@ghost-of-a-duke said
I appreciate you are out of touch with Scripture, but perhaps you should familiarize yourself with Matthew 16:23, as I think he could have been speaking directly to your church:
'Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Although I agree with you on many things dealing with JW, but to be fair, the passage from Matthew is directed at all Christendom, bar none.
Peter is the denier of knowing Christ. Peter is technically the beginning of the Christian church in Rome, by having been the first pope. The history of Christianity shows how unlike Christ it has been.
The passage shows that Peter was trying to prevent Jesus from fulfilling his mission, which was really to show that one must be willing to physically die for what we believe. And yet, Judas Iscariot, who actually helped Jesus fulfill the mission, is historically considered the villain. The very scriptural fact that Judas took his own life afterwards is a show of taking up his own cross and following Christ, whereas all the other close disciples went into hiding. Peter stuck around for a while, only to deny knowing Jesus out of fear for his own skin. Not only once, but 3 times, before the rooster crowed, and then he too ran away to hide with the others. Of the remaining 11, only John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, had courage enough to show up at the crucifixion, as the others remained in hiding, fearing their own lives, while their Lord, Master, and Teacher was being executed for what He had tried to teach them. Principally, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul."
This may be considered ludicrous, and blasphemous, but the really wise will see things as they really happened. All Christians will be made to believe, as intentionally written in scripture, that Judas did it for the money. Yet, the throwing way of the 30 pieces of silver, followed by his own intentional death, ought to make things clear.
If Jesus calls Peter Satan for trying to talk Him out of the heavenly mission, what are we to really call Judas for assuring that Jesus went trough with it?