BREAKING NEWS | Resuming Public Witnessing
So it was announced on May 31 in jw.org that they are resuming their public witnessing. So the announcement reads that the Governing Body informed all Branch Committees that they may now resume all forms of public witnessing with the exception of the door-to-door ministry. Each Branch Committee will examine the local situation in its branch territory, taking into account any governmental restrictions, and will soon provide direction to the congregations. (Romans 13:1) We rejoice that we will have additional opportunities to share the good news of God's Kingdom with our neighbors!—Matthew 28:19, 20.
So what that means in plain words is that they will be resuming their cart ministry shortly but not the door to door ministry. One can only assume they stay away from their trademark activity because of legal IMPLICATIONS. It is quite possible that people will complain that the Jehovah's Wirnesses gave them a virus knocking on their door. So the Watchtower doesn't want this threat of legal action looming over their head they have enough court cases for other issues to worry about being sued from going from to door.That makes think that this abstinence from door to door witnessing is here to stay especially now that other pandemics making their appearance. So instead of alarming their members by saying we are never going back out in the ministry they say they will take into account local governmental restrictions and then direct local congregations which really is the same thing as these pandemics are here to stay ,they are the new norm. So if this is the case then the door to door ministry will be fazed out for good under these pretenses.WHAT DO YOU THINK? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENT SECTION
Now I don't remember Jesus including a clause in his famous words in Matthew 24:14 about pandemics.I don't remember him saying that "this good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth unless there is a pandemic in which case you have to stay at home and pretend to be writing letters to unsuspected householders" I dont remember Jesus ever saying that. I mean think about it, if the preaching of the good news is crucial for people's salvation all Satan has to do in order to cancel it is to create a global pandemic and job well done .Jesus command has not but's in it. You will have to preach the good news of the kingdom despite of pandemics, wars, pestilences, famines earthquakes and all other calamities of time of the End otherwise how can you possibly claim that you are God's chosen people to warn the nations, to be Witnesses for Jehovah. I mean can you imagine Noah refusing to be a preacher of righteousness for 120 years because of the threat of the Nephilim attacking him. It doesn't work this way.
Interestingly the first apostles preached the good news despite the dangers of pandemics. In actual fact the Watchtower for decades has touted the fact that they are the only ones that followed in the footsteps of the first Christians and all other Christian denominations are the Apostate Christendom that don't follow their example.. So how did first centuries Christians respond to pandemics? We do have actually recorded history that shows that they didn't behave in the same cowardly manner that 21st century Jehovah's Witnesses do.
Ancient Christians knew epidemics all to well. They lived in a world where no vaccines and no understanding of basic hygiene existed.During plague periods in the Roman Empire, Christians made a name for themselves. Historians have suggested that the terrible Antonine Plague of the 2nd century, which might have killed off a quarter of the Roman Empire, led to the spread of Christianity, as Christians cared for the sick and offered a spiritual model whereby plagues were not the work of the angry gods of the pagans but the product of a broken Creation in revolt against a loving God.
But the more famous epidemic is the Plague of Cyprian, named for a bishop who gave a colorful account of this disease in his sermons. Probably a disease related to Ebola, the Plague of Cyprian helped set off the Crisis of the Third Century in the Roman world. But it did something else, too: It triggered the explosive growth of Christianity. Cyprian’s sermons told Christians not to grieve for plague victims (who live in heaven), but to redouble efforts to care for the living. His fellow bishop Dionysius described how Christians, “Heedless of danger … took charge of the sick, attending to their every need.”
A century later, the pagan Emperor Julian complained bitterly of how “the Galileans” that cared for even non-Christian sick people, while the church historian Pontianus recounts how Christians ensured that “good was done to all men, not merely to the household of faith.” in fact it has been recorded that death rates in cities with Christian communities may have been just half that of other cities.
Now that was all down to the charitable spirit of Christians for which the Watchtower is totally void, remember the war victims fleeing Ukraine only recently to be greeted at the borders from Jehovah's Witnesses that carried ony a banner jw.org carrying nothing else but a banner jw.org, without any food supplies or medical supplies to help their brothers or others in need like the first century Christians did.
What about the stance these first Christians take. Did they cower under pressure like jws do today?The bishop I mentioned earlier,bishop Cyprian reprimanded the governor of Africa warning him that this plague was a sign of the time of the end and a the sentence that God has passed on the world: that evils will multiply in the last times. Judgment day is near. The plagues are God’s stripes and scourges. So stop your superstitious nonsense and worship the one true God, preached Cyprian, before it’s too late. When was the last time the Watchtower reprimanded any government for the pandemic? I know they print these half hearted articles on jw.org with small letters just in case anyone notices that pandemics are part of the signs of the end but when it was the last time they led a world wide campaign from door to door warning people that these pandemics are scarge from God for the unbelivers, whether you agree or not that's what the first Christian did they boldly went forth proclaiming this message. No the Watchtower is not interested on proclaiming any dangerous, unpopular message of that short because they are more interested in keeping their members nullified and their bank account full.
So this is the latest update from the Watchtower and we all look forward to the witnesses coming out on the stands soon but not on the door to door ministry and I think that will be way into the future before they attempt to go back to their door to door ministry.
LINKS:
https://blog.oup.com/2020/05/how-ancient-christians-responded-to-pandemics/
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