So she kept pointing out how Jesus submits to the Father. Ok. Got it. So therefore... we submit to Jesus, and do what... ?? Follow his commands, beginning with his greatest commandment, love.
She keeps assuming that if she puts my questions "aside" or "on the shelf" for now, that I am just going to agree that she is teaching the truth.
I think she probably had somewhere she was trying to go with that, but didn't really know how to bring the point home, or else she lost track of her point. Unfortunately you gave her permission to pontificate on something you already agree upon, thereby wasting your time. Instead of letting the discussion meander in the future, I suggest writing down some talking points and making sure that you stick to those, taking short notes on what outcome you have for discussing each point. Otherwise you inadvertently recreate Acts 19:32.
So, we again returned to Matthew 24. I looked at the chapter, and I started skimming through it, asking her how they came to the conclusion that Jesus appointed them in 1914, based on this one verse in the parable that compares what it means to be a faithful or evil servant.
This is where more advance research can really pay off. You could have taken them to the parallel account in Luke 12:42-48; the last two verses of that passage make it more clear that Jesus' point was that people need to discharge their responsibility according to their understanding. It had nothing to do with some Christians having authority over others, and everything to do with individual Christians accounting for their own actions after gaining knowledge of Christ.
You also need to counter-punch more. Okay, so if this scripture is about people taking charge of other people, what about the scriptures saying not to "lord it over one another" and not to have titles? A JW will say that they don't use titles, but in fact they do. Just because someone is not addressed by the title, as in "Elder Johnson", does not mean that "elder" (or "pioneer"!) is not a title. Show them the dictionary definition if they don't believe you.
Why would this one verse actually be a prophecy about someone being appointed sometime in the future?
See, JWs believe that all those parables you mentioned are prophecies. This is a general theme in their reading of the Bible, as shared by the various movements that Russell was influenced by in the 1800s. The WT article with that alarming statement about following illogical instructions from the GB talked about the "attack of the Assyrian" that is expected in the future. What Assyrian? The one that threatened the Jews in Hezekiah's time, and died thousands of years ago. It's a simple historical record, but the Society is stating it will have a future fulfillment, with absolutely no reasoning given in the article for why they are so sure about this.
You should hold their feet to the fire over things like that "human standpoint" statement, as it's quite boldly cultish and they completely failed to give any justification for it, as the Bible account was about logical instructions given by Hezekiah to defend Israel, not illogical ones that they obeyed simply because he was king (see my thread here for details, but read the next page or so for some factual corrections to my opening post before you repeat that material to anyone).
The society needed to keep track, so they knew that the JW's had preached to every corner of the world.
Yes, but the real reason, at the highest level, is that the Society believed that they could use numbers to predict the end of the world. I'm not even referring to 1914 here; I'm referring to the fact that the Society thought that by tracking how many lands and people had been preached to, they could predict when "the end" of Matthew 24:14 will come. Likewise, tracking the Memorial partakers was intended to allow them to count down to Armageddon by watching the number dwindle to zero... oops.
I wonder if any thought crossed their minds, as they filled in their time on their FS reports today.
Nope, it didn't, because they don't fill out their report until the end of the month. And if they don't, they get an embarrassing call from the secretary. So, really, there's no room for doubt in their minds; the reports must be filled out. By the way, the pioneer who said she's not making her time this month has to meet a yearly quota of twelve times her monthly goal, not a monthly quota. So if she's short in one month, she can make up for it in another month before the service year ends in September.
But I must say, she really played the Jesus card.
Lip service, plain and simple. They don't do as they say.
I feel that I need a better bible foundation, before I can really discuss things with her fairly.
You definitely will want to buy some books on the Bible if you want to continue this discussion. That's why the conversation still gets steered by the pioneer; she knows what to say because it's a mental road she's been following for years. You need to know where you're driving before you can take the wheel. By all means, take some time off from these visits so you can make the time for reading. There's a lot of fascinating books out there on these subjects, with information that JWs don't have an inkling of.
(we have agreed that we are only discussing what the bible says, so quoting the Watchtower is not going to work)
See, this is a sword that cuts both ways. If you don't let her promote the literature's take on the Bible, then you can't directly attack the literature's take either. This allows her to say "We don't do this or that" when the literature says otherwise. I'd suggest not sticking to this restriction in the future, if there is a future.
I didn't let her get away with that again. So I said, "Like what? What is one of the lies being spread on the internet?"
She paused to think of her answer. I was hoping for something juicy, but no... "Like that JW's don't belive in Jesus." (sigh again... REALLY? Please use google next time and get back to me with a different lie to defend!)
[...] I could tell they were getting nervous, so I didn't talk about anything that was said.
Sorry, but you did let her get away with this. You made a great opening, but then you let it go. Is your heart in this or not? Because by being polite, you're only wasting your own time (not theirs, they get to count the hours!). You need to interject something here like, "What about the flip-flop on organ transplants I read about?", or "What about all the reports of child abuse settlements, are those false?" Something that will shake them up.
Please dwell on why you decided not to say something that would make them uncomfortable. What was the mental process when you skirted away from the subject? Because I think you may still be suffering from a bit of JW programming. You have to be willing to make them (and yourself) uncomfortable, for their own sakes.
An interesting and quirky anecdote, inserted in the conversation here by Miss W, who comes along as backup and is mostly quiet during the discussion. [...] She said, "Well, I was talking to ___ the other day, and she was saying how she had seen more of them recently. Then we were together, and we saw a group of about EIGHT of them! We looked at each other, and said, 'Is this another sign of the END??!' "
Wow. This is an old JW meme, the idea that increasing numbers of carrion birds means that Jehovah is preparing to bring the end. Surprised to still hear people say that. It's a good thing she didn't see the house I drove by recently that was absolutely covered in buzzards (maybe 20 of them), she might have fainted.
I said, "No... I am not disagreeing with the use of the name in the OT. I just don't see where Jesus told us to call God by his name. He called him Father."
"He said He came to sanctify God's name. I showed you where He said He had come to make His Father's name known."
"But he didn't tell us how to pronounce it... and there is no record of Jesus ever actually saying the name."
Your response to her statements in the NT about sanctifying God's name needs to be, "But this was referring to his name in a figurative sense, like when you 'defend someone's name'." Don't let them twist the scriptures by being literal, when it's clear that 'God's name' is his reputation, not the written or spoken name of God.
it stated that there was a discovery of "some very old fragments of the Greek Septuagint that existed in Jesus's day, discovered in the mid-20th century." (some, not how many or any other description here... how do they know they were from Jesus's day? Not specified).
No, the Septuagint was around well before Jesus; the fragments we have today are from after Jesus. I recommend really reading up on this if you're going to challenge them on the divine name in the NT, because it's a complex subject. I second the recommendation of "Truth in Translation" by Jason BeDuhn (note the correct spelling).
She then said something about there being a difference between a "version," like the KJV or NIV, and a "translation."
In short, this is a nonsense distinction to make. The word "version" in King James Version is not some kind of disclaimer. It was a careful translation from the same kind of old source that the NWT used. It did in fact suffer from doctrinal bias, like virtually every Bible translation made, including the NWT.
She brought out her big blue book, and showed me a flow chart that showed where they got their bible translation from. I asked her who did the translating, and she gave me the JW answer about men "not wanting to be glorified." (or accountable, however you want to look at it...)
Exactly. The names of the KJV translators are recorded in history, and people are able to verify that they were qualified to read the languages they were translating. Not so with the NWT.
Then she told me how the fact that JW's have been spreading the name of Jehovah, has made the church actually start using his name also. It turns out that the JW's are the ones who have told everyone what God's name is! Hallejuiah! Seeeee!! WE are the truth! blink blink
Does she know that the word "Jehovah" in English predates Witnesses by a few hundred years, and that its use has declined sharply since Witnesses came on the scene? See this thread. Likely the effect of so many pushy, divisive JWs promoting the name at people's doors caused it to take on a sectarian flavor and it became less tasteful for other denominations to use; however, an additional factor was definitely the move by scholars to refer to God's name as "Yahweh".
You should ask the JWs why they aren't interested in pronouncing the name at least closer to the original Hebrew; we may not know the exact pronunciation, but we do know for a fact that Hebrew doesn't have a letter 'J'. At the least, they should be saying "Yehovah" like a modern Hebrew speaker does.
