A blog by Tom Sheepandgoats (aka Tom Harley)
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Proverbs 8:22-31: Wisdom Personified as the Son, or Just Wisdom?
Toward the end of a nine-chapter Proverbs treatment of wisdom, is a short passage which many think is wisdom personified as Jesus: “Jehovah produced me as the beginning of his way, The earliest of his achievements of long ago.From ancient times I was installed, From the start, from times earlier than the earth.When there were no deep waters, I was brought forth, When there were…
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“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…
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The Death of Prince put the Fentanyl Crisis on the Map
Prince’s death put fentanyl on the map as a national health crisis. It wasn’t unheard of before. But to the general public, the malady was vague. It often takes celebrity doings to put something front and center. This was the case with Prince. As the book ‘Tom Irregardless and Me’ may be the largest repository anywhere of Prince’s non-music life with accent on his JW…
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A Gilead Instructor Speaks on Job
In a group, one Witness said. “I really like Brother Noumair’s talks. He’s a good speaker.” My friend waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . .and then burst out laughing. She was waiting for a B part—an example, a qualification, a contrast. Nope. That was it, the complete comment. “*Everybody* likes Brother Noumair’s talks,” she told me. She had…
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The Divine Name Included in the New Testament—continued.
“Okay, so we DID cheat,” say the later guardians of the Septuagint. “But you didn’t CATCH us cheating! We managed to slip our fraud into the New Testament before you could catch us. So it’s all good.” That’s what it boils down to with the Septuagint, the Hebrew-to-Greek translation of the OT that served as the basis for writing the New Testament. There is no…
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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…
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The Value of Christian Organization
My wife and I had people from out of state come into town to work on a Kingdom Hall remodeling project nearby and they needed a place to stay. Sight unseen, we handed them the keys to our house while we were heading away on vacation. There are people who would pay anything for such a brotherhood in which you can place such trust in…
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Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Stand on Blood Transfusion has Vastly Improved Medical Safety
Jehovah’s Witnesses stand on blood transfusion will have saved far more lives than it has cost. This is because, here and there, courageous doctors have sought to accommodate it. In doing so, they have made transfusion therapy safer for everyone, either by just not giving one or by using bloodless techniques in its stead. An April 2008 New Scientist article entitled ‘An Act of Faith…
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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!…
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How do Jehovah’s Witnesses View Evolution?
For the most part, Witnesses can coexist with Darwin. The things he observed on the Galápagos Islands are but examples of ‘animal husbandly,’ which has been around forever and is not controversial. Where Witnesses might speak against Darwin, it is because of (correctly) anticipating the truckloads of dogma that atheists will drive through the door he cracks open. But Darwin himself is not too controversial.…