Many Christians are afraid to talk with Jehovah’s Witnesses.

There are two types of fears:

1. Fear of getting indoctrinated
2. Fear of being humiliated.

Let’s talk about how to overcome these fears.

Overcoming the fear of getting indoctrinated

You are wise to be concerned, because if you embark unprepared into discussions with Jehovah’s Witnesses, there is a danger of getting indoctrinated and becoming a Jehovah’s Witness yourself.

But the solution to that isn’t to hide behind the curtains and pretend you aren’t at home.

The solution is to get prepared.

2 Timothy 2:25 say, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

That means you’ll need to know:

1. What Jehovah’s Witnesses believe and why.
2. What Bible passages Witnesses will cite.
3. What Christians believe and why.
4. What Bible passages teach these truths.

This will require study on your part.

If you have no experience witnessing to Jehovah’s Witnesses, I recommend that you establish safeguards by having one or more Christian friends who will debrief you after each session to help you determine whether you are in over your head.

If you don’t have someone who will help you that way, then feel free to email me through this blog site and I will help you.

If you find that you are totally outmatched and fear that you are getting indoctrinated by the Witnesses, then step meeting with them and don’t start up again until you are much better prepared.

Overcoming the fear of being humiliated

Perhaps you have tried to share the gospel with some Jehovah’s Witnesses previously and found yourself being twisted into a doctrinal pretzel.

You’re afraid that will happen again.

Once again, the key to avoiding that is good preparation—preparation regarding doctrine and preparation regarding witnessing techniques.

The first time I talked with Jehovah’s Witnesses I was totally unprepared.

I was intimidated because they exuded confidence and came across as experts on the Bible.

After I did diligent preparation work, I discovered that although the Witnesses displayed the same level of confidence I knew that much of what they were saying was demonstrably false.

Even if I didn’t know the answer to a particular point they made, I knew where to look to find those answers.

Because of that, I haven’t been humiliated again.

Counting the cost

I won’t deceive you into thinking that getting through to Jehovah’s Witnesses can be done relatively effortlessly.

On the contrary, it takes work.

Frequently, I encounter Christians who ask me the best verse to use to prove the Watchtower wrong on some point—who Jesus is, what the new birth is, and so on. I call this “the one verse curse.”

Witnessing to Jehovah’s Witnesses isn’t that easy.

Many years ago, when I was studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses and trying to clear up my doctrinal confusion, a few Christians tried to help me. I was struggling with who Jesus is and they cited me John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Case closed, right? At least for them it was.

Imagine their frustration when that didn’t do it for me! Instead, I responded with the Watchtower’s talking points about the proper translation of that verse and about anarthrous Greek predicate nominatives. They were stumped. They didn’t know where to go from there. To be fair, they had just met me and had no idea they were about to encounter Watchtower theology.

Because you are reading this blog, I’m going to assume that you are thinking about Jehovah’s Witnesses and want to do better at getting through to them. 

If so, you are going to have to do the preparation groundwork.

My book, Getting Through to Jehovah’s Witnesses: Approaching Bible Discussions in Unexpected Ways, contains explanatory doctrinal chapters and related approach chapters to help you.

That’s only one resource.

In the archives of this blog, you’ll find a thumbnail sketch of a number of other books about Jehovah’s Witnesses.

There’s also a series in which I go into more detail about these books and give links to their Amazon pages.

Additionally, there’s also a  post linking you to online resources.

The question is how much you care about getting through to Jehovah’s Witnesses and how much time you are willing to invest preparing.

Please make this a matter of personal prayer and then get started.