A blog by Tom Sheepandgoats (aka Tom Harley)
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Filling the Tables with Vomit: Part 2
While they were puking their guts out, there were a lot of underpinnings they were turning a blind eye to—this part was in the oral Bible reading: “Woe to those who join one house to another house and who annex one field to another field until there is no more room and you live by yourselves on the land.” (Isaiah 5:8) It is a reference…
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Filling the Tables with Vomit
The old fellow who became a Witness in his mid-seventies showed me photos he had taken on his phone. They were sunrises and sunsets. One was just a snapshot of the starry heavens. “See the beautiful things that Jehovah makes,” he said. He regrets that he didn’t begin studying the Bible with Witnesses long ago. “My wife would always chase them away,” he laments, a…
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Crooning Love Songs in the Vineyard
Even though it’s the same story, the narrator changes during the first seven verses of Isaiah chapter 5. The first two verses is the start a love song! Is Isaiah the one to sing it? “Let me sing, please, to my beloved, A song about my loved one and his vineyard, My beloved had a vineyard on a fruitful hillside. (1) “He dug it up…
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An Increased Focus on Jesus
There are times when I think that if Jehovah’s Witnesses would simply modify their schedule of congregation Bible reading, that in itself would go a long way towards muzzling accusations that they don’t do Jesus. They certainly do. How anyone can make that charge is beyond me, yet there are those that continually make it. Just modify the Bible reading schedule. For as long as…
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Avoiding the Birdcatcher’s Trap
The Sunday speaker focused on avoiding the “trap of the birdcatcher,” taking for granted that Satan is the birdcatcher (“fowler”), only not everyone thinks it is he. Jehovah’s Witnesses do, and also many other faith traditions. Really, more do than don’t. In medieval times, the linkage was well-nigh universal. Augustine, for example, explicitly said so the birdcatcher (fowler) was the devil. But, in modern times…
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Come Now and Let Us Reason Together
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD.” It was M.D. Craven’s favorite Bible quote. Or at least, he sure did use it a lot. I can hear him now. “Come now, and let us reason together,” he would say. It was sort of his mission statement as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is not particularly a good rendering of Isaiah 1:18, but…
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Reading Isaiah 2:1-11 at the Mid-Week Meeting
If one is reading aloud the second chapter of Isaiah, it’s clear you have to put a long pause between verses 5 and 6. The thrust of the two is completely different: Verse 5: “O house of Jacob, come, Let us walk in the light of Jehovah.” Verse 6: “For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob.” Verse 5 belongs to the preceding…
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Evolution Row: A New Take on Desolation Row
In the late 1970s, Bob Dylan went full-blown born-again, an intense period but it didn’t last. When he leaned rather hard into his producer, the guy said, “Bob, you’re dealing with a 60-year-old Jewish atheist. Let’s just make a record.” They made a fine record, with one song, “Gotta Serve Somebody” winning a Grammy. Now, Dylan at no time has struck me as a person…
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“You Always Have the Poor with You”
As fine as helping the poor is and it is well to do it, Jesus said the following to those wishing to do it at the expense of attending to the Lord’s interests at that moment: (Matthew 26:11): “For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.” It sounds kind of callous but serves to show that the two…