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Beyond the Watchtower

Looking to our Past for lessons to help inform our Future

Our new logo of the original Watchtower cross and crown supports our subtitle “Looking to our Past – For lessons about our Future.  Find more out the Watchtower history of the cross and crown by clicking here:

WHY THE NAME CHANGE FROM “FRIENDS OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES” TO “BEYOND THE WATCHTOWER?” New redirected website address is  —  BeyondWatchtower.com.

First an introduction: We are Bible Students who since the early Watchtower days have continued to meet together in congregations around the world.  We retain, continue to study, and offer to others, the original Watchtower writings and literature, which we enjoy as wonderful resources to help understand and harmonize the Bible’s teachings.  Some of us created the “Friends of Jehovah’s Witnesses” website in an attempt to reach out in the spirit of Christian love and friendship, both to struggling Jehovah’s Witnesses and to Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Why are we reaching out?

A. We hope to provide a safe haven website of help, support, encouragement, open conversation and as well an information center.

B.  We hope to provide for your consideration, the enduring, valued, spiritual light of truth that shone forth so brightly in the early days of the Watchtower ministry.  In the spirit of Christian love and liberty, we extend to you this invitation to study, not with an autocratic ORGANIZATION controlled by a “Governing Body,” but rather with fellow Christian students of the Bible in the spirit of the Berean’s (Acts 17:11).

C. We hope to share with you areas of our common roots and the true history and the original mission of the early Watchtower Society. In its early days, it operated as a publishing house.  It had absolutely NO authority over any of the hundreds of independent congregations which were controlled solely by the congregation members themselves; not by domineering elders, overbearing overseers or a dictatorial Governing Body.  In those days each elder could only remain in office if at the annual elections they received 75% of the vote from the Holy Spirit anointed congregation members voting based on the Biblical qualifications for elder (1 Tim 3 and Titus 1).

So why the name change to “Beyond the Watchtower.”

Some visitors to our site have had the mistaken impression that by calling ourselves “Friends of Jehovah’s Witnesses” that this meant we were in agreement with the new doctrines and the oppressive and controlling spirit of the organization itself and its governing structure as well as its historical practice of shunning questioning members, and the resultant dividing of families. Dear brothers and sisters, nothing could be further from our true heart’s desire. These types of practices were never to be found among the original Watchtower friends prior to 1917.

Our new name “Beyond the Watchtower” contains a dual meaning which helps clarify our mission:

1: To help, support and encourage present JWs looking BEYOND todays Watchtower or else former JWs AFTER leaving the JW Organization. We would like to provide the type of support as shared in A & B above, to help those presently questioning or struggling with their relationship in the J.W. Organization and who may even have endured and suffered from spiritual and emotional wounds.

2: As described in C above, to provide an accurate historical account of events that took place BEYOND or AFTER the early Watchtower” days when a new organization emerged under new leadership, dramatically changing its beliefs and practices.

In these early Watchtower days, many of the original Bible Students refused to accept the new and changed teachings.  Nor would they be controlled by and surrender their Christian liberty to this new and very tough leader, Joseph Rutherford.  These Bible Students broke away from the new and emerging JW organization and either maintained or reestablished Bible Student congregation’s worldwide.  By 1931, 75% of the Original Bible Students had left this new organization which in that year adopted the name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” in order to draw a clear line of distinction from those who had left the Society and those who remained.

The Bible Students as a Christian fellowship still meet together to the present day as free and independent congregations retaining their original beliefs and practicing the same spirit of Christian liberty as was adhered to during the early Watchtower days up through October of 1916 when Brother Russell died.

With these true, loving and encouraging wishes for you, we hope that this website aids you, our visiting brothers and sisters, to find satisfying answers to questions you may have. We hope this site can be an educational, healing center, a safe harbor for achieving a healthy emotional state, a place for spiritual growth in a manner that faithfully follows the scriptures and a place where all of our combined efforts will be found pleasing and honoring to the name of Jehovah, our loving and merciful Heavenly Father.

We hope that a journey with you to the not so distant past will bring you fresh hopes of Jehovah’s kindness and mercy to us today as well as for the bright and wonderful tomorrow that He has promised for all mankind through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

We continue now with our original WELCOME message below.

1Jo 4:18  There is no fear in love, but perfect love throws fear outside, because fear exercises a restraint.  Indeed, he that is under fear has not been made perfect in love. – NWT

WELCOME TO THIS CITY OF REFUGE
AND SANCTUARY FOR STUDIOUS AND INQUIRING MINDS.

Acts 17:10, 11: Immediately by night the brothers sent both Paul and Silas out to Be-roe’a, and these, upon arriving, went into the synagogue of the Jews.  Now the latter  were more noble-minded than those in Thes-sa-lo-ni’ca, for they received the word with the greatest eagerness of mind, carefully examining the Scriptures daily as to whether these things were so. – NWT

You are anonymous here.  You can speak to other Jehovah’s Witnesses, former Jehovah’s Witnesses, Bible Students and other Christians. When posting your comments, you will be able to use a Pen Name.  Your e-mail address and website info are completely optional. No one can identify you.  No one can report you.  You have a home and quiet place to pray and honestly investigate scriptures.  It is not our purpose to indoctrinate you, but merely to provide you with resources for further study of Jehovah’s word.  You are not alone.  You have friends.

Romans 14:4  Who are you to judge the house servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for Jehovah can make him stand. – NWT

2 Tim 1:7  (Amplified Bible) –  For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but He has given us a spirit of power and of love and of calm {and} well–balanced mind {and} discipline {and} self–control.

Gal 5:1 – Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.   NKJV

Gal 5:13 – For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  NKJV

2Co 3:17 –  …where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.   NWT

John 8:31, 32 – And so Jesus went on to say to the Jews that had believed him: “If YOU remain in my word, YOU are really my disciples, and YOU will know the truth, and the truth will set YOU free.  NWT

If 1 John 4:8 says “God is love,” then shouldn’t love, not fear, be our motivation to serve Jehovah?  Are you serving Jehovah in a certain way because you are afraid/fearful of being destroyed in Armageddon?

Hebrews 13:6 (Amplified Bible) – So we take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say, The Lord is my Helper; I will not be seized with alarm [I will not fear or dread or be terrified]. What can man do to me?

513 comments to Welcome

  • thank you bible students! im with you all the way!
    your a breath of clean air, and unpoluted food for this jw whos so tired of kingdom caserole im learning and as soon as one of you puts me in touch with someone in statesboro ga im gona study my brains out and get usefull to jehovah the way he wants me to! arimatthewdavies@hotmail.com if someone knows.
    p.s i sure love rocking the world of those fake jehovah sites! oh how they hate me! yaaaaa!
    i can feel jehovahs spirit urgeing me to make him known and its going to be good! i plan on makeing the whole darn internet a place were jehovahs name is lauded instead of the pure garbage some spout forth against his holy name! all praises to jehovah god in the highst!

  • How can I join this site for discussion.

  • Hannah

    The bible is easily misused by the simple device of taking verses out of context and applying them to suit one’s dogma as a ‘proof text’. Several of the verses quoted above, read IN CONTEXT, mean exactly the opposite of what the Watchtower corporation’s governing committee (operating as a spirit medium channeling God’s messages) would have its adherents believe.

  • About the last reformation

    Matthew 25:1,2
    “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise.”

    Before “at that time” (Matthew 25:1) the situation of “Christianity” (all denomination, including Bible Students and Jehovah’s Witnesses)is:

    Matthew 25:5
    “The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.”

    Than, in the end time, a general calling for a last reformation:

    Matthew 25:6
    “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’”
    Revelation 18:4-6
    “Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
    “Come out of her, my people,
    so that you will not share in her sins,
    so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
    5for her sins are piled up to heaven,
    and God has remembered her crimes.
    6Give back to her as she has given;
    pay her back double for what she has done.
    Mix her a double portion from her own cup.”

  • TRANSLATION FROM SPANISH:
    many blessings for the brothers, greetings from Argentina.
    I was a Jehovah’s Witness for seven to leave the organization años.luego time again sought the friendship of the LORD be my brothers through the Bible students get to know more deeply the love of God and love of Our Savior Jesus, today I have six years to meet with brothers and helping in the work of the Lord to raise awareness of the coming kingdom.
    GOD BLESS IN THE NAME OF JESUS

    ORIGINAL TEXT
    muchas bendiciones para los hermanos ,saludos desde argentina.
    yo fui testigo de jehova por 7 años.luego de dejar la organizacion a tiempo volvi a buscar tener la amistad de jehova m y por medio de los hermanos estudiantes de la biblia llegue a conocer mas a fondo el amor de DIOS y el amor DE NUESTRO SALVADOR JESUS,hoy llevo 6 años reuniendome con los hermanos y ayudando en la obra del señor para dar a conocer la venida del reino.
    DIOS LOS BENDIGA EN EL NOMBRE DE JESUS

  • Jonadab

    Thanks Rus for the invitation.
    Never knew this site existed.
    Found interesting articles.
    What we need now is a synergy amongst the Body of Christ and a willingness to conform with the released Truth never minding how the Organization started and any previous misconception of the Scriptures.

  • ptt7000

    Br. Peter,(admin) I sent this web page to this site. http://www.christianwitnesses.com/id185.html . They have Chicago Bible Students and other Bible Student sites listed. They asked if we knew of other sites so I sent this one. Please keep up the good work, Brothers we are being well fed
    Also http://www.sixscreensofthewatchtower.com have teleconferencing every Saturday. They have talked about the Bible Students. You may participate and talk.
    See everyone at the General Convention in Johnstown, Pa in July.
    Christian Love
    in CHRIST

    • Jacqueline (Bible Student)

      Wow,this is a blast from the past. I was afraid to use my name during the first months of the site being put up. Lol I had just found the Bible students in January,1, 2010.

  • hello dear brothers and friends,
    it is really joy to see that people escape from Babylon and from the “daughter of Babylon” (Zeccariah 2:7 )

    we have the promise that the Spirit of Truth (the real Channel of truth ) will teach us from God’s word , according to Father’s will
    John 16
    13. “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes,
    He will guide you into all the truth;
    for He will not speak on His own initiative,
    but whatever He hears, He will speak;
    and He will disclose to you what is to come.

    Having made some research from Bible , I’ll invite you to see what the Spirit has helped us to understand during the last years :

    The Kingdom of God – when in Heaven ? — according to “Jesus’ teaching”
    http://reslight.net/forum/index.php/topic,862.0.html

    THE BIBLE CHRONOLOGY REVEALED
    http://reslight.net/forum/index.php/topic,1207.0.html

    ELIJAH’s VOICE
    http://brothersofchrist.forumsland.com/brothersofchrist-about40.html

    The teaching of Christ — 2 John 1:9
    http://www.paradisecafediscussions.net/showthread.php?tid=1116

    Are JWs Exclusively God’s People?
    http://hourglass2outpost.com/forum/index.php?id=231

    with love
    in Christ,
    rus virgil

  • I WAS A JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES FOR TEN YEARS OF MY LIFE AND I LOVED IT, but I found that they lied about 1975 and many other things. I tried going into other churches, but they were dead. I am now a Bible Student in the UK and I have come to believe what Pastor Russell said. You can find more of my thoughts at my website: http://www.globallight.org.uk/ex_jws.html —— Here is a link to my YouTube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RA_rhFN9nA

  • ptt7000

    THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!! I have already began to pass it on. Such a calming layout.

    (Former Witness for 61 yrs.)

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