We live way out in the country. I mean, if you want to talk to me, you need to drive six miles out of town, hang a left on an obscure road, then go 300 yards down a driveway, not knowing if maybe there is a house at the end.
I just walked in from outside. I thought my friends from VA, the Goodes, were driving up. Instead it was a Jeep full of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Seeing our mutt, Abby, they asked me, “Is your dog dangerous?” I exclaimed, “very much so.”
Then, without getting out of the Jeep, they told me they had good news for me.
I asked if they were JWs and they said “yes.”
Then, with an evangelist’s smile, I said, “Then I have good news for you! There is far more liberty than you realize! I watch you guys and you do everything by the numbers, but there is far more liberty than you realize!” And I went inside.
The JWs are syncretistic. That is missionary techno-babble for “mixing the truth with stuff that is at best benignly cultural, or at worst, evil, from the pit of hell, and smells like smoke.”
I used to look down my long, arrogant nose at the JWs. Then I looked around my neighborhood and my community and I saw the syncretism of soccer moms and patriotic dads embracing a Sunday-only faith, putting the religion of sports and academics and America before the true religion of discipling young people to care for widows and orphans. I saw my own syncretism in not seeking first the Kingdom and Jesus’ righteousness.
Get upset at me if you want to, but I’m telling you, the only difference between us and the JWs is that they’re more insistent in pushing their syncretistic beliefs than we are.
“the only difference between us and the JWs is that they’re more insistent in pushing their syncretistic beliefs than we are.”
I love the humility in that revelation. What would the Kingdom look like if we had the same zeal for making disciples? I’m glad you sent it over. Good things come from our spontanious living room conversations
AMEN Seth, AMEN.
You go boy! I thought you were going to tell us you called down heaven on their jeep, no that’s pushing our syncretistic beliefs… come on Church!!
found your blog via Ian McDonald…. my dad became a JW when I was 4 or 5, it was awful as christianity and JW’s don’t mix. There was a separation and dad went one way and the rest of us (mum and 5 daughters) went the other way. Dad died 18 years ago still being a JW to some extent,that hurts….
They need to be exposed to the liberty found in the bible, but in a loving way. I find it really hard to love them and actually all I really want to do is run the opposite way when I see them, but I am slowly waking up to the fact that I shouldn’t do that, but give them a reason to hope instead of despair… hard one….
first – hahahahahahahahah
second – ouch!
third – soooo true
THIS ARTICLE JUST GOES TO SHOW HOW MAN HAS ADAPTED TO HOW MAN LIVES IN THIS WORLD. TO THINK THAT YOU SHOULD RUN FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING TO SAVE YOUR OWN LIVES IS IDIOTIC,BUT THIS IS SATAN’S WORLD AND EVERYBODY THINKS THE WAY THEY DO BECAUSE THAT IS THE WAY MAN HAS BEEN TAUGHT TO THINK. BY TRADITION. YOU ARE NOT HURTING WITNESSES BY RUNNING FROM THEM OR DOWNGRADING THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE ALREADY SAVING THEIR LIVES BY TRYING TO SAVE YOURS. PRAISE JAH!!!
I like the ALL CAPS. JW’s tend to talk in ALL CAPS.
You hide in the woods for a reason…don’t you? What I mean to say is this: You are there off the beaten path… for you know the world is in serious shape. You turn on your news and see the gloom and doom, but the Bible that is used by Jehovah’s people scares you. However, go open your Bible and you will see the “Good News” that each and everyone of us long for. You would not be in those woods if you didn’t want a little peace. You long for lil’ refreshment and a lil’ piece of what’s left of this earth. However, the Bible makes it clear…soon the earth will be filled with what your searching for under Gods Government…not man’s. That is our Good News. Jesus said there will be those that will scoff. It appears he was right. Something to think about. What is your other option? Hmmm? (2 Peter 3:2-4) They are…after all… doing what Jesus said in Matthew 24:14 You also know deep in your heart…that you have nothing to fear from them. Could you say that about all your neighbors? I think not…
Pamie,
this is kind of fun. I appreciate your not using the all caps that Karla used and I also appreciate your attempt to step inside my shoes and walk around a bit, though you were pretty far off in guessing at our motivations.
we’re certainly not living in the country to hide – we’re here for other reasons. our ministry is about rubbing elbows with society’s outcasts and hopeless – that’s where you’ll find us most of the time.
my issue w/ JW’s is one of focus. whereas Jesus preached a gospel of love as his central focus, JW’s shine their light on God and his coming kingdom. Hey – I’m not going to fight you on that issue, but here is where we part company: it’s not the main thing. the main thing is Jesus and a gospel of love. Talk to me about that first – establish common ground there and then we can move on to the secondary issue of eschatology. The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing.
Please, as I made sure of all things right here, I found a few errors which might cause misunderstandings so for the sake of accuracy, I beg you to delete it and to keep this one… (I so often lost all I had written that I now send too fast… will be more careful on editing from now on…)
“If I don’t have love, I have nothing”. Regardless of what any man says, this is what I believe, live by, and measure my conscience’s well-being with my heavenly Father and the one whom he sent for Christ Jesus. Let all men be proved liars but they (God and his son) never do. I’m not going to quote 77 scriptures for, to your credit, you all give me the impression that you have perhaps even abundantly familiarized yourselves with them and I pray, still are… The only reason I do believe in what the witnesses have to offer is simply because I have found nothing better in this world of false religions who’d rather kill their enemies than to pray for them. When I first gave them a half a chance to teach me what they had learned from the scriptures, they did it from my own bible and the more I tried to prove them wrong (I was so arrogant that I probably thought that it should be a breeze… after all, I had always passed any religious exams or tests with flying colours, 100% always…) the more I realized how much I had been lied to by the leaders of the catholic church and I proceeded to really and totally make sure of all things, by checking and double-checking every thing as far and as deep as I could possibly go. Not to mention the fact that when I had begun to read the scriptures as a child, it led me to ask some serious questions to my mom, who’d ask the priests, who’d then tell her to watch out for me, that I asked too many questions and that this was a sign of a weak soul that didn’t have enough faith in the mysteries of God and the Church. They were and still are so very wrong and I was so happy to finally be in a position to prove it beyond any reasonable doubt. I am open-minded and always will be as I truly appreciate the brain God has gracioulsy granted me to think for myself and to go as deep as I want to in any given field. Should you therefore have any concrete proof or evidence to the contrary of my beliefs, believing as I do, that Jehovah’s witnesses are the only ones thus far that have come to me with anything that I ever felt in my heart of heart to be the truest (they never claimed infaillibility that I know of!) word of God, I beg you to please enlighten me as my only desire is to please both Jehovah and the one whom he chose to be my King, not just in the heavens but to the entire planet real soon when he wins the battle for a second time, doing what I’ve been so anxious to see for so long, which is to give us peace and harmony at last, with humans truly and finally knowing what it means to be a human and to enjoy the real life for what it was meant to be from 6,000 years ago… but was temporarily interrupted for merely a week to God. Thank you so much for your time and consideration in reading this and I couldn’t be more serious about you giving me anything better to learn or a better place to go right now. Agape to all who read this and may the peace of God that excels all thought be with you.
Teri
You did it! Much appreciated… Thank you!
Jesus said the truth will set you free.The truth doesn’t matter when you have your own opinion.Jesus said you will be with me in Paradise.Jesus is coming on a white horse to execute judgement,and he will seperate the sheep from the goats.What does this all mean?Ask a priest and he will give you his own opinion.Ask yourself and you will have your own opinion.But ask a jeep full of JWs and they will give you not only the answer but the truth.
Dissident JW member speaks out.
The core dogma of the Watchtower organization is that Jesus had his second coming ‘invisibly’ in the year 1914.Their entire doctrinal superstructure is built on this falsehood.
Jehovah’s Witnesses door to door recruitment is by their own admission an ineffective tactic. They have lost membership in all countries with major Internet access because their false doctrines and harmful practices are exposed on the modern information superhighway.
There is good and valid reasons why there is such an outrage against the Watchtower for misleading millions of followers.Many have invested everything in the ‘imminent’ apocalyptic promises of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and have died broken and beaten.
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Respectfully,Danny Haszard http://www.freeminds.org
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
For this is man’s all.
For God will bring every work into judgement,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil.
Ecclesiastes 11:13-14 New(KJV)
“For God so loved the world that he gave His
only begotton son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 New (KJV)
Peace be upon you all.
Wow, this is very interesting, as a Muslim this is very, very interesting. May I ask a question. Why are two organizations arguing when you both read the same book? What’s the problem? I can see if I as a Muslim said something and Christians didn’t agree with it, but when you read the same book? Not to be funny but this is one of the big reasons I left the Church, plus my found knowledge of documents and to see the not so truths that everyone speak about is the truth. Sir Francis Bacon, help put Mason codes in the Bible with the help of King James, that’s the truth not fiction. No two bibles are alike, that’s the truth. New International Version omitts verses out of the Bible, such as “The Trinity” concept, but the word Trinity is never in the bible in the first place, that’s a fact. I can go on and on. So if both are arguing and I am an outsider looking in, then what is the truth? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
As a Jw I appreciate your interest in the bible and find it refreshing to find fellow bible readers. I encourage you to keep on reading the bible so that maybe you can come to an understanding of your own. And maybe if doing so sparks some interest you could welcome a free home bible study from one of the next Jw’s that come to your door. I sincerely hope that you will find true happiness in your search for the truth. But I am also sure that as you dig further into the bible youll come to a realization that what were preaching about realy is “the good news of the kingdom”.
Rahim,
Why don’t the Sunnis agree with the Shias?
As for Scripture, there is far more original source material for the Bible than there is for the Koran.
Ron