Christianity as a Worldview, not just religion.
Book suggestion: Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God by Paul Copan
A book that answers many of the sticky questions asked about the Old Testament.
1 Pet 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;
One of the reasons that we should all read more of the Bible is that cults across this planet are
tearing lives apart. It is within the pages of the Bible that our pastors don’t tell us to read, that
we find out the difference between real Christian Shepards and wolves in sheep’s clothing.
People in cults need us to study the Bible and pray so that we can lead them
away from the wolves, and into the arms of their loving savior.
Amber Sawyer was just 8 years old when it happened.She was watching cartoons on the living room floor of her Mississippi home when she heard the bang.She went to investigate and found her 21-year-old sister, Donna, dead in her bed. She had shot herself in the heart with their father’s hunting rifle weeks after being excommunicated by their church for getting engaged to a non-Jehovah’s Witness.For Sawyer — who sat on the bedroom floor near her sister’s body for hours that day, waiting for her mother to come home from her door-to-door missionary work — it was the beginning of a long, painful journey that would one day tear her family apart.
Years later, Sawyer got excommunicated, too, after seeking a divorce from an abusive husband. She ended up leaving the husband — and the faith. Her family cut all ties. “Jehovah’s Witness kids grow up knowing that if they ever mess up, their parents will leave them — and that’s scary,” Sawyer, now 38, said in a recent interview from her home in Pascagoula, Miss. “The shunning is supposed to make us miss them so much that we’ll come back. … It didn’t work.”
To read more: Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses say church’s shunning caused too many suicides
The 10 Most Important Things You Can Say to a Jehovah’s Witness
Jehovah’s Witnesses in good standing do not celebrate birthdays. They will not even let their children eat birthday cake when someone brings it to their child’s school. They believe that Birthdays are evil. Mostly because of two passages in the Bible.
The first one is in the Old Testament
Genesis 40:20-22 NIV
20 Now the third day was Pharaoh’s birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials: 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand— 22 but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.
While this is most certainly horrific to think of what happened to the baker, ask the Jehovah’s Witness is it the birthday or the Pharaoh that is to blame here? If they say it is his birthday that is to blame ask them if the Pharaoh was a good man for the rest of the year.
Then remind them that the cup bearer was forgiven and restored to his position on the Pharaoh’s Birthday, so the Pharaoh also did a good deed on his birthday. If an evil event makes the entire day evil, then would not a good event make the day good?
The other passage that they use is in the New Testament
Matthew 14:3-11 (NIV)
3 Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.” 5 Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered John a prophet. 6 On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so much 7 that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” 9 The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted 10 and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother.
Once again something bad happens on a birthday, but it did not begin then. Herod wanted to murder John ever since he was arrested.
He didn’t do it right away, not because he a man who was sleeping with his brother’s wife suddenly got a conscience. He was afraid of the people. He knew the Jews hated him but loved John, and he was worried that John’s death would cause a riot, which would get him into trouble with Rome. Birthday or not he would have eventually have killed John. If this is a prohibition of anything it is a prohibition against making oaths, especially open-ended ones.
But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
The birth of someone you love should be a special event, and birthdays are a way to make a person feel special in a way that would be impossible if you had to do it all year around. EXP. Most people can’t afford to buy their child an expensive gift every day of the year, nor should they, but they can afford to buy them a bike for their birthday.
Birthdays are not an essential part of our faith, so please don’t get into a big fight over this with them. Try not to fight at all, but if things get more heated then they should, it should be over bigger issues then birthdays.
Suggested Reading
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