An Expression of His Triumph
1, 2. How do those who preach “this good news of the kingdom” differ from peddlers of God’s Word?
DOES anyone ask in Paul’s words: “Who is adequately qualified for these things?” To that we can answer: “We are!” not out of boasting, but out of a grateful realization of Jehovah’s favor to us. We cannot deny what results to us when he assigns us to his service and trains us through his theocratic organization under Christ. True, we do offer the people literature, the Bible itself and books, booklets and magazines and tracts explaining the Bible under the illumination and guidance of Jehovah’s spirit; and we do accept contributions from cheerful givers to the support of the Bible educational work. But that does not make us peddlers of God’s Word. Many religious and commercial men are peddlers of his Word, but they are not of the New World society, for they seek to make selfish, personal gain out of their handling of God’s Word. When anyone presents God’s Word from such a motive he is not sincere in his spreading of that holy Word. But since we have no commercial ends in view, we are sincere in dealing with God’s Word. Our heart’s desire before Jehovah God is just to make the odor of the knowledge of him perceptible through us everywhere we go that it may sweeten the lives of all persons whose lives have been made bitter by Satan’s oppression and false religions, and who want to be the sheep of Jehovah’s Shepherd-King Jesus Christ and to abide in his fold.
2 This knowledge could not be diffused to them unless God sent those whom he has equipped with the right knowledge of him. Because he has given us this sweetness-breathing knowledge and thus placed a responsibility upon us not to keep that knowledge to ourselves, he has sent us. So we have this essential qualification from God of being his sent ones. We know he watches us on the way that he sends us; we are under his view, and we want to please him and gain his approval by the way we act and by the use we make of this gift of knowledge from him. From our very hearts we do not want to be peddlers. Being a peddler—well, even a servant of the Devil can be a peddler, and a peddler of God’s Word is a servant of the Devil; but being a peddler of anything is so far below the dignity and lofty honor of being in the triumphal train of the Most High God, sincerely enjoying the pleasure and privilege of sharing his Word unselfishly with others and making the odor of the knowledge of him perceptible to them. If we are in company with Christ we have to handle God’s Word that way, and we do want to stay in his company. We do not want to be in the company of religious peddlers.
3. Why, like Paul, do we preach?
3 So we are truly qualified for participating in the glorious triumphs of the Kingdom message in this day of Jehovah’s march to his greatest triumph by Christ. Therefore, like Paul, “as sent from God, under God’s view, in company with Christ, we are speaking” everywhere the Kingdom message.—2 Cor. 2:17, NW.
4. What additional aid for effective preaching has Jehovah now provided?
4 As a reward for our everywhere making perceptible the fragrant odor of the knowledge of Him till now, and to aid us in further breathing out that “odor issuing from life to life,” Jehovah God has given us at this time the second volume of the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus the promise made at Yankee Stadium in the international convention of 1950 when the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures was released is one step farther toward its complete fulfillment.
5, 6. By what act of separation has the Society better served us in 1955 as respects Volume II of the translated Hebrew Scriptures than it had indicated on page 27 of Volume I (published 1953)?
5 Because of the early arrival of these regional conventions of Jehovah’s witnesses in 1955, the limited time did not allow for this Volume II of the translated Hebrew Scriptures to contain, as at first anticipated, the poetic books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. These Bible books will have to appear in the next volume, a distinct volume by itself. But as the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society eagerly desired to release a further part of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, it gratefully grabbed at what the New World Bible Translation Committee had ready and the committee was willing to release it. The result is the publication sooner than anticipated of this translation of the Hebrew Bible books from First Samuel to Esther, inclusive, as Volume II of the series. Rather than be disappointed because Volume II does not contain all the fourteen Bible books originally contemplated, we can be glad that the committee through the Watch Tower Society has not made us wait longer for getting the translation of the nine books from First Samuel to Esther.
6 The publication of this additional volume of the New World Translation Bible represents a further triumph of Jehovah’s Kingdom message. Till now the translation committee has been accused of all kinds of base motives and contemptible practices and poor scholarship by religious enemies, by peddlers of the Word of God; but the New World Bible Translation Committee has kept in mind its promise. It has trusted in the great Author of the Bible and has gone ahead undaunted by all the adverse criticism, ridicule and condemnation of this world, and has produced the present volume. It purposes not to stop with this volume but to push ahead as the time and opportunity allow according to the divine time schedule between now and Armageddon, until the last volume is published.
7, 8. Why does the period of history covered by Volume II deserve our most thoughtful study now? and by the publication and the distribution of Volume II what are we helping to make perceptible more keenly?
7 In its contents this new volume covers the time of the theocratic kingdom of Israel, with all its typical significance, down to the restoration of Jehovah’s temple and the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls after the overthrow of Babylon, with all the typical significance of those events, much of this typical history finding its fulfillment upon us alive today since 1914. Consequently that period of Jehovah’s dealing with his typical people deserves our most thoughtful study now, and that with the most faithful translation. The Watch Tower Society has confidence in this new volume of the New World Translation and will quote heavily from it in the Society’s future publications. We thank the Bible’s Author and Inspirer for this Volume II of the translated Hebrew Scriptures. We release it with the sense of being honored.
8 In publishing it the Society feels somewhat like the priest Ezra, who, as this Volume II calls him, was a “copyist of the law of the God of the heavens.” (Ezra 7:12, 21, NW) By our publishing this Volume II and by your sharing in distributing it to English readers we are all together helping to make more keenly perceptible the sweet odor of God’s knowledge in every place. Like Prime Minister Mordecai, backed up by Queen Esther of the Persian empire that triumphed over ancient Babylon, the anointed remnant of Jehovah’s royal priesthood works on, to prove itself as described in the last words of Volume II of the New World Translation, “delightsome to the multitude of his brothers, working for the good of his people and speaking peace to all their offspring.”—Esther 10:3, NW.