Don’t Be Stupid.
April 5th, 2007
A certain religious group’s mission statement states that “It encourages faith in God’s now-reigning King, Jesus Christ, whose shed blood opens the way for mankind to gain eternal life.”
Would you affirm this statement? Would you feel comfortable being a part of a religious group that had this sentence in their mission statement?
Stop for a second and think about the statement. Decide in your mind right now if you would agree or disagree, and why.
That statement came from the mission statement of the W.atcht.ower Magazine, a ministry of the cultish religious group, Jeh.ovah’s Witne.sses. This group is far from Christian doctrine, but they are masters at disguising themselves as just another Christian denomination — such as Baptist of Methodist (which are both great denominations). What makes the statement in question incorrect, if anything?
This particular post will be really boring unless people comment . . . so have at it!
April 5th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
I actually don’t know if there is anything about that statement I can disagree with. Maybe that is what is so alluring-people can’t easily tell the difference. I would be interested to see other’s interpretations about this.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Maybe the word ,’now’ connected to reigning may be an issue. It sounds as if He could be dethroned. Which we who believe, know cannot ever happen!
April 7th, 2007 at 11:04 am
J.W. do not believe that Jesus is God. This sentence, I believe, is very deceptive. It pulls the deity away from Jesus. Let’s Analyze it, starting by eliminating the Christianese in the 2nd half of the sentence:
“faith in God’s now-reigning king, Jesus Christ.”
Now let’s eliminate the distracting adjectives so you can see what I saying:
“God’s king, Jesus Christ.”
This sentence separates “God” from “Jesus” but surrounds it with lots of Christianese.
That’s my take anyhow.
April 7th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I’m completely with you here, Adam!
This statement totally undermines the deity of Christ.
I would reword the statement as follow: “It encourages faith in God’s Son, our now and forever reigning King, Jesus Christ, whose shed blood opens the way for mankind to gain eternal life.”
The other thing I would ask is: What was the original context of this statement? Taken as-is, I disagree with it, but if it is part of a larger whole, I would need to see the larger whole in order to make a proper determination.
I can just as easily strip the Bible out of context and make it say anything I want…
(I’m not saying this is out of context, I’m just pointing out the possibility as it relates to Scripture and its interpretation.)
April 7th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
The original context was in the mission statement of “Watch-tower.” (which is a magazine, and also a society).
I don’t have the magazine anymore so I can’t check on the context. But like everything I read in the magazine - it was surrounded with lots of Christianese statements… few of which seemed to go together. Context didn’t really mean a whole lot.
April 7th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Ah…I missed that. It is the mission statement, therefore it stands on it’s own. It needs no context.
So, I disagree with it in its present form as it is detrimental to the deity of Christ.
April 9th, 2007 at 1:37 am
How easily people can be taken in! Think of all the people caught up in that life. But it’s nothing new; consider 2 Peter 2:1-2, “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them-bringing swift destruction on themselves.” My first comment was about how I didn’t really see anything wrong with it! LOL The devil is sly-he’ll do anything to get you.