbirths. Instead, it is the method of theological preference today. If you shop the theological schools for your church pastor, it is what you most likely have inflicted upon your congregation. Jehovah’s Witnesses will have none of it. To them, the words of Peter apply, that “prophecy was at no time brought by man’s will, but men spoke from God as they were moved by holy spirit.” (2 Peter 1:21) Those words of Peter lead them to assume unity of scripture, not inherent discord between them. It necessarily makes scripture more powerful. You can focus things that are united. You cannot things that are disunited.

 

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