Where do they come up with this stuff?

I think one of the hardest parts of my job is trying to understand the various religious beliefs that exist in the world today. In sharing the Gospel, it always seems helpful to me to understand where the other person is coming from with the belief system they hold. Understanding their beliefs usually makes communicating the truth of the Bible easier. You can show them where their beliefs are inconsistent with each other and the Word.

Let me tell you, there are some pretty wacky ideas out there when it comes to religion. For the last year and a half, Jenn and I have been working on answering students' emails from Everystudent.com. Wow, we've been exposed to some very strange and inconsistent beliefs! I often find myself just shaking my head and wondering how in the world people believe this stuff. From Mormonism to Christian Science to New Age to Universalism to works based religions...It's so sad to see the truth of the Bible twisted in different theologies.

Lately, I've been working with a Jehovah's Witness student via email on Everystudent. Sadly, it's been another case where scripture has been twisted to come up with inconsistent theology. Over the last week, we've had 23 emails fly back and forth between us. Our main topic? The divinity of Jesus and the Trinity. (One of the main tenets of Jehovah Witnesses is that there is no Trinity and that Jesus was merely a man, nothing more. Yeah, I know...strange.)

As we've been emailing each other back and forth for the past few days, it's been extremely hard and frustrating to see how the student's use of scripture has been twisted in his mind to say what he wants it to say. It's even more frustrating when I share scriptures with him that support Christ's deity, and he takes them an twists them to mean something else.

Sometimes it's hard to love people when they have different beliefs than you. The one thing that God keeps hammering in my mind over this past year though is that I need to love the person behind the twisted theology and hate Satan for twisting the scriptures. Satan's the one that comes up with these wacky ideas. I don't know how many times I've had to take a step back from a heated theological email, remember who is behind the false theology, and simply ask God to give me love for the person behind the twisted beliefs...

So for now, I guess it's back to emailing my new Jehovah's Witness correspondence buddy. Pray that I would do it in love and that God would open his eyes to the clear truth of the Bible.