Enthusiasm

The scriptures encourage us to demonstrate our love of God, the Bible, and his truth through our enthusiasm. But to what degree? Recently I experienced a sister witnessing to a friend of mine that I've been trying to cultivate into a real Bible student.

She came across as if she were a person eating the best piece of chocolate cake that she just wanted to shove a piece down everyone's throat around her. She didn't realize it, but she came across as a fanatic. Not only did she have very few specific details in answering his question "What happens when you die?" She went on to bring in a number of unrelated subjects and then concluded (after several long minutes) that she just loves the truth; it comforts her; it is her reason for living. I could tell she turned off his listening long before she was done and even I kept begging (in my mind "Sister, please stop! You're hanging yourself.")

In my mind, the proper degree of enthusiasm is more akin to an appliance salesman who truly and thoroughly knew his product and was overjoyed to tell all the features of it to a prospective customer. He kept his enthusiasm in check, making sure to pause long enough to observe the customer's body language and attentiveness and the pause to allow them to ask questions.

Only if appropriate might the salesman mention, "I even own this unit." There is the right time to hold things back and a right time to mention them. The features of the appliance should always be the main discussion. How much the salesman loves it, Should always take the back seat

Mormonism Makes No Logical Sense

Point A: bad conclusions about the Bible

Speaking to two young Mormon men, I asked:

1. You have a saying, don't you, that the Bible is God's Word as long as it is interpreted correctly, right?

2. You claim that the Bible contains contradictions and missing books, right?

3 You claim that only your "prophet" is qualified to interpret the Bible correctly, right?

4. So tell me, how is it that your prophet is the only qualified to interpret scripture and yet his interpretations yield contradictions and missing books? In fact, this one lie alone shows you to be apostates from Christianity because the Bible itself says that God's Word is complete for directing man in all his needs (2 Timothy 3:16). The Bible also says it is impossible for God to lie (thus also impossible to contradict himself. (Hebrews 6:18)

Point B:

Using only the Holy Bible, prove to me the concept of "celestial animals." (I am not certain if it is all animals or just some, but the Mormons believe that animals are also headed to a better life in another form. This is in direct opposition to the Bible which makes it clear that when animals are dead, there is nothing more for them. They did not sin, they do not come under Adamic sin's curse, therefore the death that befalls them is not punishment but the natural progression and end of their life.

Crying Wolf

I know, I am as surprised as you may be that I am still alive. The nurse last week predicted I’d be dead by Sunday, July 2, 2017. So where have I been? Sleeping up to 20 hours a day. The cancer will take me, nobody knows when. (I seem to be the most alert at midnight, which it is now.)

But that is not the only reason I write. Recently, appearing on patheos.com, was an article titled “’Amish Atheist’ Began Doubting His Faith After a Friend Asked a Simple Question”. The man in question had gone from Pentecostal before joining the Mennonite and Amish communities for several decades. So what was the all-devastating question? “Who created the creator?”

For some reason, Mr. Copp, the stumped Mennonite, had never actually learned to reason beyond what scripture says. Reading the definition of a progenitor, never crossed his mind. Yet, even so, I can understand the confusion because being the beginning of something that had no prior and being God are two different things. (The very reason I mention "progenitor" is to drive home the point that it is very possible to reach the beginning of something so that nothing else existed before it. Artists are cited in the link. Jehovah himself I an artist par none.)

In contrast, Jehovah’s Witnesses have long been given a logical answer for this question. It is both learning to reflect and learn to put the puzzle pieces together that such as the foregoing link that demonstrates the shallow convictions other religions who so easily lose members. Really, there has to be starting a point. One cannot go off ad-infinitum without coming to realize there had to be a beginning. The Bible says that beginning is Jehovah God.

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