Jehovah's Witnesses
Their official publication, "The Watch Tower", now has 17.8 million constituents in 106 languages.
We have all heard of them, they come to your door asking if they can talk about Jesus, then proceed to try to convince you that their version of the truth is true. Even if you are a Christian, you are deluded unless you believe what they say. Now, we truly would be deluded if we dismissed out of hand what they had to say - in truth we must critically analyze all truth claims no matter where they come from. And the Jehovah's Witnesses are some of the best, friendliest communities out there. They are to be commended greatly for this, but do they have the truth?
They do believe in the Bible, only they have a different interpretation of the original Greek.
The following is a list of differences between the fundamentalist's interpretation and the Jehovah's Witnesses' interpretation:
* The Society (The Watch Tower Society) has been given authority by God to interpret the Bible, therefore Witnesses must adhere to the Society's decisions.
* There is but one God, and His name is Jehovah (No Trinity)
* Jesus is not God, but God's Son and the first created being.
* Jesus was resurrected a spirit creature, not in physical form.
* When Jesus comes again, 144,000 will go up to live in heaven and the rest of the Witnesses will reign with Jesus on earth.
* Hell does not exist - there is no eternal torment.
* The soul of man is not eternal and can die (cease to exist).
* Jesus already returned to earth (invisible) in 1914 and is in the process of overthrowing Satan's organization.
Now to be fair, Jehovah's Witnesses do agree with a lot of fundamental Christian beliefs (Belief in Jesus is the only way to heaven, Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins, etc.) - They do believe in the Bible... It's just their interpretation on a few items that differ.
So why call them a cult like so many do?
There are reasons.... but mainly I put them under the blanket of the Apostate Church because Christianity can be surmised down to what you believe about Jesus Christ and who He is - and Jehovah's Witnesses have a starkly different view on Jesus - an irrevocable difference that must be determined.... whose interpretation is correct.
Jared Williams
We have all heard of them, they come to your door asking if they can talk about Jesus, then proceed to try to convince you that their version of the truth is true. Even if you are a Christian, you are deluded unless you believe what they say. Now, we truly would be deluded if we dismissed out of hand what they had to say - in truth we must critically analyze all truth claims no matter where they come from. And the Jehovah's Witnesses are some of the best, friendliest communities out there. They are to be commended greatly for this, but do they have the truth?
They do believe in the Bible, only they have a different interpretation of the original Greek.
The following is a list of differences between the fundamentalist's interpretation and the Jehovah's Witnesses' interpretation:
* The Society (The Watch Tower Society) has been given authority by God to interpret the Bible, therefore Witnesses must adhere to the Society's decisions.
* There is but one God, and His name is Jehovah (No Trinity)
* Jesus is not God, but God's Son and the first created being.
* Jesus was resurrected a spirit creature, not in physical form.
* When Jesus comes again, 144,000 will go up to live in heaven and the rest of the Witnesses will reign with Jesus on earth.
* Hell does not exist - there is no eternal torment.
* The soul of man is not eternal and can die (cease to exist).
* Jesus already returned to earth (invisible) in 1914 and is in the process of overthrowing Satan's organization.
Now to be fair, Jehovah's Witnesses do agree with a lot of fundamental Christian beliefs (Belief in Jesus is the only way to heaven, Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins, etc.) - They do believe in the Bible... It's just their interpretation on a few items that differ.
So why call them a cult like so many do?
There are reasons.... but mainly I put them under the blanket of the Apostate Church because Christianity can be surmised down to what you believe about Jesus Christ and who He is - and Jehovah's Witnesses have a starkly different view on Jesus - an irrevocable difference that must be determined.... whose interpretation is correct.
Jared Williams
