Sunday, December 22, 2013

Church Membership

Trying to show true doctrine to JWs and X-JWs presents a challenge with church membership. As soon as they find out that you belong to a church, they assume that you illogically accept church beliefs that are unbiblical. A lot of Christian X-JWs let that keep them from ever becoming a member of a church. I let it hold me back for a while.

Finally I decided that I just want to be a Christian and get on with my life. I don't want to be identified to myself and others as an X-JW anymore, so to get over my fear of church membership I had to just jump in. Now I have finished membership classes at church, and I don't think I can do it... I get very nervous, afraid of being rejected if I miss a couple of weeks in a row. I have missed a month now. (I have an autoimmune disease and my daughter has been having chronic digestion problems.) And I feel that when I go back I can't promise to be a church member.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

How can you believe in the Trinity after being a Jehovah's Witness?

  • Three very important things happened before I came to believe in the Trinity (which is not perfect, as it is men's words and did you know that the words used in the doctrine are said to be used in new ways, so the term person as used in the Trinity doctrine does not mean person in the way we are used to using the term*). 
    1. I trusted in Christ to save me and no longer feared end times because of reading 1 Thessalonians 1:10. 

    2. I realized that my religious leaders were taking Christ's place as my ONLY Mediator from God and told Him, "Lord, I will never listen to them again, only you." 1 Timothy 2:5; Acts 3:22; Hebrews 1:1-2; 1 John 2:27

    3. I let go of the need to really understand the doctrine of the Trinity, because 1 John 2:23 says that it doesn't really matter.


    I believe in the Trinity now because after receiving Christ I was reading the New Testament and I saw that the Holy Spirit is of both the Son and the Father as they are one. I saw this in  Ephesians 4:4 and Romans 8:9, John chapter 14 and specifically the context surrounding and including verse 23.
    *From the Catholic Catechism: 251. "In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develop her own terminology with the help of certain notions of philosophical origin: 'substance', 'person' or 'hypostasis', 'relation' and so on. In doing this, she did not submit the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to these terms, which from then on would be used to signify an ineffable mystery, 'infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand'. [Paul VI, CPC # 2.]" 

Monday, December 2, 2013

Evangelizing Jehovah's Witnesses part 1: the law

I have seen a tendency to think that everyone needs the same method of evangelism that involves convicting with the law (usually the 10 commandments) first. Let's compare this method to scripture. 

So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles.
Acts 10:34-45

Where did Peter use the law to convict his listeners?