The Jehovah's Witness and the Sower

The following is a contribution from Barry Amor, one of our team here at Reachout central:

I have spent many hours debating with Jehovah’s Witnesses, online, via email, and face-to-face on the carts or over a table. It is understandable how easy it can be to become disappointed with the seeming lack of effect of this time spent with them. They promise to go away and research what you have said and get back to you and yet they rarely do.

The Scriptures you show them and the arguments you present seem to wash over them with no apparent effect and you go away discouraged. By way of encouragement, though, I think an alternative look at the parable of the sower from Matthew 13:1-23 has much to help us.

There are two ways of looking at the parable in this context:

Firstly, the sower seems to accept the fact that some of the seed that he is sowing will have little or no result by way of fruit, yet he keeps sowing. Some seed will undoubtedly be wasted, but there will be a harvest of good seed and that is good enough for him.

When we sow our seed of the good news we cannot know who will respond and who will not, but we are called to sow it anyway and leave the Holy Spirit to do His work. We may never see the fruits of our sowing as we may not be called to be a harvester, so we must leave it in God’s hands to produce the crop.

A second way to look at is it that we may be called to prepare the soil for others to sow into. In the parable there is poor ground which would need to be changed to make it ready to receive the seed. There is hard ground, packed down by constant footfalls and this will need to be broken up.

Jehovah's Witnesses are told that non-Witnesses (including members of ‘Christendom’) are worldly people who are full of sin and persecute Jehovah's Witnesses. Maybe our role is simply to be ‘good’ people to them, to ‘break up’ their ground.

Perhaps you have a colleague at work, or a neighbour, who is a Jehovah's Witness and all you are called to do is to be kind to them, to show God’s love to them without judgement or trying to proselytise them.

Some ground is full of rocks with little soil; these may be bad experiences the Jehovah's Witness has had with ‘religion’ in their lives that drove them to the Watchtower. We can be a listening ear, ready to perhaps give our own good experiences of Christian living and help them to understand that ‘religion’ is not the same as faith.

Some ground is full of thorns or weeds; these ‘weeds’ are the false doctrines of the Watchtower Society which will need to be removed one by one. When you discuss with a Jehovah's Witness about the personality of the Holy Spirit, the way to eternal life, or the Christian’s hope of heaven you may simply be removing those weeds. The Jehovah's Witness may then go on to talk with other Christians in the future with many more such weeds removed.

Ground that has been poorly cultivated before will need nutrients added to make it productive and this can take some time and may need numerous applications. We may simply be putting nutrients in to the soil by speaking the gospel to them, the good news that is Jesus and forgiveness of sins. The Watchtower does not give them those nutrients, it’s all about ‘Jehovah’ and his organisation leading them to paradise through their own merit.

With the ground broken up, rocks removed, thorns and weeds uprooted, and the soil thoroughly fertilised, the way is set for the seed to be sown and fruit to come forth.

Some of us will be ground breakers, some weed killers, others those who fertilise the soil fertilizers, and only some will be harvesters, but we are all just as important in the overall scheme. We mustn’t become downhearted in God’s work. We must do our bit and leave the Holy Spirit to co-ordinate the work to achieve the aim of bringing these people into the kingdom.

'I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.' 1 Corinthians 3:6

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