About David Englund|Getting Through to Jehovah's Witnesses

Original_photo Welcome! My name is David Englund.

The purpose of this website is to help Christians who want to share Bible truths with Jehovah’s Witnesses more effectively.

While my posts are mainly directed towards evangelical Christians, I welcome sincere questions and comments from JWs, ex-JWs, and anyone interested in JW topics, no matter what you currently believe or do not believe.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with everything I say, but I do expect all comments to be respectful to other readers, to me, and especially to God, whether or not you choose to refer to him as “Jehovah.”

This website and the book I am currently writing, Getting Through to Jehovah’s Witnesses: Approaching Bible Discussions in Unexpected Ways, are designed to give you information to help you:

Understand what motivates the Witnesses to go door to door with their message
Discover ways to communicate effectively with the Witnesses
Learn exactly what the Witnesses believe and which Bible verses they use to support those beliefs
Be prepared with approaches for getting past the Witnesses’ prepared presentation and getting them to deal with what the Bible really says
Reach out to Witnesses beyond those who knock on your door

Here is my background: In 1972, two Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door. I tried to witness to them but had no idea how to respond to their well-prepared doctrinal presentation. I studied with them for six months and ended up struggling with what to believe. It was years before someone helped me find biblical answers to those Watchtower teachings.

As a result of these experiences, I developed a burden for Jehovah’s Witnesses and for helping Christians learn how to share the gospel with them effectively. Since those days, I have trained Christians at a church seminar, spoken at meetings of ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses, attended Watchtower meetings, and dialogued with Witnesses and former Witnesses both in person and online.

I am now retired after several careers – newspaper reporter, attorney, trial judge, and interim pastor – and want to find new ways to encourage and equip Christians to reach out and share the gospel effectively with this mission field on their doorstep.

I invite you to subscribe (it’s free!) so you make sure you receive all my posts.

Term	Christian view	WT explanation
Rich man	A selfish non-Christian	Class of Jewish religious leaders who had special privileges and opportunities before John the Baptist and Jesus
————	—————————————–	————————————————–
Lazarus	A believer named Lazarus	Class of common people who hungered for spiritual nourishment but received next to nothing from those religious leaders
————	—————————————–	————————————————–
Death	Physical death	Both classes dying to previous condition as a result of response to kingdom preaching by John the Baptist and Jesus. As a result of this reversal, (1) the Lazarus class now received abundant spiritual food from Jesus and (2) the rich man class lost favor with God when new covenant began at Pentecost
————	—————————————–	————————————————–
Abraham	Abraham individually and as representing leaders of believers who have died	Jehovah
————	—————————————–	————————————————–
Abraham’s bosom	Conscious paradise for believers who have died	Position of favor with Jehovah in this life
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Torment	Conscious torment of the unsaved after physical death	Torment in this life caused by the fiery judgment messages proclaimed by Jesus’ disciples
————	—————————————–	————————————————–
Water to cool tongue	Rich man’s torment compared to deep thirst that’s never quenched	Request of rich man class to Jehovah to have Jesus’ disciples let up from preaching the fiery kingdom messages that are causing their torment
————	—————————————–	————————————————–
Great chasm	There is no chance for unsaved to obtain salvation after physical death	God’s unchangeable, righteous judgment prevents the granting of the rich man’s request
————	—————————————–	————————————————–
Five brothers	Five living brothers of the rich man who died	Allies of the rich man class who share the same spiritual father—Satan
————	—————————————–	————————————————–
Rich man’s purpose in requesting Abraham to send Lazarus to five brothers to warn them	Send Lazarus back from the dead so five brothers will see that heaven and hell are real and warn them to repent because they will have no chance after death to repent and avoid the rich man’s torment	Rich man doesn’t want his brothers to repent. He is asking Jehovah to have Jesus’ disciples to water down their judgment messages so his allies won’t be tormented by them as he is.
————	—————————————–	————————————————–
Sending someone back from the dead to warn them	Sending Lazarus from the grave back to warn the brothers	Unspecified special signs or miracles to convince the brothers of the truth of Jesus’ message
————	—————————————–	————————————————–
Why Abraham refuses	The brothers wouldn’t repent even if someone returned from the dead. Their only hope is to heed Moses and the prophets	God will not provide special signs or miracles to convince the brothers. Their only hope is to heed Moses and the prophets.
————	—————————————–	————————————————–
Why does the rich man tell Abraham that if someone from the dead goes to the brothers they will repent?	The rich man is in torment and wants his brothers to repent of their sins so they won’t share his fate.	No explanation. The rich man doesn’t want his allies to repent. He just wants Jehovah to water down the judgment message in this life so the brothers won’t be torment by them

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