Jehovahs Witness Bible Study

[jediwill83]

Anyone here ever taught Bible Studies to Jehovahs Witness with success? Any good reading you would like to reccomend on this topic?

[Ron]

Ah no, I have witnessed to them, but haven't won any.

Try reading the Bible?

Get them to look at Col 2:9 in their JW Bible, it is very similar to the KJV.

[Sister Alvear]

The ones in Brazil cannot explain 1 John 5:20...

[Sister Alvear]

They can try to explain away a lot of things but they cannot explain away your personal testimony.

[TRFrance]

Anyone here ever taught Bible Studies to Jehovahs Witness with success? Any good reading you would like to reccomend on this topic?
I've witnessed to a few. They're a tough nut to crack. And at the end of the day, you cant crack a nut that refuses to be cracked.

But a great resource I recommend is a book called Jehovah's Witnesses Answered Verse by Verse. Its a great investment if you're serious about arming yourself with knowledge of their doctrine and the arguments they like to use.
You can pick up a used copy real cheap on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Jehovahs-Witnesses-Answered-Verse/dp/0801077397

The ones in Brazil cannot explain 1 John 5:20...
Nice.
I'll keep that one in mind. Thats a great verse for demonstrating the deity of Christ.

[Praxeas]

Anyone here ever taught Bible Studies to Jehovahs Witness with success? Any good reading you would like to reccomend on this topic?
Not me, but I have debated with them. There are a lot of things that won't work and will. Is this really a bible study? Are they open to one? If so then they might not really be hard core JWs anymore and are open to whatever you teach.

[Praxeas]

Get them on the resurrection
http://www.carm.org/jw/jw_ressurrection.htm

[Jason B]

I spent some time with when I first came to God. I was about 21 and went to the Jehovah's withness hall for "Bible studies" with them, allthough they probably thught they were going to teach me. I will say their "church" looked nice, small, seating about 200 at most. No pews, straigt stadium seating, looked like a *gasp* movie theater.

Anyway during this time a few things stuck out to me, that may help any of you talking to Jehovah's witness in the future.

1)They are absolutly opposed to the baptism of the Holy Ghost and tongues, so I went about it a different way, on day as they were trying to recruit me, I briefly mentioned mine and my wife's testimony, how that when we God set us free from THAT VERY DAY never again smoked, cussed, drank, and all the vices of the flesh that were upon, that we had been strugling with since repentance were gone. When I mentioned that, in excitement (trying to recruit me) one hopped up and said, "That is exactly what we need" to which I responded, that is the exact experience I have been telling you about for 2 weeks that you don't believe in. See sis. alvears comment on testimony

2)They don't believe in the physical resurrection of Christ-see prax's post.

3)Interestingly enough, they very strongly believe that Jehovah AND Jesus created everything. Jesus is Jehovah's helper. They will try to explain this by Gen 1 and Proverbs 8. I remember cross referencing them to Isiah 44:24. If you could of only seen this "ministers" face. He just looked up from His Bible with his mouth open and paused for a moment. It was like for just a moment he was getting the revelation from God and had to choose between that or his tradition and upbrining. After a few seconds he stumbled around to change the discussion and we soon closed. of all of the time i spent with these JW's, I think the Isa 44 scripture was the turning point.

4)I saw this same "minister" come into the grocery store I worked in and buy 2 Colt 45
40oz's (beers). I considered him a friend,and was embarrased to ask him in public what he was doing, fearing perhaps severe depression had kicked in or something, so I called him when I got home to which he responded:
"You won't catch me smoking a cigeratte, or doing any drugs, but I will throw back a cold 40. You know Paul told Timothy to use a little wine for his stomach's sake." (Somehow I think he is taking the scripture out of ocntext) Anyway they believe drinking is okay, it goes back to Judge Rutherford, former leader of the group.

5)The watchtower is treated as scripture. They actually have a service each week where the congregation reads through the entire watch tower. This was done on a Tuesday, the weird/neat thing is that all of the JW's around the world do this each week. So on any given Tuesday/Wednesday night they are all studing the same watchtower all over the world. Hence if you do some research you can tear them to pieces using this literature, for such discrepencies as the dating of the end of the world, rulings on blood transfusions, use of alchohol, and a host of subjects. This is because their official doctrine is that the headquarters in New York is the "servant" that Jesus spoke of in the gospel when He said "who is that wise servant who will give them MEAT in due season." It is not unlike the catholic doctrine of papel infallibility, only it is used of the "governing board" sort of like the mormons and their apostles. Anyway, like someone said, the only meat the JW's have been providing is bologna!


There's more, but I don't want the post to be too long, I'm sure there is enough to get started on.

PS-Anything scripture that EQUATES Jesus as BEING Jehovah, not merely His Son is very difficult for them. Especially cross referencing scripture.

PSS-the majority of their debate "skill" come from a book called "Reasoning from the Scriptures." which gives them the words to answer any particular doctrine they come into contact with. Many of them memorize the arguments n the book, you get them beyond the arguments in the book, and they have no defense. When you get on a difficult subject with them, and they answer you once or twice, press the issue they will run out of material because their doctrine is terribly built on shifting sand.

[Praxeas]

I spent some time with when I first came to God. I was about 21 and went to the Jehovah's withness hall for "Bible studies" with them, allthough they probably thught they were going to teach me. I will say their "church" looked nice, small, seating about 200 at most. No pews, straigt stadium seating, looked like a *gasp* movie theater.
Congregations are supposed to tap out at 200 by design.

Anyway during this time a few things stuck out to me, that may help any of you talking to Jehovah's witness in the future.

1)They are absolutly opposed to the baptism of the Holy Ghost and tongues, so I went about it a different way, on day as they were trying to recruit me, I briefly mentioned mine and my wife's testimony, how that when we God set us free from THAT VERY DAY never again smoked, cussed, drank, and all the vices of the flesh that were upon, that we had been strugling with since repentance were gone. When I mentioned that, in excitement (trying to recruit me) one hopped up and said, "That is exactly what we need" to which I responded, that is the exact experience I have been telling you about for 2 weeks that you don't believe in. See sis. alvears comment on testimony
One time an elder and a new convert came to the door. He asked if I knew that Jesus was the second greatest person. I said no Jesus is God. He replied that John 1:1 says 'a god' and I went on from there. Eventually I started witnessing about what God did for me and I can see this knew convert was really into it, so I directed most of my words towards her and really began to witness of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. She was lit up like a christmass tree (sorry rico)..this elder was looking at her, then back and me, then at her then all of a sudden interjected that they did not have anymore time left and that she had to be somewhere.

2)They don't believe in the physical resurrection of Christ-see prax's post.
exactly and have no good explanation for the words of jesus "destory this temple and in three days I will raise it"

3)Interestingly enough, they very strongly believe that Jehovah AND Jesus created everything. Jesus is Jehovah's helper. They will try to explain this by Gen 1 and Proverbs 8. I remember cross referencing them to Isiah 44:24. If you could of only seen this "ministers" face. He just looked up from His Bible with his mouth open and paused for a moment. It was like for just a moment he was getting the revelation from God and had to choose between that or his tradition and upbrining. After a few seconds he stumbled around to change the discussion and we soon closed. of all of the time i spent with these JW's, I think the Isa 44 scripture was the turning point.
In fact they added a word to Col that makes it read "All other things were made by Him" referring to Christ. Jehovah made his first creation Jesus and Jesus made everything else

4)I saw this same "minister" come into the grocery store I worked in and buy 2 Colt 45
40oz's (beers). I considered him a friend,and was embarrased to ask him in public what he was doing, fearing perhaps severe depression had kicked in or something, so I called him when I got home to which he responded:
"You won't catch me smoking a cigeratte, or doing any drugs, but I will throw back a cold 40. You know Paul told Timothy to use a little wine for his stomach's sake." (Somehow I think he is taking the scripture out of ocntext) Anyway they believe drinking is okay, it goes back to Judge Rutherford, former leader of the group.
Yep they are ok with drinking.

5)The watchtower is treated as scripture. They actually have a service each week where the congregation reads through the entire watch tower. This was done on a Tuesday, the weird/neat thing is that all of the JW's around the world do this each week. So on any given Tuesday/Wednesday night they are all studing the same watchtower all over the world. Hence if you do some research you can tear them to pieces using this literature, for such discrepencies as the dating of the end of the world, rulings on blood transfusions, use of alchohol, and a host of subjects. This is because their official doctrine is that the headquarters in New York is the "servant" that Jesus spoke of in the gospel when He said "who is that wise servant who will give them MEAT in due season." It is not unlike the catholic doctrine of papel infallibility, only it is used of the "governing board" sort of like the mormons and their apostles. Anyway, like someone said, the only meat the JW's have been providing is bologna!
There are a number of books out there with copies in them of earlier WT publications that give prediction dates, that give changes in doctrines etc etc


There's more, but I don't want the post to be too long, I'm sure there is enough to get started on.

PS-Anything scripture that EQUATES Jesus as BEING Jehovah, not merely His Son is very difficult for them. Especially cross referencing scripture.

PSS-the majority of their debate "skill" come from a book called "Reasoning from the Scriptures." which gives them the words to answer any particular doctrine they come into contact with. Many of them memorize the arguments n the book, you get them beyond the arguments in the book, and they have no defense. When you get on a difficult subject with them, and they answer you once or twice, press the issue they will run out of material because their doctrine is terribly built on shifting sand.

They will deny this though. But I have seen the book. They really have a book of answers that goes like this "if your friend says xxxx, then you might reply xxxxxxxxxxx"

And I have had then deny it but I have seen copies from this book

[RandyWayne]

Ah no, I have witnessed to them, but haven't won any.

Try reading the Bible?

Get them to look at Col 2:9 in their JW Bible, it is very similar to the KJV.

Don't count the number of people you have won or not won based on your short term relationship. Most changes happen in peoples lives during the quiet times as they contemplate the events of the days and past conversations they have had. NO ONE here will ever have their mind changed during a "thread battle", yet thoughts ARE being exchanged to be mulled over at a later time.
I am always thinking "....I am planting a seed.... I am planting a seed...." as I go through life.
You may never know this side of eternity what came about.

[Jason B]

They will deny this though. But I have seen the book. They really have a book of answers that goes like this "if your friend says xxxx, then you might reply xxxxxxxxxxx"

And I have had then deny it but I have seen copies from this book

Prax, I have actually got a copy of the book "reasoning from the scriptures", as well as some other exculsive JW literature. They had a virtual bookstore in their compound, and if they thought they were going to get you, they would give you all the free literature you wanted, so I got a couple of books, plus picked up a couple at the thrift store.

[Praxeas]

Prax, I have actually got a copy of the book "reasoning from the scriptures", as well as some other exculsive JW literature. They had a virtual bookstore in their compound, and if they thought they were going to get you, they would give you all the free literature you wanted, so I got a couple of books, plus picked up a couple at the thrift store.
Wow. You could possibly use that against them. Though I've never seen a JW change their views purely by debate. Often it just backs them into a corner

[jediwill83]

Found some great links to sites I will post later.One lists all the prophecies the watchtower has made from its inception until 1998.The New World Translation is published by the watchtower and skews the Scripture to fit their doctrine but you can still get them on account of the CONTEXT of how the scripture is used.

[Cindy]

Don't count the number of people you have won or not won based on your short term relationship. Most changes happen in peoples lives during the quiet times as they contemplate the events of the days and past conversations they have had. NO ONE here will ever have their mind changed during a "thread battle", yet thoughts ARE being exchanged to be mulled over at a later time.
I am always thinking "....I am planting a seed.... I am planting a seed...." as I go through life.
You may never know this side of eternity what came about.

I agree RW. I really think most of people are like that.