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Jehovah's Organisation?

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On their website the Watch Tower asks, 'Is it Necessary to Belong to an Organised Religion?

In Reasoning from the Scriptures (pp. 283/4) Jehovah's Witnesses offer seven characteristics that identify Jehovah's organisation:


(1) It truly exalts Jehovah as the only true God, magnifying his name.—Matt. 4:10; John 17:3.

(2) It fully recognizes the vital role of Jesus Christ in Jehovah’s purpose—as the vindicator of Jehovah’s sovereignty, the Chief Agent of life, the head of the Christian congregation, the ruling Messianic King.—Rev. 19:11-13; 12:10; Acts 5:31; Eph. 1:22, 23.

(3) It adheres closely to God’s inspired Word, basing all its teachings and standards of conduct on the Bible.—2 Tim. 3:16, 17.

(4) It keeps separate from the world.—Jas. 1:27; 4:4.

(5) It maintains a high level of moral cleanness among its members, because Jehovah himself is holy.—1 Pet. 1:15, 16; 1 Cor. 5:9-13.

(6) It devotes its principal efforts to doing the work that the Bible foretold for our day, namely, the preaching of the good news of God’s Kingdom in all the world for a witness.—Matt. 24:14.

(7) Despite human imperfections, its members cultivate and produce the fruits of God’s spirit—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control—doing so to such a degree that it sets them apart from the world in general.—Gal. 5:22, 23; John 13:35.


A fundamental claim of every cult is they are the only ones with the truth. They are organised like the first century church, they have 'restored' what was lost in apostasy, and their organisational structure is evidence of these things.

Is organisation evidence of authenticity? Is there a difference being an organisation and being organised? How does your church match up to the list?

The problem with this approach is it takes more from the text than is actually there. Compare two cults and see what I mean.

The Watch Tower Society has a Governing Body sitting at the top of the organisation. When they look at the New Testament they see a Governing Body sitting in judgement in the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15.

The Mormon Church would argue the leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses looks nothing like the leadership in the New Testament. They would ask why the Watch Tower Society doesn’t have twelve members on its Governing Body, and why are they not apostles and prophets as described in Ephesians 4. You can see their point.

Of course each party would have an answer to questions on leadership, each appealing to passages in Scripture. But the church is an organism not an organisation. You can read something about what church is in Cults and Messy Church on the Reachout website.


Point by Point

Starting with starting with their last point:

(7) Despite human imperfections, its members cultivate and produce the fruits of God’s spirit—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control—doing so to such a degree that it sets them apart from the world in general.—Gal. 5:22, 23; John 13:35.

This is an important point. If Jehovah’s Witnesses think it reasonable that we should allow for their human imperfections surely they must respond to us in kind. We are far from perfect, and there will always be those who go by the name Christian who prove to be anything but. There will also be those who ‘produce the fruits of God’s spirit—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control—doing so to such a degree that it sets them apart from the world in general.’ Will Witnesses recognise, indeed celebrate that?

(1) On their first point, do Christians magnify God’s name if we don’t use it? Jesus never used God’s name, no matter how much JWs insist ‘he must have’ on the strength of Matthew 6 and John 17. Further, he taught his disciples to call God Father (Mt.6:9). How did he ‘make God’s name known’ (Jn.17:6,26) if he didn’t utter it? By making God’s character known: ‘whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’ (Jn.14:9) In Jesus, God has a good name. As a church it is our duty to give God a good name before a watching world.

(2) I have never known a genuine Christian believer who fails to recognise Jesus’ role in God’s purposes. Indeed we make more of him than Jehovah’s Witnesses do (Jn.1:1; Jn.14:9; Heb.1).

(3) Christians adhere faithfully to the word of God in the Bible. In fact, our Bibles are much more true to the originals than the NWT, which has a decided translation bias. Read more here.

(4) Christians keep separate from the world, although not in the paranoid manner of the cults. We are in the world but not of the world. Read this great article by John Piper to see where the balance lies.

(5) Christian churches maintain a high level of moral cleanness among its members, because God himself is holy and a called out people are to be holy. Are they suggesting my Christian friends don’t seek holiness before the Lord? Might this be a good time to mention child abuse in Kingdom Halls and their point 7? People in glass house...

(6) It devotes its principal efforts to doing the work that the Bible foretold for our day, namely, the preaching of the good news of God’s Kingdom in all the world for a witness.—Matt. 24:14. I have a quarrel with this one, not because it’s completely wrong but because it’s incomplete. Four chapters on in Matthew’s gospel we find Jesus describing the rest of this rescue mission – making disciples (Mt.28:16-20)

It is sad that the Kingdom Hall fails ,in this fundamental duty, to win people and then to bring them into the community to grow them into well-rounded Christian individuals. It seems to me they bring them in, drum doctrine into them, in order to do little more than send them out again and ill-equipped for the task in my experience.

How great is the good news we have to share with Jehovah's Witnesses, about Christ, about God's purposes in a new creation, about the assurance true disciples can have because of God's promises in the Bible (John 5:24)

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