Sheep and Goats

Category: Meetings

  • 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.

    ******  The bookstore

  • The End of War—When?

    Through ingenuity, humans overcome their natural limitations against flight and deep-sea diving. They can fly and they can submerge. But no amount of ingenuity can equip them to overcome their inability to self-rule, “man dominating man to his injury.” All such efforts devolve into some permutation of “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.>” Such were the takeaways from Sunday’s talk on End of War. Many time’s I’ve compared inability to fly to inability to rule, but I’ve never extended it that the first can be overcome but not the second.

    “Come and witness the activities of Jehovah, How he has done astonishing things on the earth.  He is bringing an end to wars throughout the earth.” (Psalm 46:8-9) Pretty good trick if he can pull that one off.

    The solution advanced in that talk—all Bible promises—on how God would do that is:

    1: bringing an end to human governments, replacing them by the rule of his Son

    2: raising humankind to a state of perfection

    3: removing the influence of Satan, the one right now “misleading the entire inhabited earth.” (Revelation 12:9)

    So it was in the ministry that I answered the Muslim man who, in good faith, watered down the solution to war to that of all people sincerely living the tenets of their faith. Yes, it’s a good thing when they do that, I agreed, but make no mistake: that will not be sufficient to overcome man’s inability to rule and their resulting proclivity to war.

    This was the fellow from Bangladesh who had escaped war there as a child and still had nightmares about it. He’d been in America for decades and was “living the American dream,” he and all his siblings having attained PhD status. He, not me, was the one who brought up, all on his own, his prime concern that ending war was mankind’s greatest need, along with his fear that humans are regressing in that goal.

    But even after a return call, I couldn’t shake his equally prime concern that I had come to “change his religion.” “Look, if I come 200 times and we agree each time, on the 201st time I will say ‘Do you want to change your religion?’ but it’s not going to happen until that time. In the meantime, it’s just conversation. Nothing to worry about.” Nope. Didn’t fly with this fellow. 

    The trouble is, there’s really not too many faiths that point to the above solution of war. Most water it down to God somehow blessing human efforts to end it through political means. Or, to this man’s hoped-for outcome that each person will start sincerely living the tenets of their faith. “When the broken-hearted people living in the world agree,” is how McCartney put it. Good luck on that goal.

    ******  The bookstore

    Q: If God really can bring an end to war that easily, then what is he waiting for? After all, the longer he delays, the more generations live and die in suffering.

    Yes, they do, but it is reversible through the provision of resurrection. In time, former distresses will be forgotten, as though a bad dream.

    One must not rush a trial. One must allow it to play out, distressing as it may be to those under the gun. For Witnesses, the question to be determined arose at the very beginning of human creation, with Adam rejecting God’s right to rule for his own. God could flatten them and start again, but who’s to say the next pair won’t raise the same point? Better to let it play out.

    The overall Bible tale is that, starting with this rebellion, God allows humans to make good on their claim of independence from him. He allows them to devise their own governments down through the ages, their own economies, justice, ethics, inventions—organize or disorganize any way they will. Only when the results become the absolute trainwreck that human rule is today does the question begin to be answered. Questions answered and precedent supplied, then God can forcibly bring about the rule by his Son.

    It’s the theme of a book I wrote not too long ago, entitled “A Workman’s Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen.” Probably you know that theodicy is a theological term referring to the attempts to answer how a God of love would coexist with evil and suffering. It is among the oldest questions of time, and likely the most important:

    ​

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2HDS4Z1

  • Jacob’s 12 Sons, Blessings to Each Over the Course of Two Watchtower Studies:

    At first glance, the Watchtower Study for Sunday seemed it be something of a yawner. Jacob’s deathbed prophesy to the last eight of his twelve sons (the first four were last week), and for most he didn’t have much to say. At least it was blessings, the Watchtower conductor observed, and not ‘You kids are driving me crazy! You’ll be the death of me. In fact, you were!’

    But, again, once you mix in the published text with fifty or sixty comments from the congregation, it turns around. What threatens to be dull becomes engrossing. The thing about the meetings, one newcomer told me long ago, is that you can prepare for them. It was a no-brainer to me, but he was contrasting it with his previous church experience, in which you cannot.

    With Gad, someone observed in paragraph 8 that it didn’t go according to plan. The Israelites were all supposed to cross the Jordan and settle west, but Gad wanted to stay on the east, which he did. He didn’t beg off, though. The tribe did cross to aid in conquering the promised land, but when the conquest was complete, they crossed back. This means there’s hope for guys like me, I figure, who does not do everything the conventional way—such as spending inordinate time online—but also fully ‘fights’ in the conventional way of door-to-door and regular meeting attendance. I mean, let your unconventionality extend to forsaking meetings and you become like the ember removed from the center that goes out; it goes out, not as a punishment from men, but as a law of physics. Hebrews says (10:24-25) that you’re not supposed to do that.

    Then there was Benjamin (paragraph 17), the tribe of the 700 men who “could sling a stone to within a hairbreadth and would not miss.” These are the guys you want when you are choosing up sides for dodgeball. It is also the case that when people have special abilities, they can begin to think themselves special and not subject to the norms that guide everyone else. (Sometimes I imagine I see people like this online.) Yet, the Benjaminites were loyal throughout to the cause. Even when their guy got ousted as the first king, they supported the arrangement that saw the prize going to another tribe.

    All twelve sons covered within a two-week period. And no, it was not me who observed that, whereas Reuben lost some privileges that ordinarily would have come his way, he at least got a sandwich named for him. And “gadfly” has nothing to do with Gad. It derives much later as a stinging insect that torments bigger animals. Socrates described himself as a gadfly stinging the ‘animal’ that was Athens, challenging the norms then prevailing.

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • 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.

    ******  The bookstore

  • “How We Benefit from Jehovah’s Love”—thoughts from last week’s Watchtower Study

    If your house gets blown away in the hurricane and disaster relief offers to build you a skyscraper, you will decline. You didn’t have a skyscraper before. If they offer to replace your house, you will accept that, for that is what you lost.

    Isn’t that the way to look at the ransom? Doesn’t that negate any ‘I’m not worthy’ thinking? The point was made in Sunday’s Watchtower Study. “If Adam had not sinned, no one would think of endless life as being too good to be true,” said paragraph 9. The ransom is just means of restoring what was already there, not conferring something new.

    On the other hand, countering any tendency to think people “earn” anything from God through their works, there was the statement from paragraph 5: “If we were to claim that we have earned mercy or that we are entitled to special consideration, we would, in effect, be saying that Christ died for nothing.”

    Maybe that’s why, at the Kingdom Hall, everything is a “privilege.” If you’re going to direct parking, it’s a privilege. If you’re going to carry a mic, it’s a privilege. If you;re running a vacuum cleaner at meeting’s end, it’s a privilege. When I am cleaning at the Kingdom Hall, I will say to the group: “Privilege opening up soon in connection with cleaning a toilet.” Sheesh. It’s takes a little getting used to. But it does plant the idea that nothing we do in connection with worship represents us earning anything, and that is probably how the peculiar speech developed. The ransom is entirely his “undeserved kindness.”

    Someone said how the phrase “God’s undeserved kindness” is rendered “God’s grace” in many Bibles. What in the world is that supposed to mean?! To me, hearing of God’s grace suggests he is not clumsy, that he doesn’t bump into things. ‘Grace’ is one of those dorky expressions so common in church lore that you almost think the purpose of which is to impede understand of God. It is like ‘God’s plan.’ Witnesses never speak of God’s “plan,” but of his “purpose.”

    It seems but a subtle difference at first but it is a major refinement in coming to better know God. ‘Plan’ indicates every step is down in writing beforehand. It creates major conflicts with “free will.” ‘Purpose’ creates none at all. With ‘purpose,’ only the destination is known. Tactics are devised on the fly. Doesn’t ‘purpose’ also create more confidence in God’s power? You know he can arrive at his purpose. With human purposes, it is a crapshoot, but you know God can arrive at His.

    God’s “omniscience” [all-knowing] is another dorky term that you may hear in church but never at the Kingdom Hall. If he knows every tiniest minute thing about the future, how can people be said to have ‘free will?’ Some things he doesn’t know. Like those reports coming out of Sodom: “Then Jehovah said: “The outcry against Sodʹom and Go·morʹrah is indeed great, and their sin is very heavy. I will go down to see whether they are acting according to the outcry that has reached me. And if not, I can get to know it.” (Genesis 18:20-21) He didn’t know! He had to go down to check it out!

    I think it is sort of like how, in this age of GPS, audio bugs, and tiny cameras, it would be possible to follow a loved one’s every move. But, that doesn’t mean that you would do it. Respect for their free will and dignity would likely dictate that you do not.

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • Gesture Like a Bird

    The neatest gesture I ever saw was a speaker–he was a little birdlike brother himself with an oversized nose–making the point that the Matthew 6:26 verse doesn’t mean that birds don’t work to find food. It just that they are not anxious about it.

    Birds are always working, he said, and then he went pecking the speaker stand a few times with his own beak!

    “Observe intently the birds of heaven; they do not sow seed or reap or gather into storehouses, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than they are?” (Matthew 6:26)

  • Eat Flesh and Drinking Blood: What’s With That? (John 6)

    Then there was that bombshell statement of John 6 that drove the crowds away! The crowds had shown up for a free meal and were steadily disappointed because Jesus just wanted to talk about spiritual stuff—but then he finally reached this next corker, and it drove them all away:

    “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life, and I will resurrect him on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” (John 6:54)

    Whoa! They didn’t see that coming! “When they heard this, many of his disciples said: ‘This speech is shocking; who can listen to it?’” (6:60)

    Now, Jesus had been setting the stage for some time but they hadn’t been listening. It’s like when my wife suddenly drops a grenade on me that will set me back a half year’s salary and when I spit out my coffee in horror she says, ‘Well, I’ve been speaking for weeks about it! You might try paying attention on occasion!”

    Jesus had been doing that too. It was another thing explored during that Watchtower Study of February 16, 2025: “You Can Have Everlasting Life—But How?” He had fed the crowds. The next day they showed up for more. He told them: “Most truly I say to you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate from the loaves and were satisfied. (6:26)

    What did he advise them to do instead?

    “Work, not for the food that perishes, but for the food that remains for everlasting life, which the Son of man will give you.” (6:27)

    Then, he referred back to how God fed the ancestors with ‘bread from heaven.’ It was called manna. (6:31) The stuff was versatile and nourishing, but in time the grumblers grew sick of it. Then he said that he was the counterpart of that heavenly bread: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not get hungry at all, and whoever exercises faith in me will never get thirsty at all. (6:35)

    Okay? So, he gave plenty of notice where he was heading. Same thing with the “drink.” He had told the woman at the well that those “who drink from the water I give will never thirst again” and that woman ran off to tell the whole town. (4:14) It is enough for the crowds to have said, “Okay, he talks that way.” It’s on them if they’re going to choke afterward, which most of them did: “Because of this, many of his disciples went off to the things behind and would no longer walk with him.” (6:66)

    ***

    Now, having said all this, it is a fact that among the slanderous things said about early Christians was that they practiced cannibalism. And don’t you think their enemies would have pointed to these words of Jesus to make their case? How could they not? The words can be so easily misconstrued. I know it’s the Lord and all, but it seems like a very impolitic thing to say.

    Moreover, if Witness organization ever said something so seemingly provocative, their opponents would be blasting them for years over it! Such as with a Watchtower that called certain apostates “mentally diseased,” citing a scripture that says exactly that. That was 14 years ago and they are still howling about It!

    Sometimes the Witness channel will say something true enough on the surface but easily misconstrued (like calls for “obedience”) and I will say, “Sheesh! You guys don’t know how easily that can be weaponized?!” But I don’t write in to tell them about it. I am afraid they might say, “Yeah. Well . . . Jesus did it. Why don’t you trying telling him off, Tom?”

    Frankly, I’ll bet they use Jesus’ remarks as a template, same as they do Acts 15 for their own role. They probably go there and conclude, “Okay, you say what needs to be said. Never mind if the soreheads twist it around.” They probably don’t want to find themselves in the shoes of Lot, whose sons-in-law thought he was joking. If they think something needs saying, they say it. But it sure does make life . . . interesting.

    *****The bookstore

  • You Don’t Use John 6 to make the point that Everyone Partakes at the Memorial

    You don’t use John chapter 6 to make the point that everyone partakes at the Memorial. Was that the overall point of the February 16, 2025 Watchtower Study? It was a continuation from last week, a thorough look at that Bible chapter. The study article was entitled: “Everlasting Life for You—But How?” The theme scripture was John 6:40.. “Everyone who recognizes the Son and exercises faith in him [will] have everlasting life.”​

    Who was Jesus speaking to when he made the “new covenant”—the wine and bread ceremony? It was to those who had “stuck with him through all his trials.” They numbered twelve at the time. Read the whole chapter of Luke 22. He was speaking to the twelve:

    “However, you are the ones who have stuck with me in my trials; and I make a covenant with you, just as my Father has made a covenant with me, for a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom, and sit on thrones to judge the 12 tribes of Israel.” Luke 22:28

    Who was he speaking to a year earlier at John 6? They were just people who showed up for free food! Kind of like the visitors who drop in at suppertime. You know what they are hoping for. To them, Jesus said: “you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate from the loaves and were satisfied.” (6:26)

    He’s not going the make a covenant for a kingdom with those dullards! If he did, the heavenly kingdom would be just like the earthly governments today! It would be populated by those in it for themselves, populated by those obsessed with ‘power’ and if there was any beneficial spillover from them to the general populace, it would be just coincidence!

    He didn’t even indulge those people! He told them to “work, not for the food that perishes, but for the food that remains for everlasting life.” (vs 27) There’s no reason he could not have added, “but as long as you’re here . . . Watch this!” and done a repeat of multiplying the bread and loaves. He didn’t do it! He was working to cultivate spirituality in them but they don’t have a clue about anything, and don’t care to obtain one. And he’s going to hand over the kingdom to these ones? I don’t think so.

    They exercised no faith in him at all. The second group, his disciples, with whom he one year later instituted the new covenant, was nothing but faith.

    Confusion reins today in the overall world of religion. Apparently, there are some among the Witnesses themselves who come to feel that everyone should partake at the Memorial, and whether they are to rule with Christ in the heavens or not is immaterial. Do they pick it up from the “air” of evangelicals for whom partaking of the body of Christ means something entirely different? Will they, in time, go the way of Catholics, who want to partake every day? Will they, in time, eclipse them and want to do it with every meal?

    ***

    Upon some kickback from the gallery, I added:

    As for me, I sort of like a snippet that long ago appeared in the Yearbook relating how in some tiny African country a Memorial celebration that many villagers attended, but the talk was extremely convoluted and the speaker not very polished. The villagers all knew each other and as one of them got all befuddled and hesitant when the emblems came his way, a voice from the back hollered, “You don’t drink the wine, dummy!”

    People will do what their conscience dictates. I suppose it is not the worst thing in the world to partake based upon a different understanding than the group norm. It is not as though there is any practical significance to partaking or not partaking. But I don’t know why anyone would do it. To me, it smacks of spiritual one-upsmanship, as though saying to one’s neighbor, ‘My relationship with Jesus is so much tighter than yours.’ Many times in Witness literature it has been stated that those of the great crowd can be just as spiritual, just as zealous, just as studious, love Jehovah and Jesus just as much, as those of the anointed. I can roll with that and always have.

    If it turns out that I, with the earthly hope, should have been partaking because the Lord expects all to do that, I am not worried about being forgiven. The group norm of the people of God who brought Bible understanding to me is that I do not. If I came to have the heavenly hope, with all that such hope entails in the JW context, I would partake, but only then. Meanwhile, I take refuge in the group norm. Were it not for those who brought Bible understanding to me, I would probably be hogtied by the trinity, which paints God as incomprehensible, someone you cannot know, or hellfire, which paints him as cruel, someone you would not want to know. Or, more likely in my case, I would have tossed the Bible in the trash, frustrated by trying to read doctrines into it that are not there.

    The Study article was convincing to me. But it is only 16 paragraphs, enhanced by congregation discussion. It clearly is not going to be able to explore the ins and outs of everything.

    *****The bookstore

  • “ I Am the Bread of Life. Whoever Comes to Me Will Not Get Hungry at All.” WT study from 2/9/25

    “A Miraculous Provision of Bread”—title of that Watchtower article studied via congregation Q&A. Theme scripture: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not get hungry at all.” John 6:35

    The Watchtower Study was a commentary on much of John 6. Maybe the rest of the chapter will be covered next week.

    When the crowds finally tracked Jesus down, they said: “Rabbi, when did you get here?” (John 6:25)

    Jesus answered them: “Most truly I say to you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate from the loaves and were satisfied. (6:26)

    Translation: “Don’t hand me this ‘Rabbi’ line! You guys are just here because you want free food!”

    I sort of liked this statement from paragraph 11: “They even failed to press Jesus for clarification when he next spoke of “the true bread from heaven,” which was like life-giving manna from heaven. (John 6:32) They were so focused on their physical needs that they ignored the spiritual truths that Jesus . . .”

    I can picture that happening, as in: “Yes, yes, ‘bread from heaven,’ yada yada.” And then following up like the child from the Buick commercial: “Where’s the pizza?”

    He wants them to develop some spirituality. The crowds only care about physical bread. They’d gotten plenty of it the day before:

    “Jesus said: “Have the people sit down.” As there was a lot of grass in that place, the men sat down there, about 5,000 in number. Jesus took the bread, and after giving thanks, he distributed it to those who were sitting there; he did likewise with the small fish, and they had as much as they wanted. But when they had eaten their fill, he said to his disciples: “Gather together the fragments left over, so that nothing is wasted.” So they gathered them together and filled 12 baskets with fragments left over by those who had eaten from the five barley loaves.” (v 10-13)

    He was just being practical. There they were in the middle of nowhere, having gathered to hear him, and he didn’t want them to give out on the road home. It was not like his intention was: “Now, I’m going to dazzle-dazzle them with a MIRACLE!!”

    When he went off into the hills to escape the ones wanting to make him king—if you see someone feed the masses like he did, then you take whoever is already ruling, throw him out on his keister, and install this one instead—his disciples sailed off the other way. Later, he wanted to join them:

    “When evening fell, his disciples went down to the sea, and boarding a boat, they set out across the sea for Ca·perʹna·um. By now it had grown dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. Also, the sea was getting rough because a strong wind was blowing. However, when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and getting near the boat, and they became fearful. But he said to them: “It is I; do not be afraid!” (16-20)

    Again, it doesn’t look like his motive was to perform a MIRACLE!!” He’s just being practical. Walking straight across the sea is the easiest way to get where he wants to go. He’s not even paying attention, apparently! Mark 6:48 says “he was inclined to pass them by.” Maybe he figured they would have already arrived on the other shore.

    As to Jesus’ theme: “Work, not for the food that perishes, but for the food that remains for everlasting life,” the article refers back to another time that food was provided from heaven after endless bellyaching from those who cared about only that. Israelites complained so much about the crummy manna that God got fed up and said, ‘I’ll drown you in quail!’ When he did, they saw no spiritual significance whatsoever, did not take it as a rebuke, but simply gorged themselves:

    “Then a wind from Jehovah sprang up and began driving quail from the sea and causing them to fall around the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp, and they were about two cubits deep on the ground. So all that day and all night and all the next day, the people stayed up and gathered the quail. No one gathered less than ten hoʹmers, and they kept spreading them all around the camp for themselves. But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it could be chewed, Jehovah’s anger blazed against the people, and Jehovah began striking the people with a very great slaughter.” (Numbers 11:30-33)

    Whoa! I can see from where people get the idea that the God of the New Testament is nice but the God of the Old Testament is a hothead! But, I like to keep in mind that they’re really the same. “I and the father are one,” said Jesus. Jehovah’s attributes are fully reflected in the Son. Maybe Jesus is just more of a soft touch now because people are so much more pieces of work than they were back then. Or maybe he thought of the Israelites, “Look, they don’t have perpetual whiners on Reddit! They’re all one people! If they’re going to be so shallow, then maybe I’ll take their gift of life away!”

    And, I do admit to a certain frustration with those who read over the account of John 6 and say, “Well—the important thing is that I’m saved.”

    ******  The bookstore

     

  • “ I Am the Bread of Life. Whoever Comes to Me Will Not Get Hungry at All.” WT study from 2/9/25

    “A Miraculous Provision of Bread”—title of that Watchtower article studied via congregation Q&A. Theme scripture: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not get hungry at all.” John 6:35

    The Watchtower Study was a commentary on much of John 6. Maybe the rest of the chapter will be covered next week.

    When the crowds finally tracked Jesus down, they said: “Rabbi, when did you get here?” (John 6:25)

    Jesus answered them: “Most truly I say to you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate from the loaves and were satisfied. (6:26)

    Translation: “Don’t hand me this ‘Rabbi’ line! You guys are just here because you want free food!”

    I sort of liked this statement from paragraph 11: “They even failed to press Jesus for clarification when he next spoke of “the true bread from heaven,” which was like life-giving manna from heaven. (John 6:32) They were so focused on their physical needs that they ignored the spiritual truths that Jesus . . .”

    I can picture that happening, as in: “Yes, yes, ‘bread from heaven,’ yada yada.” And then following up like the child from the Buick commercial: “Where’s the pizza?”

    He wants them to develop some spirituality. The crowds only care about physical bread. They’d gotten plenty of it the day before:

    “Jesus said: “Have the people sit down.” As there was a lot of grass in that place, the men sat down there, about 5,000 in number. Jesus took the bread, and after giving thanks, he distributed it to those who were sitting there; he did likewise with the small fish, and they had as much as they wanted. But when they had eaten their fill, he said to his disciples: “Gather together the fragments left over, so that nothing is wasted.” So they gathered them together and filled 12 baskets with fragments left over by those who had eaten from the five barley loaves.” (v 10-13)

    He was just being practical. There they were in the middle of nowhere, having gathered to hear him, and he didn’t want them to give out on the road home. It was not like his intention was: “Now, I’m going to dazzle-dazzle them with a MIRACLE!!”

    When he went off into the hills to escape the ones wanting to make him king—if you see someone feed the masses like he did, then you take whoever is already ruling, throw him out on his keister, and install this one instead—his disciples sailed off the other way. Later, he wanted to join them:

    “When evening fell, his disciples went down to the sea, and boarding a boat, they set out across the sea for Ca·perʹna·um. By now it had grown dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. Also, the sea was getting rough because a strong wind was blowing. However, when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and getting near the boat, and they became fearful. But he said to them: “It is I; do not be afraid!” (16-20)

    Again, it doesn’t look like his motive was to perform a MIRACLE!!” He’s just being practical. Walking straight across the sea is the easiest way to get where he wants to go. He’s not even paying attention, apparently! Mark 6:48 says “he was inclined to pass them by.” Maybe he figured they would have already arrived on the other shore.

    As to Jesus’ theme: “Work, not for the food that perishes, but for the food that remains for everlasting life,” the article refers back to another time that food was provided from heaven after endless bellyaching from those who cared about only that. Israelites complained so much about the crummy manna that God got fed up and said, ‘I’ll drown you in quail!’ When he did, they saw no spiritual significance whatsoever, did not take it as a rebuke, but simply gorged themselves:

    “Then a wind from Jehovah sprang up and began driving quail from the sea and causing them to fall around the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp, and they were about two cubits deep on the ground. So all that day and all night and all the next day, the people stayed up and gathered the quail. No one gathered less than ten hoʹmers, and they kept spreading them all around the camp for themselves. But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it could be chewed, Jehovah’s anger blazed against the people, and Jehovah began striking the people with a very great slaughter.” (Numbers 11:30-33)

    Whoa! I can see from where people get the idea that the God of the New Testament is nice but the God of the Old Testament is a hothead! But, I like to keep in mind that they’re really the same. “I and the father are one,” said Jesus. Jehovah’s attributes are fully reflected in the Son. Maybe Jesus is just more of a soft touch now because people are so much more pieces of work than they were back then. Or maybe he thought of the Israelites, “Look, they don’t have perpetual whiners on Reddit! They’re all one people! If they’re going to be so shallow, then maybe I’ll take their gift of life away!”

    And, I do admit to a certain frustration with those who read over the account of John 6 and say, “Well—the important thing is that I’m saved.”