My Encounter With Jehovah's Witnesses, Part 3: Biblical Interpretations

This series recaps my recent two hour conversation with a Jehovah’s Witness couple who recently came to the door. I was pleasantly surprised that they were still willing to dialogue, even after hours of contradictions when comparing their theology to the Word of God. None the less, I think we started to make some headway when we got onto Biblical interpretations. If you are just tuning in, this series begins with My Encounter With Jehovah's Witnesses, Part 1: Priestly Celibacy.

Last article we did some verse slinging (somewhat productively), to prove that Jesus is God (which they do not believe). I summarized that my church believes Jesus is God, theirs does not. I asked them, "how do we know who is right? How do we know what the truth is?"

They responded with, “Well the Bible will tell us of course”. I said, "well you have reasoned that Jesus is not God from the Scriptures, and our church has reasoned that He is, so how do we know?” They responded with, “Well, we take the Bible as a whole, you can’t just take verses out of context”.

I said, OK, well let me give you an example then, "You believe literally that only 144,000 will rule the earth at the end of the age, this comes from Revelation 14". I said, "you take that one verse literally, correct?" They said, "yes, absolutely, that’s what we believe". I said, "do you believe that both men and women will be among that number?" They responded, "yes, for sure, Mary the mother of Jesus will most definitely be included in that". I said, "will any of those 144,000 have had sex before?". Their faces looked puzzled and they became silent. I guess maybe I shouldn’t have said the “s” word, after all we had just met...

I explained to them that they take Rev 14:1 literally that it will be only and exactly 144,000 people who will rule. Yet, the very next verse states that these 144,000 elders will ALL be Jewish celibate males! They quickly piped up and stated, "that verse is figurative". I said, "how do you know which verses should be taken literally and which ones figuratively? Both verses are one after another".

"Then I looked, and there was the Lamb... And with him were one hundred forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads...It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins... in their mouth no lie was found; they are blameless" (Rev 14:1-4).

I asked them, "how do you know that you are interpreting this verse correctly? Does each Jehovah's Witness need to come to this conclusion themselves?"

They quickly piped up again, trying to take the reigns back and stated, "no we have a group of elders who teach us what the Bible means." I said, "so you don't follow the Bible alone then?" And proceeded to ask them why they were putting their trust in man’s interpretation? They didn’t like that very much. And quite honestly, that might have been a little bit too gratifying of a jab that I gave them. I said, "you put your trust in the Watchtower organization and trust EVERYTHING they teach, right? You have absolute confidence that they are right on everything?"

I think they were a bit nervous to admit it, so they said something along the lines of, “They are continually refining, but yes, they have the truth”.

I’m not sure they were prepared for what I had next. I said, “1914 is an important year for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Can you tell me why it is so significant?” They replied saying that 1914 was the beginning of the end times". I said, "that’s interesting because the prediction of that year has changed, many times in fact, across history since your church was formed in 1879. The Watchtower society has predicted Jesus’ return many times, have been definitive on that date, and have failed to prophesy accurately each time. What's even more saddening is that after these prophesies fail, not only does your interpretation change, but you also go back and change what you said prior to, as evidenced by this quote:"

"But bear in mind that the end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble. Zion's Watch Tower 1894 Jul 15 p.226

And then The Watchtower Organization will try and claim they've always held a consistent teaching:

"Jehovah's witnesses pointed to the year 1914, decades in advance, as marking the start of "the conclusion of the system of things." Awake! 1973 Jan 22 p.8

I said, "how can you have such confidence in your society and what they teach when at any day they could change their teachings?" They responded very timidly stating, "there have been some retractions in the past". I appealed to them saying that, "the very teachings you are trying to share with me today could be retracted tomorrow! How can you have any confidence in a church that is constantly changing is teachings? How can you have any assurance of your Biblical interpretation if it can just be retracted at a later date?"

I let that thought sink in for a moment and began to share with them why I believe what I believe. I shared that in the 2000 years my church has been around, not one teaching has ever changed. It wasn't instituted by some guy, but by God himself. To clarify, I acknowledged that doctrine does develop. For example, the Trinity (which they do not believe in, and isn't explicitly taught in Scripture), took a couple hundred years to be fully fleshed out. However, there is no doctrine that has been reversed or changed. I said, "That’s why I can put my trust in my faith, it’s unchanging. A society instituted by man surely will be led astray. Empires have crumbled, yet The Church will not pass away or be overcome".

After a long awkward silence of them trying to formulate a coherent response, they replied, “Well, we just don’t do anything that isn’t in the Bible. Like Christmas. Jesus’ birthday isn’t actually December 25th, you know, that's a man made tradition”.

I thought to myself, "way to change the subject…", but instead replied, "let’s talk about that a bit, because you have brought up a very crucial point!"

And thus continued our dialogue.

Coming up next: “My Encounter With Jehovah's Witnesses, Part 4: Why Do You Trust The Bible?”.