Senior old woman Jehovah Witness knocked on my door today

[TheGloryLand]

I respectfully open the door and listen to her and a gentleman that was with her. I listened for a couple minutes, she asked me, will I take this flyer, I said okay. I'll take it she asked me if she can come again another day, I said I will consider it, I did not argue with her for she was an elder with a cane. I did respect what she was trying to do and today I only stayed quiet and listened, did I sin today by staying quiet?

[BrotherTony]

The Bible tells us we're supposed to stand against the darkness....JW's preach something other than Jesus, and him crucified. They are propogating a false religion. One can be respectful of the person and still be firm about the error. We NEVER take the literature from them. I can't say if you sinned or not, but I can say that you should gain the knowledge to question their religion respectfully, and give them the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

[Salyan]

I think you missed an opportunity to engage and provide her with the true gospel. I might take the literature if she'll trade and take mine... it'd go straight in the bin anyways and is one less piece for them to give to someone else. 

Went door knocking once... must have been right after the cults canvassed that neighborhood. I may or may not have started taking their tracts out of the mailboxes and replacing with John & Romans... 

[Napsterdad]

You have to be careful when dealing with JWs. They have an intensive training program specifically intended to make their members recruiters. JWs take this training very seriously because they believe it is their ticket to salvation. If you are not equally prepared in your understanding of the Bible they will most likely catch you off guard and easily confused as they expound their doctrine using the same terms and phrases we use as Christians.

 Always Be Ready Ministries  has a decent site on how to answer JWs (this is not an endorsement). But know that one website will not fully prepare you to take on a competent JW. They do take their training seriously. If you are not equally prepared you will quickly become confused with their corrupted use of Christian terms and phrases, which will likely make you nothing but frustrated, and potentially angry, with them. I know; it has happened to me (sadly I have a low boiling point). Not a good testimony.

18 hours ago, Salyan said:

Went door knocking once... must have been right after the cults canvassed that neighborhood. I may or may not have started taking their tracts out of the mailboxes and replacing with John & Romans... 

In the US it is against Federal law to put anything in a mailbox on which no postage has been paid. I also don't know if it is the best of testimonies to pull their material and replace it with yours (there are always eyes watching). Perhaps a better strategy would be to just add your literature with theirs and let the recipient judge on their own between the truth and the tripe. This could also be a useful conversation starter on a return visit.

[Salyan]

They were house mailboxes, which only receive newspapers and flyers, so not Canada Post mailboxes. No federal law issues.  

We had a lady come to our church once who was saved out of the JWs. I remember door knocking with her and it was interesting - people would be polite but obviously disinterested (as is usual up here), but if they spoke to us for longer than one sentence she would be like 'we need to come back, they're interested.' They totally weren't.  Wonder if that was the training talking. (she was a little socially disconnected all around, so could have been that too.)

[MikeWatson1]

I remember sharing with people in the city Square here in Christchurch.  We would set up a table offering drinks without charge in return for going thru our surveys and gospel presentation. 

It was very effective in planting seeds, although many just wanted to get a free drink.

I don't remember sharing with jws, but the hardest to share with were older age liberal Methodists.  Here in Nz they could have gone to church their whole lives and never believed in Jesus.  Or rejected Him later in life and that still being fine with the church.

Edited December 26, 2022 by MikeWatson1
Wording out

[swathdiver]

On 12/17/2022 at 1:08 PM, TheGloryLand said:

 I did respect what she was trying to do 

She's leading people to hell, providing a false gospel to insulate them further from the truth.

 

I knock a leg off their stool of beliefs by asking them why the two guys in Brooklyn (New World Bible Translation Committee) who wrote their bible had two Jesuits help them write it?  It's right there in the first printing of their 1961 bible.  They pulled their names in the second printing as I remember it.

One can also ask them where was God's Word from the time of the apostles until the New World Translation Committee begin writing the bible in the 1950s?  How does that jive with Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31 and Luke 21.33?

[1cufflink]

On 12/20/2022 at 7:07 AM, Napsterdad said:

You have to be careful when dealing with JWs. They have an intensive training program specifically intended to make their members recruiters. JWs take this training very seriously because they believe it is their ticket to salvation. If you are not equally prepared in your understanding of the Bible they will most likely catch you off guard and easily confused as they expound their doctrine using the same terms and phrases we use as Christians.

 Always Be Ready Ministries  has a decent site on how to answer JWs (this is not an endorsement). But know that one website will not fully prepare you to take on a competent JW. They do take their training seriously. If you are not equally prepared you will quickly become confused with their corrupted use of Christian terms and phrases, which will likely make you nothing but frustrated, and potentially angry, with them. I know; it has happened to me (sadly I have a low boiling point). Not a good testimony.

In the US it is against Federal law to put anything in a mailbox on which no postage has been paid. I also don't know if it is the best of testimonies to pull their material and replace it with yours (there are always eyes watching). Perhaps a better strategy would be to just add your literature with theirs and let the recipient judge on their own between the truth and the tripe. This could also be a useful conversation starter on a return visit.

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by 1cufflink
Add a good source for JW witnessing is Jeff Durbin on YouTube.

[Napsterdad]

20 minutes ago, 1cufflink said:

 

Thanks! and welcome to the forum.

[Disciple.Luke]

Edited Wednesday at 03:10 PM by 1cufflink

"Add a good source for JW witnessing is Jeff Durbin on YouTube."

 

 

Jeff Durbin has excellent videos having discussions with LDS members. He has a few JW ones but LDS are far more open minded and educated compared to witnesses so there is some room for SOME conversation.

While I enjoy studying his conversation tactics it also seems that his gospel presentations are fully Reformed Theologically. While I appreciate some of Calvin's observations I just can't completely agree with Five Point Calvinism.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Disciple.Luke

[Disciple.Luke]

On 12/17/2022 at 1:08 PM, TheGloryLand said:

I respectfully open the door and listen to her and a gentleman that was with her. I listened for a couple minutes, she asked me, will I take this flyer, I said okay. I'll take it she asked me if she can come again another day, I said I will consider it, I did not argue with her for she was an elder with a cane. I did respect what she was trying to do and today I only stayed quiet and listened, did I sin today by staying quiet?

I'm not sure staying quiet was a sin in itself. I believe it depends on what your intentions were. Did you remain quiet out of fear or were you trying to figure her or what she was preaching that day out?

I would have taken whatever she had given me, studied it, and been ready for her to return and try to create some doubt in her master the "Watchtower".

When JWs go out with their groups and split up in the neighborhood you're just not going to argue them out of their beliefs. It's just not going to happen. One reason is that there were most likely others around and would've taken notice how long she was at your door then compared it to whether she found a return visit or Bible Study out of you. The return visit from a JW would be more likely to happen on that persons own time without her "field ministry" leaders watching over her .

A huge problem is that they know the Bible very well...it's their translation and interpretation that fall short. I had one of the Elders studying with me many years ago and I made a comment about how all their literature is repetitive going over unique watchtower beliefs over and over...and it made him visibly angry. So at the door they are going to go toe to toe with you sharing verses to prove the other wrong.

Every JW is different but the vast majority of them are so deeply brainwashed by what the old men from New York teach and having the local Elders enforce it that it's very hard to get one out of the organization so I definitely suggest doing your homework before engaging with one of them.

As an example, I ran into a childhood friend of mine who began studying with the JWs in prison and continue when he was out. He hadn't even been baptized yet and he was already developing their mentality and teachings. I even brought up about how the National News was covering some of the sex abuse cases against them and told me that was just "Satan's" media trying to destroy "Jehovah's" truth.

I'm not exaggerating when I say it took over five years of debating him before he started to see underlying problems with JWs. His theology is still warped because of studying with them but he did get away from them. But had he been baptized and told others at the Kingdom Hall about our talks I have no doubt he wouldve been told to discontinue our meetings since I wasn't "progressing" into becoming one of them.

 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Disciple.Luke

[TheGloryLand]

It has been a while, and they haven’t come back to visit me. Maybe my silence, made them nervous.

[BrotherTony]

1 hour ago, TheGloryLand said:

It has been a while, and they haven’t come back to visit me. Maybe my silence, made them nervous.

This, my friend would be highly unlikely. They don't scare that easily.

[Disciple.Luke]

At this time if I were having discussions with JWs I would be trying to corner them about why one of their Governing Body members was removed from his position.

This type of change isn't common with the Watchtower Org . Governing Body Members "the faithful and discreet slave" typically keep the position until their deaths.

The Watchtower Society isn't saying much about why this happened but I think at least one of the reasons had to do with a YouTube video that came out s couple years ago.

Governing Body member Anthony Morris III was recognized when he traveled several miles from the JW Headquarters location to purchase alcohol at a liquor store 

Despite avoiding local liquor stores someone still recognized him and began recording him with his phone and even sparked some conversation with him about different whiskeys.

What made this a big deal when the video was uploaded to YouTube was the large amount of alcohol he was buying a ong with how expensive  the brand was. 

While I'm not an expert on whiskey and how much price difference is between them - others who seen the video calculated he was spending several hundreds of dollars.

Since the JW leaders supposedly take a vow of "poverty" and simplicity and have no other employment I'm sure some JWs were angry to see so much money wasted considering how many local kingdom halls were being shut down and sold and the constant begging for donations even after selling all their Brooklyn properties for billions of dollars.

I'm not sure if the "Bottlegate" video is why he was removed but I'm sure it didn't help. 

Officially it doesn't appear that the leadership wants to provide many details for this change but with all the sexual abuse lawsuits they are drowning in his removal could be the Organization trying to get ahead of some coming legal issue.

If you could get a JW to watch the "Bottlegate" YouTube clip there isn't anyway for them to justify the amount of spending by one of their "anointed" . My guess is Jesus would be flipping money tables over at Watchtower headquarters calling them thieves instead of making them "co rulers" in heaven with him.

Edited March 14, 2023 by Disciple.Luke

[TheGloryLand]

What I understood of the JW they are like the Catholics, party time after Church… no birthday, just happy hour.