Of course it is a distraction. Next year is 2024, ten years from the 2014 year when the Governing Body was having all of Jehovah's Witnesses "celebrate" 100 years since C.T. Russell announce "the End of the Gentile Times" as if something was about to happen because it was a "special" year.
And the Governing Body started to play off that, especially when things like the pandemic broke out.
We are ridiculously far away from the failure of that annoucement and the predictions surrounding it, the claims that people who were 12 or 14 years of age before 1914 would survive before the Kingdom would arrive to take over world affairs. We have had the silly 1925 Rutherford forecast, and the 1975 fiasco too. The Faithful and Discreet Slave even called itself a composite Prophet for a time, calling itself the Ezekiel class (but it likes to forget that today).
There is no group of people who are 122 or 124 years of age and going, waiting for God's Kingdom on earth today, especially among the JWs. Nothing happened 10 years ago. Nothing happened 110 years ago.The only thing that has happened among those who have followed the teachings of the Watchtower is misguidance and eventual death.
So to hide all this they use a slide-of-hand trick and misdirection. The "new light" is just a bunch novel ideas: don't count time and grow a beard, etc. But what does it amount to? They have hidden that it's 2024--an anniversary of failure.
And something really hitting me since all this started too.
The not counting time thing "based" on the fact that the Jews "never reported tithes" is nonsense. Even in the Scriptures it shows that they did have a reporting system (not to mention that the Gemara shows that there was a responsa of record-keeping in Bible times that would eventually become the basis for the rabbinical system used in the Talmud). Malachi 3:8 for example shows that the prophets and the priests knew when people were not keeping up with giving their offerings as they should have, showing there was a system in place just as the Talmud claims.
And as for reporting what one does in the ministry, while nothing talks about writing down hours, the New Testament does show that the apostles did indeed come back to Jesus and would report to him what they would accomplish.--Luke 10:1, 17.
And as for their later claim that they can no longer state there is an end to the preaching work, that the "door" does not close, that it goes on and on, this is odd. In the parable of foolish virgins, when the bridegroom arrives, those who are not ready to greet him at his arrival find the door shut, finding it too late to get admission into the wedding feast.--Matthew 25:10-13.
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