Need your help: How to convince a doubting JW field service isn't required?

by joe_from_kokomo 2 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  joe_from_kokomo

  Friends: I need your help. My family and I left the WTS one month ago and during a recent discussion with my sister-in-law, who is still in the Borg, it seems she also has doubts, too.
  
  But, one thing in particular seems to keep her in the organization: She believes that by being a Witness she is fulfilling the commandment at Matthew 28:19 about "Go therefore and make disciples [of people] of all the nations and baptize them in the name of..." (Well, you know the rest by heart.) A similar twisted scripture employed by the Org is the one from James about "...faith without works is dead".

  Now, here's where I could use some help. How do I convince someone who is in the Borg that they are not bound by Matthew 28:19 (or the accompanying scripture in James) to have to do door-to-door service or other forms of witnessing for the rest of their lives? The only argument that comes to mind is the one about salvation by grace, but you may have others, or some of you may have studied this in greater detail, having made your own defense on these points.

  In my mind, I can see that these scriptures applied to Christ's few disciples in the 1st century- without which Christianity would not have flourished- but I do not see them as relevant today. If I can prove beyond a doubt to my sis-in-law that these no longer apply to her, this may convince her to step out of what we now know to be the Watchtower Society Cult. It is the only thing that holds her in now.

  Any advice would be greatly appreciated...
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  Introspection

  I'm not at home and don't have the bibles and references handy, but one scripture that comes to mind is the one that says something like do not presume to be preachers and teachers, if that rings a bell.

  I was going to post on another thread about how unnatural those rehearsed presentations are, I mean the KM actually tells you what to say - how is that a witness anyway? That's called saying something someone else told you to say. Despite the society calling it things like incidental and informal witnessing, the fact is most of the time it isn't any kind of witnessing at all, unless you consider repeating some stuff you read witnessing. (look, I witnessed that it was in fact written down there and I was told to repeat it to you) The point of course is that witnessing should be a natural phenomena, as that scripture says "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks", right? But that is in stark contrast to how witnessing is typically done. I would present the question what works without faith is, that may actually be addressed somewhere in James too. In any case, it is clear that for the most part the way JWs witness is a grossly mechanical process, but if you think of what the words "make disciples" imply, I would think it goes a bit deeper than reading some stuff with little questions at the bottom of the paragraphs, as if that touches anything remotely resembling the idea of a teacher-disciple relationship. Of course, this doesn't even address whether you have anything of value to teach or how truthful it is. If anything you are making disciples of reading WTS publications and underlying the answers in the paragraphs, and not anything remotely resembling what one might called a follower of Jesus or anything like that. As for witnessing, you simply witness the process of underlining stuff written in the paragraphs of WTS publications, that's a far cry from being a witness of God. I know this is kind of harsh and I certainly don't think you'd want to approach it quite this way, but I wanted to get right to the point.

  Maybe one question you can pose is how deeply someone in love feels, how someone who is in love talks about the person they love, and how they feel when talking about them. Compare that with how most witnesses talk when they are 'giving a witness', how deep does THAT go?
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  Double Edge

  Hi Joe...

  I've never been a JW, just have a friend who's one and I've been on this board about 1 1/2 years trying to figure them out.

  I suspect that the ex-JW's will give you the real 'skinny' to your question, but here's my 2 cents for what it's worth:

  As we know, the bible is interpreted so many ways. I guess you can look at the preaching literally and figuritivly. When Jesus first started his 'ministry', he called his Apostles and said that He would make them fishers of men. So you can look at that literally and say that one needs to be 'called' (them) to preach. At the end of his ministry the call went out to take the message to the world, but does that mean literally or figuritivly? Well to numerous disciples (all men) it meant literally, but to those that received the message I believe it meant figuritly (sp). Those that received the message were to share their life changing message by being an example to their neighbors and friends and by bringing up the next generation with the 'good news'. Certainly the spread of Christanity initially was in part because of travelling disciples, but for the most part it was spread by ordinary people questioning and believing ordinary christians and those Christians raising more little Christians. It also helped, when the Roman Emperor converted, making the nation a 'Christian' nation and bringing in all of the vast empire that it ruled.