12 Therefore Jesus spoke again to them, saying: I am the light of the world. He that follows me will by no means walk in darkness, but will possess the light of life. (John 8 NWT)
12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, I am the Light of the world. The [one] following Me will in no way walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life. (John 8 GLT)
12 Again, therefore, Jesus spake to them, saying, 'I am the light of the world; he who is following me shall not walk in the darkness, but he shall have the light of the life.' (John 8 YLT)
12 Pa,lin ou=n auvtoi/j evla,lhsen Îo`Ð VIhsou/j le,gwn VEgw, eivmi to. fw/j tou/ ko,smou\ o` avkolouqw/n moi. ouv mh. peripath,sh| evn th/| skoti,a| avll e[xei to. fw/j th/j zwh/j (John 8 WHO)
Jesus is the way (FDS1) the truth (FDS3) the light (FDS2) and the life (FDS4). The life is the 4th true church, Our light is the bible which is the light of the world, the word of God and Jesus Christ.
The bible is a great light. It shines its light directly on every reader if that reader believes that he can see something new in the scriptures. If the reader believes that he can see nothing new in the scriptures and that only the priesthood in his church can see anything new then he is not walking in the sunlight but is rather walking in the darkness and being illuminated by moonlight, a dead reflection of the sunlight of the bible through that priesthood.
The Watchtower's channel doctrine insists that the Holy Spirit must give food to the faithful slave directly and that slave will then feed the congregation. This doctrine is correct except for the word 'directly'. The congregation must indeed be fed by the priesthood. But the priesthood is supplied with food by the Holy Spirit not directly but through the congregation. For Russell described himself as a collator and a sifter of other people's ideas more than an originator of his own.
The bible is written by the father of all of our minds for all of our minds. It is not written for the minds only of priests. The first law says this...
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. (Matthew 22 KJV)
37 He said to him: 'You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind.' (Matthew 22 NWT)
37 And Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." [Deut. 6:5] (Matthew 22 GLT)
37 And Jesus said to him, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thine understanding -- (Matthew 22 YLT)
37 The (one) but said to him you shall love Lord the God of you in whole heart of you and in whole the soul of you and in whole the mind of you; (Matthew 22 KIT)
You cannot subcontract out this love to a 3rd party. You must love God with all of your mind - not with all of somebody else's. That means you must read the bible and apply all of your mind to interpreting what it might mean. If you subcontract bible interpretation out to your priest you become an idolater of that priest. Even if that priest is the leader of the true church you are still an idolater.
A light illuminates all who look at it. So why does every JW and every Catholic refuse to look at the light themselves (with a view to understanding new church doctrine) but instead look at a reflection of that light from their priest?
Why do we all moonbathe and refuse to sunbathe?
It is because the priesthood wants it that way so that they can play God to their congregations.
The channel for true interpretations is the Holy Spirit. It is not the priesthood of the church. For interpretations belong to God not to the priesthood. If you have no confidence that God will be able to reveal anything new to you. Then you believe that light cannot travel directly to you from the bible in a straight line but has to bounce of the priest in order to reach you. This is plainly false. Light does not have to bounce off anybody to reach its target. It radiates out in a sphere from its origin to shine on all who are prepared to walk by it.
So what should happen in the true church is that light should travel to the congregation members and bible studies and friends of the congregation and they should see something new. This new understanding should then be submitted to the priesthood, who will consider, sift and collate the submissions they receive and then distribute them as food if they are accepted.
So the job of the priesthood is to be more of a Simon Cowell and less of a Paul McCartney. And we must all become light creating stars not dead reflecting moons. We must produce our own light from our own nuclear fusion furnaces of personal research. Then we shall fulfil the words of Daniel when he said...
3 And the ones having insight will shine like the brightness of the expanse; and those who are bringing the many to righteousness, like the stars to time indefinite, even forever. (Daniel 12 NWT)
And the words of God when he said...
5 He now brought him outside and said: Look up, please, to the heavens and count the stars, if you are possibly able to count them. And he went on to say to him: So your seed will become. (Genesis 15 NWT)