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since 01/02/01

The Order of Special Full-Time Servants

When I read my 1995 Yearbook for the first time, I spotted something I had never seen in any literature before. This is the paragraph that made me stop and wonder:

*** yb95 5-6  Jehovah's Witnesses-1995 Yearbook Report ***

Among the full-time workers were 15,145 members of the global Bethel family. They help to provide literature, supervision, and other beneficial services in support of the worldwide work of Bible education. Of these, 5,082 serve at the world headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, and at nearby facilities. All of them are members of the Order of Special Full-Time Servants, a religious order that is devoted exclusively to the ministry - (italics mine).

Then I saw it again in the 1996 Yearbook. Here's the quote from that book:

*** yb96 8-9  Jehovah's Witnesses-1996 Yearbook Report ***

Among those in full-time service are 16,468 Bethel family members around the globe. Of this number, 5,709 serve at the world headquarters; all of these are members of the Order of Special Full-Time Servants.

Additionally, 4,374 care for assignments that require them to travel from one assembly to another in an assigned district or from one congregation to another in a circuit. One of the principal activities of all such traveling overseers is taking the lead in the field ministry.

The Order of Special Full-Time Servants! According to the Yearbook, this is a religious order, although I have failed to find any other reference to the "order" in any other publication.

When I asked a variety of Elders about this, none seemed to know anything about this "order". Even Circuit Overseers and District Overseers didn't seem to know anything about it.

Then, after extensive investigation, I found someone who was able to offer an explanation. Apparently, when brothers or sisters are accepted for Bethel service, they are asked to take a "vow of poverty"!! So by doing, they become members of this "religious order".

Why should they be asked to take such a vow? Why should there be a seperate "order" if we are all God's servants? Does all this not have undertones of "sects" and "divisions" amongstthe congregation?

It seems the short answer to all this is that it is another tax dodge!! By taking this "vow" and entering this "order" the members avail themselves of various tax consessions.

*** Rbi8  Matthew 22:21 ***

" Then he said to them: "Pay back, therefore, Caesar's things to Caesar, but God's things to God."

*** Rbi8  Galatians 5:19-21 ***

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, and they are fornication, uncleanness............................... divisions, sects, 21 envies, drunken bouts, revelries, and things like these. As to these things I am forewarning YOU, the same way as I did forewarn YOU, that those who practice such things will not inherit God's kingdom."

It seems to me that the WBTS is quite prepared to compromise Bible principles in order to evade paying "Caesar's things to Caesar"! It was just the same in the way the literature was suddenly offered "free of charge", not to give freely what we had received freely, but rather because it allowed them to avoid paying sales tax!

Updated 17/04/01

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