In last week’s post, I recommended that you get Jehovah’s Witnesses out of their prepared Watchtower presentations by approaching Bible topics in ways they won’t expect.

One way to do that is to take the wind out of their sails by bringing up some of their standard arguments before they do and agreeing with the amount of truth that’s contained in them.

Then move past that to share your main points with them.

Let me give an example from my book, Getting Through to Jehovah’s Witnesses: Approaching Bible Discussions in Unexpected Ways.

In talking with Jehovah’s Witnesses about who Jesus is, it’s important to present a balanced Christology.

Acknowledging the humanity of Jesus and his positional subordination to the Father is not a denial of the doctrine of the Trinity. It’s an integral part of that doctrine. Jehovah’s Witnesses often do not understand that we believe Jesus is both fully God and fully man.

In their efforts to disprove the deity of Christ, Jehovah’s Witnesses are prepared to show you many Bible passages that stress Jesus’ human limitations.

I recommend that you take the wind out of their sails and preempt many of these arguments by telling them at the outset of your discussions, “I believe in a fully human Jesus.”

Then you can cite the following scriptural examples relatively quickly. You won’t need to dwell on them because Jehovah’s Witnesses have no problem with them. In fact, many are verses they normally bring up themselves:

• When he was young, Jesus was subject to the authority of Mary and Joseph (Luke 2:49).
• Jesus experienced both hunger and thirst (Matthew 4:2; John 4:7; 19:28).
• He needed sleep (Matthew 8:24).
• He was tempted (Matthew 4:1-11; Hebrews 4:15).
• He didn’t know who touched him in a crowd (Mark 5:30-32).
• He didn’t know the day or hour of his return (Matthew 24:36).
• He worshipped his Father as his God (John 4:21-22).
• He prayed to his Father in heaven (Matthew 26:39).
• He learned obedience through the things he suffered (Hebrews 5:8).
• He was made lower than the angels and died (Hebrews 2:9).
• He depended on the Father totally for his teachings (John 14:24) and works (John 10:37).
• The Father is greater positionally than Jesus (John 14:28).
• The Father is the head of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:3).
• One day, Jesus will deliver the kingdom to his Father and will be subject to him (1 Corinthians 15:24-28).

When you move on to show the Witnesses passages which show Jesus’ deity, their automatic response from their standard Watchtower presentations will be to cite you many of these same “human limitation” verses.

But that will fall flat because you will have taken the wind out of their sails.

You can point out that you cited these same verses to them first and that you agree that Jesus is fully human.

But that doesn’t contradict what the Bible says about his deity, and you can focus your attention there.

That will give you a clear path to share with them the arguments in favor of Jesus’ deity contained in Chapter 13 of my book—“The Jesus is the God-Man Approach.”