If you were truly convinced that Armageddon and Christ’s millennial kingdom were coming in the next couple of years—because “the faithful and discreet slave” told you so—what radical changes would you make in your life?
For the Watchtower organization, it meant increased meeting attendance, increased revenue, increased witnessing activity, and increased membership.
But what was the impact on ordinary Jehovah’s Witnesses? Continue reading
The next president of the Watchtower, Joseph “Judge” Rutherford, eventually rejected many of his predecessor’s teachings, but he couldn’t do so right away because Charles Taze Russell was revered by his followers.
When Russell died in the fall of 1916, the Watchtower leaders moved quickly to bridge to the future.
In 1917, they published The Finished Mystery. It was presented as Volume 7 of Studies in the Scriptures, the posthumous book of Russell.
In fact, it was written by other men.
The Watchtower now claims that in 1918-1919, Jesus Christ personally inspected all the world’s religions. He found the Watchtower organization to be spiritually cleansed from past errors and faithfully dispensing spiritual food. Accordingly, he designated it to be the “faithful and discreet slave” of Matthew 24:45 and gave it dominion over all of his affairs on earth.
In effect, it became Jehovah’s one true religious organization on earth, authorized to speak and act on his behalf.
Given that The Finished Mystery was the last book it published and promoted before Jesus’ claimed inspection, I want to take some time to discuss it. Continue reading
In last week’s post, I showed how the Watchtower arrives at its 1914 date for the end of the Gentile Times.
As I noted, its calculations are dependent on its claim that Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 607 B.C.E.
If that date is wrong, then the 1914 date is also wrong. Continue reading
The 1914 date is critical to the Watchtower’s claim that its leadership is the “faithful and discreet slave” spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24:45.
If Jesus didn’t return invisibly in 1914, then he didn’t inspect the world’s religions in 1918-1919, name the Watchtower organization as his “faithful and discreet slave” and give it worldwide authority as the only true religion.
But since the number “1914” doesn’t appear in the Bible, did the Watchtower just pull that date out of thin air? Continue reading
When Christians point out Watchtower errors or flip-flops in the area of prophecy, Jehovah’s Witnesses often get defensive.
Nobody’s perfect, right?
They accuse us of persecution.
Because of this, when discussing prophecy with Jehovah’s Witnesses, we first need to establish our motivation and our right to examine what the Watchtower Society has taught since its inception. Continue reading
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