read the Ray Franz book but Witnesses just see the scripture about going "house to house". How would you help a Witness understand the reality?
The Borg twists a variety of scriptures to promote the ridiculous idea that the earliest Christian went door to door preaching. In their September 7, 2008 WT (Koolaid version) it says:
"How were they to search for deserving ones? Jesus told them to go to people's homes, saying: "When you are entering into the house, greet the household; and if the house is deserving, let the peace you wish it come upon it." Were they to visit without a prior invitation? Note Jesus' further words: "Wherever anyone does not take you in or listen to your words, on going out of that house or that city shake the dust off your feet." (Matt. 10: 11-14) These instructions make clear that as the apostles "went through the territory from village to village, declaring the good news," they were to take the initiative to visit people in their homes.-Luke 9:6.
The average Witness knows nothing about Jewish history, other than what they read in the WT, so they take this view as gospel truth. The reality is something else. The earliest Christians were Jews and they had a system in place whereby if a Jew (either by himself or with his family) were travelling to another city, they would go to the home of a fellow Jew for food and shelter for however long they would be there. (This could be compared to Witnesses who stay with fellow Witnesses during the summer assemblies, whether they knew them beforehand or not).
The early Christians were eager to spread the gospel and while the vast majority of their preaching would have been done in places like the market, the Synogogue or anywhere else where there were large numbers of people, they would also have taken advantage of trying to convert their host and his family. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't and I'm sure more than a few of them got booted out the front door and told never to come back. As the new message about Jesus of Nazareth spread, more Orthodox Jews may not have been willing to let the Messianic Jews stay at their home and would have refused to let them stay at all. That's why Jesus said: "Wherever anyone does not take you in or listen to your words, on going out of that house or that city shake the dust off your feet." (Matt. 10: 11-14).
The WT CD-ROM references Matthew 10:11 with Luke 10:7 in order to ‘prove' that the disciples preached house to house. Incredibly, the scripture in Luke proves just the opposite: that it is actually referring to lodgings, not preaching:
Luke 10:7: "So stay in that house, eating and drinking the things they provide, for the worker is worthy of his wages. Do not be transferring from house to house." (This would harmonize with Matt 10:9 that tells them not to take any money with them)
The WT then inevitably uses Acts 5:42 to promote their 'door to door preaching:
"Every day in the temple and from house to house they continued without letup teaching and declaring the good news about the Christ, Jesus."
And if you look at the footnote on the WT CD-ROM it says of Acts 5:42:
"Lit., "according to house." Gr., katoikon. Here kaqta is used with the accusative sing. in the distributive sense. R. C. H. Lenski, in his work The Interpretation of The Acts of the Apostles, Minneapolis (1961), made the following comment on Ac 5:42: "Never for a moment did the apostles cease their blessed work. ‘Every day' they continued, and this openly ‘in the Temple' where the Sanhedrin and the Temple police could see and hear them, and, of course also, kat'oikon which is distributive, ‘from house to house,' and not merely adverbial, ‘at home.' "
What the Watchtower hoped to prove by this quote is obvious: it would be assumed by the R&F (since they do no independent research) that Lenski's use of the term ‘distributive' would support the "house to house" method of preaching. That Lenski meant no such thing is obvious from his note on Acts 2:46:
"Luke sketches the daily life of the first congregation. The three [kata] phrases are distributive: "day by day," "house by house". The believers both visited the Temple and broke bread house by houseat home ... "Breaking bread" also refers to all the meals and not merely to such as might precede the Sacrament as an agape. "House by house" is like "day by day." It does not mean merely "at home" but in each home." The Interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles, 1961, pp.120-21
For obvious reasons, the WT failed to use Lenski's full quote on Acts 2:46 but that would have shown that Lenski renders the phrase in question as: "breaking bread house by house", and views Acts 2:46 and Acts 5:42 as generally saying the same thing. No one would believe that the early Christians "broke bread" by going consecutively to strangers' doors---it is obvious that it is speaking in a social context of eating meals in various homes. Reading Lenski's full quote cannot be used to support the idea that the disciples preached "house to house" the way Jehovah's Witnesses do today.
And of course, if the Witness does not want to consider any of these arguments, you could ask them why in their Kingdom Interlinear Translation (the old purple bible that translates Greek into English) translates the exact word kat'oikon differently in the two scriptures (Acts 5:42 and Acts 2:46) they like to use to promote door to door preaching. Note in the original language, that the same word kat'oikon is used, but the translation (probably done by Freddie Franz) is translated once as "in private homes" and the other as "house to house":
Why the difference? Because it would be a bonehead idea to think that anyone 'took their meals' going 'house to house' like Witnesses distributing their literature today do. As per usual though, they take great liberty with the bible when it comes to promoting their own warped views.
They will also try to use Acts 20:20 that the NWT reads as:
" I did not hold back from telling you any of the things that were profitable nor from teaching you publicly and from house to house."
The Society insists that this means Paul knocked on strange doors Saturday morning and even try to use a (gasp!) worldly person to help promote this idea. They say: "...Commenting on Acts 20:20, Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament says: "It is worth noting that this greatest of preachers preached from house to house."
This is yet another example of the WT giving you a very selective quote. In a footnote on page 56 of "The Organization Book" the actual quote is:
"As regards the translation "from house to house" (kat'oi'kous) in Acts 20:20, which some modern translators would render as: "at your houses" (AT), "in your homes" (Je;NE), "in private" (NA), Doctor Robertson has this to say on pages 349, 350 paragraph 1: "and from house to house (kai kat'oikous). By (according to) houses-----It is worth noting that the greatest of preachers preached from house to house and did not make his visits merely social calls. He was doing kingdom business all the while as in the house of Aquila and Priscilla. (1 Cor. 16:19)"
Hmmm........Aquila and Priscilla were both already converts as is noted in 1 Corinthians 16:19, not strangers on whose door Paul knocked one day:
"...The congregations of Asia send YOU their greetings. Aquila and Pris′ca together with the congregation that is in their house greet YOU heartily in [the] Lord."
The 'preaching' and 'work' that Paul was doing would have been akin to an elder dropping in on you to perhaps see how you're doing (ya I know---usually only happens when the CO is visiting) and to talking about 'the truth'. Preaching and teaching is going on inside a believers' house the same way Paul preached teached inside believers' homes 2,000 years ago. And while it is true that Robertson allows that the Greek word kat'oikon to be translated as "from house to house", he refers to Acts 2:46, where precisely the same Greek expression kat'oikon occurs:
"they [all that believed, v.44], continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. Does it refer also to the possible agapai or to the Lord's supper afterwards as they had common meals "from house to house" (kat' oikon)? We know there were local churches in the homes where they had "worship rooms," the church in the house." ----Word Pictures in the New Testament, Vol.3, p.39.
So there you have it. There's no biblical or historical support for the idea that the early Christians preached house to house the way Witnesses do today. There was a picture in a WT article a couple of months ago that someone posted showing two early Christians with a freaking 'service bag' and a bunch of scrolls in it going to preach at someone's house. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that. It was stupid on so many levels. First of all, the early Christians didn't have a ton of money and papyrus was very expensive and was imported from Egypt. Not only that, it would have been futile to try and 'place scrolls' because the vast majority of people back then were illiterate. The letters and writings of the NT were all written to those who had already converted to Christianity. As far as I know, there are no records of a Watchtower-like kind of literature that early Christians were placing back then.
Geeze.....I wrote all this in my own home. Does that count as "preaching house to house" and can I count all of you as Return Visits?