God's glory

[ChristianMomma]

Greetings!

I am going back and forth with a Jehovah's Witness rastafarian woman(I am not quite sure what that means) and I could use some help from someone who is more familiar with the Hebrew/Greek of these passages:

Isaiah 42:8 “I... am the LORD, that is My name;
I will not give My glory to another,
Nor My praise to [a]graven images

Isaiah 48:11 “For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act;
For how can My name be profaned?
And My glory I will not give to another

John 17:5 “So now you, Father, glorify me alongside yourself with the glory that I had alongside you before the world was.”

Now when I look at this I see another reason why Jesus must be God. How can Jesus say that He has glory alongside Jehovah if He is not God? It would have to be a contradiction in Scripture if Jesus was not God.

Well, the response I got back was that it wasn't a contradiction in Scripture but in the translation. I am dumbfounded and don't know where to go from here.

Please help!

Thanks ever so much. =D

[micah719]

a Jehovah's Witness rastafarian woman(I am not quite sure what that means)

A seriously mixed up person is what that means. Is she trying to convert you or are you trying to convert her?

Is she using the NWT, the JW "Bible"? That was specially made by them to prop up their peculiar doctrines. Not sure what Rastafarians use. Since the subject seems to be the Deity of The Lord Jesus Christ, here is one page about how that has been handled in various translations:

http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/deity.htm

Here is an article on using the NWT to defend the veracity of the Deity of The Lord:

Getting over the Hurdles of the New World Translation

And another from a Brother well versed in Greek & Hebrew:

Who Is Jehovah? Who Is Jesus?

And another, again using the NWT itself to hoist their own petard:
10 Reasons Why Jesus is God, Even in the Jehovah's Witnesses' Bible

Please don't wipe yourself out arguing with the JW's though, and don't take their printed stuff. Their main aim is to leave that stuff with you. Show them a couple of times but be ready to show them the door. Do not wish them well (2 John 1:10-11). Their purpose is to earn a spot in JW heaven, and they care nothing for you, your soul, or The Lord Jesus Christ. The best thing you can do is pray for them. Arguing is playing into their hands.


btw, "Jesus" means YHWH is The Saviour......which goes to show the JW's are seriously ignorant and deceived about just about everything Biblical. Unless The Lord regenerates them there is no hope for them....arguments are futile. A case of Ephesians 6:10-18

[anath]

Is this person seriously searching for the Truth or is she trying to convert you? If it's the latter, give her the Truth, back off and pray for her.

I and my Father are one. John 10:30

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...All things were made by him...He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not...And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us John 1:1, 3, 10, 14

Jesus saith...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? John 14:9

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 1 John 5:7

[myinnuendo999]

Ron Rhodes used to be a Jehovah's Witness and then was saved. He has written a book called "Reasoning from the Scriptures with Jehovah's witnesses"

one good truth to ask her would be to let her read John 1:1 (it's okay, let her read their spurious translation) "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was {{a god}}"---ouch it hurts to read that

anyways have her turn to John 17:3. and then ask her if she minds that you read it. Jesus speaking said John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."

now ask her:

***Is Jesus a true God or a false god? If Jesus is a true god then you believe in polytheism-
***If Jesus is not a true God then He must be false because
** According to John 17:3 how many TRUE Gods are there?
Would you agree that whatever is not true must be false?
If there is only ONE true God, all other god's are false gods right?
Now according to John 1:1 in the NWT Jesus is "a god".
Is Jesus a true god or a false god?
He can't be false can he, since that would mean the apostle John was guilty of falsely honoring Jesus as a god? Therefore he must be a true God. But Jehovah is the only true God. Therefore Jesus must be Jehovah-God


Give her the "3 minutes to live scenario". I have 3 minutes to live. Someone’s put a knife in my back and I’m dying how can I enter the kingdom? Can you help me? So they usually say well, you‘ve gotta do lots of things, you’ve gotta study etc. HELP ME,, I've got a minute and a half to live. --- So they reveal that they have a works righteousness and they are not trusting in Jesus to save them by grace through faith.
Show them the 10 commandments and then take them to the thief on the cross. The thief couldn’t go anywhere, his hands and feet were nailed to the cross. All he could do was turn to Jesus saying Lord remember me --to save him.---Cant remember who gave this scenario but I can't take the credit for it... I think it was Ray Comfort


Pray for her that GOD would open her eyes and ears and that she would search earnestly to seek who Jesus really is according to Scripture and that She would cry out to HIM to save her

[mattfivefour]

You might ask her HOW it was mistranslated. The Greek says: καὶ νῦν δόξασον με σύ, πάτερ, παρὰ σεαυτῷ τῇ δοξῇ ᾗ εἶχον πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον εἶναι παρὰ σοί and I place that there so she can see the exact original Greek if she is willing to look. then ask her to point out the mistranslation. Since you likely do not read Greek and likely neither does she, I will give you a rough LITERAL translation. And you can take it to any Greek scholar to check. Literally (which is hard to read in English) it says: "And now you glorify me you, Father, beside (or, 'along side' or 'together with') yourself by (or 'with' or 'through', being a dative of instrument) the glory that I was having (or 'holding' or 'possessing') before of the the world was, beside (or, 'along side' or 'together with') you (spacial dative or dative of association)." (That's the Matt literal translation! ) In proper English it would be: "And now you glorify me, Father, together with yourself with the glory I had with you before the world existed." Check any reputable translation and it will say approximately that very thing. In fact, even the disreputable "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures" which is the Jehovah's Witnesses own translation translates John 17:5 as "So now you, Father, glorify me alongside yourself with the glory that I had alongside you before the world was." Which is virtually identical to what she says is a mistranslation. So I suppose she might be suggesting that her own JW scriptures are mistranslated?

I wrote an article a while ago that offered a very simple three step process to prove from the JW's very own translation that Jesus is God and, indeed, is Jehovah. Here is the link to it: Help with Jehovah's Witnesses

I pray it helps. Ask her to let you use her own New World Translation when you go through this with her. It's quite effective because she will see it out of her very own Bible.

[ChristianMomma]

Thank you everyone. I have a copy of that very page right next to my computer Mattfivefour for just in case I need. I went over everything I could think of. I asked 7 questions and answered them all with Scripture. 1-Do you believe we should only worship God? (referenced many instances where Jesus is worshipped) 2- Why was Jesus almost stoned to death and later cricified for? (easily showed that it was because He was claiming to be God) 3- Who rose Jesus from the dead? (showed that Jesus claimed He would but then later God claims that He did) 4- Who is ithe "first and the last?" (showed both Jehovah and Jesus claim the title) 5- Who created everything? (showed that all three persons of the Trinity are given credit for creation) 6-Where do we get our salvation from? (showed that Jehovah declares that no other saves, yet Jesus claims that there is no other salvation beside in Him) 7- Does Jehovah share HIs glory with anyone? (showed Jehovah making that declaration and yet Jesus claiming to share Jehovah's glory)

Anyway, I am so discouraged with JW's. They sure do not know how to end a conversation well. Every one I have met has ended it abruptly and very rudely. I am not even sure if it was worth my time.

[king'sbloomingrose]

ChristianMomma, all you can do is plant the seeds and God will do the rest of opening their eyes to the truth. Don't get discouraged! God can use any seed sown by any person to bring a soul to Him.

[BrotherKev]

I am not even sure if it was worth my time.

Plant the seed, water, wait for the Son-shine to grow.

[ChristianMomma]

Thanks you two. :)

It is so awesome how God works. I received an email from my Sunday School teacher a few days ago talking specifically about being wary of false teachers. The message in church this past Sunday was about balancing tolerance with Truth. Our Pastor spoke specifically about Jesus and who He is. He also mentioned JW's which is something my Pastor never does, he rarely ever ever mentions other religions because he is does not like to focus on talking down other religions. When I went to my Sunday School class afterwards we talked specifically about evangelizing to others and had a 2 pages worksheet entitled, "You may be the only Bible someone has ever read." My teacher said something that I had heard before but had forgotten. He said not to take rejection personally. They are rejecting Christ, not you. You are only called to be obedient and plant the seed, it is not your job to save anyone, that is God's job.

God has answered my questions about my time spent with this person. I feel at peace. I am once again amazed at how my prayers and questions were answered so many different ways.

I have a praise to share with you all as well. I realised that after all of this, the conversation that I had with this person was generated to everyone on my facebook account. I had met this person through a relative. We became "friends" and then made a group to discuss Biblical ideas. At the time, I didn't know that everything that we wrote to eachother could be see by all of my "friends" and her "friends." I will tell you, I wrote a lot on there. All of those people were really spammed with a whole lot of Scripture. It came back to me by two of my relatives. The first one being the one I met the JW through. The second being a family member who is so lost it breaks my heart. He actually called me at 3:30am this morning and mentioned reading it all and that he was "moved to tears." It is a start, one that I am so thankful for. He has been on my prayer list for a long time. Praise be to God for His goodness has been revealed to me in leaps and bounds this past week.

[ChristianMomma]

I was discouraged because the JW defriended me, disbanded the group we were in, and actually disabled her Facebook account. I can only hope that she read the Sriptures I shared with her. Please pray. :)

[mattfivefour]

Praying for her, sis.

[myinnuendo999]

Wonderful news ChristianMomma

You know I've heard that God works in mysterious ways,,, and He does

If you-- as one preacher said logically try to invite God in your church through your back door, He will probably go through the window.. What I'm saying is, for me I have had things all figured out only to find that I'm disappointed and all my expectations are not met. We ARE to share the Gospel any opportunity we can. However, we cannot foresee how things will turn out.

I know I've shared many of times thinking people will respond right there on the spot and make a decision for Christ, only to find that they didn't make any decision and it seemed like it just didn't even sink in.

And I'm sure you probably know these things.

God bless you for sharing and who knows the seeds planted that God will grow and save. We can pray any time the Holy Spirit places people on our hearts. The battle really is the Lords and what God is doing in our lives is more about molding us to be like Jesus