A Perfect Saturday Morning for Teaching Scripture

Oh what a perfect Saturday morning. The sun is shining, the air is cold and crisp just like I like it and my missus is nowhere around. Huh? Why would my missus not being here make for a perfect morning you ask? Well, because I had the joy of receiving visitors.

See if this sounds familiar; you’re sitting on the couch and all of a sudden the doorbell rings. You open the door and find two people on your stoop holding what looks like pamphlets and their trusty translation of the New Testaments. Oh yeah, I had me some Jehovah witnesses stop by.

What was odd with these two was that they were a mother and son team with the boy being about nine or ten. Still, an opportunity to teach as my missus is away with the alter guild decorating our tree at church. For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen the JW’s send only one adult and after today I don’t think that happen on my street again.

The women asked me a couple of questions about if I thought Jesus was setting the example we should live. I answered all of her very basic questions and she seemed genuinely pleased with my answers. Then she made the comment that people don’t often read their Bibles or that they interpret the Scriptures to mean something that they don’t. Boy howdy, that was an opening that you could fly a Boeing 747 through with room to spare!

“I know what you mean” I said. “Did you know that there are some people that actually think that Jesus never said He was God?”

“He did say He was the son of God” she replied still smiling.

“Not only did he make the claim that He was the Son of God, but every time me says “I Am” He is saying He is the same God that spoke those words to Moses from the burning bush, He is saying He is God!”

“Hmm, really…”

“Absolutely, come on in for a second and I’ll show you my New Testament in it’s original language; Greek and we can break out my lexicon if we run into any trouble”

As me moved inside I brought out my books and sat down in the living room. While the boy played cautiously with the cat we looked at words ego eimi (if I could figure out how to turn the Greek font on, believe me I would) that Jesus uses throughout John’s gospel. I let her use her translation that butchers the opening of John’s gospel as she just wouldn’t put it down and I used my New King James Version for our impromptu study.

I briefly walked her through the I Am (ego eimi) statements and explained that the reason the crowds are picking up stones to kill Jesus is that they understood that he was making the claim that He was the same God that revealed Himself in the Old Testament. When I was done, she was smiling but barely.

I told her that I could see she was struggling with this and challenged her to show me where the crowds picked up stoned to kill Him when He said He was a son of God. She couldn’t find any passages in her Bible and told me that she really had to be going. She did say that she was very interested in learning more about these Greek words ego eimi and she would look them up in her encyclopedia at home. Heh.

Before she left I told her that I’d be happy to talk to her some more and would be happy to teach all about the I Am statements. For some reason or another, she didn’t commit to any class taught by me. I then told her that when she got home she should get out a good translation that hasn’t screwed with the original text and read that forth gospel so that she may understand it a little better. Her only response was to thank me and she hoped I enjoyed the rest of my day.

So as quick as she and her son came, off they went down the street to the next house. At the end of the day I think I pulled out my books and notes too quickly. I should have taken it a little slower but since I believed that she thought that I was agreeing with her; I really didn’t feel I had any other choice. I just couldn’t let her go too far in the direction she was clearly taught without addressing the heresies of the Jehovah Witnesses’.

Oh well, maybe next month.