Sheep and Goats

Month: September 2026

  • Regarding the Recent Update on Blood Transfusions: Part 2

    See Part 1

    Part 2

    Part 3

    Part 4

    Part 5)

    At long last, two scriptures long acknowledged but long deemphasized are coming to the fore. I could not be happier. For the longest time I have adopted the Rolling Stones song as my personal year text: “You can’t always get what you want.” Now it is beginning to appear as though I can. Or at least more than previously imagined.

    The two scriptures are:

    “Not that we are the masters over your faith, but we are fellow workers for your joy, for it is by your faith that you are standing.” (2 Corinthians 1:24)

    and

    “So, then, each of us will render an account for himself to God.” (Romans 14:12)

    The changes among JWs since the recent series of Updates began have prominently incorporated these verses. Christians are to stand by their OWN faith, with no other human as their “master.” And each with render an account “for himself” to God, not for someone else.

    Well, if the scriptures are so plain and so long recognized, why are they only now coming to the fore?

    Mostly it is because other scriptures point another way and it is a question of balancing them. There are continual references in the Bible to undershepherds of Christ who are responsible for the flock. Destroyed sheep will be demanded at their hand. This has a way of making them vigilant, not lackadaisical.

    For example: “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for [or “shepherd” / poimainō] the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” (Acts 20:28, ESV) They should be careless with something purchased with the blood of Christ?

    and

    “So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” (1 Peter 5:1-4)

    We all know what shepherds do. They have rods to beat away predators but they also have staffs with crooks at the end to direct the sheep, at times forcefully, should they perceive danger. And what are the sheep supposed to do?

    This: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.” (Hebrews 13:17)

    and

    “Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.” (1 Peter 5:5)

    One thing I admire about Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they do not shirk from verses such as the above. They do not try to water them down. They do not kowtow when the overall world adopts the model of ‘No one’s telling ME what to do!’ Most others do kowtow, terrified at being thought out of step with the greater world’s demands for independence. Instead, the Witnesses say, ‘Steady as she goes.’ But have they gone too far?

    When entire nations begin to complain and it is not for the reasons one might expect, they begin to think the answer is yes. It is therefore time to relook at policies and see if they can be readjusted while still keeping the overall core of them. Turns out they can.

    Why did they not do it long ago? Why did they have to wait for entire nations to complain? As much as Jehovah’s Witnesses love that metaphor of God’s lightning-fast chariot, it is a metaphor. He doesn’t really have one. Nor does he have eyes, ears, arm, legs, etc. The continual anthropomorphization of God is for our sake, to help us better relate to Him. But it is metaphor. From a “one day is with God as 1000 years to men” standpoint, it is a lightning-fast chariot. But to someone at ground zero, it is more like a supertanker. It doesn’t exactly turn on a dime.

    It turns out that Jehovah’s Witnesses are much like scientists in one important regard. Max Planck, the physicist, observed: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” I believe that such is happening among Jehovah’s Witnesses today?

    If so, it all sounds quintessentially human. Does this mean that the Witnesses today are not led by holy spirit?

    to be continued.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Regarding the Recent Update on Blood Transfusions: Part 1

    (See Part 1

    Part 2

    Part 3

    Part 4

    Part 5)

    What about the recent revision regarding blood transfusions—that it will no longer be a matter the congregation gets involved with? It’s not as though any view has changed with regard to the prohibition of blood stated at Acts 15:29. It’s just that the congregation will no longer get involved in how people navigate it. Two of the “four basic components of blood: white cells and platelets, make up less of a percentage, than some fractions: albumin and immunoglobulin that it has already been acknowledged Christians may have no problem with!

    Is this new adjustment wrong? Or, is it a correction of something that was wrong before? Will there be hell to pay, one way or the other, with regard to the ones who made the revision? It certainly has impacted some lives.

    It’s not the best question to ask, methinks. However, if one presses ahead to ask it anyway, surely the answer is “I don’t know.” You could build a case for unbraiding. Such as the harshness proclaimed for “whoever stumbles one of these little ones who believe” is suggestive. (Matthew 18:6) And, “Everyone to whom much was given, much will be demanded of him, and the one who was put in charge of much will have more than usual demanded of him.” (Luke 12:48) Is someone due for a thrashing?

    Isn’t one presuming to speak for God with a question like that? Who can say what that One will do? But I tend to think that in the overall picture, they will make out okay. I tend to think that with them it will be: ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. I put you in charge of one mina. See, you have gained ten more. Sure, you stepped in it a few times but, Hey—who’s keeping score?’

    An examination of the first century reinforces this gut feeling. They didn’t step in it back then? Or—to put it more precisely—they didn’t do things that could have been spun that way by their detractors? Even Peter and yes, Jesus himself, did. They both provided ample opportunity for detractors to take shots at them.

    The trick lies not in sanitizing the present. The trick lies in desanitizing the past. It is relatively easy to do. Peter, for example, gets all balled up over something Jesus directly told him. Consequently, an untruth spreads among the disciples that who knows took how long to correct:

    “Peter turned around and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, the one who at the evening meal had also leaned back on his chest and said: “Lord, who is the one betraying you?” So when he caught sight of him, Peter said to Jesus: “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him: “If it is my will for him to remain until I come, of what concern is that to you? You continue following me.” So the saying went out among the brothers that this disciple would not die. However, Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but he said: “If it is my will for him to remain until I come, of what concern is that to you?” (John 21:20-23)

    It was Peter himself who messed this one up, not one of the “rank and file.” Were there an internet back then, enemies would be insisting that he can’t possibly be led by holy spirit to make such a blunder as that. Yet the Bible record itself says that Jesus entrusted the keys of the kingdom to him.

    He did it again when he withdrew from gentile Christians out of fear of displeasing Jewish Christians—to the extent that Paul called him on it at Galatians 2:14: “But when I saw that they were not walking in step with the truth of the good news, I said to Cephas before them all: “If you, though you are a Jew, live as the nations do and not as Jews do, how can you compel people of the nations to live according to Jewish practice?” Who knows how many gentile believers were stumbled due to Peter having caved? (which he previously did in denying his Lord three times—though to his credit he was the only one to follow closely enough to have been put in that position.

    This opens up the possibility that when someone says something before a Royal Commission that isn’t what you would expect him to say, he might have just caved. If so, he finds plenty of common ground in Peter.

    Jesus himself made a move that you know internet critics would be up in arms over. They’d be outraged even more than with Peter, for this latter move involved lives more dramatically than did Peter’s blunders. They’d be demanding apologies. Were they to get one, they would take it as an admission of guilt:

    Jesus said (John 6) that disciples must “drink his blood and eat his flesh.” Even then many walked away: “This speech is shocking! Who can listen to it?” Can you imagine their reaction years later on the internet when a frequent charge against Christians, fueling much hate and persecution, was that they practiced cannibalism? Would not they have insisted that Jesus directly stated that they would? You think they would have picked up on the spiritual nuances of Jesus’ words? I wouldn’t hold my breath. They would have misconstrued it—in some cases, even deliberately, as happens today.

    So I think Jehovah will go easy on Christian headship. I don’t know that. But a consideration of the first century written record strongly suggests to me that it will be so. When you see an issue whose time has come, for whatever reason, to make a change over, make the change. Know that your enemies will lambaste you for it. But they were lambasting you before, so it hardly matters.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Boarding a Ship that You Know is Going to Sink: Part 2

    (See Part 1)

    The Adam and Eve account is one of humans cutting themselves off from their power source. Thereby, they bring death upon themselves that would not otherwise come. Like the blades of a fan after pulling the plug, lifespans slow. At Genesis chapter 5, they are in the 900-year range. By Genesis chapter 11, it has dropped to about 500 years. By Abraham’s time, it was in the 200-year range. By the psalmist’s time, it had dropped to “70 years, Or 80 if one is especially strong.” (Psalm 90:10) That’s where it is today, mostly. It has even increased by 10 years or so to what it is today, a product of better sanitation, medical technology, as so forth.

    The idea to take away is that death is not God’s idea. It is a penalty for sin, clearly stated from mankind’s beginning: “But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:17) The illustration that Witnesses love, because it makes so much sense, is that of a cake pan with a dent in it. Every cake coming out of that pan thereafter will have that dent. In this way, Romans 5:12 finds application, that “through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned.”

    I suggested in A Workman’s Theodicy that epigenetics (unknown when I was a boy) could explain how an “acquired trait” like sin could be passed on to succeeding generation, but now it appears that suggestion was wrong. Epigenetics is a mechanism determining whether given genes are expressed or not. It can indeed result in the inheritance of acquired traits, but supposedly for no more than 2 or 3 generations, after which the natural genome reasserts itself. Maybe that view will modify again. Or maybe it is entirely some other means by which the generations descending from that first pair, even when not willfull sinners themselves, nonetheless inherit the consequences of Adam and Eve’s initial sin.

    Sin, it should be remembered, literally means “missing the mark.” We can do so deliberately, aiming into the clouds or the sea because we think that target better. But even when we strain for all we are worth to hit the given target, we seldom score a bullseye.

    Much of Christian religion backs away from a literal Adam and Eve, petrified at the thought of being out of step with science. The Jehovah’s Witness headship, plebeian to it roots, just like the apostles were, gives not a hoot about kissing up to science (sometimes to their detriment). Their attitude is that if the Word harmonizes with science, that Word is corroborated. If it doesn’t, then science has some catching up to do. In this, I believe they are like the original apostles, described at Acts 4:13 as “unlettered and ordinary.” Those apostles never sought to remedy that deficiency. They ran with what they had, which was not everything, but it was enough to run with.

    One might think it would have been better had “smart” people been running the show back then, but they were not. Jesus all but says that smart people would have dropped the ball. “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?” he says at John 5:44. We all know it. “Smart” people are ever concerned about their standing in the eyes of their peers. If damaged heavily enough, it might even spill over to harm their financial standing, a horror worse yet. You cannot trust them to get an unpopular work done. They will crap out 19 times out of 20. If the job is to be done, it must be assigned to ones already looked down upon, ones with not special social or financial standing to begin wth.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Boarding a Ship that You Know is Going to Sink

    A certain sage likened the journey of life to boarding a ship heading out to sea that you know is going to sink. Somehow, people must come to grips with that. Nobody would ever book a cruise knowing the ship will sink, no matter how enticing the stops on the way. Somehow humans have to come to terms with our limited lifespan.

    A good start is to recognize the source of death. It wasn’t God’s idea. Instead, Romans 5:12 says, “through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned.”

    I was dumbfounded when I first came across people who literally believed in Adam and Eve. They didn’t look stupid. Yet, all my life it had been drilled into me, from grade school through college, that only the dumbest of the dumbbells took those two seriously.

    I didn’t acquiesce to the Adam and Eve instantly. I put them on the shelf instead, since everything else made so much sense. In time, I better integrated them with accumulating faith and Bible knowledge. Thing is, I’m not sure how many would accept that workaround today. “Critical thinking” is all the rage today. Such thinking is apt to prohibit putting that first couple aside, even temparily, for fear they may cause “cognitive dissonance.” Critical thinking prejudices one to insist that the discordance must be resolved NOW.

    Is it really so that humans cannot simultaneously entertain non-dovetailing ideas without their heads exploding? Or are the ones who so insist merely proclaiming their own narrowness? One need only watch an American pharmaceutical ad to appreciate that cognitive dissonance is a vastly overrated concept, with narrator insisting you must have the drug peddled, and voiceover saying it may kill you. Somehow Americans survive those.

    At any rate, I have since recommended to people of my background, who may similarly choke on mention of Adam and Eve, that they treat them as metaphor if they must. Anything is better than outright rejection, especially outright disdainful rejection—as in, “We are wise and learned adults—far too clever to be sold Adam and Eve. What’s next, Donald Duck?” They are only harming themselves with that view. One must not toss away the idea of Adam and Eve, for they are key.

    To be continued.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Setting Matters Straight Between Us

    “Come, now, and let us set matters straight between us,” says Jehovah. “Though your sins are like scarlet, They will be made as white as snow; Though they are as red as crimson cloth, They will become like wool. (Isaiah 1:18)

    Many times I speak with people. Rarely do I precede my remarks with “Come now, and let us set matters straight between us.” It means that what follows is a big deal. It means that what follows is something not intuitive, something a person might easily not think of on his or her own.

    That something is that, if you repent of and leave off your wrong course, God will completely forgive. These points were the highlight of Sunday’s (September 20, 2026) Watchtower Study.

    David was set as an example. After being called to account over his outrageous sin with Bathsheba, in which he even plotted another man’s death, 2 Samuel 12:13 says: “David then said to Nathan: “I have sinned against Jehovah.” Nathan replied to David:“Jehovah, in turn, forgives your sin. You will not die.” It reads sort of light here, just presented as an excerpt, but the complete context indicates he really was cut to the heart.

    Thereafter, consistent with forgiveness, whenever David’s subsequent doings are mentioned, there is never attached a footnote: “But, you know, that dude did some pretty bad stuff.” Someone spoke up at the meeting that the common pattern today is, should someone do something bad, that course defines him for the rest of his life—popular opinion will accept no reform. But, with God, the reality is:

    “I [Jehovah] am the One who is blotting out your transgressions for my own sake, And I will not remember your sins. (Isa 43:25)

    It is: “For I will not oppose them forever Or always remain indignant; For a man’s spirit would grow feeble because of me, Even the breathing creatures that I have made.” (Isa 57:16)

    Thus is presented the reason behind Isaiah 1:18 and why matters must be “set straight between us.” It is that one’s spirit may not “grow feeble because of me [God], as it surely would otherwise, upon contrasting his stature and ways with the fact one has so blatantly transgressed against them. The fact is, forgiveness is a thing with Him—and this is BEFORE the revealing of Christ, who would pay the price to redeem us from sin.

    It was a fine meeting that went on to explore related points. Participation was heavy. It always is at our Hall. Few paragraphs do not strand a few hands, as the conductor presses on to cover material within the allotted time. Rarely do I get all my remarks in, though in some cases it is due to the conductor [rightly] suspecting I may launch a zinger.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Takeaways from Gibeon

    You know when people are pulling lessons out of Gibeon that you’re dealing with a Bible people. You’re dealing with a people who take seriously that counsel that “all the things that were written beforehand were written for our instruction.” (Romans 15:4)

    So it was with the Watchtower Study of September 13, 2026, reviewing several developments in that Gibeonite mess that nonetheless turned out well. About the “What does this teach us about Jehovah?” headings (there were 3 of them), my takeaway was that his nation screws up and He nonetheless rolls with it. It’s just the way He works. He grants his people autonomy.

    He doesn’t say, “Duh! There were right next to you! How could you be so stupid?” He didn’t rebuke them. He didn’t disown them. He rolled with it. They incorporated that bad move into their act and it ultimately turned out well. When the ruse is uncovered and the Israelites can’t renege (as anyone else would), there’s some head honcho Gibeonite in the background somewhere saying, “I guess I played that hand well.” I guess he did.

    If it happened then, it’s going to happen now. That’s how it is when people are involved—and they always will be with the worship of God. Not every decision knocks it out of the park. Some look screwy in hindsight. More typically, you don’t know if it was really screwy and will not find out for a long time. Maybe it will turn out to be just the ticket. Every surly character who wants something different portrays it as screwy, whether it is or not.

    But if the example of the Gibeonites is any guide, like Romans 15:4 says it is,it doesn’t matter if it was screwy or not. So long as it was done in good faith, God rolls with it. He may take it out of their hide later. Or he may decide that, in the big picture, it is nothing. Either way, it’s nothing that anyone else need get bent out of shape over.

    ******  The bookstore

  • The New Covenant of Jeremiah 31: Parts 1-3

    (1) The New Covenant of Jeremiah 31

    Just after that slogan of setting teeth on edge and what it means (Jeremiah 31:29-30) comes the promise of the new covenant that sets it in motion:

    “Look! The days are coming,” declares Jehovah, “when I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their forefathers on the day I took hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, ‘my covenant that they broke, although I was their true master,’ declares Jehovah.” “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares Jehovah. “I will put my law within them, and in their heart I will write it. And I will become their God, and they will become my people.” “And they will no longer teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know Jehovah!’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them,” declares Jehovah. “For I will forgive their error, and I will no longer remember their sin. (31:31-34)

    A new covenant replaces an old one. What is the old one, the one whom Jehovah “made with their forefathers on the day I took hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt?”

    “You have seen for yourselves what I did to the Egyptians, in order to carry you on wings of eagles and bring you to myself,“ Jehovah himself says at Exodus 19:4. The proposed covenant follows:

    “Now if you will strictly obey my voice and keep my covenant, you will certainly become my special property out of all peoples . . . You will become to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

    Did they strictly obey his voice and keep his covenant? Not so much. Though there be a few exceptions, (a remnant, it would later be called) both the historical and prophetic books of the OT detail the sorry history of abandoning Jehovah to carry on with the gods of the raucous neighbors—the Baals, and so forth. Nor did the discipline of exile help. To be sure, upon return, Israel never touched idolatry again, but they transgressed in other ways, ultimately rejecting the one God sent as Messiah.

    It is this Messiah who serves to mediate the new covenant.

    Celebrating their final Passover that would become their first Lord’s Supper, we read: “And taking a cup, he offered thanks and gave it to them, saying: “Drink out of it, all of you, for this means my ‘blood of the covenant,’ which is to be poured out in behalf of many for forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:27-28)

    And in Luke: “Also, he did the same with the cup after they had the evening meal, saying: “This cup means the new covenant by virtue of my blood, which is to be poured out in your behalf.” (22:20)

    It’s a better covenant than before in that it is based on forgiveness of sin, rather than the continual appeasing it through animal sacrifices. Returning to Jeremiah 31:34: “I will forgive their error, and I will no longer remember their sin.” It is extended only to that faithful remnant, of which Jesus’ eleven are the first members.

    The reason it works, whereas the animal blood of the old covenant merely bought time, is the superior aspect of Jesus’s shed blood. He is “the last Adam” of 1 Corinthians 15:45, whose death perfectly offsets that of the first Adam. That first Adam’s rebellion sells humankind into slavery to sin. Jesus’ death buy them back. It’s not something that could be done with animal blood. “It is not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take sins away,” says Hebrews 10:4. With Jesus’ blood, it is possible. All one must do is put faith in it and follow through.

    At first, those who enter the new covenant are all Jews. (Acts 2) But in time, starting with Cornelius (Acts 10), non-Jews enter the covenant and eventually far outnumber those natural-born Jews. That this would happen is told several times in Scripture:

    (1) “The Kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits,” Jesus to the chief priests and elders of his day at Matthew 21:43.

    (2) The OT prophet Hosea said it, too: “I will say to those not my people: “You are my people,” And they will say: “You are my God.”’” (Hosea 2:23)

    (3) The apostle Paul applies Hosea’s words to those “called not only from among Jews but also from among nations,” at Romans 9:24.

    (4) And Peter speaks to this latter group as those who “were once not a people, but now you are God’s people.” (1 Peter 2:9)

    For what purpose is this all done?

    (2) Even the name Israel changes in going from old covenant to new—not the name itself but the people who fall under that name. “Israel” literally means “perseverer (or contender) with God.” Who is it that perseveres with him? It is not the physical nation. That nation ends up rejecting his chosen messiah (Greek: ‘anointed one’). Call that persevering with God? Instead, those who fit the description of persevering with God are the ones taken into that new covenant—at first all Jews but it soon expands to include non-Jews. Thus we read of the “Israel of God” at Galatians 6:16, which is not the same as the physical nation. The new covenant is between Jehovah and “the Israel of God.”

    If the word Israel is given a new application, then so will the word Jew. In the context of the new covenant, it no longer involves physical lineage. The apostle Paul explains it in his letter to the Romans: “For he is not a Jew who is one on the outside, nor is circumcision that which is on the outside upon the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one on the inside, and his circumcision is that of the heart by spirit.” (Ro 2:28, 29) Natural Jews were given first dibs on this expanded definition, but they couldn’t in themselves fill the bill. Only a “remnant” of them could. The physical nation itself, with few exceptions, was unfaithful.

    Consistently, the word Jerusalem also changes. The capital city of Israel now becomes the capital of another governing arrangement, one that will rule from heaven. It is called “heavenly Jerusalem” at Hebrews 12:22. Those who “approach it” are the ones taken into the new covenant referred to above—at first just natural Jews, but later expanding to Gentiles. As such, they “are to receive a Kingdom that cannot be shaken.” When assembled in full, they comprise the “New Jerusalem” of Revelation 21:2 that is to come “down out of heaven from God and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, With that coming down from heaven is “a loud voice from the throne [that says]: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore.” (21:3-4) It is more than any earthly government has ever done or could do.

    Those taken into the new covenant are to become the “kingdom of priests” once intended for the earthly descendants of Abraham. “Now if you will strictly obey my voice and keep my covenant, you will certainly become my special property out of all peoples . . . You will become to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” God had said through Moses. (Exodus 19:5-6) This new “kingdom of priests” exercise their kingship and priesthood from heaven. This is something absolutely new for humans, who were created for earth. “As for the heavens, they belong to Jehovah. But the earth he has given to the sons of men,” says Psalm 115:16. It’s not as though God put humans on earth because he wanted them somewhere else. But now, those taken into the new covenant are to rule and function as priests from somewhere else—from heaven. This is “the sacred secret that was hidden from the past systems of things and from the past generations. But now it has been revealed to his holy ones,” (Colossians 1:16) to those taken into the new covenant. It’s sort of like when you get a promotion at work and have to move to the big city.

    It is no longer a dealbreaker not to be literally a descendant of Abraham, as it would have been if fleshly Israel had been able to fulfill the role of “a kingdom of priests.” To those reveling in their lineage, Jesus said, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones.” (Matthew 3:8) He has done so with the new covenant, taking non-Jews into the fold when qualifying natural Jews proved too few.

    Not everyone can be a priest. A priest serves to mediate between God and people. Who are these people? Not everyone can be a king. A king must have subjects to rule over. Who are these subjects?

    (3) There are several extensions of “Jerusalem” beyond the physical city, several extensions into a greater spiritual application. If you’re really finicky, for example (as Jehovah’s Witnesses usually are when it comes to biblical things), “heavenly Jerusalem” of the Letter to the Hebrews is not the same as “new Jerusalem” of the Book of Revelation. The first assumes the marriage to the Lamb has taken place and the second is a scene just before that marriage. Then there is the “Jerusalem above” of Galatians, which seemingly includes all spirit beings in heaven, the angels as well as those of humankind who ascend to heaven, where they are to rule as kings and mediate as priests. (Revelation 5:10)

    The one common aspect of these applications into the spiritual realm is that they are all sinless, and hence, free. The “Jerusalem above is free,” Paul says at Galatians 4:26. This harmonizes with those taken into the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:34. “For I will forgive their error, and I will no longer remember their sin,” the verse says. In contrast, the earthly Jerusalem is associated with sin perpetually appeased by animal sacrifice, a payment plan that will never be paid off, and thus comprises “slavery.”

    We live in a world in which people obsess over the petty freedoms that can be had by rebelling against human authority and have made their peace (or are oblivious to) the greater slavery to sin afflicting all humankind, that inevitably produces death. Here on this forum such a person tried to stir up discontent a few days ago over the fact that there are standards of dress one must observe onstage at the Kingdom Hall. Me, I take the words of Nathaniel Hawthorne as a motto, who observed: “It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.” Nobody speculates more boldly than do Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have no difficulty whatsoever “conform[ing] with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.”

    Though Hawthorne didn’t say it the reverse is also true. People who rail against the external regulations of society tend to be the most conformist of all. They will strain out the gnat but gulp down the camel every time. The devil is misleading the entire inhabited earth? They’re oblivious to it if only they can be in place where you can ditch ties onstage for men and skirts for women.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Fathers Eat Sour Grapes; The Teeth of the Sons are Set on Edge

    What about this expression: “In those days they will no longer say, ‘The fathers ate sour grapes, but the teeth of the sons were set on edge. But then each one will die for his own error. Any man eating sour grapes will have his own teeth set on edge?” (Jeremiah 31:29-30)

    Does it mean that the days are coming (1) in which no one will be judged for their parent’s deeds, as in ‘Your parents were trash, so you must be too.’

    Does it mean that the days are coming (2) when the parents no longer bring disaster upon themselves and it is the kids who end up trekking through the wilderness or hiking to Babylon?

    Does it mean that the days are coming (3) when people will hold themselves accountable for their own actions and quit blaming their parents for every little thing?

    It means all those things and more, most likely, with the ‘more’ part the most significant. The ‘more’ part comes into the new system, during the 1000 year reign of Christ, and progressively towards the end. During this time, the benefits of Christ’s spilled blood, will be poured out upon redeemed humankind, with children and resurrected ones added to that number. Toward the end of that period, as humans close in on the unblemished state once enjoyed by the first parents, there will be no bad examples to blame one’s on conduct on.

    There certainly is today. If alcoholism runs rampant in the family, or abuse, or hotheadedness, or just general dysfunction, it has a way of being picked up by the next generation. Dysfunction may be bad, but it defines “normal” to a child so molded. That’s why a woman so often marries someone just like her dad. Lout though he may be, he is the only type of man who registers with her as “normal.”

    It takes relentless pressing to break away from dysfunction. Who doesn’t know the feeling, at least once, of spending years breaking away from the pattern of the folks, imagining success, then one day realizing that beneath the facade, one is just like them? The transformation has been surface. Rinse, wash, and repeat is what is needed.

    Not so, however, at the end of the thousand years. If one dies then, it will be entirely due to their own transgression. That this will happen is seen from Revelation 20: 7-9:

    “Now as soon as the 1,000 years have ended, Satan will be released from his prison, and he will go out to mislead those nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Maʹgog, to gather them together for the war. The number of these is as the sand of the sea. And they advanced over the whole earth and encircled the camp of the holy ones and the beloved city. But fire came down out of heaven and consumed them.”

    Most likely those who have passed through the great tribulation into the new system will not succumb to this. They stood up to Satan once; why not again? Not so, however, for ones resurrected during this time, or for children born. They won’t have parents to blame in those days—something that is completely plausible today—because humankind will have been restored by then. “Each one will die for his own error. Any man eating sour grapes will have his own teeth set on edge,” as the verse says.

    ******  The bookstore

  • That First Night Away from Home

    That First Night Away from Home

    That first night away from home you don’t sleep so well. The second night, and all nights thereafter, you do. It’s a carryover from the caveman “eat or be eaten days,” say people who believe in such things. Half your brain is sound asleep. But it has charged the other half, also asleep, to sleep not so soundly, to keep an eye out, in case predators may lurk in this new unfamiliar environment—sort of an evolutionary ‘fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.’

    There are animals that have the half-brain-vigilance down much better than do humans. Many birds, for example sleep soundly with one half of the brain while the other half is awake. One eye is shut The other eye is open. Scientists intrude with their measurements to find, sure enough, the closed-eye brain side is asleep, the other still able to respond to predators sneaking up, even if not so wide awake to take the bird SATs. Then, when that side of the brain has had its fill of sleep, it swaps with its drowsy other half. The trick also comes in handy for long migration flights. Were both halves to sleep at the same time, the bird would lose locomotive control and fall from the sky. Aquatic mammals such as whales, dolphins, manatees, and so forth, will pull this stunt as well. If they didn’t—if both halves slept at once, they would neglect to surface for air and drown.

    Animals that don’t have to surface for a breath of air, or flap wings to stay aloft, can just lie on their beds, whereever those may be, and snooze. They don’t have to worry about the paralysis that sets in with sleep—a paralysis that must set in lest one act out dreams and actually throw a punch should a dream call for one. But what about predators? How do they deal with that nuisance? That’s where altering circadian rhythms come from, biologists think. Everyone has a circadian rhythm, but they’re not parallel. One fellow is a night owl. His neighbor is up bright and early. That way the tribe of old always had someone to sit at the campfire to thwart intruders.

    It really wasn’t fair, then, to shoot night sentries who fell asleep during their shift, the way militaries used to do. The guy assigned the night shift might be a morning lark. The guy assigned the early morning shift might be a night owl, with circadian rhythms out of whack, preset genetically through evolution and no fault of their own. Of course, outright execution was rare—though it did happen. More typical was imprisonment or hard labor as a punishment, or even just demotion in rank.

    Private William Scott, “the Sleeping Sentinel” from Vermont, was sentenced to the firing squad during the Civil War. He had volunteered to relieve an exhausted comrade, then fallen asleep himself! President Lincoln pardoned him. His wife and son brought it to his attention—‘How would YOU feel “if it was your own little boy,”’ the president’s own little boy Tad said, “who was just tired after fighting and marching all day that he could not keep awake much as he tried to?” The kid had a point, Lincoln conceded. Much as he didn’t want to undermine military discipline—always a huge factor in wartime—he interceded with the application of a tale of “a small head, but it was valuable to him, poor fellow, for it was the only one he had.”

    You can never get the attention of the top guy Someone else, in this case Tad, has to bring it to him. Even so, to impress upon the troops that you ought not sleep during guard duty—circadian rhythms or not—Scott’s pardon was only revealed after the firing squad was assembled and the death penalty was pronounced.

    Jesus, of course, knew all about this insight from science. Probably that’s why he refrained from shooting his disciples who fell asleep prior to his own moment of trial. He just gave them loving reproof, after which they fell asleep again. He would have known even back then that sleep comes in cycles, having been present at humankind’s creation, assuming he really is the wisdom personified at Proverbs 8:23-31):

    “From ancient times I was installed, From the start, from times earlier than the earth. When there were no deep waters, I was brought forth, When there were no springs overflowing with water. Before the mountains were set in place, Before the hills, I was brought forth, When he had not yet made the earth and its fields Or the first clods of earth’s soil. When he prepared the heavens, I was there; When he marked out the horizon on the surface of the waters, When he established the clouds above, When he founded the fountains of the deep, When he set a decree for the sea That its waters should not pass beyond his order, When he established the foundations of the earth, Then I was beside him as a master worker. I was the one he was especially fond of day by day; I rejoiced before him all the time; I rejoiced over his habitable earth, And I was especially fond of the sons of men.”

    “Let’s give them overlapping circadian rhythms,” he might say. “That way, should anyone sneak up on a clan of them, there will be someone vigilant up late who can take him out like Chuck Norris.”

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