Kingdom Rules OK

Jewish Lords' Witness

The Wrap

In all the above cases the parents will need to be in a loving relationship with each other otherwise they will not be able to bring the full parental benefit to bear on the maturing child. This must be the case whether the parents are genetic or adopting spiritual parents. Where one or more spiritual adopting parent is involved, compatibility between the two parents will need to be established, although they may not need to subscribe to the full contract whereby they would wish to produce their own genetic offspring together.

Any serious failing in the parenting of a child in the Kingdom would need to be identified by the Kingdom administration, with the 1NC Saints' insight and support. A programme of family support would need to be provided or, in the worst cases, the children would need to be placed with alternative parents and a suitable ‘rehabilitation' of the parent(s) as necessary would be required. I would hasten to add this should be as a last resort; the Kingdom should not become a mirror of the current western worldly welfare state whereby the state takes over parental responsibility. The parental responsibility for each child is owned by the parents and the parents alone!.

As a prospective 2NC King, according to current LW understandings (see main LW web-site at Understanding [206] Two Groups of 144,000 standing on mount Zion), I have frequently mused upon my responsibilities in the Kingdom. I think I have now at least established the main concern of the first two decades of life in the Kingdom on Earth; that will be to repair much of the damage that our flawed way of life today is doing to our children and parents alike. Hopefully, in the twenty- first year of the earthly Kingdom and beyond, we will be able to look onward and upward to maximise the advantage of our newly won freedom from Satan's rule and ensure that the children of the Kingdom are brought up in a fit and proper fashion.

Date of Publication: 9th January 2012

The Detailed Cases

Having established the ground rules for marriage and child-rearing agreements we now need to examine all the various child-bearing marital situations that this world has thrown up to determine how they will proceed into the Kingdom:

Marriages that had offspring of less than 20 years of age at system change would be reconstituted as child-rearing arrangements in the Kingdom to ensure the children would have continuity of a full and loving upbringing. The definition of offspring would no doubt need to include women who were more than seventeen weeks pregnant. This is the minimum foetal gestation period at which the foetus becomes a whole soul complete with its human spirit (see LW main web-site at Joining and Leaving Us [J13] Abortion). This has the interesting effect that pregnant women of a seventeen week term or more in this system will be pregnant women in the resurrection. It also raises the question as to whether pregnant women of a lesser term than seventeen weeks in this system will still be resurrected complete with their pregnancy intact; I cannot think of why they would need to be. These points are clearly not in the 2NC administration's control so I expect the 1NC Saints to manage this issue (unless they are happy to go with our suggestions?).
Such families that included one or both spouses who were destined for Gehenna could receive an immediate reprieve for all but the worst capital offences where no remorse was shown even after system change. Reprieved parents in the Kingdom would be under pain of the second death if they did not prove to be model parents during their offsprings' upbringing. Where one or both genetic parents proved unworthy of a reprieve, as determined by the 1NC Saints, these ones would be retained in Gehenna under 'His Majesty's pleasure' and one or both spiritual adopting parents would be found to care for the children until their twentieth birthday.
Orphans would require their fleshly parents (be they in the first or second death or still alive at system change) to be resurrected or reprieved and to sign up to a Kingdom-based child-rearing agreement to bring up that child. If either of the parents was deemed unfit through retention in the second death then one or more adopting spiritual parents would be required to support the child as in the previous case. If such orphans had already been adopted by loving parents in this system then I would be minded to leave such arrangements as they were if both parents and child were happy with the arrangement. This would be tantamount to a child-rearing agreement having already been established in this system and I see no real benefit in attempting to reunite the child with its genetic parents without some over-arching rationale so to do.
Single parent families in this world would need to be complemented in the Kingdom by placing the missing genetic parent back into the family unit with full parental responsibility. If this was due to the loss of the missing spouse in the first death then an early Kingdom resurrection for the second spouse would be in order subject to potential second death considerations. If the missing parent was a father of many children by several wives then he would need to take father-ship responsibility of that number of families in a polygamous child-rearing arrangement on pain of second death for failure to do so (that'll teach him!!!). If this was determined to be unworkable due to second death considerations then an adopting spiritual father would need to be found for each family unit. In the case of a single father family through worldly divorce if the genetic mother cannot be re-united with her child and husband through second death considerations, then a compatible adopting spiritual mother would need to be placed in a child-rearing arrangement with the family.
Single-sex marriages would have the children removed and placed with an adopting spiritual mother and father in a child-rearing arrangement regardless of the probable second deaths of the original ‘parents'. This may be a tough call if the child loved his same-sex parents but the child would need to be taught the correct way to bring up his/her own children in a loving family unit.
There may be children under the age of 20 who suffer the second death as a result of their own capital offences in this system and, Lord knows, we have seen plenty of them in the ‘juvenile' courts in recent times. Their fate and parenting would need to be decided by the 1NC Saints.
Society in this world has allowed, nay encouraged, many complex family situations to exist in which multiple unscriptural divorces have occurred with children being moved from pillar to post. This may need to be dealt with on a case by case basis. A base principle here would be to confirm the fleshly mother to be the child's mother in the Kingdom. Where feasible the fleshly father should also be the parent in the Kingdom; where this is not feasible (e.g. where the mother had different children with different fathers) then the most suitable father would be selected by the 2NC administration. It might be that second death considerations would assist this process by excluding either a mother or a father from the reckoning. In any of these cases a second (or perhaps even both parents) may need to be selected as adopting spiritual parents for the children's upbringing. This is a particular consideration since the vast majority of fleshly divorces would be considered to have ended up in adulterous relationships according to LW understandings of Moses' Law (see the main LW web-site at Joining and Leaving Us [J10] Fornication and Adultery).
Children who had suffered the first death before one or more of their parents should be resurrected and returned to their fleshly parents at the earliest Kingdom opportunity. Once again this would need to be subject to second death considerations but also as to whether the child's parents were still together at system transition since the loss of a child can put considerable strain on a marriage. Divorce and remarriages would need to be considered as above.

It would seem that one of the first tasks of the LW Administration of God's Kingdom on Earth would be the setting up of an adopting parent register to pick up all the broken pieces from the current profligate system of things! If, dear reader, you can think of any family circumstances, that I have inadvertently failed to include in the above list, I should be very grateful if you could e-mail the JLW web-site helpdesk with the details so that I can ensure they are included at the earliest possible opportunity.

Base Principles

There are two basic tenets upon which this work must be established:

All worldly marriages will be terminated upon the death or rapture of the spouses at system change.
There will be no life-time marriages in the Kingdom, only child-rearing arrangements which would last until the child reached his or her twentieth birthday.

The New testament is very clear on these two points regarding the status of marriage in this system and the next. Whilst rapture is not explicitly covered by these scriptures, the nature of this living transition into a Kingdom body necessitates the destruction of the original Adamic body thereby equating rapture to the death of the human soul. The human spirit that inhabited it is then free to transition to its non-Adamic Kingdom body. The full story on child-rearing agreements is to be found on the LW main web-site at Understanding [50] Male and Female Angels, Angelic Procreation, Pre-adamic Procreation, Post-adamic Procreation:

24 Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
25 Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother:
26 Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh.
27 And last of all the woman died also.
28 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. (Matthew 22)

19 Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
20 Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed.
21 And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise.
22 And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also.
23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.
24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?
25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. (Mark 12)

28 Saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If any man's brother die, having a wife, and he die without children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
29 There were therefore seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and died without children.
30 And the second took her to wife, and he died childless.
31 And the third took her; and in like manner the seven also: and they left no children, and died.
32 Last of all the woman died also.
33 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife.
34 And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage:
35 But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: (Luke 20)

39 The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord. (1Corinthians 7)

The Old Testament Law determines that the age of majority is twenty years. This, therefore, is the age at which children become adults and are released judicially from the control and care of their parents:

14 Every one that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto the LORD. (Exodus 30)

26 A bekah for every man, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that went to be numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men. (Exodus 38)

3 From twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: thou and Aaron shall number them by their armies. (Numbers 1)

18 And they assembled all the congregation together on the first day of the second month, and they declared their pedigrees after their families, by the house of their fathers, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, by their polls. (Numbers 1)

11 Surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob; because they have not wholly followed me: (Numbers 32)

The Church Must Set the Rules

Scripture worryingly says next to nothing about the serious sexual crimes of rape and paedophilia and appears less concerned with Lesbianism than it is with male homosexuality. Given that we are clearly in the end-times for this system, this left the Lords' Witnesses in an uncomfortable position, as it should for all Christian worshippers. This was not an acceptable situation for the Fourth and Last True Christian Church to find itself in at this time. Consequently a small group of us worked with the Church Principal to determine what rules needed to be put in place to police such behaviour in the Kingdom. Those rules were derived from scriptural principles but required considerable logical thought progression to develop. This work is to be found on the main LW web-site commencing at: Understanding [25] Is Lesbianism a sin?.

This has proved to be a major step forward in the Church's understanding of how to deal with such (hopefully rare) cases in the Kingdom. However, what has also become clear to the Church, as a result of our needing to carry out this work, is that it would appear that it is our responsibility to set the laws for God's Kingdom on earth. Needless to say this should be based on an honest endeavour to understand what God's Holy Word has to say (or not) on the matter. It has become clear that Jehovah God wants His Church to think for itself, with the very minimum of guidance, to ensure that the administration of His Earthly Kingdom is fully in the Church's hands. I think that God is probably not overly concerned with exactly what rules we put in place so long as they are honestly based on our interpretation of his requirements and would be seen by the Kingdom population as representing natural justice to any right-minded individual. This seemed to the working group to be a major step up in our Kingdom responsibilities but seemed to follow the nature of God's lessons to the Church thus far in that we all must eventually take full responsibility for managing ourselves and our charges if we are to develop toward being true children of Jehovah.

One of the key guiding principles of the Church's understanding of God's mind to date is that the proper care and raising of children is of paramount importance to our Lord. This all-pervading thread is clearly evident in the above work. Following on from this it struck me that, if the Lords' Witnesses' (LW's) administration has the responsibility to put in place the Kingdom rules appertaining to marriage and the raising of children, then we had better start thinking now about the families that will survive the transition from this system into the Kingdom of God on earth.

Kingdom Rules OK