Its a nightmare only for the "weeds". The "wheat" are not part of that rabble.....they are separated out before the gathering of the wheat into the storehouse....soon to take place by all accounts.Yet you quote from one such effort. Of course its a 'pipedream' for one who considers all other Christians have lost their way and only you as a JW have the only truth. To me that is far worse than a pipe dream, its a nightmare.
You can tell the "wheat" because they do not resemble the "weeds" in any way. The "weeds" have labels that show that they are just a different variety of a common genus.
All of Christendom virtually believes the same core or foundational beliefs, none of which are scriptural....IMO meaning that Christ never taught them. You all only disagree on many minor matters...although the Reformation threw out a good number of doctrines held by the Roman church, as being total inventions of the church leaders...shame the purging wasn't thorough enough.
Really? What corrections can you show me that they have made? Please be specific...I would really like to know....Yes, Luther had legitimate complaints, no, the Church has not been toppled at all, as it recognizes wrongs and corrects them.
And what has that got to do with me? I have no interest in what is concocted by the Catholic church, calling Christ their God. I do not know your God and you do not know mine.Incense represents prayers of the saints lifting up into the heavens before God. This is evident from the blessing verse of the celebrant of the censer before incensing begins:
- "We offer to Thee, Christ our God, this incense as a spiritual fragrance; receive it, we pray, to Thy heavenly altar and send down to us, in return, the grace of Thy Holy Spirit."[3]
I see no incense mentioned in Christian scripture except those that relate to what it symbolized in the Jewish system of worship.....it was only the high priest who could offer incense, and only in the temple....the Jews lost their temple, so there was no official place to offer incense anymore. The physical Temple was an earthy representation of the much grander spiritual temple in heaven. (prophetic patterns...types and shadows) Those who officiate as priests in the spiritual arrangement are not on earth. Their priesthood was to be served in heaven in the future.
Revelation 20:6....
"Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him a thousand years." (NRSVCE)
It says that they WILL BE PRIESTS of God and of Christ....not that they are or were.There was no earthly priesthood in first century Christianity.
Catholic churches, no matter how grand the architecture, are NOT Temples.
Any offering of illegitimate incense is an offense to God. It carried the death penalty.
Incense is also described as being used in heavenly worship, offering the faithful a foretaste of what is to come.
- Psalm 140:2 - "Let my prayer be set forth before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice."[4]
- Revelation 5:8 - "Now when He has taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."[5]
- Revelation 8:4 - "And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel's hand."
Offering incense in Jewish worship was an important part of the commands that God gave to Israel. The ingredients were forbidden to be used for any other purpose. And only those authorized to offer it were permitted to do so on pain of death. It is a very serious offense.
What you have quoted here is the symbolic use of incense in Christian worship. It was not used literally because it was reserved exclusively for use in the temple and the Jews no longer had one.
The church actually modeled itself on the old Jewish system that ended in 70 CE.Are you trying to tell me that your meetings in 'Kingdom Hall' is a 'free for all' with no order, otherwise you follow a ritual. The Church has retained some ritual practice from the Synagogue
which Jesus would have acknowledged.
JW's model their meetings on the first century congregations.....meeting for scriptural education, training in the ministry for preaching and teaching (as Jesus instructed), songs of praise to God and communal prayer......not ever repetitious. Every meeting is different, with new topics to discuss every week and a choice of over 150 songs, with new ones added every year.
Jesus inaugurated a new covenant which Jeremiah prophesied would NOT be like the old one.(Jeremiah 32:31-33)
So what Catholicism transferred over to Christianity.....liturgy, priests, distinctive clothing and headgear, ornate buildings that resembled Temples and the offering of smoke and incense was part of an old and discarded system that had become corrupt, and Jesus and the apostles warned that it would happen with Christianity too.
Human traditions would again be substituted for God's word. (Matthew 15:3, 9) That is what I see very clearly.
Because I was responding to a Catholic and using a Catholic Bible drives home the points better than any other translation.Then why quote from it?