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Jesus is Lord

Thank God for the Witnesses!

Edited February 13/2005

July 29, 2000

I grew up in a small town in southwestern Greece called Keramidia, in the prefecture or province of Ilia.

After completing high school in 1971, I moved to Canada to study political science and economics with the intention of pursuing a political career in Greece after graduating. However, God had other plans for me. I fell in love with my wife, Teresa, and with my new country, Canada.

Political science is part of my past now, so are the activist, humanist, Marxist and other socialist ideas of bringing paradise on earth through human efforts alone.

It took me a long time before I realized that any real hope of improving the human condition can come only from God. The God that I trust and believe in is the same God who volunteered to become human and die on the cross, who gave us a second chance, who mended the broken link between man and God which had existed since Adam's disobedience.

My God is the God of the Bible who has revealed Himself in the persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As my high school teacher of divinities used to say "the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. However, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is not the Father." Three persons, one God.

Unfortunately, many Christians are somewhat confused about the concept of Trinity which makes them vulnerable to cults and other religions like Islam, which deny the divinity of Christ and the personhood of the Holy Spirit.

Such was my condition in the early 1980's when I came into contact with the Jehovah's Witnesses. As far as they were concerned, I was a young highly educated seeker of the truth and they had the answers.

I was looking to find a purpose and a real meaning for my life. I guess that is why I was drawn more to political philosophy and giants like Plato and Aristotle. I remember how fascinated I was with Plato's Republic while studying for my Ph.D. at Carleton University in Ottawa. In particular, the Myth of the Cave and Plato's vision of the Good had probably the best representations of God outside the Holy Bible.

I didn't know it then, but now I feel certain that the Holy Spirit was putting the pieces of the puzzle together for me. Oh, how patient and understanding God must be! He never gave up on me. I remember meeting a few "born again" Christians along the way and how I used to make fun of them. I had never read the whole Bible, but I knew enough scripture to use it out of context to prove my concept of an unfair, violent and dictatorial God.

But this state of affairs was not to last long. God came along and used an unlikely group of people to draw me closer to him: the Jehovah's Witnesses. Yes, I did say the Jehovah's Witnesses.

In all of my years of contact with them, I developed a great deal of respect for their hard work ethic and good family values. Through them, I started studying the bible and discovering truths which I never knew existed. Don't take me wrong. The Witnesses had no idea that I would turn out to be a Christian and a "born again" at that.

Their method of "discovering the truth" consisted of agreeing with the editors of their "Awake" and "Watchtower" magazines. If you had a different interpretation of a particular scripture, you were not allowed to express that opinion during their Bible study hour at their Kingdom Hall meetings. You were told that you had to discuss it in private with an Elder. Their idea, of course, was to avoid dissension in the ranks of the "faithful". In this sense, it would be easier to keep control of the masses. Also, their Bible study did not include the Bible: just their magazines with their biased interpretations of scripture.

It was this environment of study that did not sit well with me. You see, I had learned over my many years of work at the university that it's a good idea when someone interprets someone else's work, that you do not take their comments as "gospel truth" and that you try to check out the original source yourself. This is exactly what I used to do: check out the Bible in both Greek and English. After that, it was only a matter of time before I realized that these people, despite their sincerity, were mistaken in their understanding of God.

Their New World  Translation done by "scholars" who knew neither Greek nor Hebrew was full of errors. Meanings of words in the original languages were twisted to fit their particular viewpoint and doctrines. They never understood the concept of Trinity and in error, they believe that we Christians think of Jesus as being the same person as the Father. Thus, they reason that we err because Jesus was not praying to Himself while on earth. Duh! We know that! He prayed to the Father and performed his miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We, also, know that the Holy Spirit is a person and not a force. Otherwise, the Lord would not ask us to baptize "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" Matthew 28:19. And Paul would not talk about the "grieving" of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 3:7-10) if he referred to a mere force.

One of the biggest mistakes that the Witnesses make is that they do their research backwards: They start with a set of doctrinal hypotheses and then they go into these long winded explanations in an effort to defend their positions. Whenever the Biblical text appears to contradict what they believe, they reason that some manuscript tampering has taken place and thus they will search and search to find any source [ no matter how obscure and ancient ] that agrees with their position.

To further complicate matters, they take the liberty of changing the meaning of the original language words in order to strengthen their doctrinal viewpoint. Therefore, their so-called translation is not a translation at all. It is actually, at best, an interpretation!  At least,  they ought to tell the world that their New World Translation is a misnomer and it should really be called the New World Bible Interpretation According to the Jehovah's Witnesses Organization.

Lack of consistency is another big error that they commit. We all know how they hate the doctrine of the Trinity and because they count on the "ignorance" of many Christians on this subject, they just love to bring it up because they have a big opportunity to "score" some huge points. But God works in mysterious ways! So when God the Holy Spirit is being insulted by being referred to as God's Active Force and not a person, He gets the last laugh along with those who have ears to hear and eyes to see!

Let us look at some verses of the Bible and see how ludicrous these Jehovah's Witnesses would sound if they had the decency and literary honesty to stick by what they profess.

It is clear by now that for the Witnesses,  holy spirit= God's active force and since their Translation is actually an interpretation when it suits them,  see how they handle the second verse of the Bible vs other well known translations:

 

NWT

2 Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of [the] watery deep; and God's Active Force was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters.

American Standard GEN 1:2 And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Bible in Basic English GEN 1:2 And the earth was waste and without form; and it was dark on the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God was moving on the face of the waters.

Douay-Rehims GEN 1:2 And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters.

Jewish Publication Society 1917 OT GEN 1:2 Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

King James Version GEN 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

It is obvious from the above verses that theirs is not a translation but an interpretation. So , O.K. it is an interpretation you may say but what is all the fuss about anyway. Consistency, my friends,  and accountability to following the "rules". And if the Witnesses had any regard for following even their own rules this is what their New World Translation would sound like:

 

NWT

Matthew 28: 19Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of God's Active Force ,

Acts 5:3 But Peter said: "An·a·ni´as, why has Satan emboldened you to play false [ to lie ] to God's Active Force and to hold back secretly some of the price of the field?"

Hebrews 3: 7-10 For this reason, just as God's Active Force says: "Today if YOU people listen to his own voice, 8 do not harden YOUR hearts as on the occasion of causing bitter anger, as in the day of making the test in the wilderness, 9 in which YOUR forefathers made a test of me with a trial, and yet they had seen my works for forty years."

Romans 8:26-27 In like manner God's Active Force also joins in with help for our weakness; for the [problem of] what we should pray for as we need to we do not know, but God's Active Force itself pleads for us with groanings unuttered. 27 Yet he who searches the hearts knows what the meaning of God's Active Force is, because it is pleading in accord with God for holy ones

This is a different kind of force, I tell you. It's one that has authority [name], voice, personality and it sure knows how to plead with God on our behalf! "May the Force be with you!" Does anyone know if Lucas or any of the Star Wars writers ever studied with the Jehovah's Witnesses?

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Even, though, I did not make my commitment to Christ until years later, I now believe that the Lord was preparing the ground and planting the seeds way back then.

After I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior in 1991, my eyes were opened and started understanding scripture in a new light. I was so excited every time I discovered a new verse which proved without doubt the divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. The first hymn of the Baptist Hymnal book "Holy, Holy, Holy" became my favorite one. To this day, when I hear it, I burst into tears and thank the Lord for rescuing me from the heretical snares of groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses. And just like Thomas, I proclaim Jesus as "my Lord and my God" and have the assurance of the Master that I am "blessed" for even though I "have not seen, and yet have believed" John 20:28-29.

Please, check out the following links for more of my experiences
and for other useful sites which can help you in your walk with the Lord.

Thank God for the Witnesses Again!

History of the Jehovah's Witnesses

 

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John Costouros,

jcostouros@yahoo.com


For Vasili: A true experience
Heartwarming Stories
How to obtain eternal life
 

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