Do
you know what a promise box is? Someone bought one for me many years ago. It is
a small box containing perhaps a hundred or so cards. On each card is a verse
of Scripture. The idea behind the promise box is that a random card should be
chosen each day and whatever verse is on that card, you should hold as God’s
promise for you personally. Sounds fine until you realise that each verse has
been plucked completely out of its context. When placed back into its context,
it is often discovered that the verse has nothing to do with you personally and
perhaps means something completely different from what you think it means.
You
may have heard of the man who, looking for guidance from God, opened his Bible randomly
and read the following: ‘And throwing down the pieces
of silver into the temple, he (Judas) departed, and he went and hanged
himself.’ (Matthew 27:5). The man, believing this was not very edifying, flicked
through his Bible again and read these words: ‘And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
(Luke 10:37).
What do we learn from the promise box and this story? We
learn that randomly plucking out bible verses and applying them to your life can
be damaging to your health.
THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT
Context is essential. It is not just the immediate
context that is important, context needs to be much wider. Let’s go back to the
promise box for a moment. Of course, as Sovereign, God could indeed speak to
you through the verse pulled out of its context, but I would suggest that is
far from the norm. To really understand the meaning of the promise box verse,
it must be placed in its original context and questions need to be asked. When
was it written? To whom was it written? How does it fit in with the rest of the
paragraph, chapter, book? How is it to be understood in the context of wider
Biblical truth? What about historically? How have those who have gone before us
understood it?
A TIME FOR EVERYTHING
It is said that those who forget the past are doomed
to repeat it, and so we now come to the 137th Annual Meeting of the
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, which took place on the 2nd
October 2021.
The meeting, which took place at the World Headquarters
of The Jehovah’s Witnesses in Warwick, New York, was chaired by the Governing
Body member Mark Sanderson and he opened the gathering by talking about ‘Time’.
‘Do you know what time it is?’ he asked rhetorically.
He continued by telling the assembled gathering that Jehovah is the great
timekeeper. I would agree that the Sovereign God, who is outside of the
constraints of time, plans and purposes everything according to His good
pleasure and timing.
And we know that for those who love God all things
work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
(Romans 8:28)
But when the fullness of
time had come, God sent forth
his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under
the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. (Galatians
4:4-5)
Sanderson
continued by mentioning Ecclesiastes 3:1 and saying that there is a time for
everything, and that the Bible speaks of a right time for various events.
He
then offered Leviticus 26:3-4 as an example:
“‘If you continue walking in my
statutes and keeping my commandments and you carry them out, I will give you
showers of rain at their proper time, and the land will yield its
produce, and the trees of the field will give their fruit. (NWT)
He
pointed out that the ‘proper time’ is important. He said: ‘If rain came at the
right time, it would yield a bumper crop, but if rain came at the wrong time,
it could completely destroy that same crop.’
This
is very true. God’s timing in all things is vitally important. We need to be
aware of when God has a hand in something and when He does not; when God is
saying something and when He is not. To get it wrong could prove disastrous. To
quote Mark Sanderson there is a ‘fundamental principle – timing is everything’.
I’m
sure you have heard the story of the boy who cried wolf. Bored in his job of
looking after the sheep, he decided to liven things up by crying wolf, so the
townspeople would come running to protect the sheep. After the people fell for
the lie twice, they decided to stay put when the boy cried wolf for the third
time. Sadly, for the boy, and even more tragically for the animals in his care,
the wolf was present and so the sheep perished.
Now
let us think about this for a moment. No one would blame the people for not
listening to the boy, after all he had been wrong/lied twice. But let me paint
an alternative reality. What if the people forgot, or chose not to remember,
the boy’s previous errors/lies and so they dutifully ran out every time the boy
cried wolf? Should they be considered foolish? Would we believe that the people
have in some way been beguiled?
What
I found unbelievable about Mark Sanderson’s talk at the Watchtower’s Annual
Meeting, is that it was received without any challenge. You could not hear
anyone shouting: ‘But you have been wrong before so why should we believe you
now?’
Sanderson’s
talk was given without any historical context. No reference was made to
previously held teachings (errors) or so-called words from Jehovah that never
came to pass. As Sanderson said: ‘timing is everything’ and this was clearly
not the time to mention the numerous prophecies that the Watchtower Society has
got wrong in its 137 years.
Just
as the townspeople were right not to trust the boy who cried wolf because he had
proved himself unreliable, so those aware of the past false and unreliable
teachings of the Watchtower should not trust those who have also proved
themselves untrustworthy.
FORGETTING
or IGNORING?
Question.
Are the rank-and-file Jehovah’s Witnesses forgetful, ignorant, or blinded by
the enemy of their souls? When confronted with their past, the usual response
from Jehovah’s Witnesses is to say we have never claimed to be prophets, or we
have admitted our mistakes. But God’s organisation has claimed to be a prophet
speaking for Jehovah:
So, does Jehovah have
a prophet to help them, to warn them of changes and to declare things to come?
. . . .These questions can be answered in the affirmative. Who is this
prophet?. . . .This prophet was not one man, but was a body of men and women.
It was the small group of footstep followers of Jesus Christ, known at that
time as International Bible Student s. Today they are known as Jehovah’s
Christian witnesses. Of course it is easy to say that this group acts as a “prophet”
of God. It is another thing to prove it. The only way that this can be done is
to review the record. What does it show?[1]
Next
week, as I continue to consider Mark Sanderson’s words that timing is
everything, I will discuss the ‘times’ that the Watchtower Society have cried
wolf.
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