This section is taken from the watchtower site titled: What does God Require of Us
This is section 13, How Can You Find the True Religion http://www.watchtower.org/library/rq/index.htm?article=article_13.htm
I have a few comments on this I?d like to share, and would appreciate your views.
1. Jesus started one true Christian religion. So today there must be just one body, or group, of true worshipers of Jehovah God. (John 4:23, 24; Ephesians 4:4, 5) The Bible teaches that only a few people are on the narrow road to life.?Matthew 7:13, 14.
John 4: 23 Nevertheless, the hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him. 24 God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth.?
Eph 4:4 One body there is, and one spirit, even as YOU were called in the one hope to which YOU were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
Nowhere in the scriptures provided by the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania does Jesus state that there is only ?one true Christian religion?. The scripture at Eph 4:5 uses the word faith, which is constantly taken out of context by cults to indoctrinate the belief that that is only one religion. One of the main acts of Christ was to remove the Judaic Law, and its requirements to belong to one religion, because of its failure, and to allow a personal relationship to Jehovah though Jesus. Why do we end each prayer with ?through Jesus Christ?s name??
John says that the Father is looking for people who worship him in spirit and truth, not people worshiping him, who belong to a religion.
2. The Bible foretold that after the death of the apostles, wrong teachings and unchristian practices would slowly come into the Christian congregation. Men would draw away believers to follow them instead of Christ. (Matthew 7:15, 21-23; Acts 20:29, 30) That is why we see so many different religions that claim to be Christian. How can we identify true Christians?
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Matt 7:15 ?Be on the watch for the false prophets that come to YOU in sheep?s covering, but inside they are ravenous wolves
29 I know that after my going away oppressive wolves will enter in among YOU and will not treat the flock with tenderness, 30 and from among YOU yourselves men will rise and speak twisted things to draw away the disciples after themselves
I quite amazed that the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania would Matthew 17 as a basis for their argument of being Gods chosen. Be on the watch for the false prophets says it quite plainly. There are numerous false prophecies by the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania, far too many to mention here. If you?re not sure what they are my suggestion is to google ?jehovah?s witeness? ?false prophecies? and see what you get. Another place would be to check out quotes.watchtower.ca.
As for speaking twisted things, check out the history of the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania?s teaching. How they?ve changed, where they get their beliefs from. A good place to start would be to locate in the bible where Jesus or Jehovah will appoint a private group of old men to dictate the lives a millions of people. This is what the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania call their governing body.
3. The most outstanding mark of true Christians is that they have real love among themselves. (John 13:34, 35) They are not taught to think that they are better than people of other races or skin color. Neither are they taught to hate people from other countries. (Acts 10:34, 35) So they do not share in wars. True Christians treat one another as brothers and sisters.?1 John 4:20, 21.
John 13:34 I am giving YOU a new commandment, that YOU love one another; just as I have loved YOU, that YOU also love one another. 35 By this all will know that YOU are my disciples, if YOU have love among yourselves.?
Act 10:34 At this Peter opened his mouth and said: ?For a certainty I perceive that God is not partial, 35 but in every nation the man that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.
Most Christian religions, sects, and groups around the planet have love as their main teaching. This, as we will see is one of the requirements for Christians. This is not unique. As to the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania, you will see many accounts where this rule is lost. From shunning, congregational pride, and even in the heart of the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania?s governing body, defamation. Check out Crisis of Conscience by Raymond Franz, nephew of the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania one-time leader.
4. Another mark of true religion is that its members have a deep respect for the Bible. They accept it as the Word of God and believe what it says. (John 17:17; 2 Timothy 3:16, 17) They treat God's Word as being more important than human ideas or customs. (Matthew 15:1-3, 7-9) They try to live by the Bible in their everyday life. So they do not preach one thing and then practice another.?Titus 1:15, 16.
John 17:17 Sanctify them by means of the truth; your word is truth.
2 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.
Matt 15:1 Then there came to Jesus from Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes, saying: 2 ?Why is it your disciples overstep the tradition of the men of former times? For example, they do not wash their hands when about to eat a meal.?
3 In reply he said to them: ?Why is it YOU also overstep the commandment of God because of YOUR tradition? 4 For example, God said, ?Honor your father and your mother?; and, ?Let him that reviles father or mother end up in death.? 5 But YOU say, ?Whoever says to his father or mother: ?Whatever I have by which you might get benefit from me is a gift dedicated to God,? 6 he must not honor his father at all.? And so YOU have made the word of God invalid because of YOUR tradition. 7 YOU hypocrites, Isaiah aptly prophesied about YOU, when he said, 8 ?This people honors me with their lips, yet their heart is far removed from me. 9 It is in vain that they keep worshiping me, because they teach commands of men as doctrines.?? 10 With that he called the crowd near and said to them: ?Listen and get the sense of it: 11 Not what enters into [his] mouth defiles a man; but it is what proceeds out of [his] mouth that defiles a man.?
Titus 15 All things are clean to clean [persons]. But to [persons] defiled and faithless nothing is clean, but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. 16 They publicly declare they know God, but they disown him by their works, because they are detestable and disobedient and not approved for good work of any sort.
To identify mark of the true religion, the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania take John to mean that you cannot only use one scripture and not another. This is good Christian thinking.There are many people, theologians, who will say that a scripture is not to be taken literally, but figuratively, in opposition to The Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania?s take on a particular verse. Then the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania will use this scripture.
However, they also use this when defining when a scripture is to be taken literally, or to place it in today?s context. This can be dangerous and misleading. Check out their understanding of birthdays.
Also, they have their OWN version of the bible. Check out how they got this bible, and the language scholars used to create it. Check out independent reassures, Christian or not, but, real old text translators and interpreters, on their view of the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania?s New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.
Matthew 15, is Jesus showing the hypocrisy of the scribes and pharmacies in Jerusalem. There are a plethora of instances where this can be applied to the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania. Check out Judge Rutherford, the second leader of the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania and his preference for alcohol. His reasoning on the alcohol prohibition to be the works of the devil. How, the original leader, Russel, believed the great pyramid to be created be Jehovah to predict the ?end of days?, brother Greenlee?s (a member of the governing body) liking for sex in the bottom with the bethel boys.
5. The true religion must also honor God's name. (Matthew 6:9) Jesus made God's name, Jehovah, known to others. True Christians must do the same. (John 17:6, 26; Romans 10:13, 14) Who are the people in your community that tell others about God's name?
Matt 6:9 ?YOU must pray, then, this way:
??Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified.
Is this a requirement to use the literal name, or to honor his name? Being, as a representative of Him, by the works, teaching, and lifestyle. The Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania have claimed to be the only true religion because the publishers and sales people they use go by the name of ?Jehovah?s Witnesses?. To sanctify the dictionary.com says:
1. To set apart for sacred use; consecrate.
2. To make holy; purify.
3. To give religious sanction to, as with an oath or vow: sanctify a marriage.
4. To give social or moral sanction to.
5. To make productive of holiness or spiritual blessing
There is more to sanctification than just using the word.
6. True Christians must preach about God's Kingdom. Jesus did so. He always talked about the Kingdom. (Luke 8:1) He commanded his disciples to preach this same message in all the earth. (Matthew 24:14; 28:19, 20) True Christians believe that only God's Kingdom will bring true peace and security to this earth.?Psalm 146:3-5.
Luke 8:1 Shortly afterwards he went journeying from city to city and from village to village, preaching and declaring the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him
Matt 24:14 And this good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.
Matt 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded YOU. And, look! I am with YOU all the days until the conclusion of the system of things.?
Psalms:3 Do not put YOUR trust in nobles,
Nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs.
4 His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground;
In that day his thoughts do perish.
5 Happy is the one who has the God of Jacob for his help,
Whose hope is in Jehovah his God,
It very true the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania have preached their message across the globe. They have preached their interpretation of the bible. They have also preached that unless you completely devote you life to selling their materials to people, turning them into more sales people, and completely observing the teachings of the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society of Pennsylvania you will die.
The Psalmist quoted says that by putting trust in God will last longer than following a person. People die, the faith continues. I can?t see any mention of true peace and security to this earth mention here.
7. Jesus' disciples must be no part of this wicked world. (John 17:16) They do not get involved in the world's political affairs and social controversies. They avoid the harmful conduct, practices, and attitudes that are common in the world. (James 1:27; 4:4) Can you identify a religious group in your community that has these marks of true Christianity
John:1 Jesus spoke these things, and, raising his eyes to heaven, he said: ?Father, the hour has come; glorify your son, that your son may glorify you, 2 according as you have given him authority over all flesh, that, as regards the whole [number] whom you have given him, he may give them everlasting life. 3 This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ. 4 I have glorified you on the earth, having finished the work you have given me to do. 5 So now you, Father, glorify me alongside yourself with the glory that I had alongside you before the world was.
6 ?I have made your name manifest to the men you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have observed your word. 7 They have now come to know that all the things you gave me are from you; 8 because the sayings that you gave me I have given to them, and they have received them and have certainly come to know that I came out as your representative, and they have believed that you sent me forth. 9 I make request concerning them; I make request, not concerning the world, but concerning those you have given me; because they are yours, 10 and all my things are yours and yours are mine, and I have been glorified among them.
11 ?Also, I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world and I am coming to you. Holy Father, watch over them on account of your own name which you have given me, in order that they may be one just as we are. 12 When I was with them I used to watch over them on account of your own name which you have given me; and I have kept them, and not one of them is destroyed except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I am speaking these things in the world in order that they may have my joy in themselves to the full. 14 I have given your word to them, but the world has hated them, because they are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world.
15 ?I request you, not to take them out of the world, but to watch over them because of the wicked one. 16 They are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world. 17 Sanctify them by means of the truth; your word is truth. 18 Just as you sent me forth into the world, I also sent them forth into the world. 19 And I am sanctifying myself in their behalf, that they also may be sanctified by means of truth.
20 ?I make request, not concerning these only, but also concerning those putting faith in me through their word; 21 in order that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in union with me and I am in union with you, that they also may be in union with us, in order that the world may believe that you sent me forth. 22 Also, I have given them the glory that you have given me, in order that they may be one just as we are one. 23 I in union with them and you in union with me, in order that they may be perfected into one, that the world may have the knowledge that you sent me forth and that you loved them just as you loved me. 24 Father, as to what you have given me, I wish that, where I am, they also may be with me, in order to behold my glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the founding of the world. 25 Righteous Father, the world has, indeed, not come to know you; but I have come to know you, and these have come to know that you sent me forth. 26 And I have made your name known to them and will make it known, in order that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in union with them.?
James 1:19 Know this, my beloved brothers. Every man must be swift about hearing, slow about speaking, slow about wrath; 20 for man?s wrath does not work out God?s righteousness. 21 Hence put away all filthiness and that superfluous thing, badness, and accept with mildness the implanting of the word which is able to save YOUR souls.
22 However, become doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves with false reasoning. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, this one is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself, and off he goes and immediately forgets what sort of man he is. 25 But he who peers into the perfect law that belongs to freedom and who persists in [it], this [man], because he has become, not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, will be happy in his doing [it].
26 If any man seems to himself to be a formal worshiper and yet does not bridle his tongue, but goes on deceiving his own heart, this man?s form of worship is futile. 27 The form of worship that is clean and undefiled from the standpoint of our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their tribulation, and to keep oneself without spot from the world.
James 4:1 From what source are there wars and from what source are there fights among YOU? Are they not from this source, namely, from YOUR cravings for sensual pleasure that carry on a conflict in YOUR members? 2 YOU desire, and yet YOU do not have. YOU go on murdering and coveting, and yet YOU are not able to obtain. YOU go on fighting and waging war. YOU do not have because of YOUR not asking. 3 YOU do ask, and yet YOU do not receive, because YOU are asking for a wrong purpose, that YOU may expend [it] upon YOUR cravings for sensual pleasure.
4 Adulteresses, do YOU not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is constituting himself an enemy of God. 5 Or does it seem to YOU that the scripture says to no purpose: ?It is with a tendency to envy that the spirit which has taken up residence within us keeps longing?? 6 However, the undeserved kindness which he gives is greater. Hence it says: ?God opposes the haughty ones, but he gives undeserved kindness to the humble ones.?
Jesus here is asking Jehovah to look after his disciples. He starts by saying that salvation is gained by taking in knowledge of Himself and Jehovah.
Then makes the request to take care of them, to sanctify them. But, check out verse 20:
I make request, not concerning these only, but also concerning those putting faith in me through their word; 21 in order that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in union with me and I am in union with you, that they also may be in union with us, in order that the world may believe that you sent me forth;
This doesn?t sound like one true religion, sect, group, or cult. This, to me, sounds like Jesus is opening the door to people who put faith in Jesus through their word. Anyone involved in a Christian based sect or cult should have verse 20 as a mantra. It?s people having faith in Jesus and acting like it, have His blessing.
Also, verse 26, Jesus says He has made His (Jehovah) name known to them. They already would have known the name YAHWY or Jehovah, so he is talking about something other than a word? (see point 5)
In James? letter, he is dealing with required kindness that is not being shown by certain followers. Is he talking about association, or acts.
If a group uses this scripture to force people, physically or via guilt, to not receive information from people outside of that group, IT IS A Cult. Buyer Beware.
steve