Reaching Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses will come to your door. Most Christians either avoid the conversation or handle it badly, and both are avoidable.

They are, in almost every case, sincere, disciplined, well-drilled and kind. They know their material better than most Christians know theirs. And they are trained to expect either hostility or ignorance, which means genuine curiosity disarms them more than any argument.

What they believe

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, founded by Charles Taze Russell in the 1870s, teaches:

Jesus is a created being. The first thing Jehovah made, identified with the archangel Michael. This is Arianism, condemned at Nicaea in AD 325 — the same doctrine, revived.

The Trinity is false, and is described as a pagan doctrine imported into the church.

The Holy Spirit is God's active force, not a person.

Jesus was raised as a spirit, not bodily; his body was disposed of.

No hell. The wicked are annihilated. There is no immortal soul.

144,000 rule with Christ in heaven; the remainder of the faithful live forever on a renewed earth.

Salvation requires works and association with the organisation.

Blood transfusions are forbidden, along with military service, voting, birthdays and Christmas.

They also have a history of failed date predictions for Armageddon — 1914, 1925 and 1975 being the most publicised — which is a genuinely important matter (Deuteronomy 18:22) but is best raised late rather than early, because it is heard as an attack on the organisation rather than a question about Scripture.

The New World Translation

Their Bible is their own translation, produced by a committee that was not publicly named and, on the available evidence, included no one with recognised competence in biblical Greek or Hebrew.

The most significant change is John 1:1: "and the Word was a god."

Every major translation across every tradition — Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, liberal and conservative — renders this "the Word was God".

The grammatical answer. The Greek is kai theos ēn ho logos. Theos is a predicate nominative preceding the verb and lacking the article. The NWT's argument is that no article means indefinite — "a god".

Greek does not work that way. Anarthrous predicate nominatives before the verb characteristically carry a qualitative sense: the Word had the nature of God. This is standard grammar, set out in Daniel Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, the intermediate textbook used across seminaries.

The argument that actually persuades. Do not lead with grammar. Lead with consistency.

Open John chapter 1 in their Bible. Theos appears without the article in verses 6, 12, 13 and 18, referring to the Father. The NWT translates every one of those as "God".

Then ask, without triumph: "Why is it translated 'a god' only in verse 1?"

That question does more than an hour of grammatical explanation, because they can see it themselves on the page in front of them.

Colossians 1:16-17 is the other place worth looking. The NWT inserts the word "other" four times — "by means of him all other things were created" — a word that appears in no Greek manuscript, and which changes the meaning entirely. Recent editions bracket it; older ones did not.

Passages worth opening together

John 20:28. Thomas says to Jesus: "My Lord and my God!" Jesus commends him. If this were blasphemy, Jesus was obligated to correct it — as Peter did when Cornelius bowed (Acts 10:26), and as the angel did in Revelation 22:9.

Hebrews 1:8. "But of the Son he says, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.'" The Father calls the Son God. The NWT renders this "God is your throne", which is grammatically possible but very strained, and it breaks the flow of a chapter whose entire argument is that the Son is superior to angels — which is difficult if he is an angel.

John 8:58. "Before Abraham was, I am." The NWT reads "I have been", which flattens the allusion to Exodus 3:14. Ask why his hearers immediately picked up stones (verse 59). Nobody stones a man for stating his age.

Acts 5:3-4. Peter tells Ananias he has lied to the Holy Spirit, then says "you have not lied to man but to God." You cannot lie to a force.

How to have the conversation

Invite them in, and offer them a drink. Almost nobody does. It changes everything about the tone, and they will remember it.

Ask questions rather than lecturing. They are trained for arguments and drilled on the standard objections. They are not trained for someone who is genuinely interested in them.

Good ones: "How did you become a Witness?" "What do you find hardest about it?" "Do you have assurance that you'll be saved?"

That last one matters enormously. Watchtower theology offers no assurance — salvation depends on faithful works and continued association. Most Witnesses, asked honestly, will admit they cannot know. That is a wound, and the gospel speaks to it directly.

Use their Bible. Do not demand they read yours; it confirms the framing they were taught. Work from the NWT and let its inconsistencies do the work.

Stay on the deity of Christ. Do not scatter across blood transfusions, birthdays, 1914 and the Governing Body. One issue, well pursued, is worth more than ten raised.

Do not mock the organisation. Their identity, their family and their entire social world are bound up in it. Attacking it triggers defence of the community, not examination of the doctrine.

Expect it to take years. Leaving means being disfellowshipped — shunned by family and every friend they have. That cost is enormous and should be respected. Some Witnesses who leave lose everyone.

Offer another conversation. "I'd genuinely like to talk more. Could you come back next week?" Very few people say that to them.

Why the doctrine matters

This is not an argument about vocabulary. Three things are at stake.

Salvation. If Jesus is a creature, then a creature died on the cross — and no creature can bear the guilt of the world.

Worship. If Jesus is not God, then Christians worshipping him are idolaters. There is no neutral option.

Assurance. A gospel of works produces exactly what Watchtower theology produces: sincere, diligent, exhausted people who cannot know where they stand.

What to leave them with

Not a defeat. A question they can carry.

Revelation 1:17-18 and Isaiah 44:6, marked in their own Bible. And the offer of tea next week.

"There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all" (1 Timothy 2:5-6).

They are working for something that has already been given.