{"id":6562,"date":"2014-05-04T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-05-04T15:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/?p=6562"},"modified":"2024-03-26T12:35:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T19:35:16","slug":"how-would-you-explain-what-christians-believe-to-this-young-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/2014\/05\/04\/how-would-you-explain-what-christians-believe-to-this-young-man\/","title":{"rendered":"How would you explain what Christians believe to this young man?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6563\" alt=\"20140404_cultresources\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/04\/20140404_cultresources.jpg\" width=\"545\" height=\"248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/04\/20140404_cultresources.jpg 545w, https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/04\/20140404_cultresources-300x136.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 545px) 100vw, 545px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Just yesterday a friend and I were sitting outside a restaurant, hanging out and catching up on life. A half hour into our conversation, a young man walked right by us and gave me a long glare, staring at the Bible in front of us. A few minutes later, he walked by again with the same drawn-out stare. The third time this happened, I smiled at the young man and slightly nodded my head in a gesture of kindness. He took the invitation, walked right up to us, and blurted out the question: &#8220;Hey, can you guys tell me the difference between what a Jehovah&#8217;s Witness believes and what a Christian believes?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As it turns out, this young man James grew up in an evangelical church but was recently exposed to Jehovah&#8217;s Witness theology through a family member. He didn&#8217;t know how to navigate through many of the questions this family member raised.<\/p>\n<p><em>What would you say to James? How would you answer his question?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I share this story with you in order to highlight one of the hidden gems on the Blue Letter Bible website: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blueletterbible.org\/resources\/cults.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a list of cult resources<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>At Blue Letter Bible, it is always our desire to serve the Body of Christ by providing free and easy-to-use Bible study tools and resources. Because of the demand for information exposing various cults, we offer a few online resources on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blueletterbible.org\/resources\/cults.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses and Mormonism<\/a>. These tools are meant to serve you well in defending your faith and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ to your neighbors or your friends or perhaps even for a &#8220;chance encounter&#8221; with a young stranger like James.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.blueletterbible.org\/study\/cults\/exposejw\/index.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Expos\u00e9 of Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.blueletterbible.org\/study\/cults\/exposem\/index.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Expos\u00e9 of Mormonism<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For the full list of &#8220;Cult Resources,&#8221; visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blueletterbible.org\/study.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Blue Letter Bible<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just yesterday a friend and I were sitting outside a restaurant, hanging out and catching up on life. A half hour into our conversation, a young man walked right by us and gave me a long glare, staring at the Bible in front of us. A few minutes later, he walked by again with the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-misc","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9017,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6562\/revisions\/9017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}