-
Prehuman ExistenceThe Watchtower—1962 | September 15
-
-
for Jesus to speak of himself as merely the Son of God and not as a god.—Psalm 82, superscription.
69. (a) In the material thus far from John’s writings what have we failed to find about Jesus Christ? (b) Why is the reader invited to join us in considering further material from John’s writings?
69 Thus not once in all the above material from John’s writings have we found that Jesus Christ called himself God or let others speak of him as God. But ah! the trinitarians will say, not all the pertinent texts in John’s writings have yet been considered, Scripture texts that will surely prove that Jesus did speak of himself as God and let himself be addressed as God, and these will prove that the many Bible translations are correct in rendering John 1:1 to read: “And the Word [or, the Logos] was God.” So in our next three parts of this article on “The Word” we shall deal with those texts. Let the reader join us in the consideration of them.
-
-
Sowing Seeds of Truth at SchoolThe Watchtower—1962 | September 15
-
-
Sowing Seeds of Truth at School
GUEST SPEAKER
● A young witness of Jehovah in California recently told about an experience he had at a school. One day he met his former American Problems teacher. “Since part of the curriculum is to discuss the different religions in the community, he asked me if I would like to be a guest speaker for Jehovah’s witnesses in his classes. It was to consist of an hour in which I gave a thirty-minute talk about the work of Jehovah’s witnesses, followed by a question-and-answer period. After the talk, the teacher informed me of another teacher who was interested in my talking to his class also. Since he did not come to me, I went to him and offered myself as a speaker for Jehovah’s witnesses. He was very enthusiastic about this offer and we made the arrangements. In each class it was the same, a thirty-minute talk and a lively question period.
THE LOCKED GATE
● One of Jehovah’s witnesses in Texas writes this experience about the time she was a young girl in school: “We lived back in the woods on a farm, and since my father didn’t want people coming to our house, he kept the gate locked. But that locked gate didn’t keep the truth out! In grade school there were several Witness children who took an admirable stand for true worship in the war days; they seemed always to be so kind. Their conduct stood out in contrast to all others. And to this day I thank Jehovah that they witnessed to their playmates.
“One day a ten-year-old girl explained to me about the hope of living on earth forever; her words really seemed to have the ring of truth. All this made an impression on my mind, until finally when I was fifteen years old and my sister was thirteen years old, we both decided at the same time that this must be the truth and said: ‘Let’s become Jehovah’s witnesses.’ So we started studying, but Dad was furious!
“Since he hadn’t sent us to high school, we had no way of seeing those Witness children, and he would not let us go to their home; but they wrote us many letters, helping us. We subscribed for The Watchtower and Awake! and ordered many of the books from the Society. Because Dad forbade our going to the meetings or out in the service, we had our own meetings regularly at home, just the two of us, thereby building up much background knowledge. And we did incidental witnessing, mostly by mail.
“It was Dad’s plan to send us both to business school when I became eighteen; so with the hope of eventually getting away from home and to the meetings, we settled down to ‘bide our time’ for three years. Dad spent many hours, many days, trying to get us to turn from the course we had chosen, all to no avail. After leaving home to attend business school, we located a Kingdom Hall, began attending meetings, going in the service. Soon we were baptized. With every step of advancement we took, Dad put forth more frantic effort to get us to stop. About the last time he tried to get us to give it up was when I quit a good-paying job, took up part-time work and began pioneering. Now after 18 years, we are still grateful that those children witnessed to us at school, and that the truth reached us behind that locked gate!”
-