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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
Table of Contents
John
Costouros,
jcostouros@yahoo.com
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