The Watchtower — November 1, 1955

“A Wider Interpretation of the Christian Faith”?

JUST how widely can one interpret the Christian faith and still be a Christian and still have faith? So widely as to rob the Bible of all semblance of truth? That is what an ever-increasing number of clergymen hold who profess to be Christian.

Take, for example, the “Rev.” H. S. McClelland of the Trinity church, Glasgow, Scotland. On May 8, 1955, he told his congregation: “The Bible covers more than twelve centuries, and in it there are stories that nauseate sensitive minds. They go back to the Bronze Age. There is a motley company of writers in the Bible—as far removed from one another as a Bedouin dervish from a Glasgow University professor. If you followed some texts from the Bible you would become cruel and sadistic, and if you tried to follow them all, you would have a soul like a Tartar. The Bible is full of kindergarten stories—of axes that float, she-wolves, and donkeys talking, and they don’t belong in this modern universe.” “What right has God to punish me for my sins if I am by nature a sinner? Why, if it is as natural for me as for a wolf to pull down an antelope?”—Scottish Daily Express, May 9, 1955.

And in letters to the newspaper in answer to his critics this clergyman went on to state that the body is full of vestigial relics and that man was on earth a million years. He said that with few exceptions his audience expressed their gratitude for the “wider interpretation of the Christian faith” that they had received from him.

Again we ask, how widely can the Bible be interpreted and still leave one in possession of a Christian faith? Does not having a Christian faith mean having the same faith as Christ Jesus did? Now if there is anything that the Christian Greek Scriptures make clear it is that Christ had implicit faith in the Hebrew Scriptures as the inspired Word of Jehovah God. He credited Moses with inspiration: “In fact, if you believed Moses you would believe me, for that one wrote about me.” He gave credence to Moses’ account of creation: “Did you not read that he who created them at the beginning made them male and female?” And he referred to the account of the manna falling from heaven as historical: “Your forefathers ate the manna in the wilderness and yet died.”—John 5:46; Matt. 19:4; John 6:49, NW.

Christ did not consider the story of the deluge as fiction, but said: “For as the people were in those days before the flood, . . . they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.” Likewise he accepted the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: “On the day that Lot came out of Sodom it rained fire and sulphur from heaven and destroyed them all.” Nor was the account of Jonah in the belly of a huge fish too much of a “fish story” for Christ to accept, for he said: “Just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.”—Matt. 24:38, 39; Luke 17:29; Matt. 12:40, NW.

As for the “Rev.” McClelland’s science, it is strange how suspicious he is about all that is recorded in the Bible as fact and yet how ready he is to swallow all the theories of scientists, which they admit are only theories and which are continually being proved wrong. Thus in recent years, due to invention of the atomic clock, scientists have had to revise their estimates regarding how long man was on earth and now hold it to be only 50,000 years. At least so say the scientists at the University of Chicago, the ones best qualified to speak on the subject. And as for man’s being just full of vestigial organs, there was a time when physiologists held that there were some 180 vestigial organs in the human body but today only a handful are mentioned, and many doctors now refuse to term any organs vestigial. Just because man does not know the function of an organ does not make it vestigial. As one professor expressed it: “He would be a rash man indeed who would now assert that any part of the human body is useless.”

But back to Jesus’ testimony. Christ Jesus, the man who more profoundly affected the human race for good than any other man that ever walked upon this earth, whose life record is without equal as regards wisdom, virtue and love, considered the Hebrew Scriptures as authentic and authoritative and inspired by God. Nor can it be successfully argued that the Gospel records are not reliable, for papyrus manuscripts going back all the way to the early second century have fully established the authenticity and general integrity of these Scriptures as we have them today.

Of course, to such clergymen as McClelland Christ Jesus and his apostles and early disciples may have been self-deceived, duped, laboring under hallucinations due to a Messiah complex, ‹naïve› carpenters, fishermen and tax collectors whose testimony must be disregarded. Such clerics may think Bible believers are victims of a gigantic hoax. But it is modern wiseacres that perpetrate hoaxes upon their unsuspecting countrymen, as was the case regarding the Piltdown man.

Freedom of religion allows all such clergymen to believe and teach whatever they wish along such lines. But just common honesty before God and man requires that they do not pose as Christian ministers, for their “wider interpretation of the Christian faith” contains not a shred of faith nor can it be termed Christian.

Christ Jesus met up with such religious leaders in his day and he did not mince any words in describing them: “Let them be. Blind guides is what they are. If, then, a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” And again: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut up the kingdom of the heavens before mankind; for you yourselves do not go in, neither do you permit those on their way in to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you traverse sea and dry land to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one you make him a subject for Gehenna twice as much so as yourselves. Serpents, offspring of vipers, how are you to flee from the judgment of Gehenna?” Strong words, but none too strong considering the enormity of their crime, nor too strong in view of the danger that their teaching presents to those who listen to them.—Matt. 15:14; 23:13-15, 33, NW.

The Way to Real Happiness

Everyone desires it, everyone strives for it, yet few really find it. What, then, really is the source of true happiness?

HOW much of your life has been spent in trying to find real happiness? Yet how successful have you actually been in reaching that goal? The search for happiness involves our time, our labors, our money; it fills our private lives and takes up most of our day-to-day activity. Men try to achieve happiness through wealth or position, through the love of their families, or through hobbies, music, art or some other activity that especially interests them. Some people even try to gain happiness at the expense of others, and in the process either lose their own peace of mind or harden their own hearts. But however men search for happiness, few can say that they are truly happy today.

There is a book that shows why these men are not happy and what course really does lead to true happiness, even today. That book, the Bible, gives outstanding examples of men who had varying degrees of happiness and of those who were most unhappy. It also explains the real source of true happiness. What can you learn from its examples?

Your Bible shows how the first man had true happiness, but threw it away. He had the opportunity of a glorious family arrangement, having been instructed: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it.” He had a beautiful place in which to live, in a garden that Jehovah God planted. He would never be in shortage, because God had said: “Here I have given to you all vegetation bearing seed which is on the surface of the whole earth and every tree on which there is the fruit of a tree bearing seed. To you let it serve as food.” He would never be bored, for he was given the opportunity to occupy his mind and to use his hands to cultivate and to take care of the beautiful garden that was his home. Could any man want more? Yes, there was one remaining thing, and this man had that too. He had the blessing of his Creator who pronounced both man and the creation in which he was placed as being “very good.”—Gen. 1:28, 29, 31; 2:15, NW.

Although they had blessings, security, contentment and greater happiness than any man could hope for, our first human parents disobeyed the simple instruction that was given them by their Creator, and in doing so their happiness fled. They found their paradise gone, that the ground was cursed, and this family that had been given such glorious prospects lived even to see its first-born son commit the terrible crime of becoming the murderer of one of his own younger brothers. What a sad end their disobedience to God brought this family! Since their time men have had varying degrees of happiness, but no imperfect man has ever had it to the extent that this first human pair did. Their experience, however, points out the importance of obedience to God on the part of all those who want real happiness.—Gen. 3:17-19.

The lives of other men have illustrated the same thing. Even Adam’s murdered son Abel, who truly served God, was happier than his murderous brother Cain who said: “My punishment for guilt is too great to carry.” Certainly the righteous man Noah was happier than the wild-living people of his time that God destroyed. Consider, too, the example of Abraham. Through his faith in God he was given the outstanding privilege of being an earthly forefather of the Messiah. And after this faithful man’s long and blessed life, we read: “Abraham expired and died in a good old age, old and satisfied.” What brought these men unusual happiness? It is clear that their obedience to Jehovah’s instructions is what did so.—Gen. 4:13; 6:9; 25:8, NW.

The experience of the entire nation of Israel further illustrates this point. When they properly served their God, Jehovah, they were the happiest of people. But when they chose to reject true worship, exactly the opposite was true! In the Bible books of Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles and in many of the prophetic writings you can read how hobnobbing with devil worship brought divine woes upon them, while a sincere return to true worship would bring abundant blessings. The lesson that is here taught again is that true happiness goes hand in hand with obedience to the universe’s Supreme Sovereign.

The Psalms and Proverbs have much to say about the source of true happiness. “Happy is the people whose God is Jehovah.” “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Jehovah his God.” “He that giveth heed unto the word shall find good; and whoso trusteth in Jehovah, happy is he.” But can such statements possibly apply to today’s troubled world? Most certainly they do! In fact, there is even greater reason for happiness today than when these statements were first written.—Ps. 144:15; 146:5; Prov. 16:20, AS.

EVEN GREATER HAPPINESS NOW

There are several reasons why true Christians can have even greater happiness than did these faithful men of pre-Christian times. The first reason is that Jesus provided a great deal of additional, spiritually strengthening knowledge that even the ancient men of faith did not have. Further, Jesus provided the ransom, buying back what Adam had lost for the human race and thereby really opening the way for man to receive God’s blessings and everlasting life. Then, too, we now have the added example that Jesus and the apostles set regarding the course that actually does lead to true happiness—the course of obeying the divine instructions and of making one’s major purpose in life that of helping others to understand them. Jesus said: “If you know these things, happy you are if you do them.” And he further said: “There is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving.”—John 13:17; Acts 20:35, NW.

Hence, real happiness comes through the constructive and fruitful work that we have been assigned by God. Adam was happy at his God-assigned work. So was Jesus. And, though it amazes the world, so are his followers today! The work that has been commanded for this day is one that requires those who perform it to have a sound knowledge of God’s Word, and that gives them the great reward of happily being able to give to others who are in need. This is the work that Jesus spoke of when he said concerning our very day: “And this good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all the nations, and then the accomplished end will come.”—Matt. 24:14, NW.

Yes, a major reason why one can have even greater happiness now than was possible long centuries ago is that ours is the time to which all these faithful men of God looked forward. Now is the time when God’s kingdom has been established, is being preached throughout the inhabited earth, and when the accomplished end of Satan’s wicked rule is at hand. The world today fears the future, and unless it changes its course and conforms to God’s Word it has every reason to do so.

But the people today who have a sound knowledge of God’s Word, who know from it the reason for earth’s present troubles, how these troubles will end and what they should do about it now, are not oppressed by the world’s fears. They are indeed happy to know that we are living in the days that the Bible spoke of when it said Satan would know that he has only “a short period of time.” Rather than being troubled by earth’s upset conditions, these people who have a true knowledge of God’s Word see in these conditions the sign that marks the approaching end of Satan’s wicked rule and the establishment of righteous conditions earth-wide.—Rev. 12:12; Matthew 24, NW.

Would proof that such good news is true make you happy? Would the opportunity of telling such good news to others add to your joy? Jehovah’s witnesses have seen that proof. They have this happiness. And they consider it an unspeakably joyful privilege to be able to tell this good news to others. Their happiness frequently prompts comments from outsiders, as when the New York World Telegram and Sun headed an article about them: “They’re Brothers, Sisters in Gigantic Family of Faith.” This unusual happiness comes from their knowledge of God’s Word, their obedience to his instructions and their activity in telling others the good things that they have learned.

They know that while Adam’s rebellion apparently postponed Jehovah’s purpose to have this earth peopled with righteous, peaceful, happy creatures, that purpose has not been thwarted. Does it sound impossible that right here upon this earth you still could have the opportunity of enjoying the blessings that Adam lost? The ever-increasing numbers of Jehovah’s witnesses have seen the positive Scriptural proof of the fact that those conditions are soon to be restored.

Will you investigate to see why they are so convinced of the matter, and why this knowledge gives them such joy and contentment today? Certainly it is worth your time and effort to see how you, too, can gain this real happiness now and the promise of everlasting joy in the future. Will you examine the evidences regarding this most important subject? Jehovah’s witnesses earnestly urge you to do so.

Oh praise Jehovah, all ye nations; laud him, all ye peoples. For his loving-kindness is great toward us; and the truth of Jehovah endureth for ever. Praise ye Jehovah.—Psalm 117, AS.

Using Wisely the Reduced Time Left

ARE you using wisely the reduced time left? “Reduced time left?” you ask. Yes, Bible prophecy shows that we are living in the days of Christ’s second presence and therefore “this generation will by no means pass away” until this system of things comes to its end. It follows that there is an urgency regarding the preaching of “this good news of the kingdom,” and regarding letting all men of good will know that they must “begin fleeing to the mountains” before it is too late. It is therefore imperative that we be found using wisely the reduced time left.—Matt. 24:34, 14-16; 1 Cor. 7:29; Eph. 5:15, 16, NW.a

Time spent in trying to accumulate wealth, fame or power or in trying to perpetuate this old system of things is wasted, and that is what more than 99.9 per cent of this earth’s population are doing. And time can also be wasted on careless habits. It is so easy to waste time when going over the daily paper or with popular magazines and comic books. The same is true of radio, television and movie habits. Worrying wastes time and so does arguing about speculative and hypothetical propositions.

And then there is also the matter of wasting the time of others. We should not expect others to do what we can do for ourselves, for that is not doing to them what we would want them to do to us.—Matt. 7:12.

And what does it mean to be using wisely the reduced time left? For one thing it means contenting ourselves with just the absolute essentials as regards the basic things of life. We make wise use of that time when we study God’s Word, together with the aids he has provided. Wise use, that is, if we study efficiently. That means not trying to do two things at one time, such as studying and watching television, but concentrating on what we are studying. It also means making the best use of all the various aids available, as well as being practical in order to do our studying under the most favorable conditions possible. Our new aid, Qualified to Be Ministers, gives many valuable suggestions along this line.

Attendance at congregational meetings and assemblies is a wise use of our time, provided we prepare in advance and take part to the extent of our opportunities. Unless we keep our minds on what is being presented we shall be wasting our time even though in an assembly of Jehovah’s people. And time spent in prayer is also used wisely. Let us not be too busy to start and close each day with prayer, nor to give thanks to Jehovah each time we sit down at a meal.

And the most important, the wisest use of the reduced time left is, of course, that spent in preaching the good news of the Kingdom. It brings honor to Jehovah’s name and means life for our hearers as well as for ourselves. So let us carefully budget our time, to be able to devote as much as possible to preaching, and then make the best possible use of it by being properly equipped, alert and tactful. It follows that our goal should be the full-time ministry.

By using wisely the reduced time left, instead of having time dragging on our hands we shall have the happiness of giving. Also there is the joy of seeing fruits of our wise use of time and the satisfaction of laying up treasures in heaven, assuring us everlasting life in God’s new world of righteousness.

[Footnotes]

Modern History of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Part 21—Education for the Theocratic Ministry Advanced

OF THE remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses pictured by the prophet Jeremiah it was foretold: “See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” (Jer. 1:10, AS) So amid the fiery judgment work of exposing apostate Christendom, 1942 began a turning point.

After the St. Louis convention of August 6-10, 1941, where J. F. Rutherford addressed his largest visible public audience of 115,000, also releasing the new book Children and making known for the first time that universal domination was the great issue, the Watch Tower Society’s president, now 72, progressively failed in health.a Finally, on January 8, 1942, J. F. Rutherford died, having served in the office of president of the Society for twenty-five years and two days. Following is an excerpt from the Watchtower announcement, under the title “A Faithful Witness”:

“TO ALL LOVERS OF THE THEOCRACY: On January 8, 1942, our beloved brother, J. F. Rutherford, faithfully finished his earthly course as a warrior for The THEOCRATIC GOVERNMENT and a minister of the Word of God. Knowing of your deep concern and of your prayers to God for him ever since his serious illness prior to the Detroit Convention of July, 1940, we hasten to notify you. It was Brother Rutherford’s desire to ‘die fighting with his boots on’; and this he did. The Lord graciously spared him to complete the report of the 1942 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses, therein showing that the greatest witness ever given had been accomplished and that the year’s distribution of books and booklets reached the grand total of 36,030,595 copies. He always had foremost in mind to DO THIS ONE THING, to declare the name of Jehovah and his kingdom, to keep covenant with Him, and to look well to the interests of his brethren.”b

Thus ended the energetic earthly ministerial career of an uncompromising fighter for righteousness. Vigorous and extensive was Brother Rutherford’s unselfish contribution toward the upbuilding of the New World theocratic society. Still today he lives long in the memory of scores of thousands.

The transition to a new administration headed by the Society’s third president was quick, smooth and without friction. This was entirely different from the experience of 1916 at the death of C. T. Russell, the Society’s first president, when there was an interval of nearly ten weeks before J. F. Rutherford was elected as the second president. The February 15, 1942, Watchtower, under the heading “United Servants,” reports the corporational changes as to officers.

“On the afternoon of January 13, 1942, the full membership of the two boards convened in the parlor at the Brooklyn Bethel home. Nathan H. Knorr, who at the last general election at Pittsburgh was elected vice-president, had requested several days before that the members of the boards make it a point to earnestly seek divine wisdom by prayer and meditation, that they might be guided aright; and this they did. The joint meeting opened with prayer, especially requesting that Jehovah God might grant wisdom in the choice of such servants as He desired to represent him in a legal way under the organizations. After due and careful consideration the following brethren were respectively nominated and unanimously elected, namely, Nathan H. Knorr, as president, and Hayden C. Covington, as vice-president, of the two corporations.c Later that same day, at a gathering of the Bethel family at Brooklyn, the results of the election were announced by the secretary of the board of directors, and met with an enthusiastic response.”d

From many parts of the world letters and cablegrams were received, expressing delight in the choice of Brother Knorr as the Society’s new president.

Even during dark days of World War II in 1942 there opened up in a small way a program of “building” and “planting” within the theocratic ministerial organization. This was destined to make the New World society in “Beulah” land blossom forth in paradisaic beauty and prosperity as never before. At the New World Theocratic Assembly at Cleveland, Ohio, September 18-20, 1942, there was introduced to Jehovah’s witnesses the new president of the Society, Nathan Homer Knorr. Fifty-one other convention cities were tied in with the key assembly at Cleveland to hear the outstanding addresses, the principal one being the public talk on “Peace—Can It Last?” by President Knorr to a total audience of 129,699. Thirty-three other conventions outside the United States convened about this same time. At this significant convention a “go ahead” signal was given, and from Revelation 17:8-18 it was made clear that the dead League of Nations would be revived after the war, after which there would be a limited peace, allowing for a greatly expanded preaching activity. The new book The New World and the Society’s No. 10 Bible of the King James Version were released to spark off a new educational campaign.e

A brief biographical sketch of the Society’s third president shows that Nathan Homer Knorr was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1905, of American-born parents. He graduated from Allentown (Pennsylvania) High School in June, 1923. At 16 he became associated with the Allentown Congregation of Jehovah’s witnesses, having resigned membership in the Reformed Church. In 1923, at 18, he became a full-time preacher, at which time he had been invited to become a member of the headquarters staff of the Society at Brooklyn Bethel. There he made rapid progress in his ministerial training and later traveled week ends giving Bible lectures to congregations within two hundred miles of Brooklyn. In course of time he was assigned as co-ordinator of all printing activities in the Society’s plant, in 1932 becoming general manager of the publishing office and plant. He was elected in 1934 as one of the directors of the Society’s New York corporation (now Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc.) and in 1940 he was made a director and chosen as vice-president of the Pennsylvania corporation, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. His election to the presidency of both American societies and of the British corporation, International Bible Students Association, came in January, 1942. In February, 1943, he became president of the newly founded Watchtower Bible School of Gilead at South Lansing, New York. He also directs the activities of the Society’s radio station WBBR, Brooklyn, supervises administration of the Society’s affairs in all parts of the earth, and is a global traveler. He is the Society’s chief speaker at all international assemblies. Likewise he supervises the Society’s extensive editorial work and directs the foreign missionary activities of the witnesses. He resides along with his wife at the Brooklyn Bethel, 124 Columbia Heights.f

Seeing the urgent need for greater ministerial training of all the Society’s ministers, the Society’s new president together with his new staff of administrative associates set about to design a long-range program of theocratic education. (Eph. 4:12, NW) The first stage of the program was revealed on Monday, February 16, 1942, at which time an evening school was opened at Bethel, offering an “Advanced Course in Theocratic Ministry.”g Enrollment was open to only male members of the Society’s headquarters staff. The school met once a week, Monday evenings. For the first period they met in the auditorium where a lecture was delivered to the entire school enrollment. The Bethel sisters were also invited to attend. Next there followed a brief recess allowing the audience to divide as several classroom groups. During this second period classroom student talks were given on Biblical subjects under the tutorship of trained classroom counselors. Courses in speaking and general Bible studies were offered uniformly in the progressive program carried out at this Bethel school. Remarkable improvement in lecture presentations became apparent immediately when employing all the latest technique of extemporaneous speaking in public. There was also perceptible improvement in the house-to-house preaching by both male and female members of the Bethel family. Here was manifested Jehovah’s blessing upon this new program. The Bethel school has been in operation for over thirteen years, aiding hundreds of young ministers to improve their Bible knowledge and their speaking ability.h

The Bethel school’s having become such a success prompted the Society to embark on the next step of its new educational program, that of establishing a ministerial school of higher learning to train foreign missionaries and foreign ministerial representatives. The Society’s premises at the Brooklyn Bethel were inadequate for operation of such a proposed educational institution. Fortunately, however, since 1935 the Watch Tower Society had been owning and operating a large 800-acre tract known as Kingdom Farm, where foodstuffs were being raised principally for the Brooklyn Bethel family. (By 1955 a permanent farm-family staff of about 50 had volunteered their services to operate this large project.) Kingdom Farm is beautifully located, 255 miles northwest of New York city, in the Finger Lakes section of New York state near the city of Ithaca, site of famous Cornell University. In the course of years several buildings had been constructed on this land, including the large brick administration building completed in 1941, which was named “Gilead,” meaning “heap of witness.” Here was the ideal location for the establishment of a Bible school, which the board of directors approved in September, 1942. Immediately a faculty of four ordained ministers of the Bethel staff was appointed to proceed to design a course of study, to work up lectures, to search out suitable textbooks, to gather together a small library of 800 books of vital Biblical reference works and to proceed to formulate a college schedule of classes. Structural adjustments were made in the existing buildings to provide for classrooms, an auditorium, a dining hall and sleeping quarters. Provisions were made for a school term of five months with a hundred students registered, housed and fed for a given term.i

(To be continued)

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 649]

N. H. KNORR

Jesuit Implies Hierarchy Blame

WITHOUT a question of doubt the Roman Catholic Church has been and is the most outspoken in denouncing communism as a threat to religion. Roman Catholic prelates from the pope down and Roman Catholic politicians from Senator McCarthy up are continually being quoted in this regard.

However, time and again the Watch Tower publications have put the blame for communism in such predominantly Roman Catholic lands as Poland, Italy and France squarely on the shoulders of the Roman Catholic Church. And time and again Roman Catholic apologists, such as Our Sunday Visitor, have argued that this was unjust. To prove their point they have cited Ireland, Portugal and Spain as examples of Roman Catholic countries where communism does not prevail, overlooking the fact, however, that in such lands communism has been kept down only by resorting to communistic methods of circumscribing liberty.

It is interesting, therefore, to note what the seniors of the Roman Catholic University of Fordham were told on June 5, 1955, by the associate editor of the Jesuit weekly, America, Vincent J. Kearney, as to how communism can be defeated: “The success or failure of the enemies of God and country, of the world which we know, will be determined by the way Christians not only live their Christianity but apply it to modern society.” He further stated that communism “will not disappear, only by denouncing it,” its final defeat can come about only when “we begin practicing Christian social principles that counteract the evils on which communism thrives.”

Since according to V. J. Kearney communism thrives where Christian principles are not applied to social problems, and it is in preponderantly Roman Catholic Poland, Italy and France where communism has thrived, what conclusion can one draw?

The Swing to Religion

Beer-making concerns do not in every case sponsor baseball games over the radio. At Yuma, Arizona, radio station KOLD has sold sponsorship of a baseball game, played by the local team of the Arizona-Mexico League, to an Episcopal church. Between innings the baseball game swings to religion: the minister does a commercial and the baseball fans are invited to attend his church.

Pursuing My Purpose in Life

As told by Hazel O. Burford

HAVE you ever wanted something so intensely that every fiber of your being seemed to crave it? And then, how superbly happy you became when you attained it! You know now what pioneering has meant to me. From the time that I made my dedication at the age of fourteen I have wanted to do just what I then vowed to do—give all time, strength, energy to studying and then to helping others learn the truths that so delight me. To me, obeying Romans 12:1 meant full-time service; so my high-school years were not completely happy ones.

Came graduation, but not a realization of my dream. My parents, not dedicated, never opposed me in making or fulfilling my dedication. They felt they gave me an education. Now it was up to me to make my own way. Accordingly, I turned to my second love, nursing. For training I entered Children’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado, September 1, 1925. That work I enjoyed tremendously. But here came a new peril to the pursuing of my purpose in life:

On duty ten hours out of each twenty-four, besides our class periods and studying, meant my attendance at meetings and time in service were very irregular, finally tapering off as cares of this life crowded out production of Kingdom fruit. Zeal had cooled. Some excellent Scriptural counsel then was given me by one of the members of the Denver congregation. Ashamed, I reluctantly agreed to meet the group for service the following Saturday afternoon. I went; but no one else came. My reluctance gradually gave way to eagerness. If only someone would come; I wanted to go in the service. After an hour’s wait, a cold terror began to grip me as my conscience condemned me. I had been so negligent—Jehovah had turned His back on me! Returning to my room at the nurses’ home, I threw myself on my knees, pleading forgiveness and another opportunity to serve. After some time, calmness returned as I determined to do my best from that point on and to leave the outcome with a merciful and loving God.

The intervening years have abundantly proved that only as I do my best to perform the obligation to pursue my purpose in life will I have peace of mind and contentment.

In the fall of 1929, as the depression began, I graduated from nursing school. Some thirty other graduates had priority over me and cases were few and far between, and those only the least desirable ones. Next January (1930), through help of a family friend, I was accepted for work with one of the best and busiest surgeons in the West. Pay excellent, raise every six months, hours of work regular—enabling me to attend all meetings and go in service every week end. What more could I ask for?

Full-time service was my goal! But I discovered that even among some of the dedicated I was considered a fanatic for considering such a thing. I knew I had dedicated to give all and principally myself and I could not be satisfied with less.

Announcement of the international convention in Columbus, Ohio, in July, 1931, next confronted me. Summer is the year’s busiest time in Colorado. In the doctor’s office no one took vacation from May through November; so the convention for me was out. However, never having attended any large assembly, as the time neared my desire to be there became almost irresistible. I had about a thousand dollars saved, so the first of June I quit my job and sent in my application for pioneer service, planning to attend the convention, find a partner and go on pursuing my purpose in life: full-time service.

The convention was grander than I had ever dreamed—a marvelous springboard to launch me on my chosen career. Next came finding a partner. I looked for someone with a car but soon saw all other prospective pioneers were doing that; so the bulk of my savings I took to buy a car. Then, leaning heavily on Jehovah’s promise to provide if we seek first the Kingdom, another young girl and I went to Texas to work. She also had never pioneered.

By the trial-and-error method we learned, and it was lots of fun. We had territory in east Texas, near Gladewater’s new oil field, where depression had not yet arrived. Our placements were quite good, but not enough to rent our furnished room. So we pooled our meager resources, bought a tent and other camping gear, and “took to the woods.” Excellent during bright autumn weather! We saved on gas and traveling time, camping wherever our work ended one day or began the next. But coming of winter rains, occasional sleet and snow, compelled us to have more shelter; so we rented one-room shanties that farmers maintain for their cotton-field workers. Luxurious? No, not exactly; but with water to carry, wood to cut, cooking over an open fireplace, it was exhilarating to face and surmount each problem, with the satisfaction of having “done as thou hast commanded me” and of having helped still others to learn the way to life. Constant rains and almost impassable roads traversed by us in our endeavor to reach every house in our territory contributed toward our success. Oil-field workers, loggers and farmers daily helped us out of one mudhole after another. Always they wanted to know just why two lone young women had to get to that house on such a road in such weather. So we had many opportunities to witness while sitting on the end of a pry pole or chucking rocks under the wheel thus lifted from its bed of slime. It was hard on the car and on us, but at the end of each such day deep sleep of contentment was ours.

In the spring my partner married and her husband’s sister became my partner; so the four of us worked together. Since there was no back-call or home-study work in those days, we had completed our assignment by May and set out for the Panhandle to work en route to summer territory in my native Colorado. But a month after arriving there my original partner and her husband left the pioneer work for a while and his sister and I continued alone for the next five years. As a baby she had had polio and was too badly crippled to do many of the physical tasks necessary in isolated territory; so my manual labor share was heavier in chores such as tire changing, car greasing, etc., but she was excellent as a Bible student, very mature spiritually, a real help to me. Her brother and his wife made us a trailer, which enabled us to continue in very difficult territory. We learned the difference between getting by with necessary things and having the things we thought were necessary.

But my zealous little partner’s afflicted body could not keep up with the willing spirit, and in the spring of 1937 she had to give up full-time service.

Pursuing my purpose in life, I continued pioneering with a family from Oregon, with their generous assistance moving with them to Kentucky to work and gain enough to attend the Columbus, Ohio, convention that summer. That was a real feast to me after the years in isolated territory. Also I found a veteran pioneer sister to work with. Alabama cotton plantations proved much easier to work than Texas ranches, and placements were good, enabling me to make a trip home to visit my invalid father whom I had not seen in nearly eight years. From my home congregation a young sister joined me who had been wanting to pioneer but just needed a little help to break loose. For several years we worked together in the South and since then she has graduated from Gilead and now is serving as a missionary in El Salvador.

In 1941, when working isolated territory in western Kentucky, we attended the zone (now circuit) assembly at Cape Girardeau, Missouri. While preparing the evening meal in the cafeteria I was called to answer a long-distance telephone call offering me the privilege of helping to nurse Brother Rutherford, then very ill in a hospital in Elkhart, Indiana. Shocked by news of his illness, overwhelmed by tremendous responsibility I would be expected to shoulder, my first reaction was to refuse; but, ever fearful of refusing an assignment for fear another would not be given, I prayerfully accepted. At once I left the assembly headquarters and made the necessary preparations for my new duties, upon which I entered thirty-six hours later when I entered the sick room of our stricken brother. A week later I was privileged to accompany Brother Rutherford and his party to California, where we lived in Beth-Sarim, the “House of the Princes,” for the next eight weeks until his death January 8, 1942. Had I not been a pioneer that unusual and precious service would not have been mine, as all his associates and helpers were from ranks of full-time workers.

From California I returned directly to my former group in Somerset, Kentucky. Here we met real opposition, were repeatedly arrested and spent some time in jail; but, as a consequence, a decision in our favor finally was secured in a high court of Kentucky that ever since has kept the way for work there open.

In theocratic history 1943 is outstanding for the opening of Gilead. To my inexpressible joy I was called for the second class to matriculate in September. That summer I visited my widowed mother, accompanying her to the district assembly in Denver. My cup of joy was really brimming as I witnessed her immersion. Then to Gilead for five months of the purest joy I have ever experienced.

The next year was a real battle for me. I yearned so desperately for that New World atmosphere of Gilead that I came very close to being discontented with my assignment in Perth Amboy, New Jersey; but by compelling myself to go ahead pursuing my purpose in life I finally conquered and began really to enjoy the service again.

Then came word that four of us were to work in Panama. The steaming tropics! I would not survive long in that heat, I first began thinking. But other humans like me had lived there for generations, I assured myself, so why couldn’t I work there? Nine years of missionary service here on the Isthmus of Panama have proved the falsity of my misgivings. On my arrival December 28, 1945, another truth was borne in on my consciousness: That my family, my people, are everywhere in the world and as a missionary one need never be homesick or lonesome. Bright and early the morning after our arrival, one of the publishers from the other side of the Isthmus was at the door to take us in his car to our assignment in Colón on the Atlantic side. Although his skin was many shades darker than ours, he had that radiant Kingdom smile, the same loving consideration and desire to serve as our brothers right there in Bethel. From that first morning of our acquaintance on through the more than four years of our working together, he and our other brothers and sisters never were too busy or too tired to help us with any problem in our new home. They were so eager for help in doing the work and so co-operative that in that period of time we rejoiced to see the tiny group of some fifteen publishers grow into a well-organized congregation of close to a hundred. After working there about two years it was thought advisable to form a Spanish-speaking congregation, and, although my Spanish was still very poor, I was privileged to work with the congregation from its formation and even serve as a servant in it.

With the congregations in the Canal Zone’s terminal cities functioning smoothly the Society determined to help the people of good will in Panama’s “Interior”; so in 1950 I was one of the four chosen to move out to Chitre. Here we definitely began to realize the import of the miracle worked by Jehovah at the Tower of Babel as we struggled to put our precious Kingdom message into understandable Spanish. Ever since our basic training at Gilead, we had consistently studied and we could read quite well, but we now discovered our usage of the language was entirely inadequate for the many situations we were meeting. After about a year a congregation was organized, we four sisters occupying places as servants; and when, in December, 1952, we were called into Panama City we were able to leave in Chitre a group of eight publishers, with native brothers trained for the servants’ positions. Under Jehovah’s blessing by now the congregation at Chitre has about doubled.

In May, 1954, a congregation was organized in the Canal Zone itself, eight publishers first reporting; twelve months later, twenty. Jehovah’s blessing is making us all rich and strong spiritually. In many sections all day long we work amid squalor and filth of overcrowded tenements. At night we come home to a clean, comfortable missionary home maintained by the Society, our brothers. So these last twenty-three years I now see have been very well spent pursuing my purpose in life, and I hope to continue in full-time service forever in whatever assignment Jehovah may graciously give me.

To Start Action

The pastor at the First Methodist church in Cordele, Georgia, announced not long ago that the offering plates on a special Sunday would be filled with one dollar bills. The Sunday came. Each person present was asked to take out one one-dollar bill from the offering plates as they were passed among the parishioners. “Our people are faithful and loyal in their offerings to the church,” explained the pastor, “and we like the idea of the church giving an offering to the people so that they might in turn invest this offering for Christ and his church.” Observers could not help thinking of a rather apt illustration: pouring water into a pump to start action.

Qualified to Be Ministers

“Our being adequately qualified issues from God, who has indeed adequately qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant.”—2 Cor. 3:5, 6, NW.

1. What desired results are produced by adequately qualified ministers?

IN THIS age of materialism and of spreading communism mankind stands in great need of adequately qualified ministers. In itself, being adequately qualified means being suitable, being fit, having what is necessary for the ministry, being equal to the requirements of the ministry, in order to carry it out successfully and produce the results desired, namely, other real Christians able to meet the tests of the day, overcome all the faith-destroying, morals-corrupting influences, keep on imitating Christ and gain the approval of God for eternal life in the new world.

2, 3. (a) What are two prime essentials for one to be an adequately qualified minister? (b) In spite of what attainments was Saul of Tarsus not qualified, and why not?

² Unless a person is ordained by God and has been sent out by him to carry on the ministry or service, he can never be an adequately qualified minister. Take the apostle Paul, for example; to begin with, he was named Saul of the city of Tarsus in Asia Minor, a Hebrew of Hebrew parentage, a Jew belonging to the nation of Israel that Jehovah God had chosen for his special people. He was a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a member of the sect of the Pharisees, zealously trying to live up to the righteous standards of God’s law through Moses, but thinking he had to persecute the newly begun Christian congregation in order to do so. From the Jewish standpoint Saul was blameless. As a student of the Mosaic law he attended school in Jerusalem and sat at the feet of the noted lawyer Gamaliel. Trying to have the law of Moses pronounce him righteous, Saul of Tarsus was trying to live under the old covenant that Jehovah God had made with the Israelites at Mount Sinai in Arabia. (Phil. 3:3-6, NW; Acts 22:1-5) Manifestly at that time Saul wanted to be a minister of God, a minister of His old law covenant with Israel, but did all these things adequately qualify Saul or make him suitable, fit, for God’s ministry? No! Why not?

³ Because Jehovah had abolished the old covenant with its Mosaic law and had begun a new covenant with the people of his choice. The old law covenant had had Moses as its mediator. It had its priesthood of the family of Aaron and its temple servants of the tribe of Levi. It had its material temple at Jerusalem and its animal sacrifices. It had its law, the Ten Commandments of which had been written by the “finger of God” upon two stone tablets. It put Jehovah God in covenant relationship with the twelve tribes of Israel, with whom there was associated a great crowd of non-Israelite sojourners or temporary residents. But that law was pictorial of greater arrangements by God; it foreshadowed good things to come. After 1,545 years of operation it had grown old and was due to be taken away when Christ died, was resurrected, ascended to heaven and appeared in God’s presence with the value of his human sacrifice. So on the day of Pentecost, A.D. 33, Jehovah God inaugurated the new covenant through Jesus Christ as his Mediator. Jehovah had already sworn by an oath in his own name that Jesus should be a priest like Melchizedek king of Salem, and he now made this Melchizedekian priest Jesus Christ the High Priest of the new covenant.

4. Ministers of Jehovah’s new covenant became such upon what conditions, and why?

⁴ The Christians on earth who accepted Jesus as their Mediator and High Priest were brought into this new covenant, their sins were forgiven them according to the terms of the new covenant, and they were made the people of the covenant, the spiritual “Israel of God.” They became the people of Jehovah, who were to know him “from the least of them unto the greatest of them,” and they bore his name. Faith in Jesus Christ rather than circumcision in the flesh was now the sign of their righteousness. (Jer. 31:31-34, AS; Gal. 6:15, 16) They were made Jehovah’s under priests, Jesus Christ their Mediator being their great High Priest, through whom they were to offer the sacrifices of praise and good works to God. So God was no longer qualifying ministers of the old law covenant, and the efforts of Saul of Tarsus to be a minister of that covenant proved him to be out of date. Jehovah God was now qualifying his ministers of the new covenant. Being a minister of God’s new covenant meant being one of the under priests of Jesus Christ the High Priest, one of the “royal priesthood” of Jehovah God. (Heb. 3:1; 1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 5:9, 10) Saul’s dependence upon his fleshly works and upon what he himself was in the flesh no longer counted. By none of these things could Saul adequately qualify himself as God’s minister. Neither can any other man adequately qualify himself or qualify another man. But what we cannot do, God can do.

5. Saul of Tarsus, as a blasphemer and persecutor of Jehovah’s people, illustrates what encouraging result Jehovah can achieve?

⁵ Now, as illustrated in the case of Saul of Tarsus, how does God qualify anyone adequately and put him into the Christian ministry? Saul’s case shows there is hope for even persons who are now persecutors of Jehovah’s people if they are honest and willing to be corrected, for Saul too was a bloodstained persecutor of the Christian “Israel of God.” He needed God’s mercy. In mercy God stopped him in order to put him into the ministry of the new covenant. Says Paul the apostle: “I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who delegated power to me, because he considered me trustworthy by assigning me to a ministry, although formerly I was a blasphemer and a persecutor and an insolent man. Nevertheless, I was shown mercy, because I was ignorant and acted with a lack of faith. But the undeserved kindness of our Lord abounded exceedingly along with faith and love that is in connection with Christ Jesus. Trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance is the saying that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am foremost. Nevertheless, the reason why I was shown mercy was that by means of me as the foremost case Christ Jesus might demonstrate all his long-suffering for a sample of those who are going to rest their faith on him for everlasting life.” (1 Tim. 1:12-16, NW) If anyone has been a persecutor of Jehovah’s people and now realizes his error and gross sinfulness, let him take courage. Look at Saul as a sample and have faith that you too can be shown mercy.

6, 7. (a) How was Saul, the interrupted persecutor, informed of Jehovah’s will for him? (b) By meeting what requirements did he then become God’s qualified minister?

⁶ Remember that the perfect human sacrifice of Jesus Christ as the Mediator put the new covenant in force. This allowed for God to forgive sin and iniquity according to his express promise in that new covenant. So Jesus the glorified Mediator of that covenant stopped Saul the persecutor on the road to Damascus by blinding him and sent him into the city to await the coming of a faithful Christian whom Saul had been bent on persecuting, Ananias of Damascus. When Ananias came to Saul on his third day of blindness, he explained how Jehovah God was adequately qualifying Saul for the ministry of the new covenant. “He said: ‘The God of our forefathers has chosen you to come to know his will and to see the righteous One and to hear the voice of his mouth, because you are to be a witness for him to all men of things you have seen and heard. And now why are you delaying? Rise, get baptized and wash your sins away by your calling upon his name.’” (Acts 22:14-16, NW) “And immediately there fell from his eyes what looked like scales, and he recovered sight, and he rose and was baptized,” and he was “filled with holy spirit.” (Acts 9:17, 18, NW) He washed his sins away in the cleansing blood of the Mediator of the new covenant by calling upon the name of the great Author of the new covenant, Jehovah God, who had covenanted to forgive iniquity and remember sin no more.—Heb. 9:14-26.

⁷ Saul, now baptized, forgiven and filled with holy spirit, felt adequately qualified and sent by God. Hence he at once took up the ministry for which he had been made fit. Note how he proved qualified: “He got to be for some days with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately in the synagogues he began to preach Jesus, that this One is the Son of God. . . . Saul kept on acquiring strength all the more and was confounding the Jews that dwelt in Damascus as he proved logically that this is the Christ.” Because of a plot to kill him, “his disciples took him and let him down by night through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.” He then came down to Jerusalem and got to be introduced to the apostle Peter and Jesus’ half-brother James. “And he continued with them, carrying on his daily life in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord, and he was talking and disputing with the Greek-speaking Jews. But these made attempts to do away with him.” So the Christian brothers sent him back to his home town Tarsus.—Acts 9:19-30, NW.

STEPS TOWARD QUALIFICATION

8, 9. What steps toward qualification as a minister precede removal of “the veil of unbelief”?

⁸ No one can be adequately qualified to be a minister of God in his new covenant unless, like Saul, he has the light from God through Christ shine upon him, repents of his sinful course, accepts God’s mercy, calls upon God’s name as the Forgiver of sins to have his sins washed away in the blood of Jesus’ sacrifice and gets baptized in water and thus shows faith and makes a public confession of that faith. The apostle Paul presses home these points to us when he discusses his qualifications for the ministry. He mentions the veil of unbelief that once blinded him and says:

⁹ “When there is a turning to Jehovah, the veil is taken away. Now Jehovah is the spirit; and where the spirit of Jehovah is, there is freedom. And all of us, while we with unveiled faces reflect like mirrors the glory of Jehovah, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, exactly as done by Jehovah the spirit. That is why, since we have this ministry according to the mercy that was shown us, we do not behave improperly, but we have renounced the underhanded things of which to be ashamed, not walking in craftiness neither adulterating the word of God, but by making the truth manifest recommending ourselves to every human conscience in the sight of God. . . . For we are preaching, not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For God is he who said: ‘Let the light shine out of darkness,’ and he has shone on our hearts to illuminate them with the glorious knowledge of God by the face of Christ. However, we have this treasure [of the ministry] in earthen vessels, that the power beyond what is normal may be God’s and not that out of ourselves. . . . Now because we have the same spirit of faith as that of which it is written [Psalm 116:10], ‘I exercised faith, therefore I spoke,’ we, too, exercise faith and therefore we speak, knowing that he who raised Jesus up will raise us up also together with Jesus . . . Therefore we do not give up.”—2 Cor. 3:16 to 4:16, NW.

10. Jehovah’s glory had what effect upon the mediators of the two covenants, the old and the new, and upon Paul?

¹⁰ Paul here referred to Moses the mediator of the old law covenant. Moses, because of communing with Jehovah’s angel in Mount Sinai, became charged with a glory light, so that, on coming down from the mountain, “the skin of his face emitted rays” and he had to veil his face as long as he talked with the terrified Jews and until he returned to speak with Jehovah’s angel. (Ex. 34:29-35, NW) Now the apostle Paul himself was reflecting like a mirror Jehovah’s glory as it shone in the face of Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant. Paul was being transformed into the same image from one degree of spiritual glory to another, exactly as done by Jehovah the spirit whom he was coming to know more and more.

11. How did Paul ‘glorify his ministry’?

¹¹ Certainly as long as Paul was thus reflecting glory light and was being transformed, he could not behave improperly in his ministry. He could not walk in craftiness nor adulterate God’s Word with any impurity. He had to renounce the underhanded things of which to be ashamed. By making the truth manifest in its purity he had to recommend himself to every human conscience in the sight of God. He could not veil anything from those to whom he preached as a minister of the new covenant. So if the good news that he declared was veiled, Paul was not to blame. Satan the Devil, the god of this system of things, had veiled it by blinding the minds of all who did not believe, “that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through.” (2 Cor. 4:3, 4, NW) Veiling nothing, Paul could not be a commercial peddler of God’s Word as the paid clergy of Christendom are. Paul had to speak sincerely the message with which God sent him. Knowing that he was “under God’s view, in company with Christ,” Paul had to “glorify my ministry,” not degrade it.—2 Cor. 2:17 and Rom. 11:13, NW.

12. Like Paul, whom must all ministers of the new covenant know, and why?

¹² The new covenant of which Paul was a servant declared: “They shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah,” and in Hebrews 8:11 the apostle Paul quoted those very words. (Jer. 31:34, AS) Paul knew Jehovah God and was therefore one of Jehovah’s witnesses. All ministers of the new covenant must know Jehovah, otherwise they could not be adequately qualified to be in the ministry of his new covenant. They must be witnesses of what they know, hence be witnesses of Jehovah. With that in mind Paul said to his fellow ministers: “I entreat you, therefore, become imitators of me.” (1 Cor. 4:16, NW) In imitation of Paul all ministers of the new covenant must be witnesses of the One whom they know as the God of that covenant, Jehovah, the Forgiver of their sins. As God himself said to his typical people in the law covenant: “Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen; that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I [am] HE.” These words of ordination to be witnesses apply with more force now to God’s servant class who are in the new covenant and of whom he prophetically said: “This people have I formed for myself: they shall shew forth my praise.” (Isa. 43:10, 21, Da) Catching up the glory light from Jehovah as it is reflected in the face of Jesus Christ who has appeared to mankind, today’s ministers of the new covenant must, like mirrors, reflect that light of the knowledge of the glory of God to others that he may be praised and they may be enlightened. In this bedarkened age great is the need to do this.

Ordination of the Qualified Ministers

1. How was ordination of Jehovah’s qualified ministers typified in the case of Jeremiah?

PAUL says: “Our being adequately qualified issues from God, who has indeed adequately qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant.” (2 Cor. 3:5, 6, NW) That means it must be God who ordains or appoints a person to be his minister. This fact was typified in the case of Jeremiah, who was a minister of the old law covenant of Israel. Being of the priestly family of Aaron, Jeremiah was automatically in line to be a priest at the temple in Jerusalem. But to be more than a priest, namely, a prophet who would prophesy with respect to all nations of the earth, Jeremiah needed more than to be born as the son of Hilkiah the priest. No man could make him such a prophet. God, who inspires prophecy, was therefore the One to ordain or appoint him as prophet, to qualify him adequately. Jeremiah points to his ordination or appointment from God, when he says: “The word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I hallowed thee, I appointed [ordained, AV] thee a prophet unto the nations. . . . thou shalt go to whomsoever I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. . . . And Jehovah put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and Jehovah said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations.”—Jer. 1:4-10, Da.

2. Why did Jesus require the same kind of ordination?

² Even Jesus the carpenter of Nazareth had to have this ordination from Jehovah God. As a man Jesus was not of a priestly family in Israel. As a member of the royal tribe of Judah he was an heir to the earthly throne of David but not to a heavenly throne and royalty. To be a high priest like the royal priest King Melchizedek, Jesus had to be ordained by Jehovah, and Jehovah had sworn prophetically that Jesus should be such a royal priest. To be a heavenly king sitting on Jehovah’s own throne at his right hand, Jesus had to be anointed with something more than the anointing oil at the hands of a human prophet or priest. He had to be anointed and thus ordained or appointed with the holy spirit from Jehovah God. As Paul writes: “The Christ did not glorify himself by becoming a high priest, but was glorified by him who spoke with reference to him: ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’ Just as he says also in another place: ‘You are a priest forever after the likeness of Mel·chizʹe·dek.’”—Heb. 5:5, 6, NW.

3. How did Jesus demonstrate that his ordination was not from John the Baptist but from Jehovah?

³ Jesus did receive the needed ordination from God. When John, the son of priest Zechariah, baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, he did not ordain Jesus to be either priest or king. He could not do so. John did not know why he was baptizing Jesus. He did not then understand that he baptized Jesus merely to symbolize that Jesus had dedicated himself to do God’s will for which he had come into the world. The water baptism symbolized Jesus’ dedication, for a change of course in life. It was first after Jesus had been baptized and came up out of the water that his heavenly Father Jehovah God ordained or appointed him by audibly acknowledging the dedicated Jesus as his spiritual Son and by anointing him with his holy spirit. (Matt. 3:13-17) Shortly afterward, to show that it was Jehovah, not the priestly John the Baptist, who had ordained him, Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth and read to the people Isaiah’s prophecy: “Jehovah’s spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor, he sent me forth to preach.” Then Jesus said to the congregation: “Today this scripture that you just heard is fulfilled.”—Luke 4:16-21, NW; Lu 3:21-23.

4. Paul’s ordination by Jehovah is shown in what scriptures?

⁴ Did Paul also have this ordination or appointment from God? He said: “For the purpose of this witness I was appointed [ordained, AV] a preacher and an apostle . . . a teacher of nations in the matter of faith and truth.” (1 Tim. 2:7, NW) “Appointed” or “ordained” by whom? Paul answers in his words to the Galatians: “Paul, an apostle, neither from men nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, . . . when God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through his undeserved kindness, thought good to reveal his Son in connection with me, that I might declare the good news about him to the nations, I did not go at once into conference with flesh and blood. Neither did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles previous to me.” (Gal. 1:1, 15-17, NW) Paul was baptized, likely by Ananias who told him to get baptized. Afterward Paul was “filled with holy spirit” in evidence that he was ordained or appointed by Jehovah through Christ, who had chosen him as a vessel to bear his name.—Acts 9:15-18, NW.

5, 6. What part, if any, did Peter perform in ordaining Cornelius, his relatives and his intimate friends?

⁵ Even the first uncircumcised Gentile converts had this ordination or appointment from God to be ministers of his new covenant. If their ordination had not been by God, the Jewish Christians would have been unprepared and disinclined to recognize them then as ordained Christian ministers. Before the apostle Peter finished preaching to the Italian Cornelius and many of his relatives and intimate friends, these uncircumcised non-Jews believed and accepted God’s mercy through Christ and God ordained or appointed them as his ministerial witnesses. The Bible history says: “While Peter was yet speaking about these matters the holy spirit fell upon all those hearing the word. And the faithful ones that had come with Peter who were of those circumcised were amazed, because the free gift of the holy spirit was being poured out also upon people of the nations. For they heard them speaking with tongues and glorifying God. Then Peter responded: ‘Can anyone forbid water so that these might not be baptized who have received the holy spirit even as we have?’ With that he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” Later, at Jerusalem, Peter explained to his fellow Jewish Christians: “When I started to speak the holy spirit fell upon them just as it did also upon us originally. . . . If, therefore, God gave the same free gift to them as he also did to us who have believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I should be able to hinder God?”—Acts 10:44-48; 11:15-17, NW.

⁶ So Peter had them baptized, not to ordain them (God had done that already), but for them to symbolize their faith and dedication that God had already accepted with miraculous evidence.

7, 8. As to today’s remnant of anointed witnesses, what proof have we of their being appointed by God?

⁷ How about dedicated witnesses of Jehovah today? These also rely upon this appointment or ordination from him in order to be qualified as his ministers in this most necessary respect. Today on earth there is only a remnant of those whom Jehovah God has been choosing during the past nineteen centuries and appointing or ordaining to be his anointed ministers of the new covenant. These are the remnant or “remaining ones” of the seed of God’s womanly organization. (Rev. 12:17, NW) To them he says: “Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen.” (Isa. 43:10, AS) As a group this remnant now form a servant body or a slave body. They form what Jesus in his prophecy called “the faithful and discreet slave,” who has been “appointed over his domestics to give them their food at the proper time.” From whom have the remnant received their appointment or ordination as such? Not from men, but from their Master, the reigning King Jesus Christ. Since coming into his kingdom in 1914 and since coming to the temple in 1918 for the judgment first of the “house of God,” he has found this remnant of dedicated, anointed Christians doing what they were appointed to do. So he has done to them what he promised: “Truly I say to you, He will appoint him over all his belongings.”—Matt. 24:45-47, NW.

⁸ What proof do we have of their being appointed by God through his invisible, glorified Christ and of their being adequately qualified? The proof is their giving of the spiritual “food at the proper time.” It was not with regard to them that Jehovah prophesied: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord Jehovah, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Jehovah.” (Amos 8:11, AS) It was with regard to Christendom’s clergy and their congregations. They reject the food served at the hands and mouths of the “slave” class and so suffer famine spiritually. All because these do not recognize the unorthodox ordination or appointment of the “faithful and discreet slave” class. But there are hundreds of thousands of others who are conscious of their spiritual need and who find out where to get the spiritual food and who do accept it at the hands of the anointed remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses. These are the honest, humble, sheeplike people whom Jehovah’s Right Shepherd Jesus Christ brings into the fold to be his “other sheep,” making them “one flock” with the anointed remnant.—John 10:16.

MINISTERS UNDER THE NEW COVENANT

9, 10. Although the “other sheep” cannot be “ministers of a new covenant,” why are they also among today’s properly ordained ministers?

⁹ Since the “other sheep” must follow Jehovah’s Right Shepherd, they also must be ‘faithful and true witnesses’ just as he was; they also must be adequately qualified ministers of Jehovah God. Of course, they cannot be “ministers of a new covenant” in the sense that the apostle Paul was, who was in the new covenant as a member of the “holy nation” of spiritual Israel and who was therefore a priestly minister, a member of the “royal priesthood” with a heavenly calling. But we must remember that spiritual Israel was typified or foreshadowed by natural Israel of ancient time. As members of that chosen nation the natural Israelites were in the old law covenant with Jehovah their God. But among the natural Israelites there were many non-Israelites who were temporary residents or alien sojourners and who served in various ways in Israel, some even being temple slaves. These also worshiped Jehovah as their God and his law protected them and provided many blessings and privileges for them. They were “your temporary resident who is inside your gates” who were not to work on Israel’s sabbath day. (Ex. 20:8-10, NW) They were to bring no reproach upon Jehovah’s name but were to praise him along with the natural Israelites. They had to show how blessed they were by him through his natural seed of Abraham.

¹⁰ Likewise with the “other sheep,” the modern-day “temporary resident who is inside [the] gates” of spiritual Israelites. They are not spiritual Israelites in the new covenant, but they do live under the blessings and provisions of that new covenant and must harmonize their lives with it. They must be a New World society with the remnant of spiritual Israel. They are under the one general law of being Jehovah’s witnesses and preaching the Kingdom news for a witness to all the nations, before this worldly system of things completely ends. (Matt. 24:14) To do this, they also have to be adequately qualified, and this requires them, first of all, to have an ordination from God. As the necessary step toward this they have willingly and lovingly dedicated themselves to God through his Son Jesus Christ, and this full surrender of themselves to him they have symbolized as Jesus did, by water baptism. In view of their proper dedication of themselves God accepts them into the “one flock” of his Right Shepherd Jesus Christ, not to be members of spiritual Israel or of the royal priesthood with a heavenly inheritance nor to be priestly ministers of the new covenant, but to be witnesses of Jehovah and adequately qualified ministers under the new covenant. He ordains or appoints them as his earthly ministers, to serve with the anointed remnant of spiritual Israel. All such have this ordination or appointment by virtue of Jehovah’s acceptance of their dedication through Jesus Christ the Mediator of the new covenant. So they are all his ordained ministers, whether male or female according to the flesh.

11. Scripturally viewed, how are ministers whom Jehovah ordains affected by ordination rules of worldly nations?

¹¹ On this basis alone it would be proper for all nations that claim to give consideration to Christian ministers to recognize them as Scripturally ordained ministers. The nations are self-willed and dictatorial when they set up their own rules and requirements and by them declare who is a real ordained minister recognized by God. When the nations require a written authorization from some man, group of men or religious organization, or some man-made ceremony to be performed before they recognize these dedicated men and women as God’s ministers, it is Scripturally out of order. Uninspired lawmakers of this world did not write the Scriptures, but God caused the writing of those Scriptures by the moving force of his spirit, and his true ministers have the testimony of his inspired Scriptures respecting their ordination by him for having dedicated themselves to him. The proof of what his ordained ministers should be ought to be taken from the written Word of God who does the ordaining, not from man-made laws and their legal interpretation by judges.

12, 13. Worldly interferers with the forming and operation of a society of ministers, such as Jehovah’s witnesses, properly are answered how, and why?

¹² God, the Universal Sovereign, has the right to determine how his visible organization of his people shall be framed and operated and who shall be his ministers in it and upon what conditions. Even religious sects of Christendom recognize this right of their sectarian organization. Last year the chief administrative officer of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, when speaking to 400 delegates of the World Presbyterian Alliance at Princeton, New Jersey, included among the basic religious freedoms the ‘freedom to determine the internal government and conditions of a church body.’ He then said: “When in the considered and prayerful judgment of a church the freedom to fulfill these responsibilities is essentially abridged by state or society, it is the duty of the church to say ‘no’ to the state and ‘no’ to the society.” (New York Times, July 29, 1954) Jehovah’s witnesses theocratically stick to His rules and appointments as to how his New Covenant organization should be built and operated. They say no to worldly interferers.

¹³ They need no religious men to lay hands upon them to be ordained. Their ordination is from God and results to them from dedicating their eternal existence to him through Christ. They are not ordained by the hands laid upon them by the one who baptizes them in water in symbol of their dedication. But, inasmuch as their water baptism has a relationship to their ordination from God, they may, for the purposes of record, submit their baptismal date as the approximate time of their ordination, to satisfy the law of the land where an ordination date is asked for. What Jehovah’s witnesses want upon themselves to qualify them is the hand of God, the hand of Him who touched Jeremiah’s mouth and said: “Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.” (Jer. 1:9) They want the hand of Him who brought Ezra the priest safely to Jerusalem, “the good hand of his God upon him”; the same hand of which Nehemiah, the builder of Jerusalem’s walls, says: “So the king gave [them] to me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.” (Ezra 7:6, 9, 28; Neh. 2:8, 18, NW) Says the psalmist: “Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself.” (Ps. 80:17, AS) Jehovah’s is the first hand that should be upon us to ordain or appoint us as qualified ministers. Without first his hand upon us the laying of human hands upon us afterward has no force, but is mere form.

14. In what essential respects do spiritual Israelites and their dedicated companions differ from Christendom’s clergy?

¹⁴ It is Jehovah’s hand that sets his anointed remnant of spiritual Israel and their dedicated companions apart, separates them. As King Solomon prophetically said to God at the temple inauguration in Jerusalem: “You yourself separated them as your possession out of all the peoples of the earth, just as you have spoken by means of Moses your servant when you were bringing our forefathers out from Egypt, O Lord Jehovah.” (1 Ki. 8:53, NW) That they are all of them separated from this world to preach the good news of God’s kingdom, the apostle Paul showed in the introduction of his letter: “Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ and called to be an apostle, separated to God’s good news, which he promised aforetime through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son.” (Rom. 1:1, 2, NW) Because of thus being set apart, separated, they are obligated to practice the clean, undefiled form of worship, the pure religion, which includes, among other things, “to keep oneself without spot from the world.” (Jas. 1:27, NW) Therefore they are unlike the “regular ministers” or clergy of Christendom who claim to be set apart and whom the law gives a set-apart status and yet who mix in with the politics and combats of the nations and spot themselves all up with this world.

SPECIAL APPOINTMENTS

15. In the early Christian congregations how was the appointive power exercised?

¹⁵ All the nation of spiritual Israel and their dedicated companions are separated and have a status set apart from this world. They are all a New World society of qualified ministers. Yet they do have certain members among them specially set apart to various responsible services, to which they are ordained or appointed. For example, in the first century there were Christian prophets and teachers in the Antioch (Syria) congregation and these were all ministering in these responsible positions. Then the record says: “As they were publicly ministering to Jehovah and fasting, the holy spirit said: ‘Of all persons set Barʹna·bas and Saul apart for me for the work to which I have called them.’ Then they fasted and prayed and laid their hands upon them and let them go.” (Acts 13:1-3, NW) That laying on of the hands of the congregation by means of their representative men was a form of ordination or appointment to a special service. Later in the course of their activity in this special service Paul and Barnabas made appointments of older men in newly formed congregations to responsible service positions: “they appointed older men to office for them in the congregation and, offering prayer with fastings, they committed them to Jehovah in whom they had become believers.” (Acts 14:23, NW) The apostle Paul, when assigning the appointive power to young Timothy, said: “Let no man ever look down on your youth. . . . Never lay your hands hastily upon any man; neither be a sharer in the sins of others; preserve yourself pure.”—1 Tim. 4:12; 5:22, NW.

16. Why are today’s theocratically appointed special servants within the New World society not a clergy class?

¹⁶ So appointments of special servants within the New World society must be made, not democratically, but theocratically, by the governing body or by acting representatives of the governing body in other lands. However, the appointment of these special ministerial servants or overseers within the congregation does not mean that a separate clergy class is being created and all the rest of the congregation are not ministers adequately qualified by God. All of us retain our adequate qualification from God as long as we study and faithfully serve Jehovah as his witnesses.

17. In ancient days what actually resulted “through the laying on of the hands of the apostles,” and why is such not proper practice now?

¹⁷ The ancient laying on of the hands of responsible servants of the congregation had the force of ordaining or appointing. That ceremony had some actual effect in those early days when “through the laying on of the hands of the apostles the spirit was given.” Those who laid their hands on Paul and Barnabas did not impart the spirit but they were told by the spirit to set them apart for special work. Today we do not have the spirit speaking audibly to us or the apostles bodily present with us to lay their hands upon us to impart the miraculous gifts of the spirit, and there is no professed Christian on earth today that can Scripturally prove he is even an apostolic successor with such power. Those miraculous gifts of the spirit have passed away as well as the apostolic channels. That is why Paul classed the “laying on of the hands” as part of the “elementary doctrine about the Christ.” (Heb. 6:1, 2; Acts 8:18 and; 1 Cor. 13:8-11, NW) The formality of literally laying hands upon a person at his appointment has no special power today.

18. How may a valid appointment properly be indicated to the appointee?

¹⁸ What does matter is the plain appointment itself by the authorized governing body. That appointment may be delivered verbally or by letter, even by a formal appointment letter. What matters here is that the appointment comes from the recognized governing body, and so the signature of the appointment letter or form must show that it comes from such authoritative body. The signature’s being handwritten or stamped does not alter the matter or weaken or void the appointment. If the stamp is that of the governing body and is imprinted by the one who has the authority to use that stamp, then the appointment is authoritative and is binding.

19, 20. What ancient examples of such practice are described in the Bible?

¹⁹ This is true even though rubber-stamping an appointment letter or form may not be so ceremonial or impressive-looking as a literal formalistic laying of men’s hands upon the head of an appointed person. Stamping an official letter is good Bible practice.

²⁰ When Queen Jezebel wanted to issue instructions to the older men of Jezreel, what did she do? Have King Ahab sign instruction letters? Listen: “She wrote letters in Aʹhab’s name and sealed them with his seal and sent the letters to the older men and the nobles that were in his city dwelling with Naʹboth.” The older men and nobles recognized the stamped-in seal and carried out the instructions that apparently came from the king. (1 Ki. 21:8-11, NW) The value and power of an authoritative stamp or seal King Ahasuerus showed when he said to Esther his queen and to Mordecai his prime minister: “You yourselves write in behalf of the Jews according to what is good in your own eyes in the king’s name and seal [it] with the king’s signet ring, for a writing that is written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet ring it is not possible to undo.” Prime Minister Mordecai did accordingly: “He proceeded to write in the name of King A·has·u·eʹrus and do the sealing with the king’s signet ring and send written documents by the hand of the couriers.” In the face of that uniform stamp the governors of all of Persia’s provinces and also the Jews recognized the binding force of those written documents and they acted as instructed in them.—Esther 8:8, 10, NW.

21. Why is the Watch Tower Society’s method of indicating servants’ appointments for congregations of Jehovah’s witnesses not lacking in value?

²¹ So let no one undervalue the power of a properly stamped letter; the stamp gives it weight and authority. Now one form letter with such true, official stamp may appoint more than one servant of a congregation, but the duties assigned to any person appointed determine the degree of responsibility of that appointed person, whether he has more responsibilities than other servants. What else the letter may say or whom else the same letter may appoint to a different service does not take away from that servant’s special position. So stamped appointment letters (form letters in many cases) are used by the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society and its many branches today as a convenient way of making appointments of servants for more than 14,000 congregations of Jehovah’s witnesses throughout the earth. In all such congregations the members recognize the stamp and accept the appointment. Who, then, has a right to question the power of the ordination or appointment? You may be sure that all such special servants put in office by these stamped appointment letters the Society’s governing body keeps its hands on, not literally, but to back them up, support and sustain them or to remove them in the general interests of the work.

INSCRIBED LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION

22-24. How did Paul describe letters of recommendation he bore?

²² The apostle Paul himself raised the question of qualification. He said: “And who is adequately qualified for these things? We are; for we are not peddlers of the word of God as many men are, but as out of sincerity, yes, as sent from God [not from men], . . . we are speaking.” (2 Cor. 2:16, 17, NW) But did Paul have or carry around with him even a stamped or sealed letter of appointment or of recommendation from the governing body at Jerusalem or from those who laid their hands on him and Barnabas at Antioch? Could he show such a letter to the synagogues that he visited for preaching or to congregations that he established or to Governor Felix or Governor Festus or to King Agrippa or to Emperor Nero when he finally appeared before him on trial at Rome? There is nothing to show he had such a letter! Paul did not need such a letter. He had something better than a man-composed, man-signed letter on writing tablets or paper. He had witnesses at Damascus to testify that he had been baptized in water to symbolize his dedication or his faith in Jehovah through Jesus Christ. He was also “filled with holy spirit” and had the miraculous gifts of that spirit. What is more, he had the power to lay his hands on baptized believers and impart to them the gifts of the spirit. From this he knew that his being adequately qualified had issued from God. What need did he have, then, of a stamped or sealed letter from anyone on earth? The most telling evidence of anyone’s being adequately qualified for a service or ministry is the product of his work, what he has accomplished. Paul had that evidence, and it served as a most impressive letter of recommendation proving his appointment.

²³ To the Christian congregation that he had established in Corinth he said: “Are we starting again to recommend ourselves? Or do we, perhaps, like some men, need letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, inscribed on our hearts and known and being read by all mankind. For you are shown to be a letter of Christ written by us as ministers, inscribed not with ink but with spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets, but on fleshly tablets, on hearts.” (2 Cor. 3:1-3, NW) Later on the newly instructed Apollos got such a letter of recommendation from the Christian brothers at Ephesus to the congregation at Corinth, but Paul did not need such a literal letter of recommendation. (Acts 18:24-28, 1-11) Those very disciples whom he had made during a year and a half of intense preaching and teaching activity at Corinth were themselves a power-laden letter.

²⁴ Those disciples were Paul’s letter written on his heart because he carried them along with him in his affections and he wrote them letters because he cared for them. At the same time he had taught and trained them to be preaching witnesses of Jehovah and Christ, and so those Corinthian Christians were Paul’s letter on open display, “known and being read by all mankind.” They were a letter not from man, not even from the governing body at Jerusalem.

25, 26. What additional Bible testimony shows how Paul’s letters of recommendation were produced?

²⁵ They were “shown to be a letter of Christ,” and Jesus Christ, who had chosen Paul to be a special vessel to bear his name to the non-Jewish nations, used Paul himself as his minister in writing that letter. Paul could not have written that human letter by himself, for, as Jesus told his disciples, “apart from me you can do nothing at all.” (John 15:5, NW) He used Paul in a much harder way than by merely having him sit down with literal pen and ink and write a letter on paper recommending himself by written words rather than by laborious deeds. Aside from Paul’s working weekdays as a tentmaker with Aquila and Priscilla, Jesus used Paul to write this human letter of recommendation by having him talk in the Jewish synagogue every sabbath, to win over both Jews and Greeks. In time he became more “intensely occupied with the word [of God], witnessing to the Jews to prove that Jesus is the Christ,” staying there all together a year and a half, “teaching among them the word of God.”

²⁶ When Paul finally left Corinth he left behind the fruitage of his labors. What? A Christian congregation including Crispus the former presiding officer of the synagogue and all his household, whom Paul himself baptized. This congregation was a letter of recommendation, “inscribed not with ink but with spirit of the living God,” for it was done by the spirit of God which worked through Paul, he coming to them “with a demonstration of spirit and power, that [their] faith might be, not in men’s wisdom, but in God’s power.” God’s spirit in Paul produced or wrote the readable words of that congregation letter. The letter was written on no cold stone tablets, but on warm, loving “fleshly tablets, on hearts.” Those hearts were something to read, for they told of love first to God, they told of belief, of faith exercised for righteousness, and they overflowed so as to move the mouths of the Corinthians to make public declaration for salvation. Acts 18:1-11; 1 Cor. 2:4, 5; 2 Cor. 3:1-3; Matt. 22:37, 38; Rom. 10:10, NW) For anyone to produce such a living, speaking letter of recommendation of its writer his being adequately qualified by Almighty God was most certainly required.

27. What physical facts of today attest to the genuineness of the ministerial status of Jehovah’s witnesses?

²⁷ How about today? Except for appointment letters sent to congregations or carried by specially appointed servants of God’s visible organization, Jehovah’s witnesses do not carry letters of appointment or recommendation to prove that they, as dedicated men and women, are Scripturally ordained ministers of God serving in connection with his new covenant through the Mediator Jesus Christ. The New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses who use the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society as their servant need no such letters of appointment or ordination, no such letters of recommendation, any more than Paul did. Christendom does not recognize the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society as an instrument in God’s hands. But the “Modern History of Jehovah’s Witnesses” now being published in the columns of the magazine The Watchtower gives an authentic, documented history of how the Most High God and his Son Jesus Christ have used the Society, yes, and used the official magazine that it publishes, since the time both of these were begun. Today this Bible magazine has a printing of at least 2,100,000 copies each issue, in forty-one languages, and the publishing Society has seventy-five branches spread over the earth. That fact is an inerasable letter known and read by all men and it recommends to every good conscience these two instruments as being used by God for fulfilling his glorious purpose in this most crucial time of uncertainty, doubt and fear.

28. Since 1919 how have members of the anointed remnant established proof of their standing as qualified ministers?

²⁸ Christendom and her nominally Christian governments refuse to recognize the Scriptural ordination of the dedicated witnesses of Jehovah. Hence they do not give them the standing and consideration of ordained ministers of religion. In place of being respected as adequately qualified ministers, Jehovah’s witnesses have the distinction of fulfilling Jesus’ prophecy: “You will be hated by all the nations on account of my name.” (Matt. 24:9, NW) No paper letters that you witnesses could show them would alter the world’s attitude toward you. But you have a letter, and you yourselves have been used to write it, that speaks more authoritatively than any handwritten, typewritten or printed letter stamped and sealed to show your divine ordination or appointment. It is a living letter the contents of which are spread over all the earth in more than 160 lands and territories, to be read in over 100 languages. Since 1919, despite world-wide hatred, the anointed remnant of the adequately qualified ministers of the new covenant have preached the good news of the Kingdom to all nations. In this way they have been writing by the spirit of God on fleshly tablets, on hearts, and today the “great crowd” of other sheep gathered to the “one flock” of the Right Shepherd Jesus is proof they were ordained by God. It is a human letter of recommendation testifying that they are the “faithful and discreet slave” class of God.

29. Who else, particularly since 1931, have undeniably proved themselves to be ordained ministers under God’s new covenant?

²⁹ Particularly since 1931 the “great crowd” of other sheep have been associating and preaching with the anointed remnant. They cannot escape history. They too have been writing history by loyally serving with the remnant as witnesses of Jehovah, suffering with them, dying with them, keeping Christian integrity with them till now. Their being ordained, adequately qualified ministers of God has all along also been questioned and rejected by Christendom. But what does the voice of accomplished history testify today? Are they divinely sent, adequately ordained ministers under God’s new covenant? Do they have any unimpeachable letter of recommendation that silences all question as unwarranted and all accusation as prejudiced and false? Not any letter in ink on paper or scratched on stone tablets, but the living letter written by means of God’s spirit upon sheeplike people. It is a recommendation letter written on “fleshly tablets, on hearts” of other believing men and women who since 1931 have increased from far less than one hundred thousand to now over 550,000 witnesses of Jehovah in the New World society.

30. For thoroughly accomplishing our God-given ministry, we must and will do what?

³⁰ Let the Devil’s heaven and earth destroy or wipe that living, spirit-filled letter out, if they can! The destructive floodwaters of the war of Armageddon will wash out of existence those devilish heavens and earth and their bloodstained record but never wash out the contents of this living letter written by all of Jehovah’s witnesses with his spirit. All the survivors of Armageddon will be our letter of recommendation before all the universe! That letter of recommendation will even be read by the dead when they are resurrected after Armageddon. The contents of this letter will yet grow longer as more human hearts are written upon until Armageddon. When the world’s religious systems are destroyed amid that war, it will survive and will thereafter spread over the face of the cleansed earth as a living testimony to the power and spirit of Jehovah now operative in his adequately qualified ministers. So keep on writing this “New World society” letter by thoroughly accomplishing your ministry, preaching this good news of the triumphant kingdom for a witness to all the nations until this world ends!

Questions From Readers

● When Jewish religionists asked John the Baptist if he was Elijah he said, “I am not.” But Jesus told his disciples that John was Elijah. Why the disagreement?—J. C., England.

The record of John’s reply is found at John 1:19-21 (NW): “Now this is the witness of John when the Jews sent forth priests and Levites from Jerusalem to him to ask him: ‘Who are you?’ And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed: ‘I am not the Christ.’ And they asked him: ‘What, then? Are you Elijah?’ And he said: ‘I am not.’” Over two years later Jesus said just the opposite: “The disciples put the question to him: ‘Why, then, do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’ In reply he said: ‘Elijah, indeed, is coming and will restore all things. However, I say to you that Elijah has already come and they did not recognize him but did with him the things they wanted. In this way also the Son of man is destined to suffer at their hands.’ Then the disciples perceived that he spoke to them about John the Baptist.”—Matt. 17:10-13, NW.

The Jews questioning John thought that Elijah would be resurrected to return and fulfill Malachi’s prophecy that Elijah would come and do a preparatory work before the arrival of “the great and terrible day of Jehovah.” (Mal. 4:5, 6, AS) But John was no resurrected Elijah; so he correctly denied that he was Elijah. But when Jesus said that “Elijah has already come” and the “disciples perceived that he spoke to them about John the Baptist,” Jesus knew that Malachi’s prophecy did not mean Elijah himself would come again, but that one like Elijah would come to do a work similar to that done by Elijah, a work of turning sincere Israelites to true repentance. Jesus knew that before John’s birth it was foretold that “he will be filled with holy spirit right from his mother’s womb, and many of the sons of Israel will he turn back to Jehovah their God. Also he will go before him with Elijah’s spirit and power, to turn back the hearts of fathers to children and the disobedient ones to the practical wisdom of righteous ones, to get ready for Jehovah a prepared people.”—Luke 1:15-17, NW.

Thus John was to fulfill Malachi’s prophecy, and he did, and therefore he was the Elijah to come according to that prophecy. So Jesus gave the correct answer. But in view of the fact that the Jews who questioned John had in mind a resurrected Elijah, John was also correct in denying he was the prophet in that sense.

Announcements

USING WISELY THE REDUCED TIME LEFT—Eph. 5:15, 16, NW.

The amount of time remaining to Armageddon is continually being reduced. We do not know the exact amount of time still remaining before Armageddon strikes and terminates the evil old world dominated by Satan, but we positively know it will be within this generation. Wise use of the remaining time must be made by Jehovah’s witnesses’ publishing the good news of Jehovah’s kingdom as the only hope of all mankind. It is the business of all who serve God to use their time wisely declaring the message of salvation. This will be done during November by offering all persons with whom Bible studies have been held during the year one or more volumes of the New World Translation of the Scriptures on a contribution of $1.50 each. From house to house the offer will be a volume of the New World Translation together with one of the Society’s books on a contribution of $2. Write for particulars on sharing in this activity.

WORLD CONQUEST SOON—BY GOD’S KINGDOM

Fear of world conquest haunts both political parties of today’s divided world. It is a fear by man of world conquest by man. But even the announcement that there is every good reason why God himself should conquer the world and rule the earth by his kingdom arouses suspicions. The religions of the world also hate and fear one another. Are you afraid and confused? You need not be! You may rejoice with the hundreds of thousands who thrilled to the comforting message delivered world-wide at the “Triumphant Kingdom” Assemblies of Jehovah’s witnesses. Prophecies from God’s own Word were unfolded to identify the true Kingdom, to contrast the “works of the flesh” manifest in Christendom with the “fruitage of the spirit” of Jehovah God. How and when that conquest is to come is of vital interest to all who fear God. This also is emphasized by the stirring title of this thought-provoking lecture by N. H. Knorr, president of the Watchtower Society, “World Conquest Soon—by God’s Kingdom.” Send 5c for your copy of this lecture. Or 10c for 3, or 25c for 7.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES FOR THE WEEKS

December 4: Qualified to Be Ministers, and Ordination of the Qualified Ministers, ¶1-8. Page 657.

December 11: Ordination of the Qualified Ministers, ¶9-30. Page 664.

Check Your Memory

After reading this issue of “The Watchtower,” do you remember—

✔ Whether Jesus agreed with the clergymen who think the ancient Hebrew Scriptures are mere fiction? P. 643, ¶4.

✔ How real happiness is available for you today? P. 646, ¶5.

✔ What is the wisest use of the reduced time that is left? P. 648, ¶6.

✔ When and how the president of the Watch Tower Society was appointed? P. 650, ¶1.

✔ What an adequately qualified minister must be able to do? P. 657, ¶1.

✔ Whether even a blasphemer and persecutor could become a believer? P. 658, ¶5.

✔ Where and how Jesus was ordained? P. 662, ¶3.

✔ What about Jehovah’s anointed remnant proves it actually is ordained by God? P. 663, ¶8.

✔ Through what essential setting apart Jehovah’s witnesses differ from Christendom’s clergy? P. 665, ¶14.

✔ How Paul showed what the Christian letter of recommendation is? P. 668, ¶23.

✔ What explains the apparent contradiction between John the Baptist’s statement that he was not Elijah and Jesus’ statement that he was? P. 671, ¶4.