4/16/25

This morning, I walked to a corner in my neighborhood where I've seen and conversed with a few different groups of Jehovah's Witnesses. I previously had a conversation with a sweet, older couple about their beliefs as well as how they vary from my own as a "traditional Christian". We established one stark and primary difference in our beliefs as we discussed the person of Jesus and whether or not He was divine. I returned today to continue the conversation, and, as I began providing evidence for my claims, I apparently brought some level of offense as the man I talked to asked, "Are you here learning or teaching?!" They had no issue conversing with me while I was inquiring about their beliefs, but as soon as I intelligibly confronted their claims, they were not the most pleased. Please realize that I was not being harsh in my presentation, but rather the truth hurts despite how generously it was given. Here are a few interesting points that we discussed this morning, responses I provided for prior conversations we had together, and compelling challenges to their beliefs about Jesus that I presented to them:

The Trinity

Discovering that I hold the Trinitarian view of God, they quickly joined the Muslims in explaining to me how incoherent and absurd that notion is. While I agree that it's a mystery to understand in its fullest sense, I'm not too terribly surprised to find aspects of God's nature that seem foreign and "other" than the typical. However, to the Jehovah's Witness, I find it especially interesting to pose the issue of a double standard as they appear to have no issue with Jesus' teachings about marriage (Mark 10:7-8) and yet ruthlessly target similar concepts when applied to the nature of a Being understood to be unique. 

In other words, to reject the Trinitarian view due to mathematical incoherence or lack of specific scriptural insight appears to also necessitate the complete rejection of Jesus' teaching that, in marriage, the two people shall become one flesh. I haven't yet found anyone rejecting Jesus' teaching on marriage due to its incoherence, and yet the Trinity is always right there at the chopping block. I find it fascinating that this is the case because it seems far more reasonable to me that God would transcend our assertions about how "math" should work (not saying that this truly conflicts with math) as He should be expectantly "other" than what we commonly see rather than comfortably accepting the same principle in marriages. Trinitarianism gets attacked for supposedly saying the 1+1+1=1, and yet the Jehovah's Witnesses I've talked to have no issue regarding the marriage math proposing 1+1=1. I am certainly puzzled by this reasoning as it seems to provide a sharp double standard for those upholding the teachings of Jesus. They made a handful of other arguments against the Trinity, but they were all more painfully inconsistent than this one. It appears that believing that 2=1 is far more reasonable than believing that 3=1; unfortunately for the JW, Mark 10:7-8 isn't the only headache I gave them to wrestle with this morning.

Response to Colossians 1:15

In my previous conversation with this JW, he proposed Colossians 1:15 as a specific proof text for dismantling the notion that Jesus is uncreated. He asserted that because Jesus was the firstborn of all creation, it clearly means that He was born; thus, not being God. I admittedly told him that I was unable to fully respond to this claim in a fully water-tight way at the time, but I promised to come back with a response after studying it more. Today was that day. While, at the time, I could have appealed to a number of extremely clear passages that address this issue, I wanted to avoid playing the translation game with them if at all possible. The JWs have specific translations that are blatantly tampered with in pivotal places to support their preconceived theology, and it can be a true pest to deal with in the midst of a different topic. Because of that, I have thus far aimed to disprove them only using watchtower-approved resources such as the New World Translation (NWT) and the Kingdom Interlinear. Luckily, it's very hard to erase truth from the Bible, even when clearly attempted! Here was my response to the Colossians 1 objection:

1. The term "firstborn" [Prototokos] in Greek is different from the term "first created" [protoktistos]. Paul could have applied a different term if he intended to convey that Jesus was created; however, he chose to use "firstborn". 

2. The term "firstborn" is not exclusively used to describe a literal first born chronologically speaking. For example, in Psalm 89:27 it says, "And [God] will make [David] the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth." This poses a huge issue if we are only allowed to understand this term "firstborn" to mean those literally born first as David was the youngest of his brothers and wasn't even the first king. Instead, the term "firstborn" in this verse refers to a status as opposed to the literal birth order. Even if we were to grant this not the case, we would still be posed with interesting issues as JWs believe that Jesus was created by God and not truly born. If taken literally, Cain would be the firstborn of all creation. Luckily, the term is clearly not exclusively literal, so we don't have to navigate that mess!

Colossians Come-Back

While we were in Colossians, I wanted to illustrate the immediate refutation that this passage makes to the JW claim about Jesus being created, and it happens in the very following verses. This passage clearly shows that Christ cannot be created as He Himself is the creator of all things and that all things were created for Him. If Jesus created ALL things, then He Himself could not be created as it would require Him to create Himself. The JW said that this argument didn't make logical sense, but as you can see for yourself, it is evidently true to those who are not covering their eyes. Because of the JW beliefs, the watchtower has perverted their Bible translations to remove the claim of Jesus' divinity by changing "all things" to "all OTHER things". Luckily, they have a watchtower-approved interlinear Bible that shows clearly how they added the word "other" to drastically change the meaning of the passage. Here is a graphic of the JW-approved resources that show the progression from no addition, to added interpretation (shown by brackets), to a completely changed textual meaning that argues against the true translation of the passage.

Jesus is Jehovah

In my previous conversation with this JW, I provided the prophecy in Isaiah 9:6 to show that Jesus (who they recognize the passage speaks of) is called Mighty God and Everlasting Father. I found it to be quite compelling, but they like to make the assertion that we are all gods and therefore remove the understood meaning of this word by redefining and reducing this word to scraps. I believe a strong argument can be made from this verse, but I decided to take the easier route and find specific prophesies in their Bible translation that explicitly connect Jesus to the name "Jehovah". This was easier than expected, and here are some that I find clear and compelling:

Conclusion

Despite providing, what I find to be extremely compelling evidence, not only of Jesus' deity, but also of the watchtower's clear prejudice against this doctrine, we painfully concluded with their rejection of the clear interpretation of these passages and resistance to engage with the list of specific prophesies (from their Bible) that disagree with them. Numerous times, I was reminded of my youth (which was surprising as the conversation felt like it extended decades), and the JW told me that he would not change his mind as he was doing "research" before I was born. As comical as this reasoning was, it is far more troubling as I expressed the urgency of this topic as it relates to the most foundational belief for both of us - which god/God we serve. The consequences of being in error are extreme as you will either be an idolator (worshiping someone other than God) or you will reject God altogether as seen in 1 John 2:22-23, "Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also." 

The identity of Jesus is ESSENTIAL to the Christian faith! We are either wrongly united to a false god, or we choose to reject the revelation that God has made about Himself thus choosing to follow a god constructed in our imagination. I would encourage JWs to honestly consider the clear passages provided, especially those portrayed clearly even in the altered Bible translations such as the NWT. The gentleman that I talked to became increasingly resistant to even look at the passages I proposed as he claimed to have already researched them thoroughly. As strange as it sounds, I don't often find myself cowering from topics that I'm well versed in and confident of my position in. I pray that this man, along with the other young JW (who was my age), would be burdened by the conversation we had and be unable to shake it from their mind. May the Holy Spirit give them a holy unrest that might compel them to soberly assess the validity of scripture's claims without needing the censorship of the watchtower organization to cover their eyes to the truth.