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Out Of Context.

http://ebedabodah.blogspot.com/2009/07/o...ntext.html

We are always being reminded by the Society that we should "make sure that [our] use of quotations and statistics harmonizes with the context from which they are taken." (Ministry School Book, Ch. 40, para. 11) And they absolutely right. We don't want to be so desperate for secular backing that harmonizes with our beliefs that we misquote someone. That shows dishonesty on our part.

When he was on earth, Jesus Christ noted the hypocrisy of the priests. They always told the people what they should do but then failed to do it themselves. He said, "All the things they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds, for they say but do not perform." (Matt. 23:3) Why would I quote this Scripture in regard to taking quotes out of context? Keep reading.

"Clean Up, Give Up, Or Turn Around"


In The Watchtower, Feb. 1, 1996, page 5, paragraph 8, the Society quotes "one of America's best-known evangelists" but then refuses to give his name. The man they are quoting is, in fact, Billy Graham. They say his of words:

"One of Jesus’ disciples warned that ungodly men were 'turning the undeserved kindness of our God into an excuse for loose conduct and proving false to our only Owner and Lord, Jesus Christ.' (Jude 4) How might we, in fact, turn God’s mercy 'into an excuse for loose conduct'? We could do so by assuming that Christ’s sacrifice covers deliberate sins that we intend to keep on committing rather than sins of human imperfection that we are trying to put behind us. Surely we would not want to agree with one of America’s best-known evangelists, who said that you do not have to 'clean up, give up, or turn around.'"—Contrast Acts 17:30; Romans 3:25; James 5:19, 20



This quote from Billy Graham seems pretty horrible, doesn't it? We don't have to change our ways to be saved? We can accept Jesus sacrifice but then continue to do bad things? Well, that isn't what he says. His exact words are these:

"All you have to do to be born again is to repent of your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour. You don’t clean up, give up, or turn around yourself, you just come as you are. This is why we sing the hymn 'Just As I Am'"-From the book How to Be Born Again, pg. 156



What Billy Graham was actually saying was that when you are convinced in your heart that you can have salvation nowhere else except in the shed blood of Jesus Christ and believe firmly that he can save you and repent of your sins, right there, in that moment, you can be saved. You don't have to "clean up, give up, or turn around" in that moment but in the days, weeks, and months afterward. (Compare Acts 2:38, 41; 8:5, 9, 12-13; 16:30-34) That is what Graham is telling his readers. He was not referring to past, present, and future sins but only to past sins. As far as I am aware, Graham believes that after you first repent you have to change your life in the future.

Some "Christians", but not all, believe that you don't have to turn around after you first "repent and accept Jesus". The Society was having us believe that Billy Graham was one of these.


"As a teenage boy...I was already saved"

Another person that the Society misquotes is a lesser-known evangelist named Zane Hodges, who died in November of 2008. I am pretty sure that Zane Hodges was a believer in "Free Grace Theology" which says that you only have to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and you are forever saved. No matter what you do in the future, you can never lose your salvation.

The mis-quote that the Society made of Zane Hodges was this:


"Paul did not make converts, as some TV evangelists do, by saying: 'Accept Jesus right now, and you will forever be saved.' Nor did he have the confidence of the American clergyman who wrote: "As a teenage boy, . . . I was already saved." More than 20 years after Jesus personally chose Paul to carry the Christian message to people of the nations, this hardworking apostle wrote: 'I pummel my body and lead it as a slave, that, after I have preached to others, I myself should not become disapproved somehow.'"-The Watchtower, Feb. 1, 1996, pg. 6, para. 7



Not only is this a mis-quote, but it is also a misleading one. The idea of what constitutes being saved is different with what most of Christendom believes and what Jehovah's Witnesses believe. How so? Christendom uses the term "saved" as a substitute for having repented of your sins, accepted Jesus Christ sacrifice, and receiving him as your savior. So when Zane Hodges said that he was saved as a teenage boy he meant that he had repented of his sins and put faith in Jesus.

The real quote by Zane Hodges was this: "Many years ago, as a teenage boy, I attended a series of evangelistic meetings in a small Baptist church in Hagerstown, Maryland. Although I was already saved, the meetings made a lasting impression on me as a young believer." (From the book Absolutely Free, pg. xiii) As Jehovah's Witnesses, we use the term saved to mean our future salvation when we survive Armageddon into the Kingdom. The Society knows the differences between what we mean by "saved" and what Christendom means by "saved" but decides not to tell that.

The Trinity Brochure


The Trinity Brochure is full of quotes taken out of context. However, we will look at only one. On page 6 of this brochure, paragraph

"Jesuit Fortman states: 'The New Testament writers...give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons...Nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead.'"



The real quote is this:

"If we take the New Testament writers together they tell us there is only one God, the creator and lord of the universe, who is the Father of Jesus. They call Jesus the Son of God, Messiah, Lord, Saviour, Word, Wisdom. They assign Him the divine functions of creation, salvation, judgement. Sometimes they call Him God explicitly. They do not speak as fully and clearly of the Holy Spirit as they do of the Son, but at times they coordinate Him with the Father and the Son and put Him on a level with them as far as divinity and personality are concerned. They give us in their writings a triadic ground plan and triadic formulas. They do not speak in abstract terms of nature, substance, person, relation, circumincession, mission but they present in their own way the ideas that are behind these terms. They give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal persons. But they do give us an elemental Trinitarianism, the data from which such a formal doctrine of the Triune God may be formulated.



The problem with this quote is not so much that it does not say what the Society says it does but that they mislead us in the personal beliefs of those who made the quotes. They make us think that these people are firmly against the Trinity when, in fact, they are not. This is true of Jesuit John L. McKenzie quoted on page 28, Jesuit Edmund Fortman quoted on page 6, and writers of the The Illustrated Bible Dictionary. These people DO believe in the Trinity although the candor of their quotes helps us to see that they are digging a hole for themselves. These quotes are misleading because they misrepresent the viewpoint of the speaker.

"A Kind of Innocence"


In the new book given at the 2009 "Keep on the Watch!" District Convention, the Society misquotes the writer of the book Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament. How do I know this? I owned Dr. BeDuhn's book for a short while and read it in two whole days! I remembered this quote because of how much it stood out to me and was even discussing it with a relative a few days before I received the new book.

The quote from the new book from the Watchtower is this:

"In his book Truth in Translation, Jason David BeDuhn, associate professor of religious studies at Northern Arizona University in the United States, wrote that Jehovah's Witnesses approach the Bible 'with a kind of innocence, and [build] their system of belief and practice from the raw material of the Bible without predetermining what was to be found there.'"-Pg. 105, see box at 'Jehovah's Witnesses build their beliefs on the Bible'



Dr. BeDuhn's quote is actually differentiating between the Protestant Reformation and how they approached the Bible and made their doctrines and the way Jehovah's Witnesses approached the Bible to make their doctrines when each of these first started. Out of all the quotes that I have found this one is the most misleading. Dr. BeDuhn is not referring to the modern-day Jehovah's Witness approach to the Bible but the approach we took in the 1880's and 1890's.

The actual quote is this:

"Protestant forms of Christianity, following the motto of sola scriptura, insist that all legitimate Christian beliefs (and practices) must be found in, or at least based on, the Bible. That's a very clear and admirable principle. The problem is that Protestant Christianity was not born in a historical vacuum, and does not go back directly to the time that the Bible was written...For the doctrines that Protestantism inherited to be considered true, they had to be found in the Bible. And precisely because they were considered true already, there was and is tremendous pressure to read those truths back into the Bible, whether or not they are actually there."



On the other hand, contrasting the Protestant approach to the Bible with that of Jehovah's Witnesses, Dr. BeDuhn writes this:

"This movement has, unlike the Protestant Reformation, really sought to re-invent Christianity from scratch. Whether you regard that as a good or a bad thing, you can probably understand that it resulted in the Jehovah's Witnesses approaching the Bible with a kind of innocence, and building their system of belief and practice from the raw material of the Bible without predetermining what was to be found there.-Truth in Translation by Dr. Jason BeDuhn, ch. 13, pg. 163-165



When I first saw this misquote, I was appalled. I've always had a lot of respect for Dr. BeDuhn and when I saw his quote misquoted I was a little upset. Oh well, I guess it could have been worse. They just took what Dr. BeDuhn said about Jehovah's Witnesses in the past and applied it to Jehovah's Witnesses today.

A History of the Same


The Society has done this for many years, taking quotes out of context. Interestingly, their own words in the book Qualified to be Ministers, pg. 199, condemn them. They say, "Be very careful to be accurate in all statements you make. Use evidence honestly. In quotations do not twist the meaning of a writer or speaker or use only partial quotations to give a different thought than the person intended. Also if you use statistics use them properly. Statistics can often be used to give a distorted picture."

Yes, Jesus Christ's own words remind us that we are not to follow this same course of taking words out of context. Remember what he said? ""All the things they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds, for they say but do not perform."-Matt. 23:3

With Sincere Christian Love and Affection,
Brother Ebed Abodah


Warm Christian Love
Bangalore

Good work Bang! should we expect anything less from the Tower of Power?!

Hi Bangalore,

While I agree that the context has been severely shortened in what BeDuhn has written, it doesn't contradict how he viewed the Jehovah's Witness approach to the Bible. In fact, when I removed myself from WT theology, I determined to do the same, i.e., return to the Bible with the same "kind of innocence, and building" my system of belief "from the raw material of the Bible without predetermining what was to be found there" even as he says Jehovah's Witnesses had.

In other words, I too determined not to be tainted by any other doctrine but that which gave itself to me, i.e., that the Bible speaks clearly to each one of us and needs no other teaching or doctrine to enhance its own teaching to every one who reads it with the same spirit under which it was inspired. (my words)

Doctrines and dogma are man's invention. They come out of those who wish to deliberately mislead or promote and gain a following. Personally, I've never had such a desire, but I have seen it in others. So I trust no man or inspiration beyond that which I see is inspired. In short, I agree with BeDuhn's kindly attitude, for he neither approves nor condemns such innocence of approach to the Bible's "raw material" by prefacing his words: "Whether you regard that as a good or a bad thing ..."

My thoughts,

In Christ,

sw

Acts 2:42
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.

1 Timothy 4:16
Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.

2 Timothy 4:3
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;

Titus 1:9
holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.

Titus 2:1
But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine:

1 Timothy 6:1
Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed.

1 Thessalonians 5:21
Test all things;( Doctrines ) hold fast what is good.

Jesus = Michael = failed
Jesus came back invisibly in 1914 = failed
Jesus rose as a spirit creature = failed
Armagedon 1914,15,18,75,etc = failed
only 144,000 go to Heaven = failed

Yes man can invent some real winners.:D:D:D write your own Bible to suit the teaching:(

BB:happyheart::heartbeat::happyheart:

And so what did you just prove? That I used a word without defining first whether it be inspired by God or man? Or that you can isolate words so that what I write can be read out of context? Bully for you, Wayne. :thumbup: Do you always read out of context just to feed your own belief? Or were you so focused on the word I used that you missed the point entirely?

Just pointing out that correct " Doctrine " is a wonderful thing to strive for and that the main reason the NWT has been written is to avoid correct Doctrine at ALL costs.

We all know the 5 guys involved had no Greek or Hebrew training and that can be easily seen just by reading the words under the greek text. Then looking at the translation.

Why even listen to guys like BeDuhn.

Here's what the scholars say.

Dr. Bruce M. Metzger, professor of New Testament at Princeton University, calls the NWT "a frightful mistranslation," "Erroneous" and "pernicious" "reprehensible" "If the Jehovah's Witnesses take this translation seriously, they are polytheists." (Professor of New Testament Language and Literature)

Dr. William Barclay, a leading Greek scholar, said "it is abundantly clear that a sect which can translate the New Testament like that is intellectually dishonest."

British scholar H.H. Rowley stated, "From beginning to end this volume is a shining example of how the Bible should not be translated."

"Well, as a backdrop, I was disturbed because they (Watchtower) had misquoted me in support of their translation." (These words were excerpted from the tape, "Martin and Julius Mantey on The New World Translation", Mantey is quoted on pages 1158-1159 of the Kingdom interlinear Translation)


Dr. Julius Mantey , author of A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, calls the NWT "a shocking mistranslation." "Obsolete and incorrect." "It is neither scholarly nor reasonable to translate John 1:1 'The Word was a god.'"

"I have never read any New Testament so badly translated as The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of The Greek Scriptures.... it is a distortion of the New Testament. The translators used what J.B. Rotherham had translated in 1893, in modern speech, and changed the readings in scores of passages to state what Jehovah's Witnesses believe and teach.

That is a distortion not a translation." (Julius Mantey , Depth Exploration in The New Testament (N.Y.: Vantage Pres, 1980), pp.136-137)


the translators of the NWT are "diabolical deceivers." (Julius Mantey in discussion with Walter Martin)


But I must admit Jason D. is a far cry better supporter than Johannes Greber.


Now if you truely mean what you say, why not a course in Hermenuetics. We each have biases that get removed when "drawing out " the meaning of the intended Author. Without basic tools as these we will always end up "reading into the text" our own biases.

Narrowing things down to One Interpetation but with many applications.

Letting Scriptures that apply to Israel, apply to Israel and those that apply to the Body of Christ apply to the body of Christ.

It's free if you have the time give it a go!


http://www.growingchristians.org/cfgc/he...utics.html


Wayne

Dear All

It seems also to be the background for and why, the men behind The Watchtower Society prohibits their members to get together in small groups and study the original documents and scriptures, in its original languages, as described in the Kingdom Ministry, since it will uncover how they have manipulated and added text in their New World Translation, to fit their ideas, doctrines and beliefs.

Nobody can say that we haven't been warned, and one of them was Jeremiah in chapter 8:

How do ye say, We [are] wise, and the law of the LORD [is] with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he [it]; the pen of the scribes [is] in vain.

It is also interesting to read Wesleys notes:

8:8 How - These things considered where is your wisdom? He speaks to the whole body of the people. The Lord - This may have a more special eye to the priests. In vain - For any use they made of it; neither need it ever have been copied out by the scribe. A scribe was a teacher, one well versed in the scripture, or esteemed to be so.

Furthermore Paul he warns us in Colossians chapter 8:

8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

But the history of humans behaviour, seems unfortunately to be the same in all generations, as it comes further in versus 20-23:

20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,

21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not;

22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?

23 Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.

By the way, I have heard that The Watchtower Society is one of, or maybe the largest, printing Corporation in the world, but a wise man in the past, called Solomon, came to a very excellent conclusion in Ecclesiastes chapter 12:

10 The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and [that which was] written [was] upright, [even] words of truth.

11 The words of the wise [are] as goads, and as nails fastened [by] the masters of assemblies, [which] are given from one shepherd.

12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books [there is] no end; and much study [is] a weariness of the flesh.

13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this [is] the whole [duty] of man.

14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.

Finally, Peter is describing it very well, that we will be in bondage, eighter it will be political or religious man created organisations, when we listen to and follow men, instead of Jesus Christ, the head for our Christian belief, in 2 Peter chapter 2:

18 For when they speak great swelling [words] of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, [through much] wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.

19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.