There are many sincere brothers and sisters out there that don’t lie awake and wonder where the organization is heading. They are just trying to make the best of their service to Jehovah and love the friends. Despite being aware that something’s not quite right, they are trying to stay in “God’s love”. (Romans 8:38-39) Others among us cannot make that leap and continue to support an Organization that they feel has behaved as a false prophet and caused the loss of so many lives as a result.
Regardless of which camp we fall into, and no matter how intensely this struggle hovers in the back of our consciousness, keeping faith and not “losing heart” is critical. Didn’t Jesus emphasize that part of our successful journey along the narrow road is to endure to the end? (Matthew 7:13,14; Matthew 24:13) So a danger for us as awakened or former Witnesses is that we could come to feel that “if this isn’t the truth then there is no God”. This is a spiritually dangerous place to be. It’s like the boy that found out there was no Santa Clause and then said to his mother, “Well if there’s no Santa then maybe there’s no God either.” This may seem trivial to an adult, but the little boy’s realization that he had been lied to for most of his short life shook his tender faith. His parents credulity and his trust in authority was seriously damaged.
We are bombarded with assertions and “proofs” all day long by the media, at school, through television and radio, books, newspapers, etc. The result is that we tend to take things with a grain of salt until we have had a chance to investigate it for ourselves. A common phrase is “Don’t believe everything you hear!” and it is for good reason that it is often repeated. The Bible at 1 John 4:1-3 tells us to “test the inspired expressions” so we can see if they are God’s words or not. Under inspiration, Job said “Does not the ear itself test out words As the palate tastes food?” (Job 12:11) When we read or study any subject,Biblical or not, this principle comes into play. We have to test it out for ourselves. Is the argument logical and reasonable? Does it align with the rest of the Scriptures in the Bible, or contradict it? Does it rely on human interpretation or theory? Is it easy to grasp or is the presentation very complicated? All these questions help us to “taste” the veracity of the claim, and figure out in our own mind if it is from God. With that in mind, a question and answer essay is presented on the topic of the star mentioned in Matthew chapter 2.
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