“Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
THE above question appeared as a title in the Finnish language Bulletin of the University of Helsinki. Under the title was a letter written by Professor Jorma Palo, and it said in part: “I took a closer look at the seal of our university printed on the cover of the Bulletin. In the middle of the upper half, I found a Hebrew text the meaning of which I inquired of a Jewish guest of mine. According to this scholar, who knows Hebrew, this word is ‘Jehovah’ in Finnish.”
The presence of the personal name of God on the seal of this Finnish university surprised some. In fact, though, the university is 350 years old, and when it was founded, the name Jehovah was widely known and used throughout Europe. The name appears on countless public buildings, coins, and seals that date from that period.—See the brochure The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever.
In our century, Christendom no longer uses God’s name, and that earlier interest in it has been largely forgotten. Only one group uses the divine name in worship and publishes it abroad, in harmony with the first petition in the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified.” (Matthew 6:9) That is why, when the name was identified on the university seal, people immediately thought of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
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Yliopisto