₦airaland Forum

In their book, Enjoy Life Now and Forever, Jehovah's witnesses states that blood represents life, this is according to Lev 17:14. This is true. The book further states that according to Gen 9:4, God forbade the eating of blood. We should take note that the restriction is on eating blood.

In the NT, the same restriction continued, as the book says. Acts 15

28For the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you except these necessary things: 29 to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what is strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper. Good health to you!”

The book now went further to expand on how this restriction affect blood transfusion. It says:

"What does it mean to abstain from blood? If a doctor told you to abstain from alcohol, you would not drink it. But would you eat foods that contained it or have alcohol injected into your veins? Obviously not. Likewise, God’s command to abstain from blood means that we should not drink blood or eat meat that has not been bled. Nor should we eat any food to which blood has been added.

What about the medical use of blood? Some procedures clearly violate God’s law. These include the transfusion of whole blood or any of its main components​—red cells, white cells, platelets, and plasma."


Here I feel is the area we need to reason out well. The bible clearly forbade the eating of blood, so we shouldn't eat it in any way as Christians. On that area I agree with the Watchtower. However, blood transfusion can't be compared to injecting alcohol into your system. Secondly, blood transfusion isn't eating blood. Let me explain.

If you eat blood, the process it passes is not the same as when you transfuse it. The blood when transfused becomes part of your body organs. Blood transfusion is like an organ transplant, which the witnesses now leave to conscience. That's not the same as eating the blood which serves a nutritional purpose. Using blood as part of nutrition is what the bible prohibits. Instead of banning blood transfusion, it would be better to leave the issue to personal decision since this is an area that we dont have a direct scriptural command.

Second point: Acts 15:29 says we should abstain from blood. The witnesses view this to mean total abstinence. But, do we have to see it that way?

Notice other things that that scripture says we should abstain from...

to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what is strangled, and from sexual immorality.

Take the issue of things sacrifices to idols as an instance. Does it mean total abstinence? 1cor 8:7,8 shows that one can eat what is sacrificed in an idol temple if it doesn't cause stumbling. So while the prohibition was on communal eating of things sacrifices to idols, it didn't mean that such meats can never even be eating even when it is sold in a market. The point I am making is this; do not over extend scriptural application beyond it's context, you could end up setting up rules God never intended. God forbade meat sacrifices to idols, but He didn't mean that on no occasion can you eat such meat.

In the same vein, the restriction is on eating blood, that's where the bible stopped, don't extend the restriction to blood organ transplant. God didn't have that in mind while given the law. It would be better to leave it to conscience matter.

There are other reasons why this view makes sense:


1. Taking blood when life is at stake isn't wrong:

1sam 14
33 So it was reported to Saul: “Look! The people are sinning against Jehovah by eating meat with the blood.” At this he said: “You have acted faithlessly. Roll a large stone to me immediately.”

It is clear that these soldiers ate blood. True it is still a sin, however, God didn't inflict the death penalty, why? The situation obviously is understandable, they were in dare need of food to save their lives because of Saul's restriction on food. If God was understanding and pardoned the people because the needed to stay alive, how much more someone who is in need of blood transfusion to save his life, I mean a transfusion we don't have a direct ban from the scriptures? Why would you have to loose your life for that? Is it sensible to loose a life just to keep a mere symbol of life? If a doctor told you to abstain from hard drugs, and as severe pain tried to kill you and that hard drugs is the only way you can save that life, would you think the doctor will restrict that drug from you? We all know that in some situations, a doctor can even recommend marijuana to a patient although it is banned.

Don't save the symbol of life, and then loose the life.

You are guiltless when death occurs in self defense: Exod 20;2-3

In this, we are still assuming that blood transfusion is scripturally prohibited, even though it is not. Some may say it is better to die and await resurrection than to break God's law. That is true in many cases, but since life is precious, God doesn't want you to loose it recklessly. We see this in the example of the soldiers. But we also see it in the book of Exod 20: 2-3a

"If a thief is found in the act of breaking in and he gets struck and dies, there is no bloodguilt for him. 3 But if it happens after sunrise, there is bloodguilt for him."

Now, God forbade murder, but what if someone comes to thief in your house at night, you don't know if he came to even kill someone, if you had to murder that criminal, God is saying you are free. Now this is murder, a serious sin in God's sight, but He makes exception here because he won't tolerate it when one just stays like a pole and have another kill him unnecessarily. Or this might even be one who dies as the house owner is trying to protect his property from the intruder. Whichever it is, what we know is that when one breaks in at night and gets kill there, the house owner can go free.

In other words, some murder was excused because probably, life is involved. Blood transfusion involves life which is very precious to God, do not think that God is happy for you to waste that life just to save a symbol. You're sinning by doing that. The person you're taking his blood will still be alive, so why bother?

Lastly, your leaders might still change this doctrine tomorrow after having incurred a blood guilt for many that have died for this doctrine. It is worthy of note that they had previously taught that taking vaccine and organ transplantation was a sin. Some died for this, but they later changed it. If you die for an unscriptural policy, you didn't die for God, you died for your leaders.

AlphaTaikun:
Thanks for explaining it succinctly to him. It's totally bad that some posters are ONLY here with their limited knowledge of medical innovations to just attack the Jehovah's Witnesess folks despite the FACT that as far back as the 1990s alternative methods to replace blood transfusions such as EPO have been created due to the recurrent episodes of innocent people getting infected with improperly screened blood in some countries leading to HIV, Ebola, Lassa Virus, Marburg and other zoonotic infections. You don't require blood transfusions if you don't want it as long as alternatives exist.

People MUST learn to read to understand and I think the JWs have to further enlighten the public worldwide again that they aren't stupid BECAUSE alternative methods to replace blood transfusions exist! INFACT, based off of reading AWAKE magazine since the 1990s, the Jehovah's Witnesess are one of the MOST highly educated and scientifically aware Christian groups ever. The other Christian sect members that keep attack them as being "dogmatic" are the problem because they do NOT get themselves updated on events. I say this as someone who is not even a practicing Xtain. I hate hypocrisy of any kind tbh.

People MUST learn to read to understand and I think the JWs have to further enlighten the public worldwide again that they aren't stupid BECAUSE alternative methods to replace blood transfusions exist! INFACT, based off of reading AWAKE magazine since the 1990s, the Jehovah's Witnesess are one of the MOST highly educated and scientifically aware Christian groups ever.

See honest hearted and sincere individuals talking about God's people and our faith respectfully:

AlphaTaikun:
I CLEARLY stated on this thread that I'm NOT a member (or an adherent) of JW. Just as I stated, it was back in the 1990s via an AWAKE magazine published by the JWs that I FIRST got to know about non-blood transfusion alternatives such as EPO, so I had to do some more research on the Internet on EPO and other alternatives back then in the late 1990s.

Second, based off of your insights here, I appreciate your extra layers of CLARITY and insights into this blood transfusion OR NO blood transfusion alternatives topic. My primary concern and interest in these alternatives to blood transfusions though has to do with the many cases of reported infections of unsuspecting folks in some countries of the world with HIV, Ebola, Lassa Virus, hepatitis variants, etc, through improperly screened blood. So many people have been known to get wrong genotype results from some diagnostic labs (due to human errors or the use of expired reagents) so getting second or third opinions from more credible diagnosis labs become important.

It's important for folks to choose wisely when thinking of taking blood transfusions and alternatives as well because there are PROS and CONS in every situation. The prerogative to choose wisely is on everyone.


Cheers.

https://www.nairaland.com/8575762/jehovahs-witness-receives-blood-cancer

See the above thread?

Go there and show yourself at least let honest hearted and sincere individuals know who and what you are!

MaxInDHouse:
People MUST learn to read to understand and I think the JWs have to further enlighten the public worldwide again that they aren't stupid BECAUSE alternative methods to replace blood transfusions exist! INFACT, based off of reading AWAKE magazine since the 1990s, the Jehovah's Witnesess are one of the MOST highly educated and scientifically aware Christian groups ever.

If you observe trending socal media topics you will understand that Nigerians as a people don't think deeply & don't rely on fact based research to analyze serious issues.

97% respond to a matter not on the basis of fact based research.
They respond to matters with sentiments, biases & prejudices.

Janosky:
If you observe trending socal media topics you will understand that Nigerians as a people don't think deeply & don't rely on fact based research to analyze serious issues. 97% respond to a matter not on the basis of fact based research. They respond to matters with sentiments, biases & prejudices.

The funny thing is even when there is proof that God's people are doing the right thing many still want to accuse us.

If not for Nairaland i wouldn't have known why Jesus said sin against God's holy spirit will never be forgiven {Matthew 12:31-32} imagine the so called PIMO claiming blood transfusion saves life when many that aren't even JWs are rejecting it based on research.

MaxInDHouse:
The funny thing is even when there is proof that God's people are doing the right thing many still want to accuse us.
Z
If not for Nairaland i wouldn't have known why Jesus said sin against God's holy spirit will never be forgiven {Matthew 12:31-32} imagine the so called PIMO claiming blood transfusion saves life when many that aren't even JWs are rejecting it based on research.

A man I met in field ministry before COVID told me he had bloodless heart surgery & he is doing fine.
He said he chose that option when the surgeon explained to him in detail what it is & recovery rate compared to the other one.
We met at a mechanic workshop in my territory.
The man said it made him appreciate JWs more than before,now he has personal experience of the matter that JW's fought for,to respect patients rights.

Janosky:
A man I met in field ministry before COVID told me he had bloodless heart surgery & he is doing fine.
He said he chose that option when the surgeon explained to him in detail what it is & recovery rate compared to the other one.
We met at a mechanic workshop in my territory.
The man said it made him appreciate JWs more than before,now he has personal experience of the matter that JW's fought for,to respect patients rights.

But PIMO will continue deceiving himself claiming selfwoke!🙂