I think that some of the most amazing words that Jesus ever spoke were these:
"I tell you the truth ... before Abraham was born, I am!"
- John 8:58
At the moment, I'm in awe of this man who is God eternal, and grappling with trying to understand those who don't believe He is God. My housemate Darv and I are preparing for a return visit from our local Jehovah's Witnesses, reading up on Jesus' divinity and the Trinity as these were two prominent topics in last week's conversation. Their translation reads something like:
"I tell you the truth ... before Abraham was born, I have been"...which is very different in meaning, and is actually an incorrect translation. The verb "to be" is the same as is translated into the present tense in many other places in John's gospel, and yet here it is translated into the past tense. In the original Greek, Jesus says "I am", and not "I have been", and so they have changed the Bible - and not just at this point, may I add. This does make me angry, but I'm also filled with compassion to hear that Jehovah's Witnesses are trained not to think for themselves. They accept without question what the Watchtower Society teaches - in fact they are taught to accept it without question. In contrast to the Biblical education I'm receiving through Barneys and the Evangelical Union, which teaches me to both listen to God's Word and to think about it - about what it means and about how to apply it to life - I can see just how poor and lost they are. This has changed my whole outlook on Thursday morning's rendez-vous - I had been going to approach it with fervent declarations of the truth, but now I have been shown that what is needed is for these poor people to begin to think for themselves about the lies they have been taught. Once they question what they have been taught, maybe then we can show them the truth.
This is strange to me... I have spent so much of my life trying to avoid doubts about my faith, and now here I am preparing to sow doubts into someone else's faith. And it occurs to me now that herein lies the importance of thinking about and wrestling with God about one's faith - faith you don't understand in a God you don't know is a perilous, if not outright damaging, place to be. It's sad that so many stop here though, when God so readily gives the truth to those who seek it... to those who seek Him with all their heart.
Please pray for Darv and I, that we wouldn't be arrogant, that we would be loving, that we would be patient, and that we would depend on our Lord Jesus Christ to provide us with answers through the Holy Spirit our Counsellor.
