Bullseye

How can we illustrate being exemplary? Imagine a bullseye or target with several circular levels. Outside is the world and its unlawful things, like the practice of sin, or serious sins. The outermost circle represents the lawful things. These are basic things that please God. Unbaptized individuals that are making progress enter into this realm little by little. Once they embrace it, they move further into the next level where they get baptized and make the truth their own. Yet, not all baptized individuals go as far as to sacrifice themselves to avoid stumbling others. Those that do, move ahead into the next level of progress, the level of becoming an exemplary Christian.

This level consists of the advantageous things, like taking others into account, respecting others' feelings, being yielding, living by principles rather than rules. These are exemplary Christians that set an excellent model for others to follow. They reach out to serve, are self-sacrificing, and go the extra mile. Being exemplary is a requirement for practically all privileges of service. However, it requires a greater sacrifice in our personal latitude of action. Now, the bullseye is to become a perfect example, like Christ, who 'did not please himself.' (Rom. 15:3) Jesus was a perfect human with endless possibilities in life, and yet he displayed perfect self-control and limited himself to carrying on God's will. In the new system, we will reach that perfect level. Although we have a long way to go, still today if we want to really do our very best and reach out, we need to strive to attain the level of maturity of an exemplary Christian. (1 Corinthians 10:23, 24; 1 Timothy 4:11)

Who’s qualified?

Jehovah doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called.

Moonlight

The Moon can reflect the powerful sunlight, even though is dark and have a low reflectance. Just so, we can reflect God's perfect qualities to a reasonable degree in spite our imperfection. It is not because we have a 'high reflectance,' but because our Sun, Jehovah, has vast dynamic energy and awe-inspiring power that can make us bright spiritually.—Gen. 1:26,27; Isa 40:26 (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/lroc-20100910_color_moon.html)

Distorted qualities

Excellent qualities as love, power or wisdom have been distorted by Satan's world. For example, when the world thinks about love, usually the word 'sex' is brought to the fore. And the concept of power is confused with dominating others. How did this distortion happen? It can be compared to the image reflected in a mirror. Perhaps this morning you looked at yourself in the mirror, and its reflection was clear. But there are mirrors that give a distorted reflection of reality. Perhaps you've seen them in the circus or at a fair. Those mirrors make our heads look much bigger; our body shape turns deformed, looking too fat or too slim. They give us an image of ourselves funny at first but distasteful in the end. That same effect of disfiguring and distorting is what the world has done to some beautiful qualities Jehovah encourage us to reflect.

Million dollar surprise

In 1999 the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston paid $1.25 million for a still life painting that for years covered a hole on the wall in a home in Indiana, US, its value unknown to the owner and its existence unknown to art experts. The painting, ‘Magnolias on Gold Velvet Cloth’ by the 19th-century American painter Martin Johnson Heade, was sold by a man in his 30's who realized the value of the work when he played a board game about art that includes an image of a similar Heade.

It may have seemed old-fashioned, but this painting was packing a million dollar surprise! Something similar happens with certain moral qualities. For instance, people today think that virtues like chastity, mildness, or even honesty are old-fashioned and so they underestimate their value. But to mention one example, time and again sexual immorality and promiscuity bring nothing but misery to people's lives, yet chastity could save us all that pain. (James 3:17) Do we see the value of the qualities the Bible promote? (http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/04/arts/painting-packs-a-million-dollar-surprise.html)

Doves

Doves are a prevalent symbol of Christians in the Bible. At Matthew 10:16, Jesus told his followers to be cautious as serpents, yet innocent as doves. What is so special about doves? Many birds are predators even against their own kind. That is, they will kill the eggs and destroy the nests of other birds in order to make themselves and their offspring superior. Many humans and nations are like that, also destroying others to keep themselves from being destroyed or even to keep themselves from merely losing some monetary objectives. But doves are not like that. Rather than destroy the nests of other doves, all in the pen will take turns sitting on the nests... even the single males. Pigeons and chickens will not do this. Doves mate for life in male/female pairs and others will not interfere in these relationships trying to steal a dove's mate. Other birds are likely mated all to one dominant male —nothing against chickens. A few bird species such as eagles, parakeets, pigeons will mate for life, but are still aggressive, fighting type birds. Doves care for each other; cuddle together for warmth; help care for eggs, nests, and infants; and will only reject a member once the illness or injury is unrecoverable. Then they will isolate the member from the rest. Most bird species will peck an injured one to death at the first sign of illness or injury. They will also peck to death the babies of other birds including their own kinds. Doves, therefore, naturally mimic much of the conduct expected of Christians. Even though we live in the world, a world full of Satan's birds who would pick us and our seeds to death, we do not wage war as the world does. Let us act like doves and not like other birds. —Matthew 13:3, 4, 18, 19 (http://www.liveanimalslist.com/birds/dove.php)

Keep asking!

There are no silly questions, just silly people too shy to ask.

Interrogatory

Questions come in different formats, like interviews, interrogatories, trivia, oral exams, surveying, discussion, etc. We should use good judgment deciding how to combine them depending on the different circumstances we may encounter. However to teach the Bible and imitate Jesus is better to use leading questions to reason and discuss the Bible in order to be more effective.