Ron Rhodes presents this lecture on How to Witness to Jehovah's Witnesses. This is a good introduction to what JW's believe and how to interact with them. More about Ron Rhodes and a good list of his resources at Truthbomb. Check out all of Ron Rhodes books here, which includes Reasoning from the Scriptures with Jehovah's Witnesses.This audio is from the Discern 09 Conference, and includes audio from Ron Rhodes, Bruce Ware, and James White. Check it out here.
Full MP3 Audio here.
Enjoy.
8 comments :
Hey Brian,
Thank you for linking to me!
Godspeed
This should be fun...
I have a JW chap knocking on my doors most weeks over the last 6 months.
(Though I have not seen him for a couple for some reason... hope it is not because the last time we spoke I told him that he had just stated he agreed with the theory of evolution, he just didn't realise it. Made me laugh anyway)
Lee
I will say that you can certainly tell a person who is outside of the Witness organization, trying to mock so as to score points. I know this post will be cut, but it is worth the moment a few people may read it. I will state that Dr. Rhodes told a blatant lie in the very beginning when he said a Witness said the following at a convention he was at: "is there some way I can serve you today, is there something that I can pray about." No Witness would EVER word things that way, or make statements like that. These are the words of evangelicals. If you tell a LIE right at the beginning, how are you to even be trusted that you are representing truth.
As he went through in his little mocking tone, it would be nice to have had some responses. The Witnesses have set dates of the end times, but so have every branch of Christianity. Should they be stoned?
There are 2,300 varieties of Christianity. Each are divided, even on salvation doctrine. You have every leader and every member with different beliefs on all the salvation doctrine: Calvinist, Lutheran, Wesleyan, Arminian, and on and on. And not only do you have different positions based on another man, if you do not like those positions, you tweak them until they fit what you want. You have millions of churches, each church leader with his own version, with each church member within the church with their own tweak. Well, how do you possess oneness of Christ like that?
Your members live lives of debauchery without fear of removal. You have an attendance rate under 20 percent. There are over 350,000 churches in America. 80% of them are stagnant, 20% of the growth is due to biological/transfer, and 1% is due to conversion.
Dr. Rhodes says that he is winning many Witnesses to Christ, but we are winning 500,000 of your divided Biblical illiterate members, who do not even know that Obadiah is a Bible book to being Witnesses.
Proof of having the truth is in the evident demonstration. Do you have 90% of your people actively fulfilling the Great Commission? Are you keeping your congregation clean of unrepentant sinners? Do 98% of your members actively go to your services? Do your members live by Bible principles? Are you one in Christ as to what you teaching, sticking to his word? The list could go on and on.
And you will say that we are not a works religion, and neither are we. However, there are signs of true Christianity and James spoke of those that claimed to have faith, but their life is not reflective of that faith, nullifying the claim.
I know this post will be cut,
Surprise! It wasn't. What else do you know? : )
Tyndale, I don't have time to go and check where you are getting your statistics, but I think one statement needs to be addressed:
Proof of having the truth is in the evident demonstration
Are you saying that hypocrisy proves the object of someone's purported faith wrong? Let's consider it logically:
1. X religion has hypocrites.
2. Therefore X religion is false.
OR
1. X religion has members who don't agree on points
2. Therefore X religion is false.
OR
1. X religion is doing really good.
2. Therefore X religion is true!
OR
1. X religion is winning more followers.
2. Therefore X religion is true!
These are fallacies, plain and simple Tyndale. It's too bad there are hypocrites all around and I am one of them sometimes, I assure you. But we don't measure a philosophy or a religion by those who abuse it or represent it poorly. I suggest you compare the truth claims of JW and Christianity on different criteria than those you have suggested.
Thanks for reading.
Hi Tyndale,
"I know this post will be cut, but it is worth the moment a few people may read it.
Didn't cut with me...
Every JW I have spoken to has been polite and open to discussion (not open to new ideas, but you cannot have everything)
However you have not made an argument why your version/interpretation of the bible/Christianity is any more correct than the thousands of others - but I will suggest that is wrong.
The reason why I say this is that every JW has told me that the bible does not lie and that it can be used to understand the world around us.
Using the bible, it should bring me closer to God. Following observation of the world should lead me to God.
Guess what, it hasn't.
Of course, all Christians here will agree it is my fault - but there you go.
Always blame the non-believer it seems
Still, I enjoy the conversions – only yesterday I was speaking to a JW lady... shame she didn’t understand 'justice and fairness' and see how mucked up this story of ‘Original Sin’ really is.
Also, I found it interesting that she believed that Jesus wasn’t the son of God, but a separate spirit who had be living in Heaven for sometime before God ‘placed’ him in the Virgin Mary.
Jesus then lived for 30 years on Earth not doing much, then the last 3 years Jesus did some preaching then died on a cross (sorry stake) only to come back from the dead to rise up to heaven again to be the spirit he was before.
So then... no real death, no real sacrifice... no real meaning.
Take care
Lee
to tyndale, all one can do for you at this stage is pray for you,to pray that your eyes may be opened,somebody prayed for me and i am no longer a jw after 15 years,i had been lied to,you are been lied to,most jw know this be are comfortable where they are,domost people out there know if one leaves that their family and friends will shun them? but shur im just bird feed now so what would i know? oh yes do you know that the watchtower joined the UN in 1991,there something for you to think about,
DID YOU KNOW THAT EGYPT, THE GREEK AND ROMANS WORSHIPPED THEIR GODS IN THREES? DID JESUS INSTITUTE THE TRINITY DOCTRINE? NO NO NO!!! IT WAS STARTED BY A CATHOLIC BISHOP NAMED ATHANASIUS!!!! JESUS CODEMNED THE PHARISSES FOR THEIR OWN TEACHINGS. HE SAID YOU HAVE MADE THE WORD OF GOD INVALID BECAUSE OF YOUR TRADIONS, NOT MINE MR RHODES. APOSTATE ELDERS WILL BE DESTROYED FIRST BY JESUS ANGELS. RETURN OR BE DESTROYED. PAUL A JW
Paul,
It is true that here are polytheistic religions that have a triad of gods holding the highest place in their pantheon. Others have a dyad of gods; for example, certain forms of Zoroastrianism. Some forms of Hinduism have six: three primary gods and their goddess wives.
But, of course, this has nothing to do with Christianity. The doctrine of the Trinity that is derived from Scripture is that there are three eternal Persons who share the Being of the one God. This teaching is found in no other religion.
Where Arius erred—and the JW's are right with him on this—is that, while he affirmed that the Father is deity, and that Jesus is deity, as the Scriptures make abundantly clear, he concluded that; therefore, Jesus and the Father must be two different gods.
In other words, he, in the third century, and JW's today, are polytheists. They worship a dyad of gods.
Athanasius, in contrast, refused to accept polytheism. Grounding his interpretation of passages that affirm the deity of the Father and the deity of the Son (and of the Spirit) in the consistent teaching of the prophets, apostles, and of Christ Himself, that there is only one true God, he concluded rightly that the three Persons are the one God.
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