LOOKING FOR THE BEREANS
But the brothers immediately, at night, made Paul and Silas leave for Berea; and they, as soon as they arrived, went to the synagogue of the Jews. Now these were of nobler feelings than those of Thessalonica, because they received the Word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures every day to see if this was the case. So many of them believed, and so did a great number of Greek noblewomen and men - Acts 17:10-12 New International Standard
After a turbulent adolescence spent amidst insecurity and religious intolerance, I was finally able to examine a part of the Bible beyond the bad example of many clergymen and beyond my own prejudices - Proverbs 12:15; 2 Peter 2:1, 2
On the other hand, those people had been so kind, for the umpteenth time, despite my presumptuous and unsociable attitude…
I just didn't feel like sending them away... not that time - Proverbs 18:13
At first I thought… “If I start studying the Bible with them for a while and then stop… they won't be able to tell me I don't know it anymore. I will be able to stop any conversation in the bud by proving that I too know the Bible and that I am not interested. What can they tell me then?”
So I began what they called a "biblical consideration" carefully avoiding the word "study."
That strange little red book, at first, didn't seem like anything special.
However, reading it and comparing different scriptures I realized that it contained some important truths and it was very beautiful indeed.
The things explained there were undoubtedly "against the tide", very different from what ordinary people believed.
Life on earth???
Did the Bible really explain that one could live forever on earth and not somewhere in heaven? - Psalm 37:11; 29; Revelation 22:1, 2
This was so different from what the traditional churches taught…
It also seemed incredibly logical!
Why have a brain capable of learning, at least in theory, for countless years, if none of us would ever be able to use it to even 5% of its potential?
To make a merciless but practical comparison, it would have been like owning a Ferrari and being able to use it only for strolling in the garden under the house.
Wouldn't that have been an incredible waste? – Ecclesiastes 3:11
The Name of God was also a good news.
He did not call himself "God" or even "He who has no name", as seen in a famous biblical film of the past; this too seemed right and logical… provided that this Name had chosen Him Himself – Exodus 3:15, 16
I also found the way God's love in creation was explained wonderful.
You don't have to see in color to live (some animals don't even see) and we were born into a world full of beautiful colors.
To live we must feed ourselves, of course, but it is not necessary to taste the flavors... so that eating can be a real pleasure and not a mere necessity.
Perhaps to live it is essential to hear sounds and noises but it is certainly not essential to have a sense of beauty, rhythm, melody, poetry.
It is not necessary to know how to make a piano or a violin yet God has given us the ability to do and appreciate all these things - Job 36:26
And why did God create such melodious singing birds as nightingales, goldfinches or starlings?
Why are many of these also beautiful, full of bright colors, painted like a great artist's painting? Why are we able to understand and appreciate all of this?
Why can we appreciate the beauty of a sunset or even just the scent of grass or the company of our fellow man? - Genesis 2:15-23
Why did God create us like this, when we could live without all these things???
Isn't it more than evident that the book of Creation, even before the Bible, explains to us every day a God who is not simply powerful and wise but loving first and foremost? - 1 John 4:8, 19
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| Do you get excited in front of creation? And in front of the book that speaks of the Creator? - Genesis 1:1 |
“ His invisible [qualities], even His everlasting power and Godship, are clearly seen from the creation of the world, because they are understood by the things made,” said the apostle Paul in Romans 1:20.
In short… how many beautiful things there were in that book!
How could one remain indifferent to all this? - Hebrews 4:12
Those who soon became my siblings were also kind, loving… full of pleasant qualities and it was very nice to be in their company.
They called their organization “the truth” (compare John 17:17) and I too, after a while, became convinced that it must be so.
Over time, of course, some unpleasant aspects also emerged, linked above all to the management of problems, but all this was liquidated with catchphrases such as "Even in the ancient people of God there were problems", "They must have gone a thousand years before to become perfect”, “If you don't feel comfortable it is because you don't pray and study enough”, “New light will come which will also clarify this aspect” etc etc etc.
And of course outside the Kingdom Hall, in addition to being "the people of the world" (who were already in themselves a deleterious influence without distinction between one and the other) there was also the bogeyman of the "black wolves" that they they used to call “apostates” and that they were those people who had once been, yes, their brothers, but who had now become so bad as to be tools of Satan who hated “God's organization” and their former brothers.
According to them, these proud and conceited would have done everything, absolutely everything, to drag them too away from the truth!
Unlike the Bible dramas seen at conventions where everything was resolved with a Scripture or the advice of an experienced elder, other negative aspects also became evident over time but in the end…wasn't that your problem?
If you had begun to lose your initial joy, was it not because you were taking for granted the wonderful privilege of being part of God's only people on earth? - Galatians 5:22, 23
If you didn't do the hours of service that you could have done or if you missed one meeting too many, wasn't that already a symptom of a "spiritual illness"?
In short, if at a certain point you no longer saw this "spiritual paradise" was it not perhaps because you were moving away from God's love?
“ The Slave” produced so much material every day that it was objectively difficult to keep up!
If something wasn't clear to you, you just had to pray and study more.
Studying “in slave publications,” of course!
There was so much apostate material out there! It was just loving of them to try and protect us.
Many envious and lying people wrote slanders about God's people and they told us this: it was to be expected.
Therefore the study had to be done rigorously on the publications of the slave of God… publications, however, which occasionally contradicted each other.
Every now and then "new light" arrived which changed the previous understanding... but on the other hand they had said it from the beginning: the slave is not inspired!
Even though true worship had been restored as far back as 1919 in some small towns in the United States, there were still a number of subtleties that could lend themselves to revision.
I remember a publication that adjusted an understanding by moving it from August 1914 to November 1914…and we all welcomed that adjustment with a smile.
What wonderful zeal!
It was evident that the "things to fix" were really nonsense!
By now, thanks to the slave, we knew practically everything!
If these adjustments, on the other hand, left you perplexed, well... maybe you weren't very balanced.
And then… who would have thought that when John spoke of the angel who “ took the vessel of incense, and filled it with fire from the altar, and cast it to the earth. And there followed thunder and voices and lightning and an earthquake” was referring to the Cedar Point assembly when “in 1919 Jesus' spiritual brothers on earth ... kindled a fire in Christendom !” - Revelation 8:5
And who would have thought that the second historic gathering at Cedar Point, which took place in 1922, was also described in Revelation chapter 8 verse seven!
And so on who would have thought that various visions of both John and Daniel and Isaiah and other ancient prophets had to do with assemblies, resolutions, new publications, circulars or events that occurred to the “governing body” last century!
It was all perfectly logical and coherent, wasn't it?
Yet… from the study begun several years earlier, which had shown a wonderful and consistent God and several now acquired scriptural truths, hadn't something been lost?
If the organization was only "a means," as they said, why did everyone call it "the truth"?
If the Bible alone is the Word of God and the sole authority why couldn't the interpretations of those who were admittedly imperfect and uninspired be debated? - compare Matthew 22:23-33
Why couldn't one quibble even on those subjects that had been changed over and over again?
Because so many practices were taken for granted that there was not even a shadow of it in the Bible (such as the "service relationship", the obligatory tie, the absence of a beard or the passing of the bread and wine from hand to hand without eat or drink) and to which no one seemed to give weight?
Why was it a sin to arrange with a group to study the Bible independently? - compare Proverbs 2:1-5
And why… why… why…
At some point we stopped being Beroeans.
At some point we stopped seeing what was actually written in the Bible and what wasn't.
We have put our peace of mind, our friends, our way of life above what made us initially happy: Bible knowledge.
We put the "publications", the organization or a group of men above the Bible, regardless of the nonsense taught like multiple generation or other things.
We have become the kind of "Bereans" who do everything to find a meaning, a translation, a comma or a quibble to be able to say that things are just like this - John 7:52; Isaiah 9:1, 2
It is not conceivable for the wt-style Beroeans to discover that things might not even be so.
We have made our dedication to God conditional on that to the self-appointed "faithful and discreet slave" - Matthew 6:24
We have demonstrated this all the times when, faced with a scriptural objection that contradicted one of our doctrines, we replied "Give me time to research the publications of the slave" or "This is not what the slave teaches" - compare Galatians 1: 8, 9
We have forgotten what truths we had been drawn to and to whom we should have given exclusive devotion.
Many sacred truths at some point have become mere theories, such as the one that says to “do not go beyond what is written” while it was evident that, not us, but some upstairs could do it and how – 1 Corinthians 4:6
Did you get angry or did you recognize yourself in this reconstruction?
Some, as you know, have come out of this organization becoming really critical and poisoned of everything and everyone - Proverbs 12:18
Perhaps out of disappointment or even for other reasons... it is often impossible to talk about God or the Bible with them!
Are you perhaps one of them?
Then there are many who remain where they are despite no longer believing in it, for some time now, even assuming positions of responsibility - James 3:1
They justify this choice by asserting that "there is nothing better outside" or that they would not bear the ostracism that this organization causes to those who dare to disagree openly. Perhaps you yourself know some of them.
Even with these, in general, it is difficult to talk.
Then there are those who have come out for consistency, without feeling any hatred towards their former brothers, recognizing that they are then exactly what they were until recently.
Sincere people who loved God and the Bible, at least at the beginning, but who over time their devotion has been shifted in an imperceptible and subtle way and now worship God "through a third party", i.e. through those who claim to take his place.
What is their fault, at least most of them, if they have been deceived?
Even if they are no longer our brothers and perhaps they have treated us with contempt because of our choice, we still love them.
And let it be clear: the Bible remains the Word of God, beautiful and profound, even more than what we were taught.
These people have not lost their joy because, even though they understood that organization was not what it claimed to be, they continued to feed on the Word of God and still learned many, many things - Psalm 119:97-100
The initial disappointment in discovering a painful truth has been surpassed a thousandfold by the wondrous beauty of God's Word and the hope for the future is now stronger than ever.
Those who have continued to feed on the Word of God have not lost joy or hope but unlike before, who believed they had learned practically everything, they realize that they still have so much to learn…
Do you still have this desire? - Psalm 23:1-6
We would be happy to share what we are learning with thoughtful and sensitive people and why not… even a little brave.
There is surely someone who has recognized himself in this reconstruction, even if only in part, who perhaps will want to remember the joy he felt when he learned certain truths for the first time and learned about a wonderful God... before they arrived a thousand rules and regulations and meaningless impositions – Matthew 15:6
We would like to share this knowledge with people who are able to truly strip themselves of all the conditioning they have suffered and question themselves before the only existing authority: the Bible.
People who have not lost faith in God or His Word because of what some have done to them.
We would like to share what we have learned and are learning with people who love God above their immediate interests and are still seeking Him - Psalm 42:1, 2
People who are still able to get excited before creation and before the book that speaks of the Creator - Isaiah 40:26
We would really like to meet some Beroeans - Psalm 19:7-11
Foto: Di Lubomir Mihalik - Imported from 500px (archived version) by the Archive Team. (detail page), CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71463782
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