The first time my husband Nils and I attended a Bible study at a local church, we didn’t want anyone to know that we were Jehovah’s Witnesses. So we wore blue jeans, used aliases, and prominently displayed our King James Bibles. But in spite of all these covert actions, we apparently gave ourselves away within the first ten minutes of the study. As someone later told us, “We knew you must be Witnesses. You kept using the name Jehovah.” Well, why wouldn’t we? From the year 1931 when Joseph Rutherford plucked the name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” out of the Old Testament (Isaiah 43:12 NWT), the Watchtower Society has written, spoken, revered, sung, and called upon the name Jehovah so many times that, to Jehovah’s Witnesses, it has become synonymous with eternal salvation and divine protection. On the other hand, the majority of Christians place the same significance upon the name of Jesus. They quote John 5:23 where it says, “. . . in order that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. He that does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”

[For those of you who want more detail on my last blog:  “Watchtower Crime Scene—Where Did the Body Go Part 1,” click here for Part 2.]

A nightmare to a typical Christian might be the act of tripping with the Communion tray at church and flinging permanent stain-causing wine all over everyone in the first few rows.  A nightmare to a typical Jehovah’s Witness might be the act of accidentally partaking of the wine when he or she wasn’t “worthy” to do so.  How on earth has the Watchtower Society managed to convince millions of people worldwide to simply pass the bread and wine at the Lord’s Evening Meal instead of partaking of it?  Believe it or not, they have accomplished this by simply switching an adjective for an adverb when discussing Paul’s words at 1 Corinthians, chapter 11.