Okay, I have to confess. Sometimes, when I get into a theological argument with a believer in another religion, I get a little arrogant. And mean. I remember a Jehovah’s Witness coming to my door with a recruit, and in order to entirely remove her argument from her, I pulled out my Greek New Testament, turned it to 1st Corinthians, handed it to her upside down, and then asked her to explain where John 1:1 says that “the word was a god.” Well, she stammered for several minutes, then I craftily took the Greek Testament back, flipped it right side up, explained that I had given it to her upside down and turned to Corinthians, then I proceeded to flip the text to John 1:1 where I proceeded to properly parse John 1:1 to remove any possibility of Arianism from the verse.
I thought that this would be enough to properly persuade the woman and her young trainee that they were following a lie. Instead, they quickly left with no more words and I have never seen them again. I didn’t think about what I had done, only that I had smashingly won that round of religious ping pong. It wasn’t until far later that I thought, “Hmm, I won, but they probably still don’t accept Christ in terms of orthodox Christianity. I wonder why?”
Sometimes we know the truth, and we can even tell the truth, but if we tell it in pride, we may as well be a clanging cymbal or gong. Witnessing to others means being both truthful and graceful to others. Love does not take pride in wacking someone over the head with the mallet of truth. I pray that God will give me the grace necessary to spread the gospel next time, not win an argument.
I love what God is doing in your life, honey and want to say that I think you are great!
Thinking you won was pride. Ever use the Emphatic diaglott? Ever studied Koine Greek? Go back and do your homework. Jesus is not God. How can one be with God and God at the same time. You either believe the truth or you believe a total lie. You have chosen the later and one that the masses have chosen to believe. And, no I am not a JW. I just don’t buy into the trinitarian based lie.
I think you are arguing from a logical fallacy and not arguing from evidence. By this, I mean that you are arguing from your own understanding (How can one be with God and God at the same time?) and not arguing from the presentation of the Greek text. By the way, I have studied Koine. Otherwise, I would not A) Own a Greek New Testament and B) Use it in an argument with someone when discussing theological matters. I would then look like a sheer fool. I am familiar with the Emphatic Diaglott as well. The Greek text used, however, was a processed text put together by Johann Jakob Griesbach, who at times arbitrarily decided what clauses and phrases to use based on its absence or presence in groups of Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine manuscripts. There are several places where the Nestle-Aland text, as well as a majority of other manuscripts differ from the Griesbach text. (As a footnote, Griesbach’s Matthew first hypothesis has been shown as fairly untenable, which provides a good insight into how much faith I have in his work.)
Now, to give you the same response I gave to the JW. If you read John 1.1, the final passage of this verse is roughly translated “and God was the Word.” Now, there is no definite article, so it could technically be translated as “a God” or “God.” In Greek, words that have more emphasis can be thrown forward in a clause in order to emphasize those words. Therefore, John was using sentence position to indicate the emphasis on “God.” Also, because using the term “The God” would have been an indication of the Father, John refrained from doing so. The phrasing he used in John 1.1 gives stunning testimony to the accuracy of our belief that Jesus is God. John gave the term “god” emphasis to draw you to the point that He was “God”, yet not using the definite article points to Jesus is a separate entity from the Father.
I appreciate your concerns. However, I take my time to study to show myself approved, and I have looked at statements like this over and over to make sure that my words do not cause another brother to stumble.
I think many households in predominantly Christian Nations do not openly welcome Jehovah’s Witnesses because their door to door ministry seems designed to mislead the housholder into beleiving the same lies that Satan told in the Garden of Eden.
If you read the following newsletter you should see the parallels to the Edenic Sin:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11566728/Jehovahs-Witnesses-and-Satans-lie
They really are like Satan dressed in a nice suit and tie knocking on your door!
No wonder so many Nations have banned them!