Sheep and Goats

Category: Letters of Paul

  • The Secret of Contentment-Philippians 4:11-12

    Congregations going through the Book of Ecclesiastes in their mid-week meetings, two chapters at a time. It’s good for its descriptions of the curves life can throw at you regardless of your spirituality. Solomon writes how “I have seen everything—from the righteous one who perishes in his righteousness to the wicked one who lives long despite his badness, (7:15) and “that the swift do not always win the race, nor do the mighty win the battle, nor do the wise always have the food, nor do the intelligent always have the riches, nor do those with knowledge always have success, because time and unexpected events overtake them all. (9:11) This reality lends the present life a certain “futility,” a continual theme of the book.

    There is no scriptural correlation between spirituality and material wealth. Sometimes the latter works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. It is sort of like winning or losing in a game that is part skill and part dumb luck. In neither case is it the “real life” of 1 Timothy 6:19 that Witnesses make their primary hope, life in God’s new system under Christ’s reign.

    A previous Sunday’s Watchtower study (Have You Learned the ‘Secret of Contentment’? – October 2025) focused on how to be content. Philippians 4:11-12 was the theme, in which Paul said: “I have learned to be self-sufficient regardlessof my circumstances. I know how to be low on provisions and how to have an abundance. In everything and in all circumstances I have learned the secret of both how to be full and how to hunger, both how to have an abundance and how to do without.”

    He had had periods of both in his life. He had “learned the secret” of how to adapt to both, to be content. It’s something people very much need today—all people, not just Witnesses. There was a lot in the study article on cultivating a spirit of gratitute. It is healthy to do that. Viewing the glass as half-full rather than half-empty helps. Both descriptions are equally accurate. But they evoke different attitudes. You can be grateful for a glass half-full but we never hear of people being grateful for one half-empty.

    Being content is the key. Witnesses by and large are. Even when they are not, their discontent seldom rises to the greater world’s level of discontent. It is a very tragic thing to lose faith in God’s promises because then one joins them in discontent. For whatever reason, those who have lost faith tend to gather on social media. There, I read descriptions of my own faith that I do not recognize. It is as what Paul writes to Timothy of those who have come to think materially, those who suppose that “godly devotion is a means of gain.” They immerse themselves in “things [that] give rise to envy, strife, slander, wicked suspicions, constant disputes about minor matters.” (1 Timothy 6:4-5) To hear some former Witnesses carry on at the venues they have chosen, you might not even realize that there is a Bible. Faith has been shipwrecked so all people have are the minor matters to stew about, matters of human interaction reframed as “control” and “manipulation.”

    When it is said that Witnesses are getting by “just fine” it’s referring more to their overall state of happiness than their material state. Materially, some do well. Others do not. The same as is true with the greater world. On the ordinary matters of life, Witnesses are as likely to say what is commonly said everywhere else: “If I knew then what I know now…” or “if I had it all to do over again….” People say such things all the time. Witnesses are people. They say it too.

    They seldom say it regarding their spiritual outlook, however. They call their set of beliefs “the truth” on account of how it all dovetails together. It sees them through both good times and bad. If they have made some moves in life that, in hindsight, didn’t work out so well, it doesn’t change the tenets of faith that anchors them. I doubt there are fewer children among Witnesses than anywhere else, in a Western world that has decided not to have many, nor would home ownership be lower, in a world where some rent and some own. College, I concede, is lower. Witnesses are very much top-heavy with “workmen,” which is probably why Paul used that word in at 2 Timothy 2:15. He could have said elite or scholar, or even student. He said workman.

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  • Hymenaeus and Alexander, and Escaping the Control of Paul.com

    If “shipwreck of faith” is the modern synonym for those who go “woke” from the Witnesses, what can be expected from that crowd—at least from some of them? The “shipwreck” passage itself provides an answer, where Paul counsels Timothy [today spun as though trying to “control” him] to “go on waging the fine warfare, holding faith and a good conscience, which some have thrust aside, resulting in the shipwreck of their faith. Hymenaeus and Alexander are among these, and I have handed them over to Satan so that they may be taught by discipline not to blaspheme.” (1 Timothy 1:19)

    “Blaspheme?” Why would they do that? Well, I guess in an actual shipwreck, one might imagine someone doing this: “I pray to you 24/7 and this is how you do me!???”* But why would you blaspheme a “shipwreck of faith?” And what form would your “blasphemy” take? And how would one hand such a one over to Satan that he might be “taught by discipline” not to do that? Is Satan known to discipline people?

    Maybe Hymenaeus and Alexander just started saying bad things about God—cussing him out for things that didn’t go their way. But it seems more likely that they started cussing out the ones who sold that way of life to him, when that life failed to meet their expectations. To put it in today’s screwy vernacular, they “woke” from those seeking to “brainwash” and “control” them. As they spread that bit of gangrene through the congregation, Paul counted it has choosing the world that Satan controls—there are numerous Bible verses that says Satan controls it—and censured them in some way, perhaps even removing them from the congregation, same as that ne’er-do-well at 1 Corinthians 5:13.

    Pay attention and you will see this sort of thing a lot. When Demas forsook Paul “because he loved the present world,” do you think Demas would have phrased it this way? Or would he have phrased it that he had escaped Paul.com, a high-control group he had been brainwashed into following? He may not have, for such lunacy was not embedded into the fabric of society as it is today. But the sentiments to foster that thinking was in place:

    “Furthermore, God made you alive, though you were dead in your trespasses and sins,  in which you at one time walked according to the system of things of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” (Ephesians 2:2) The “the ruler of the authority of the air” is yet another reference that Satan controls the world, through “air” that has “authority”—try swimming upstream to appreciate the “authority” of our surroundings. It only operated then in the “sons of disobedience’—it was not universal. But in “critical times hard to deal with” it IS said to be universal, and is chief among the reasons those times are “hard to deal with.” (2 Timothy 3:1-2)

    If, in an age where people had to be counseled to “be obedient to those who are taking the lead among you”—people who were used to the concept of obedience and just had to transfer it to a new authority—how much near-hopeless is the task of giving that counsel in an age where people think obedience is anathema—where “woke” people will spin it as someone trying to “control” them!

    At the end of the Letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes: “Tell Archippus: “Pay attention to the ministry that you accepted in the Lord, in order to fulfill it.” (Ephesians 4:17)

    Who was this fellow Archippus? Almost nothing is known about him. In an obedient era, he would have responded to Paul’s nudge to get his rear end in gear. But had the “sons of disobedience” gone “woke” in his crowd, he would have told Paul that he is done with Paul.com seeking to control him.

     

    *the actual tweet of a 2012 Buffalo Bills player who dropped the game winning pass in overtime. I mean, it was a picture perfect pass and it just flew through his fingers.

     

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  • They will not put up with the wholesome teaching, but … will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled.” (2 Timothy 4:3)

    There is a speaker who uses his own children to illustrate the verse. He doesn’t use them specifically, but he has several of them, and the application would not likely have occurred to him otherwise.

    ‘Say your child approaches mom for an ice cream bar at 4PM, clearly not ice cream time,’ he says. ‘Mom says no. Unperturbed; the child then approaches dad with the same question. Dad says no.’

    Searching for someone to tickle her ears—tell her what she wants to hear—but so far, her search is unrewarded. 

    He continues: ‘But, if she can find a grandparent . . . ‘

    Ah yes, in that case her search will pay off in spades. 

    The illustration is a favorite with his children and whenever he travels to give a public talk, they want to know if it is the one where he talks about the ice cream.

    As for me, I many times used to explain that if they were to "not put up with the wholesome teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled” and the verse was written long ago, perhaps it also was fulfilled long ago. If so, that would account for how most church teachings are not found in the Bible, at least not straightforwardly. It is the attempt to read them in that causes people to tear out their hair in frustration.

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  • Book of Galatians: Chapters 5 & 6 in Today’s English

    You are free from slavery. Don’t go back to it. Or if you do, you’d better not miss a single one of those ‘I’s or ‘T’s. (5:1-6)

    You were doing so well. Who tripped you up? Who made you think you need circumcision? It ain’t me, babe. Those Jews would give me a free pass if they thought I was turning Christianity into just one of their outposts. “Just you wait, enry iggins”—they’ll get theirs. (7-11)

    In fact, I have half a mind to come and kick them in the nuts so hard that they won’t qualify to serve in the temple that they want to drag you into! (12)

    No, brothers, don’t go there. Just don’t. You don’t need their picayune Law. It all boils down to love anyway—that is the greatest part of it—so if you get you head around that, you’ll do just fine. You start nitpicking at each other over every pissy little thing and you’ll tear each other apart! (13-18)

    Don’t do bad things. Do good things. What do you mean, ‘What bad things?’ “No back-biting, no ass-grabbing, you know exactly what I mean!” \[thank you, Randy Neuman\] It shouldn’t be hard, if you really are following the Christ. Do the best you can, and don’t go thinking that you are better than the other guy. (19-26)

    Chapter 6

    Okay, let’s wrap this up. Don’t be babies—man up, but pull each other out of the crud when you have to (be sure you don’t fall in yourself). (6:1-5)

    Don’t try to Play around with God. You can’t. Keep on keeping on—it will all pay off. Lend a hand where needed. (6-10)

    See the large letters I make, all by myself with my own hand? Why? Because I am blind as a bat—that’s why. I dunno—it comes and goes. That’s why I insulted that pompous character before I knew he was the high priest. I asked God to take it away, but he said, “Nah, it keeps you humble.” And it has. It’s not an altogether bad thing to have a thorn in the flesh. (11)

    Now, remember—they are pinheaded louts trying to lay their Law on you. And why? They’re just chicken themselves—like Peter might have been, but he saw where he was heading and corrected himself. They don’t want to stand out among their cronies, and they want to find strength in numbers by having you do what they do—it will hide their cowardice. What! You think they do the Law themselves? No way! They just want to do some back-stabbing and ass-grabbing themselves and then throw in a gerbil or something for sacrifice to make it all good again. Come on! Please—you are too smart not to see through them. (12-16)

    I’ve suffered for carrying the good news of the Christ. So have you. Don’t turn back to be a law nerd again. Press on ahead. God will back you. So will Christ. (17-18)

     

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  • Book of Galatians in Today’s English: Chapters 3 & 4

    What on earth is wrong with you? How can you be so dumb? You break free but then turn around and go back because you forgot your leg irons? Are you kidding me? (3:1-5)

    Don’t pull this Abraham stuff on me. Wait, no. If you want to talk Abraham, let’s talk Abraham. You think he earned anything? No! He “put faith in Jehovah, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” THAT’S what you want to take away from Abraham—his faith, and how he pointed the way for other people to have faith. Not the later Law—that Law did nothing but show you up for the basket cases that you were! Did you manage to keep it? No! All you did was screw up. That’s why when Christ comes along, you are supposed to say, “Exactly what we need! Thank you, thank you, thank you. (6-11)

    You don’t go back to the Law again—what’s wrong with you? The Law has nothing to do with faith. Christ pulled us out of that—THAT’S what Abraham was pointing to, and you want to dive back in again? (12-14)

    Okay, now look—let’s take this real slow. Take notes if it will help. So Abraham gets a promise that means the Christ will come through his lineup, but how does the Law figure in? It comes 430 years later. Does it change his promise? I don’t think so. (15-18)

    Why the Law? It’s because you guys kept messing up, that’s why. And it was supposed to dawn on you that you DID keep messing up and that you’re never (and yes—me, too) going to come out like the champion of Jeopardy. You weren’t supposed to think that dotting all the ‘I’s and crossing all the ‘T’s would get you there—besides, you missed lots of them. (19-22)

    Yes, it gave you something to do and kept you off the streets. But now that the real thing has arrived, you can set down your slates. Class is over. You can join in with that promise to Abraham. (23-29)

    Chapter 4: 

    It took a long time for you to get to where you are. A lot of work went into it. Don’t mess it up. (4:1-8)

    You had real freedom. I mean, real freedom in Christ. And now you want to become law nerds again and focus on dotting ‘I’s and crossing ‘T’s? Really? What! Do I have a death wish or something? What am I doing this for? (9-11)

    Remember the good times we used to have? Remember how you used to loan me your specs? You didn’t then stick out your foot to trip me up. What’s gotten into you? (12-16)

    Do you think that these controlling louts are your friends? They just want to be your bosses. “Meet the new boss—same as the old boss.” (17-20)

    Go back to Abraham, you law nerds, and take a point. Two women, remember? One a concubine, one a wife. Hagar gave birth first because Sarah thought she was too old to have a child. No mystery about how Hagar conceived. You see it all the time on TV. But Sarah! THAT’S where God’s promise came in, and she didn’t even believe herself it could happen until it did!

    The two women stand for two groups of people. Hagar, the one of ordinary birth, is mother to the ones of Law (that you want go back to!) Sarah, the one of the promise, is mother to the ones putting their faith in Christ. (21-28)

    The Hagar kid made trouble for the Sarah kid back then. It’s the same today with these characters trying to force their Law on you. But what does the verse say? “Take this Law and shove it! I ain’t workin here no more!” Keep it that way! (29-31)

    Next: Chapter 5

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  • Book of Galatians in Today’s English: Chapters 1 & 2

    Dear Galatians: Remember me? It’s Paul. How are you? (1:1-5)

    The reason I say ‘remember me’ is because I’m not sure that you do! I can’t believe how quickly you are screwing up! Is that chair I used to sit in even cold yet? What is this about louts trying to change the whole narrative? They’re not allowed to do that! Look, even angels are not allowed to do that! (6-9)

    You remember what a jerk I was. Nobody made more trouble for you than me. But after God let me hear about it right there on the Damascus road and that other fellow was sent so that I could see again, I went off to Arabia for three years to think about it. (13-17)

    Then I came back to Jerusalem and stayed with Peter for a couple of weeks. But no one else—wait, I did see James, but none of the others. Then I went off again. What! You think I am fibbing? For years and years, had you asked those apostles about me, they would have said, “I dunno. Your guess is as good as mine. He used to be the nastiest fellow. Now it looks as though he is on our side. Cool! We’ll take it!” (18-24)

    Chapter 2

    About 14 years later I figured that maybe I had better give those guys a call. I had Barnabas with me by then, and Titus—fine fellows. I met with them privately, of course, just in case I was not doing something—um, kosher. “You okay with this?” I said to them. “You’re not going to make Titus do that Jewish thing, are you? I don’t see any need for it.” They didn’t either! (2:1-3)

    It probably wouldn’t even have come up were it not for those pinheaded louts trying to drag us down, wanting us to everything Jewish that we don’t have to do anymore. We blew right past them, and it was for your sake just as much as for ours. (4-5)

    Okay, so I consulted with these ones—I mean, I guess they are important. I wondered if they might try to rein me in, but no!—they said, “Whatever you are doing, keep on doing it. We’ll stick with preaching to Jews, but you—I mean, Peter unlocked that door for the nations, so go for it! Just don’t ignore the poor.” Sure, I can do that. (6-10)

    But then Peter came calling later on and suddenly he himself goes all Jewish on me. Oh, sure, he pals around with these new Gentile Christians easy enough, but when his buddies show up, he acts like he doesn’t know them. I said, “I don’t believe it! Here you are living the free life, telling others to be like that, and then the narrow-minded fuddy duddies show up and you get all scaredy cat? (11-14)

    Yeah, well he’s a good sort, but he goes a little weak at the knees sometimes. You don’t have to do any of that Jewish stuff! What do you think the Lord is for? (15-21)

    Next: Chapters 3 & 4

     

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  • The Book of Hebrews—almost like “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover.”

    “You just slip out the back, Jack. You make a new plan, Stan. You don’t need to be coy, Roy. Just get yourself free.”

    Okay, okay, so I counted only 14 in the Letter to the Hebrews. To get the full 50 you’d have to expand to the entire Bible. But it’s a high concentration. And they don’t all lead to immediate leaving. Some of them have to stew for a while. Nor is leaving inevitable. Some can resolve.

    Recipients might “drift away,” having not paid “more than the usual attention to the things we have heard.” (Hebrews 2:1)

    They might “draw away” (more deliberate) having developed a “wicked heart.” (Hebrews 3:12)

    They might just become plain “disobedient.” (4:6)

    Or “dull in their hearing,” reverting to “needing milk,” not “solid food.”  (5:12)

    They could “fall away.” (6:6)

    Not good if they “practice sin willfully after having received the accurate knowledge of the truth, [for then] there is no longer any sacrifice for sins left.” (10:26)

    They might “shrink back to destruction.” (Hebrews 10:39)

    They might “get tired and give up,” worn down by the “hostile speech from sinners against their own interests.” (12:3) 

    They might not “endure as part of [their] discipline,” forgetting that “God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?”(12:7)

    They might “refuse to listen to the one giving divine warning on earth.” (12:25)
     
    They might become “sexually immoral people and adulterers.” (13:4)

    They might become taken over by a “love of money.” (13:5)

    They might be “led astray by various and strange teachings.” (13:9)

    They might become just plain surly. “Be obedient to those who are taking the lead among you and be submissive, for they are keeping watch over you as those who will render an account.” (13:17) “Tell them to take a hike,” they might say.

    What with all those reasons to leave, it’s amazing anyone stayed in the faith!

    On the ex-Witness sites, there are also tons who have left the faith, but none will admit to these reasons. They are all freedom-fighters and whistleblowers. Who are they trying to kid? Jazz it up with code like PIMQ, PIMO, POMO, but it is the same.

    Someday when I am bored I will invent a board game that matches them up. It will have cards for the Hebrews reasons and cards for the ex-Witness reasons and the quicker you can match them up, the higher your score.

    Reasons to leave the faith are scattered throughout the scriptures, but they find special concentration in Hebrews due to the circumstances there in Jerusalem. It was the birthplace of Christianity, formed when the disciples began preaching to the crowds that had gathered there for the Passover. (Acts chapter 2) Like the Big Bang, interest in the Way exploded. Thousands were baptized at single events. But in time, “normalcy” settled in. Many of the most zealous moved on to new frontiers. Locally, that hot zeal, so hard to maintain, cooled, but not the opposition to it. That intensified.

    It’s a lot like today with the Witnesses. An explosion of interest—say from the World War period through the 70s has tapered, but not so the opposition to it: that gathers strength and intensifies. When push comes to shove, opposition just represents the dominant “spirit of the world,” a spirit now fixated on individual rights and a distaste for discipline. I mean, you can see the battle lines forming, but to frame it as something new? No. It is just a repackaging of something old.

    “The game is the same; it’s just up on a different level.’—Bob Dylan

     

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  • Women Must Keep Silent in the Congregation?—How are You Going to Put Lipstick on THAT One?

    Women were lightly valued in the ancient Greco-Roman and yes—even the Jewish world. So God goes out of his way to highly value them.

    The testimony of a woman was considered near-worthless back then. So God arranges that the two most important newsflashes in history be given to women.

    The news that Jesus is the promised Messiah? First given to a woman:

    “I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. Whenever that one comes, he will declare all things to us openly.”  Jesus said to her: “I am he, the one speaking to you.” (John 4: 25-26) Even the disciples had to jump through hoops for that one. 

    Jesus raised from the dead? That bit of intelligence also first given to women:

    “Why are you looking for the living one among the dead?” the angel asked the women. “He is not here, but has been raised up. Recall how he spoke to you while he was yet in Galilee, saying that the Son of man must be handed over to sinful men and be executed on the stake and on the third day rise.” Then they remembered his words, and they returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the Eleven and to all the rest. They were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. Also, the rest of the women with them were telling these things to the apostles. However, these sayings seemed like nonsense to them, and they would not believe the women.(Luke 24:5-11)

    They didn’t believe them! Because the testimony of a woman was worthless? The angel doesn’t even bother to correct the men. They’d figure it out eventually, the clods.

    And don’t get me going about Jael in the Old Testament, who had the privilege of pounding a tent pin through Sisera’s head! Sometimes guys need that. (Judges 4:25)

    So who do you think is assigned the talk explaining the apostle Paul’s words at 1 Corinthians 14:34? Me, that’s who! It’s not the easiest assignment in the world. Just listen to what Paul wrote:

    “Let the women keep silent in the congregations, for it is not permitted for them to speak. Rather, let them be in subjection, as the Law also says.  If they want to learn something, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the congregation.”

    I mean, how are you going to put lipstick on that one? How are you going to account for how they speak all the time in today’s Kingdom Hall meetings? The guy doesn’t even try to be politically correct—that’s Paul’s problem! From this verse stem the modern complaints that he didn’t like women and that he was misogynistic.

    Well, for a guy who doesn’t like women, he sure applauded enough of them. There is Phoebe, who has “proved to be a defender of many, including me.” (Rom 16:1-2) There is Euodia and Syntyche, who “have striven side by side with me for the good news” (Phil 4:2-3) And when Lydia “just made us come,” she didn’t interject, “Not you Paul—you’re a misogynist.” (Acts 16:15)

    Women weren’t the only ones told to keep silent in that 1 Corinthians chapter. Men were, too, so that it appears to be a matter of special circumstances. Of gifts of the spirit that were destined to fade away but hadn’t yet in those days of Christianity’s infancy, congregation members who would speak in tongues when no one was around to interpret were to keep silent—what good is a tongue if nobody is around to understand it? (vs 28)

    If someone was exercising the gift of prophesy and another started doing the same, one or the other was to keep silent. That way “all things take place for building up,” (vs 26) appropriate since “God is a God not of disorder but of peace.” (vs 33)

    Always you have to figure in context for any item of scripture. It appears that the women who were to keep silent in 1 Corinthians 14 were also those of special circumstances. Maybe they were speaking just any old time out of order. Maybe they were challenging congregation teachers—male as a matter of spiritual headship. Maybe they were angling to be teachers themselves. It is not a verse that precludes commenting in the orderly Q & A structure of how meetings are carried on today, the same as men are to do.

    So I ran all these points past the congregation in my talk. Afterwards, no women gave me dirty looks. At least, no more than normal.

  • “Dumbing Down” the Spiritual Food—Say Goodbye to ‘Wicked Was the Word!’

     

    (more…)

  • Was Jesus an ‘Apocalyticist?’ — Is a Cop a ‘Malfeasance Disruptor?’

    The professor is up to his old tricks again and he calls to mind “that blaggart who uses the science of speech more to blackmail and swindle than teach”—teaching Christianity up there at the university. It is okay if you take it for what it is—a humanist approach to teaching Bible verse. But I can’t help but think that at least some of his students sign up imagining they will acquire what builds their relationship with God.

    I think this because I took such courses myself back in my college days, as electives, with just that thought—that I would learn what would help me better know God. The courses were taught by a retired Southern Baptist clergyman of some stature. He joked at how, back in his seminary days, John was known as “the apostle to the idiots” for the simple language that characterize the writings attributed to him. I distinctly remember that when I later came in touch with Jehovah’s Witnesses, I very casually dropped the fact that there were four gospels—that way they would know that they weren’t just talking to any dunce but to someone who knew a thing or two about the Scriptures. In certain circles, you can know almost nothing yet walk around thinking yourself well informed.

    Maddeningly, Professor Ehrman explains at considerable length how Jesus was an “apocalypticist” and how that identification must be understood to make any sense out of his life. There is nothing wrong with explaining that Jesus was an apocalypticist, but it is a little like explaining that a cop is a “malfeasance disruptor” and that the tenets of malfeasance disruption must be understood in other to grasp what might possibly motivate the cop to do what he does. As with all his lectures on biblical scripture, the professor sets aside the meat to chew on the rind and presumably gets his students to think that the rind is the meat.

     

    I was assigned a student talk of dramatizing how one make a return visit using 2 Timothy 3:1-5, apocalyptic writings through and through, from the apostle Paul—though, if I recall correctly, not all “scholars” think that it was Paul who wrote the letter, maybe because  they don’t see him being too apocalyptic in other letters. I wasn’t crazy about the assignment. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 is a little tricky to use. It is such a long list of negative traits that you begin you feel you’re pummeling the householder going through them all.

    I have developed my own way, which was not the one suggested on the program. Maybe it would be like the time when the school conductor said, “Actually, you didn’t really address the theme,” and I had replied, “Oh—I changed that,” which made him laugh uproariously because he had never heard of such a thing. Fortunately, in this case, the demands of the talk were not high and I fixed what I had on the fly to make it dovetail with the adjacent talks—three of them are supposed to go together as a progressive unit.

    “But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here.  For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having an appearance of godliness but proving false to its power; and from these turn away.”

    I count 19 adjectives. That’s a lot. Sometimes I skip around to highlight just 3 or 4. Sometimes I point out that, since the verses have always been there and Jehovah’s Witnesses have been coming around for a long time, it used to be that if you read the passage and your household didn’t agree that they were true today more than in times past, there wasn’t much you could do about it—plainly, the verses are subjective. But each passing day, especially thanks to politics, makes it harder and harder to dismiss such verses as irrelevant. You can still do it, of course, but your nose sort of grows like Pinocchio.

    “Why is it that you always have to think that things are getting worse?” one skeptic asked me, adding “what does that view do for you?” I replied that it helps me to explain why the Doomsday Clock was set at a few moments prior to midnight and not 10:30 AM. But I could have just said: “Because I am an apocalypticist.” That would have made the professor happy—for picking up on his lingo.