Bridge of Reason

  Last week I asked, ‘Is Worshipping Jesus Wrong?’ We discovered the Watch Tower Society is inconsistent in its understanding of ‘worship’ as well as in its historical teaching and practice. In asking ‘Is Jesus God?’ we are looking at the magnificent description of Jesus in Paul’s letter to Colossae, a magnificence that is totally missed by Unitarian believers like Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Heresy Paul’s purpose in writing is to refute a heresy that has arisen among Colossian believers. The saints at Colossae appear to have come under the influence of a hybrid, Jewish/Pagan, philosophical system marked by: Ceremonialism : concerning food, drink, certain religious festivals and circumcision (2:16-17,23) Asceticism : ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’ (2:21) Angel worship (2:18) Secret knowledge (2:18) Human wisdom and tradition (2:4,8) The deprecation of Christ (2:8) Paul writes: ‘ See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according...

  Watchtower Wednesday last week drew some really good answers and I will gratefully incorporate them into my answer to this question today. The Watch Tower Society answer is an emphatic 'Yes!' of course, using Daniel 10:13, 2 1 ; Daniel 12:1; Jude 9; and 1 Thessalonians 4:16 as evidence. After all, isn't it Michael who fights for the people of God (Daniel 12:1)? isn't Jesus described by Paul as 'coming with the voice of an archangel' (1 Thess.4:16)? Archangels It is always good to ask where in the Bible do we find the ‘reasoning’ presented to us by a Jehovah’s Witness. Nowhere does the Bible tell us the archangel Michael is Jesus...nowhere. Nowhere do the Bible writers present the convoluted and flawed reasoning of the Watch Tower on this and many other issues. Let’s be confident in what the Bible says, and what it doesn’t say. Michael is one of four archangels , angels of high rank. In Daniel 10:13 he is described as ‘one of the chief princes.’ ...

Hermes Jesus is no-one’s Hermes, a strange title, but stick with me and we’ll see what we can make of it. Hermes was the Greek god of translators and interpreters. More clever than all the other gods, he was the messenger of the gods. The Roman equivalent is, of course, Mercury. God’s have messengers, other gods who run errands for them. Oberon, king of the faeries in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, sent the mischievous Puck on an errand to find a special plant with magical qualities. More prosaically, human kings have messengers, such as the character Herald, in Shakespeare’s Henry V, who passes through the battlefield unscathed because of his role carrying messages between the French king and England’s Henry. God’s Messengers The God of the Bible has messengers, human prophets and apostles, but also angels. ‘Angel’ comes from the Latin angelus ; Greek aggelos ; from the Hebrew for "one going" or "one sent," a messenger. These messengers from the throne-...