Beroean Pickets Jw.org Reviewer

[From ws3/18 p. 28 – May 27 – June 3] “My sons, … listen to discipline and become wise.” Proverbs 8:32-33 This week the WT study article continues the theme of discipline from last week. It starts off well. We are gently reminded that “Jehovah has our best interests at heart” (par. 2) and then we are asked to read Hebrews 12:5-11, the passage of scripture missing from last week's article. But notice how no opportunity is taken to show why Jehovah would bother to discipline us.  The entire passage of Hebrews 12:5-11 as well as the theme text of Proverbs 8:32-33 addresses us as "sons" or "children of God".  This element which conflicts with the "friends of God" theology of Witnesses is glossed over.[i] Rather the focus is on how being disciplined is good for us. The four areas to be discussed in the article are then highlighted which are “(1) self-discipline, (2) parental discipline, (3) discipline within the Christian congregation, and (4) something that is worse than the temporary pain of discipline.” (par.

Having shown in our last episode that the Other Sheep doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses is unscriptural, it seems approrpiate to pause in our examination of the teachings of JW.org to address the real Bible hope of salvation--the real Good News--as it pertains to Christians.

My experience of being an Active Jehovah’s Witness and leaving the Cult. By Maria (An alias as a protect against persecution.) I started studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses over 20 years ago after my first marriage was breaking up. My daughter was only a few months old, so I was very vulnerable at the time, and suicidal. I didn’t come into contact with the Witnesses through the preaching work, but through a new friend I had made once my husband had left me. When I heard this Witness speak about the last days and how men would be, it sounded very true to me. I thought she was a bit weird, but was intrigued. After a few weeks, I bumped into her again, and we had another discussion. She wanted to visit me at home but I was a bit reluctant to have a stranger come to my house. (What I haven’t mentioned is that my dad was a devout Muslim, and he didn’t have a very good view of the Witnesses.) This lady eventually won my trust and I gave her my address, but I remember regretting that because she lived nearby, and be

An Analysis of the 2018 Position Paper on Handing Child Sexual Abuse within the community of Jehovah's Witnesses.

[From ws3/18 p. 14 – May 14 – May 20] “Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.” 1 Peter 4:9 ““The end of all things has drawn close,” wrote Peter. Yes, the violent end of the Jewish system of things would come in less than a decade (1 Peter 4:4-12)” - par. 1 True, with Peter writing sometime between 62 and 64 CE, the start of the end of all things relating to the Jewish System of Things was only 2 to 4 years away in 66 CE when the rebellion against Rome resulted in a Roman invasion of Judea that culminated in the complete eradication of the Jews as a nation by 73 CE.  “Among other things, Peter urged his brothers: “Be hospitable to one another.” (1 Pet. 4:9)” - par. 2 The full verse adds “without grumbling” and the prior verse talks about having “intense love for one another”. In context then this would suggest the early Christians were having love for one another and showing hospitality to one another, but the love needed to be stronger, more intense; and the hospitality provided without grumbling.

This video, podcast and article explore the unique JW teaching of the Other Sheep. This doctrine, more than any other, affects the salvation hope of millions. But is it true, or a fabrication of one man, who 80 years ago, decided to create a two-class, two-hope system of Christianity? This is the question that affects all of us and which we will answer now.

[From ws2/18 p. 18 – April 16 - April 22] “May [God] grant you to have among yourselves the same mental attitude that Christ Jesus had.” Romans 15:5 In summary, this is another shallow examination of the Scriptures using eisegesis (having one’s own prepared interpretation and looking for support in the Scriptures for this however slim and out of context.) As an extreme example, let us assume (very wrongly of course) for one moment that we wanted to prove Jesus was not humble and instead was proud. How could we support our erroneous idea? What about when Jesus was tempted by the Devil? We could quote Matthew 4:8-10 and say the following “Here Satan wanted a small favour in exchange for an extraordinary gift, something that Jesus’ Father had promised would one day be his. So instead of pleasing Satan, Jesus proudly refused and told him to "Go away”. “ Now we know that this is contrary to the rest of scripture and doesn’t even agree with the rest of the context, but everything above in quotes is accurate excep

One of our forum members relates that in their memorial talk the speaker broke out that old chestnut, "If you are asking yourself if you should partake or not, it means you have not been chosen and so do not partake." This member came up with some excellent reasoning showing the flaw in this common statement often made by those trying to dissuade sincere Christians from obeying Jesus' instructions on partaking. (Note: While the premise for the above statement is flawed from the get-go, it can be helpful to accept an opponent's premise as valid, and then take it to its logical conclusion to see if it holds water.) Moses got a direct call from God. Nothing could be clearer.  He heard God's voice directly, recognized who was calling, and got the message of his appointment. But what was his reaction? He displayed doubt. He told God about his unqualified status, his impediment.  He asked God to send someone else. He asked for signs, which God gave him. When he brought up the issue of his speech defect, it seems G

[From ws2/18 p. 8 – April 9 - April 15] “Evil men cannot understand justice, but those who seek Jehovah can understand everything” Proverbs 28:5 [mentions of Jehovah: 30, Jesus: 3] “Do you ‘understand everything’ necessary to please Jehovah? The key is to have accurate knowledge of him.” This is the question raised in paragraph 3 of this week’s article, so as we examine the article let us see what accurate knowledge we are provided with and what inaccurate knowledge we are provided with. “While Noah may not have grasped the details of the prophecy recorded at Genesis 3:15, he no doubt saw in it the hope of deliverance.” (Paragraph 7) So did Noah have accurate knowledge of Jehovah, understanding everything necessary to please Jehovah? The answer is no. Noah did have accurate knowledge of what was required to please Jehovah at that time, but only at that time. If Noah were resurrected today he would have to be taught additional accurate knowledge. Acts 16:31 records a big part of the accurate knowledge r

In the April Broadcast on tv.jw.org, there is a video given by Governing Body member Mark Sanderson at about the 34-minute mark, wherein he relates some encouraging experiences of brothers under persecution in Russia back in the 1950s, showing how Jehovah provided the support they needed to endure. When we become disillusioned with the organization, it is very easy for us to see everything that comes forth from it in a negative light. This can be caused by our own disillusionment, by the sense of betrayal we feel by men in whom we invested the utmost trust. Anger may cause us to lose sight of the many good things that we gained from our association with Jehovah’s Witnesses. On the other hand, when we hear about such positive experiences, we may become confused. We may question our own decision, thinking that there is in fact evidence that Jehovah has blessed the organization. What we have here are two extremes. On the one hand we dismiss all that is good, utterly rejecting the Organization; while on the oth

You have to accept over 20 assumptions to believe in 1914 as the start of Christ's invisible presence. One failed assumption and the doctrine comes crashing down.

My name is Ava.  I became a baptized Jehovah’s Witness in 1973, because I thought I had found the true religion that represents Almighty God.  Unlike so many of you raised in the organization, I grew up in a home that had no spiritual direction whatsoever, except being told I was a Catholic, because my non-practicing father was one.   I can count on one hand the number of times our family even attended a Catholic Mass.  I knew nothing of the Bible, but at age 12, I began my search for God within organized religions.   My search for purpose, meaning, and why there is so much evil in the world, was relentless.  By age 22, married, and the mother of twins—a boy and girl—I was a clean slate to indoctrinate, and JWs had the answers—so I thought.  My husband didn't agree and was able to get access to the published works of Russell and Rutherford through an elderly JW sister at that time, and so he challenged the brother and sister that studied with me. I remember, at that time, questioning them about those many fa

I would like to introduce a new feature to our web forum intended to help many of us as we deal with the strong, conflicting emotions of a traumatic awakening to the truth. It was back in 2010 that I began to awaken to the reality that is the Organization of Jehovah's Witnesses, when they released the silly Overlapping Generations doctrine and started what has become a self-destructive downward spiral.  They seem oblivious to this trend, which fulfills—in my humble opinion—the words found at Proverbs 8:19. "The way of the wicked ones is like the gloom; they have not known at what they keep stumbling. (Proverbs 4:19) Many of the teachings and direction coming from the Organization, particularly from their broadcasts, are so ill-advised and counter productive to their own goals as to make one wonder what is really going on in their high level discussions. I find it hard not to apply these words of Jesus to the JW generation of our day. “When an unclean spirit comes out of a man, it passes through parched plac

[From ws1/18 p. 27 – March 26-April 1]  “You will . . . see the distinction between a righteous person and a wicked person.” Malachi 3:18 The very title of this Watchtower study article is worrying once we begin to read its contents. Its thrust seems to cause us to separate ourselves from any contact with individuals deemed unworthy due to their traits. Indeed, why do we need to examine the difference in people? If we concentrate on improving our own Christian qualities, does it really matter how others are different?  Does it affect us? Please read Malachi 3 if you have time before continuing with this review, as it will help you better understand the context of the verses that are being used by this WT article, so that you can discern the true context of what the Bible is saying. Paragraph 2 opens with: “These last days are a time of moral chaos. The apostle Paul’s second letter to Timothy describes the characteristics of people who are alienated from God, characteristics that will become more pronounced

This article started out as a short piece intended to provide all of you in our online community with some details into our use of donated funds.  We have always intended to be transparent about such things, but to be honest, I hate accounting and so I kept pushing this off for other more interesting topics.  Nevertheless, the time has come. Then, as I started to write this, it occurred to me that another topic I’d been wanting to write about might dovetail nicely into the discussion of donations.  They may seem unrelated, but as I've asked before, please bear with me. Over the past 90 days, this site—Beroean Pickets – JW.org Reviewer—has had over 11,000 users opening 33,000 sessions.  There were almost 1,000 page views of the most recent article on the Memorial.  Over the same period of time, the Beroean Pickets Archive has been visited by over 5,000 users opening over 10,000 sessions.  Of course, numbers are not a measure of God's blessing, but it can be encouraging, as it was to Elijah, to learn that you

[From ws1/18 p. 22 – March 19-25] “Happy is the people whose God is Jehovah.” Psalm 144:15 This can be summed up as yet another attempt to imply that one cannot be truly happy unless one is totally compliant with all the directions from the Organization—particularly, by giving up any semblance of a normal life and practicing self-denial so that we can propagate the teachings of the Organization by pioneering and relying on others to help us make ends meet. That having been said we will now examine the detail of the article. The opening paragraph starts with the usual claim of being God’s people based on circular reasoning. It runs thus: We are God’s people because he foretold he would gather a great crowd. We as an Organization are a great crowd, therefore we fulfill this prophecy. Because we as an Organization fulfill this prophecy, we therefore must be God’s people. Did you spot the logic flaw? What proof is there that: the prophecy was intended to be fulfilled in the 21st century? the Organization

The first time I partook of the emblems at the memorial in my local Kingdom hall, the elderly sister sitting next to me remarked in all sincerity: “I had no idea we were so privileged!”  There you have it in a single phrase—the problem behind the JW two-class system of redemption.  The sad irony is that the Governing Body, while claiming to have done away with the clergy/laity distinctions of Christendom[i], has joined its fellow denominations in creating one of their very own, and a particularly pronounced distinction it is. You might think I’m overstating the problem. You might say that this is a difference without a distinction—this sister’s comment notwithstanding.  Yet, in a way, the JW class distinction is greater than is currently practiced in Catholicism.  Consider the fact that, potentially, anyone can become Pope, as this video demonstrates. This is not the case with Jehovah’s Witnesses.  According to JW theology, one must be specifically selected by God as one of an elite group of anointed before

[From ws1/18 p. 17 – March 12-18] “O our God, we thank you and praise your beautiful name.” 1 Chronicles 29:13 The whole of this article is based on the premise that the organization is really what it claims to be, God’s organization. (See Jehovah has always had an organization for a recent discussion on this topic.) Without this premise the entire reasoning presented in this article is groundless and without substance. The entire thrust of the article is another plea for money. This plea for money is becoming a regular theme in literature and videos. See Seeking Riches that are True WT review (Aug 28-Sep 3 2017). See Clam Review of September 18-24 2017 under the Congregation Book Study discussing the Kingdom Rules book Chapter 18 para 1-8. See Clam Review of October 16-22, 2017 under Local Needs. Jehovah wants us to be Generous (video) in Clam meeting for Nov 20-26, 2017. These are just the most recent. The opening paragraphs remind us quite rightly that Jehovah not only owns all resources, but a

A second look at 1914, this time examining the evidence the Organization claims is there to support the belief that Jesus began ruling in the heavens in 1914. https://youtu.be/M0P2vrUL6Mo Video Transcript Hello, my name is Eric Wilson. This is the second video in our subset of 1914 videos. In the first one, we looked at the chronology of it, and now we're looking at the empirical proof. In other words, it's all well and good to say that Jesus was installed as king in the heavens invisibly in 1914, sitting on throne of David, ruling in the Messianic Kingdom, but we have no proof of that unless, of course, we find proof directly in the Bible; but that's what we're going to look at in the next video. Right now, we want to see if there is evidence in the world, in the events that surrounded that year, that would lead us to believe that something invisible in the heavens happened. Now the organization says that there is such proof.  For example, in the June 1st 2003 Watchtower, on page 15, paragraph 12, we read

[From ws1/18 p. 12 for March 5 – March 11] “How good and how pleasant it is...to dwell together in unity!”​—PS. 133:1. We find immediate issues with accuracy in the first sentence of the opening paragraph where the claim is made that “'God’s people' will assemble for the memorial." That expresses an opinion of the organization rather than a fact.  It would be accurate to say “Jehovah’s Witnesses” instead of "God's people". The final sentence then states “Each year, this observance is the most amazing unifying event that takes place on planet Earth.” According to Wikipedia at least, “The Arba'een Pilgrimage is the world's largest public gathering that is held every year in Iraq.  And last year was estimated at between 20 and 30 million.” Perhaps what is more important to our discussion here though is the claim that the observance is unifying. At this point, we would invite comments from our readers. Does the highly formalized way the emblems are passed with no one partaking create a sense of unity?  And ho