Sheep and Goats

Category: Watchtower Study

  • “Eat my Flesh and Drink my Blood”—What About it?

    That Watchtower Study last week, How to Remain Loyal When We Face Tests of Faith, begins with a consideration of Jesus’ words:

    “So Jesus said to them: “Most truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life, and I will resurrect him on the last day.” (John 6:63-64)

    He loses disciples right and left over this remark. “This speech is shocking; who can listen to it?” they grouse. (vs 60)

    “Owing to this many of his disciples went off to the things behind and would no longer walk with him.” (vs 66)

    It would have been the perfect occasion for Jesus to say, ‘Oh no, no! I didn’t mean THAT!’ But he explained it no more. He let them go. They were all fair weather disciples, apparently. He is okay with people being tested. After all, his own twelve passed the test:

    “Therefore Jesus said to the twelve: “YOU do not want to go also, do YOU?” Simon Peter answered him: “Lord, whom shall we go away to? You have sayings of everlasting life.” (vs 67-68) Most often that’s the answer you must give rather than harp on what seem to be missteps.

    Early Christians were accused of cannibalism. It’s hard to believe those words of Jesus wouldn’t have been used to fuel those charges. Cannabalism was among the early slanders of Christianity, usually something that happened at their “love feasts” where they “incestuously” (in the eyes of their detractors) called each other brother and sister. Testifying to how common was the accusation is the fact that a Roman governor, Pliny the Younger, looked into it. He pronounced it a nothingburger. Wrote he to Emperor Trajan: their communal meal consisted only of “ordinary and harmless food.”

    Given this circumstance that later enemies would capitalize on to spread rumors of cannibalism, you’d almost think Jesus wouldn’t say something that could so easily be misconstrued that way. Apparently, it’s not a concern. They would have done it anyway. It was standard fare back then for anyone accused of being a ‘cult.’ And while there are many reports of the cannibalism accusation, there is no record anyone ever appealed to Jesus’ words to support those accusations. It makes sense that they would, but there’s no record that anyone ever did it.

    Food and drink are constant metaphors in the Bible for spiritual things. Jesus was building upon those metaphors himself in John 6, likening himself to the “true bread” that comes from heaven. However, the “fair weather” disciples who left in a huff had no discernment whatsoever of these greater patterns. They were just there for the grub:

    “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.” (John 6:26)

    Seen in that light, it was sort of a screening that Jesus did, to separate the wheat from the chaff.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Conscience, the July 19 2026 Watchtower Study, and Child Sexual Abuse

    Prior to the meeting, I met up with the Watchtower Study conductor in the parking lot. He told me of the Jiminy Cricket tune from 1940, Always Let Your Conscience be Your Guide. He had somehow run across it as something that fit in well with the Study to come: Your Conscience—Use Bible Principles to Train It. During the Study, he might just show snippets of that Pinocchio movie in which the song appeared, he quipped, adding that if he did it would be the last thing he ever did. It is, at the Kingdom Hall, “instructed by Jehovah,” after all, not Walt Disney. But, it would have fit well. “A conscience is that still small voice that people won’t listen to,” Cricket says to Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy but doesn’t quite know how to pull off the stunt. “Now you see the world is full of temptations,” Cricket says. “They’re the wrong things that seem right at the time but… even though the right things may seem wrong sometimes, sometimes the wrong things may be right at the wrong time or… visa versa. Ahem. Understand?” Of course. Who wouldn’t?

    The Watchtower Study fleshed out conscience, naturally, but the point is that it used to be common sense, so that it would even be taught to children in a (ground-breaking at the time) Disney movie. The Study article explored how that internal guide could be molded for the better. Explored also was how it could be damaged, even ruined. One brother commented of sort secret fraternity of which he had spoken to a member. The fellow had been literally branded in the shoulder—all prospects were. Didn’t that hurt? Our friend asked. Oh, it hurt like hell, was the answer, but only for a moment, after which the nerve ending were destroyed so that they never felt anything again. Conscience is like that, too. It’s an internal guide. You don’t want to make a habit of ignoring it—a theme explored quite well in that Pinocchio movie.

    I would never claim that Witnesses are the only ones who recognize our God-given conscience, but they doubtless are among the ones who discuss it most thoroughly, That’s because they cart to the curb, mostly unread, the competing rubbish of evolutionary psychology which holds that it all evolved. In that collection of emotions we call conscience (it is not a term they use) each came about separately and over the eons fused together because, in some way, each enabled the clan evolving it to beat out the competing clan that had not yet got around to it. Though it masquerades as science, the stuff will strike any person of common sense as pure fantasy guesswork, consistently conflating correlation with causation (whereas, if you did that, you would be promptly told how stupid you were).

    “Everything is ex-post reasoning: we can run fast, detect cheating, kill our stepchildren, because…and here you simply insert anything from the days of being a member of a small, close-knit endangered tribe to justify this. With this one can explain almost everything without actually ever bothering to prove anything,” complained a letter to the Economist (Jan 24th, 2009). The field—how can it be other than pseudoscience?—is born of inadequate tools for the job coupled with a refusal to let a divine foot in the door. It is convincing only to true believers. The Watchtower will have none of it.

    Participation was lively, as it almost always is. Two topics were specifically spotlighted in which conscience might be brought to bear (smoking and wedding celebrations) then a booklet was referred to which I had forgotten existed: Scriptures for Christian Living. Time was there was no way you could forget. They were introduced with much fanfare at the convention, then you had to queue up in long lines to get one from an attendant with many boxes of the item. But now they are released more or less like Steve Jobs used to introduce an Apple product: ‘Oh, and one more thing . . . “ You can sort of lose track of them.

    There are about 100 topics in that brochure, or whatever it is—now that I do everything digitally it can be hard to tell. They are all areas in which conscience can be refined by Bible passages, after which to sharpen up that guide even if those passages are forgotten. You can take any one them and construct your own series of daily texts over it to better get a handle on the quality.

    Let us extend the list a bit, beyond that specific Watchtower Study. What about when a sleazy situation comes up that would blow Jiminy Cricket out of the water and there are no mentors around, no scriptures around, no protectors around? Say that something is child sexual abuse. It existed in Jiminy’s day, no doubt, but it was never mentioned and he would not believe it were someone to tell him. However, the times they are a’changing. Every sort of wickedness is on full display these days. Jiminy must be brought up to speed.

    A Watchtower video entitled Protect Your Children, released in 2016, spotlights conscience as the prime defense when no protector is around. It is an episode of the Caleb and Sophia cartoon series that Witness children know well. The series is incorporated by most Witness families in training their children. They sure are being trained in that video, as parents tell the children that Jehovah gave them a conscience, after which they follow up with asking what would they do if someone tried to touch them somewhere that made them uncomfortable?

    Protect Your Children captures the imagination of the child and depicts sexual abuse as a monster, for it is monstrous, and any child knows that monsters are malevolent creatures from which to flee. It vaporizes the moment the children tell it: “No. Stop doing that! I’m telling on you!” However, to ensure that no child misses the point, the mother urges: “Even if it is someone you know and trust!” and papa adds that they should right away “tell daddy or mommy,” who, in the video, take the news most seriously.

    However, mostly because she didn’t like Jehovah’s Witnesses, someone told me our video was garbage. She presented another from a certain child protective agency as the example to follow. This one, as though trained in the ways of evolutionary science, made no mention of conscience at all. Specific areas of the body that no one should touch are circled on a child’s body, apparently with the assumption that a child does not know its ass from its elbow.

    Look, it gets the job done, and so pernicious is the evil that there is room for both videos and many more. But the agency video struck me as a classic example of why so many children don’t like school. I remember when they would roll into the classroom the tall TV console for some “educational television.” I remember getting all excited about the change of pace but then let down at the dullness of the presentation. Who wants to be always instructed? One almost envisions in the agency video a child who is touched mentally consulting the chart he has memorized in order to determine if he should feel bad about it or not. No. Caleb’s dad is right. Jehovah gave humans a conscience. If you have not scratched it all to pieces updating it with the enlightened moral thinking of today’s overall world, it works pretty well.

    The Watchtower video has the added bonus, completely lacking in that of the agency’s, of instructing parents in how to teach their children and encouraging them to do so. It is thus family-friendly. It is a force for family cohesion. In the end, it is family that will protect a child better than any network of outside agencies, who so often drop the ball. Whereas, the agency video goes on the supposition that everybody—don’t even overlook the parents—are on the list of possible suspects.

    The Watchtower video steers clear of the possibility that the parents might be the villains. To be sure, that situation has happened, generally with step-parents. How to put that in a video? Do you really want to suggest to all children that their parents might be pedophiles? Even so, Protect Your Children clearly directs the children to let no one touch them inappropriately—no one at all. The agency video, on the other hand, specifically says it is okay for a doctor to touch private areas. Oh, sure! as a representative of modern science, how could that one possibly be anything other than trustworthy? Yield completely to that high priest of medical science. No need for even the slightest caution.

    It didn’t turn out to be good advice In 2016. That year, the U.S. Olympic team doctor was sentenced to 175 years in prison for molesting the teens in his charge over the course of three Olympics. 150 of his victims testified at the trial. Had they been asked which video do they think would have safeguarded them more, what do you imagine would have been their reply? The agency video of modern evolutionary science was probably that deviant’s dream come true.

    Save for that one very serious demerit, it’s not a bad video. Overall, it is very good. It can be recommended. But it has nothing on that of the Watchtower’s, which spotlights conscience as the first line of defense.

    ******  The bookstore

  • ‘The God of Truth Always Fulfills His Purpose’-Part 1

    The Watchtower Study for June 14 (2026), ‘The God of truth Always Fulfills his Purpose,’ was everything in a nutshell, a good overview of God’s purpose towards the earth. That aspect of living forever on a paradise earth resonates with some. It is a major drawing that few others have. We are to believe that God put humans on an earth tailor-made for them because he wanted them somewhere else? No. For all but a handful, earth is the intended home.

    It is the truth in a nutshell. It doesn’t just happen. In the absence of loyal men to keep one focused, there are too many rabbit holes to veer into. The brotherhood that is JW is refreshed weekly by this regimen. Don’t overcomplicate it. Don’t muddy the waters. Don’t get consumed with trivia. There may be tees to cross, i’s to dot, and stray items to be uncovered. But the gist of it is simple and should not be obfuscated.

    There is the simple statement (paragraph 3) that God is the Maker of the heavens and the earth and the Source of all life, backed with a few supporting scriptures. Also, that he is the Sustainer of life—yes, capitalized in the article. It is not like when my wife set up a bird house but it blew down in the storm and as she was setting it up again the mama wren was perched a few feet away chewing her out for not doing it right in the first place: “Chip chip chip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip!!!!!” No. Unless the human wrens foul their own nest, God’s home for them endures. Alas, they do fowl the nest, in ever-increasing ways, enough for the Bureau of Atomic Scientists to set the Doomsday Clock, not at 10:30 AM, but at 85 seconds to midnight.

    Be that as it may, paragraph 4 relates what God had in mind putting humans on earth. It’s simple. “Jehovah created humans because he wanted to share the beautiful gift of life with them.” That’s it. Don’t overcomplicate it. Then there is the added proviso that “he gave us free will,” and the reiteration of “He created a beautiful home just for us.”

    The free will was abused early on. “Adam and Eve rebelled” is how it is stated, imposing upon themselves “the sentence of death,” throwing a significant wrench into the works. Not to worry. “Jehovah did not create the earth ‘simply for nothing, but formed it to be inhabited.’”—Isaiah is cited. (Para 5) Though “it might have seemed as if God’s purpose were being derailed . . . Jehovah is the Fulfiller of all that he promises”—again Isaiah is cited. That sentence of death is not immediate; it is just a curtailment of the non-ending life they would otherwise have enjoyed. Children are produced (who will also die, having inherited that defect.) In time, God “provided His only-begotten Son as a ransom to save Adam’s descendants and to give them the marvelous hope of living forever”​— and of course, the well-know John 3:16 is cited.

    Then follows a disclosure of the one who caused the problems to begin with, his own ambitions thwarted, and his ultimate outcome: From Revelation: “Down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth.” (12:9) It may be trendy to call those “brainwashed” who stay the Christian course today, but the reality is just the opposite. The Devil misleads, not the Congregation, but “the entire inhabited earth.” It is “the entire inhabited earth” that is victimized, as monitoring news media will suggest to any one of common sense. The ones most virulently attacked will, quite consistently and a few verses on, be those who “observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness concerning Jesus.” (vs 17) Indeed, they are attacked. If they so much as scratch their rear ends, it’s all over the internet.

    Then there was “By preaching the “good news of the Kingdom,” we obey Jesus’ command and, at the same time, fulfill prophecy. (Matt. 24:14; 28:18-20) It’s simple. One need not know everything as to how it all turns out. Take part in the ministry and you know you’re not spitting into the wind because you have a few million spiritual brothers and sisters saying exactly the same thing. If you don’t reach a given person, they will, with the same message. It’s not just everyone giving their own personal testimonies, as though everything was about us.

    Meaningful work to do. Not unduly worried that we don’t know everything. Nobody has to. Most thought the system would have already ended, yet every day is more crazy than the day before. If your wife sails past her due date, that doesn’t mean she’s not pregnant.

    We live in a world where people aspire to be whistleblowers. It is almost a sacred quest, to be a whistleblower and dig up dirt on someone else. Nobody deserves to have the dirt dug up on him more than the Serpent, so in that sense Jehovah’s Witnesses are the greatest whistleblowers of all. When you lead off your presentation observing that ‘the world’s crazy,’ nobody (n the Western world) challenges you on that point. Indeed the intention of the entire article was “This discussion will help us to be bold and fearless Witnesses of Jehovah.”

    ******  The bookstore

  • The Owner’s Manual

    This thought I liked from yesterday’s Watchtower Study and compared it to an ad for online therapy now making the rounds in my neck of the woods:

    “After they rebelled, Adam and Eve immediately experienced the consequences of their violating God’s law​—a law that was “written in their hearts.” (Rom. 2:15) They could sense a change in themselves​—and not for the better. They felt compelled to cover portions of their body and hide like criminals from their Creator. (Gen. 3:7, 8) For the first time, Adam and Eve were subject to feelings of guilt, anxiety, insecurity, pain, and shame. To one degree or another, those feelings would plague them until their death.​—Gen. 3:16-19” (para 10)

    The ad for therapy asserts that it can help since “we’re all figuring it out.” Not to diss therapy; it probably can help—if not always, at least sometimes. But it seems like it can help a whole lot more if you if you augment  counselors yet “figuring it out” with sources that have figured it out, sources that tell us where “feelings of guilt, anxiety, insecurity, pain, and shame” (para 10) come from in the first place. Those emotions bubble up and reappear in settings far removed from their origin, but it is still good to know what their origin is. 

    The illustration that resonates with Witnesses is that of an owner’s manual for a product. You’d be crazy not to heed its directions. Witnesses figure the Bible is the owner’s manual for the product that is us. They draw that thought from scriptures such as 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness,  so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.”

    Since God made us, it’s only going to create internal discord to go against what is “written in our hearts,” from Romans 2:15 again in that paragraph. You really do have to cooperate with the owner’s manual. The point of this post is not to devalue therapy. It is to elevate instruction from our Maker.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Paul—“An Insolent Man”

    Early Christians were afraid of Paul. He’d been a violent enemy. When he turned around, they didn’t believe it. Barnabas (always good for that sort of thing) had to escort him around and ease the way.

    Some of those Christians probably always were afraid of him. The Watchtower study of last week (3/15/26) included the printed point: “Can you imagine how Paul must have felt when he visited a congregation and met those he had persecuted or the family members of those he had persecuted?” It may have been tougher on him personally when they forgave.

    Every so often he would run into one of those persons. If they didn’t remind him of what a hothead he had been, his own conscience would have—-he, the guy that, as Saul, would “ravage the congregation. He would invade one house after another, dragging out both men and women and turning them over to prison.” (Acts 8:3)

    So some were afraid to approach. Probably some of them always were. He’s okay if you agreed with him in every particular, but if you cross him in any way, they’d think, recalling strong statements he’d made in his letters, and every so often, he’d say to himself ‘Yeah, you know I really still am an insolent man’, (1 Timothy 1:13) I just switched sides.’ Anyone who wields authority benefits from this.

    We like to think we have made progress in our lives. What a downer to taste, even for a moment, that we have not. It’s like when someone recalls the harsh traits of their dad and says “I’m never going to be like him’ and they go for years thinking they are not, only to one day look at themselves in the mirror and say, ‘Huh, I’m exactly like him. Strip aside the superficialities, and I’m exactly like him.’

    Of course, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. Paul’s violent past would lead him to the contemplative water of past sins, but he didn’t have to drown in it, nor drink it in. He had counterbalancing thought of how Christ’s death had repurchased him, forgiven him, and would cleanse him as though a new person. He accepted that forgiveness. He never took it for granted, spending the rest of his life building up the congregations, suffering no end of hardship in the process.

    It did equip him to spot the “superfine apostles” though, slicksters of tongue (2 Corinthians 11:5-6) who wanted his office but not his work. To them, he detailed his hardships: 

    “I have done more work, been imprisoned more often, suffered countless beatings, and experienced many near-deaths. Five times I received 40 strokes less one from the Jews, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I experienced shipwreck, a night and a day I have spent in the open sea; in journeys often, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from robbers, in dangers from my own people, in dangers from the nations, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers at sea, in dangers among false brothers, in labor and toil, in sleepless nights often, in hunger and thirst, frequently without food, in cold and lacking clothing.” (2 Corinthians 11: 23-27)

    Perhaps it faded in time, or maybe that past when he opposed haunted him even more with increasing years. That Watchtower Study corralled three statements of his to that effect:

    “For example, when he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians in about 55 C.E., he said: ‘I am not worthy of being called an apostle, because I persecuted the congregation of God.’ (1 Cor. 15:9) Some five years later, in his letter to the Ephesians, he described himself as being ‘less than the least of all holy ones.’ (Eph. 3:8) When writing to Timothy, Paul referred to himself as being formerly ‘a blasphemer and a persecutor and an insolent man.’ (1 Tim. 1:13)”

    It was another one of those studies—most of them are these days—in which healing and imitating the Christ is the theme. Are such meetings boring? These days they focus heavily on applying the Bible in one’s life, putting on the new personality and all. That’s not appealing to a lot of people, who are more into telling other people what to do.

    The Study made good use of Psalm 139: “You observe me when I travel and when I lie down; You are familiar with all my ways. There is not a word on my tongue, But look! O Jehovah, you already know it well. Behind and before me, you surround me; And you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is beyond my comprehension. It is too high for me to reach. (verses 3-6)

    That being the case, that God knows us better than we do ourselves, the psalmist could ask: “Search through me, O God, and know my heart. Examine me, and know my anxious thoughts. See whether there is in me any harmful way, And lead me in the way of eternity. (23-24)

    “Anxious thoughts.” Sometimes we feel off and if asked why will respond that we don’t know. Just what is it? We don’t know. We may not want to know. Here, we are encouraged to go to Jehovah in prayer who searches us though.

    They even threw in the Potter molding the vessel, someone “try[ing] to imagine Jehovah molding us and trying to make us better people. This brings us closer to him.”​ It’s like when you hit a wall, as Paul apparently did at times, bad traits having caught up with you, or at least the memories of them, and you say, ‘I’m no good.’ Nah, you’re not no good. You’ve just hit a lump that continued molding will work out.

    ******  The bookstore

  • “The Best Way to Respond to Injustice”-a Study

    I found that return visit at home who had previously told me he cuts back on the news because it gets him all cranked up. So I decided to show him that paragraph from Sunday’s Watchtower study (1/23/25: The Best Way to Respond to Injustice) which recommended exactly that course. I even left it with him. Given the choice of digital or print, he said he preferred digital, so I used that transfer feature on the app to email the article to him.

    I had commented on that paragraph during the study. There is a new Watchtower conductor now and I can’t lean into him so readily as I could with the old conductor, so I have to look comments over carefully before letting fly. For sure I won’t get in as many. But that’s not really a bad thing. It means other people do.

    That paragraph (12) went: “What can help us to control our feelings of anger over an injustice? Many have found it helpful to be selective in what they read, listen to, and watch. Some forms of social media are full of posts that sensationalize injustices and that promote social reform movements. Often, news agencies report information in a biased way.”

    Yeah. Anyone on social media knows that the political stuff encroaches like an invasive species. You have to keep pruning it back or it will take over. Some Witnesses just uproot it on sight, or more thorough yet, avoid social media altogether. I’m not one of them but I do understand the response. It gets you all worked up. One sis even recalled a visit to a U.S. city much in the news lately for a certain protest. A few Witnesses had been there, she said, and they got their faces on TV! Like that commercial, I told her afterward, where the guy helps himself to the cotton candy of the kid in the stadium row before him and it is captured by the Kiss Cam and displayed on the Jumbotron! Yeah, like that, she agreed.

    Then, there was the sister cited in paragraph 9, recalling her former protest days, who the paragraph quoted: “When I was at protests, I would question whether I was on the correct side,” contrasting that with “Now that I support God’s Kingdom, I know that I’m on the right side. I know that Jehovah will fight for every victim of oppression better than I ever could.” 

    I commented on that paragraph too, ramming it past the new vigilant conductor. “Sure. Just once I would like to see a war in which one side or the other says, ‘We are the bad guys.’ But it never happens. Always, both sides fob themselves off as the good guys. Social reform is like that too. You can wonder if you’re on the correct side.” One person’s reform is another person’s pouring fuel to the fire.

    a man in red and black sweater
    Photo by Anton Bohlin on Pexels.com

    2 Peter 3:13 was quoted in the final paragraph: “But there are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise,and in these righteousness is to dwell.”

    The “heavens” make an apt analogy for human government. In those Bible times, they would scorch you one minute, drench you the next, freeze you the moment thereafter—and there wasn’t a thing you could do about it. In most respects that is still true of human governments today, even participatory ones, in which your input is not exactly zero, but close to it. The “new heavens” is God’s just government to come and the “new earth” is those constituents who will benefit from it.

    They even slipped in that verse about how Jesus so wowed the crowds that they wanted to appoint him king. (John 6:15) He couldn’t get away from that bunch quick enough—for the same reason that he later told Pilate: “My Kingdom is no part of this world. If my Kingdom were part of thisworld, my attendants would have fought that  should not be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my Kingdom is not from this source.” (John 18:36) 

    Exactly. They would have fought. Get yourself too cranked up fighting over the current “heavens” and it will be at the expense of looking to the “new heavens.” That was the overall thrust of the article.

    ******  The bookstore

  • 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

  • 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

  • “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

  • 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