Meeting 2, December 07, 2009: The Overview

The way I will try to present this material is to provide an overview post and later provide the actual quick transcript of the meeting, as I made sure I recorded all of the subsequent sessions with my iPhone.

After our last meeting, although I can genuinely appreciate the fact that JW's go door to door on a regular basis spreading (what I thought was the gospel), I was troubled that it wasn't the whole complete gospel and the little gospel that they preach was muddied up by a distorted gospel of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.  I decided to actually do some research on the internets about the Jehovah Witnesses and what they believed as well as to see if anyone had any advice on how to respond to the book, "What Does the Bible Really Teach".  A quick Google search turned up a publication written by Wilbur Lingle, entitled, "How to Respond to 'What Does the Bible Really Teach'"  I quickly downloaded the pdf file and read through some of the questions and answers so that I could better prepare myself not only to respond to the questions but be ready to explain and share my view of the good news of "God's way of doing things" to Frank* and his ministry partner as well.  The publication, while helpful didn't include a lot of the questions that I had and it was written from a certain theological point of view.  However, I could appreciate the heart in which it was written.

By reading Lingle's book, I quickly learned  how the JW's "bible study" is supposed to work.  Each chapter in the book begins with a few questions that are to be answered during the study of the chapter.  Each paragraph in each chapter is numbered so that in the foot note of each page there will be a corresponding question that reads like an answer to the game show "Jeopardy".  For instance, you just read the previous sentence, so based on what you just read, the question would be, "How is the JW's "bible study" supposed to work?"  The correct answer would be to repeat back what you just read instead of trying to come up with your own answers, so most of the time my reply would be something like, "Well, according to your little book here it says this, but according to such and such chapter and verse in the actual bible, I believe the correct answer is this."  Because no matter what I believe about different topics, I ultimately have to compare that with the overall love and character of God himself.

The next visit Frank* brought what seemed to be a more knowledgeable partner in Dank*.  I had come in contact with Dank* on an earlier visit, but had quickly brushed him and his ministry partner to the side, as I had just gotten home and didn't want to be bothered.  During this visit, we were able to get through at least a few pages of the book.  Most of the things in the first few pages are pretty agreeable by Bible believing Christians.  They were impressed by my use of Accordance Bible software as I was able to compare different bible versions (I had hooked my computer up to a 50" plasma monitor so that we could search the scriptures together).  Additionally, Dank* seemed very impressed with the New English Translation of the Bible as some of the wording in the NET bible seems to correct what is translated in the King James Version of the Bible and some passages convey the same meanings as translated in the New World Translation.  Of course they asked if the New World Translation was available in my bible software, so I took them online to search the Accordance site for the NWT, but to no avail.  I thought it would be beneficial to show them the differences between the NWT and other versions of the bible, so during the next week, I took the time to download the HTML text of their bible from the Watchtower website so that we could look through the discrepancies together.

I can't remember whether or not I explained this in a previous post or not, but let me take time here to further explain why I'm glad that I took the time to have this bible study with the JW's.  I think that it is wrong for all of these people who call themselves Christians (including myself) to live in a little bubble with our Jesus T-Shirts, hats and pens and never engage other people.  And then when we do engage other people, we try to convert them to Christianity.  I believe that we should follow Jesus' example and simply live our lives as Christ-like people of God and eat, drink, and be sociable with people so that they can see the light that we have instead of us trying to get them to repeat the "sinners prayer".  But that's just my opinion and the way I conduct this bible study.  I want to develop a relationship with Frank* so that he can better hear what I have to say.  I want to love him in the 1 Cor. 13 way,  not being touchy, but being kind and not insisting on my own way.

By developing this relationship, Frank* tells me how when he first got involved with the JW's he was looking for answers as it related to death and the Watchtower gave him "some satisfying answers" and gave him "a lotta hope".  He adamantly remarked about "Jehovah God" and the "beautiful hope".  Most of the arguments that's presented in the "Bible Teach" book are predicated on seemingly common sense questions, answers, and examples.  The book is definitely geared towards men and women who have never read or understood the bible.

We would take turns reading the paragraphs and then Frank* would look at the bottom of the page to find the questions that relates to the paragraphs previously read.  Hopefully, I can get the rough transcript posted by the end of the day today as I'm sure that the conversation we had was indeed fruitful and be helpful for everyone reading this blog.

*The names of the Jehovah's Witnesses have been changed.