12 - Jehovah Witnesses, Part 2

Welcome to the Striving for Eternity's School of World Religions.

We're glad to have you with us. I am Andrew Rappaport. I will be your instructor this evening.

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity. We put on these academy classes.

You can go to strivingforeternity .org to get information about this class or any of the others.

They are available for free. That's right, for free on YouTube. You can watch these classes, but if you want to be a good student, just saying, you do, you can get a syllabus and those are available at the website, strivingforeternity .org.

You can pick up a syllabus and follow along with everybody else, filling in the notes and having a whole lot more than I often have time to discuss here.

You also have a way of using that as a quick reference. Now before we begin,

I will say much of what we're going through is based off of my book that I've recently written,

What Do They Believe? A Systematic Theology of the Major Western Religions.

And that as well can be purchased at our store at store .strivingforeternity .org.

So you'd be able to pick that up if you want there. So with that, let us begin in our

School of World Religions. We are starting in this class, which is an

Introduction to the Major Western Religions. The class that we are in today is lesson number three in your syllabus.

This is Jehovah Witnesses. That will be the topic of discussion today.

We're going to do a slight review and then we'll go into what we're going to study today.

As you remember from the last class, which, well, it's never good to start in the middle.

You always want to start at the first part of a class. So, you want to start in lesson one, well,

I guess in this case, part one of Jehovah Witnesses. But in the last class, what we discovered was we looked at what

Jehovah Witnesses hold as their authorities. And we mentioned that they hold to the

Watchtower, Bible and Tract Society, that's who does the interpreting of the scriptures for them.

They hold to, they will use a King James version of the Bible, but they have their own translation called the

New World Translation. We looked at that. We saw some of the differences there between that and just some texts, but there are some differences in the way that they will translate things.

However, I often, when I speak to a Jehovah Witness, I will use the New World Translation, even though it does have some things that I would disagree in the way they're translating things.

We're going to look at some of those today. It still is, for the most part, kind of accurate to the

Greek and Hebrew. So it's for the most part a fine translation like any other. It's sort of like the

King James, it's what it's kind of modeled after, I think. And so, but what you end up having is that it is a translation of the

Bible, like any other translation of the Bible. It's not going to be perfect because it's a translation.

So that's the translation that they would most often use. And so, when we quote things here, we're probably going to be quoting from the

New World Translation. So that having been said, if you see

NWT, that stands for New World Translation. Now we talked about their view of God.

We mentioned that they do not believe in a Trinity and we're going to see that in depth when we look into today's lesson on Jesus Christ and the view that they have of Jesus Christ.

But they do not believe in a Trinity. Now this is really for many that enter into Jehovah Witnesses.

They come from, say, a Roman Catholic background. They haven't been taught in the

Scriptures where and how to defend the doctrine of the Trinity and so what ends up happening is very often someone comes to them from knocking on their door.

Hi, I'm a Jehovah Witness. I have a Watchtower magazine for you. Would you take a look at this?

And it seems like they have answers. It seems that when they look at the way that they have it structured, they have well thought out, at least seeming, argumentation against the

Trinity. They'll take many passages of Scripture. They'll make their case and many people mistakenly think, well, gee, it seems like they have answers to the

Trinity and the Catholic Church or Baptist Church or Lutheran Church or whatever church they grew up in who never taught them how to defend the

Trinity, they think that because they've never been taught it that they have no defense.

We have a defense. It's actually a very easy to defend doctrine. But we're not going to look at that this week.

We will, if you want to get, you're anxious to know how to defend it, go to our classes on Systematic Theology.

We have, in those early lessons, we have lessons on the

Trinity and you can get that there. Or just wait a couple of weeks and we're going to get to it.

Actually, in about three weeks or so maybe we'll get to that. So we will cover it and we will cover it in an overview and then in much greater detail.

So let's start by looking at the Jehovah Witness view of Jesus Christ.

Who do they say that He is? Kind of a play on words. Who do they say

I am? That's what Jesus had asked the disciples. But if you look in your syllabus, we're under section three under Jehovah Witnesses for Jesus Christ.

And let's start with the idea that they have that Jesus Christ pre -existed. So let's look at the pre -existence of Jesus.

Now this is different. I want to make a point. This is different than what we saw with Mormonism.

Mormonism believed that all souls, every human being, pre -existed.

This is going to be different. So don't make the mistake of thinking that because Mormons believe every soul that ever lived was born.

That's actually, remember, what Judaism taught as well. But this is different. This is just that Jesus Christ pre -existed.

So Jesus Christ, before becoming a man, pre -existed in heaven as the first and only direct creation of God.

It's very specific and we're going to get to that. Known as Michael the Archangel. So let's break this down for a moment.

Jesus was the first of creation. That sounds similar to Mormonism, but it kind of stops there.

Well, it doesn't stop there because they would also say that he's the only direct creation of God.

So what you see is that the idea being that God created Jesus and then

Jesus was used to create all things. So the only thing that God directly created is

Jesus and then Jesus did the creating of everything else. So the idea would be is that we could say that God the

Father created everything through Jesus. Remember, this is going to be an important point we're going to get back to in a moment.

But that is what you have to understand is that God the Father creates

Jesus. He's actually known at this time as Michael the Archangel. Michael the

Archangel is then, who will later be called Jesus, is then used to create everything that exists.

So before becoming a man, Jesus Christ was a mere angel. That's your blank there, a mere angel.

It was through this created Archangel that God brought all the other things into existence.

So Michael, as Jehovah God's greatest creation, was created first and then he ends up being used to create everything else.

Now where do we see this? Well, let us start in the New World Translation, shall we?

This is the New World Translations in Colossians 1, 16, and 17.

We looked at this last week. And I'm using one of their newer translations to point this out.

And I'm going to point this out because this is something that in here they've changed it. Okay?

This is the way it was first done in the earliest copies of the New World Translation.

You saw it read just like this. For by him were all other, note the emphasis that I put there, other things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible.

Whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all other things were created by him and for him.

And he is before all other things and by him all other things consist.

Now, the word other you see there four times, okay? In the 70s they had to change this and they ended up having to be a little bit more honest and show that the word other was added so they put it in brackets.

However, they've taken that out again in some of the translations. But nowhere in the

Greek does the word other exist, okay? That is not in the

Greek. They've added that in because of their theology. So right there what you have is you see a clear example of where the theology is driving the translation.

Let's realize, I would argue this is the same that happened with Anglicanism with the King James Bible.

We have a word for baptize, to dip or to immerse, but that wasn't the way the Anglicans were baptizing.

So what did they do? Created a new English word, baptismo became baptize and that became the idea.

Now that causes some confusion in some places, but that's what happens in translations.

Someone's theology could affect the way that they do translation.

This is a case with Colossians 1, 16 and 17, because the

Jehovah Witnesses have to add the word other that's not in the Greek text because that is to support their doctrine that Jesus Christ created everything, including other angels by the way, and he created all this but not for God the

Father. Even in their own translation, this is why I say look at their translation, even in their own translation it says that he created all things for himself, not for God the

Father. He created everything by him and for him.

This is why I say you could use a New World Translation when sharing with Jehovah Witnesses because what you see is if you get one of the translations that have the word other in brackets saying that it's not in the

Greek, you can show them this reads perfectly fine in English, you don't have to add the word other. The reason the word other is added is because of a doctrinal issue.

If you read it, let's put that up and read it without the word other, let's read it the way it would in one of our translations.

For him, by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist.

So you see, we don't need the word other to have that explain what's being said in the

Greek. You see, adding the word other actually changes the meaning and when you have a translation, the translation should never change the meaning of the text.

Could it have baptismo or deaconost becomes deacon because deacons were leaders and deaconost means a servant and so that causes confusion but they didn't change the meaning, they just gave it a new word.

I think it adds a lot of confusion and I don't think it's good for translators to do that but here you actually have a translation that's changing the meaning dramatically.

The word other does not appear in the Greek text and the addition of the word does change dramatically a doctrine that the passage of the

Bible is teaching. In the New World Translation, they do not always acknowledge the word other being in there.

Now if you get someone that shows where it's in brackets, you know that you can point that out, that word's not in there.

So that becomes important because what they're trying to do is show that Jesus Christ first created then created everything else.

This is how they get around saying that God the Father created everything but Jesus Christ created everything.

Now why do I say this is a real problem? Well I would say this is a real problem because we have a passage in Isaiah 44, 24 that says thus says the

Lord, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you in the womb,

I the Lord am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by myself and spreading out on the earth all alone.

That's right. Isaiah 44, 24 makes it very clear that God did not share in the creation work.

God alone did creation. So Isaiah 44, 24 becomes a real problem to this view that Jesus Christ was created first and then

He created all things. The reason that's a problem is because according to what we see in Isaiah, God alone did the creating.

He doesn't share it with anyone else including Jesus. Now what the

Jehovah Witnesses would argue is that God created Michael, Michael then created everything.

That then creates a problem with what Isaiah is saying. You see? Let's take another verse of what they have here.

This is from their book called Reasoning from the Scriptures, 1985 edition, page 218.

And remember, Reasoning from the Scriptures is a book that they've written to try to answer the supposed problematic areas that Christians bring up.

So this is really how do you answer the Christian, the genuine Christian, the Bible -believing Christian that asks you questions and so it says in there, so the evidence indicates that the

Son of God was known as Michael before He came to earth and is also known by that name since His return to heaven where He resides in a glorified spirit,

Son of God. Hmm. Did you catch that? Yeah. So He was

Michael, He became Jesus while He was on earth, He returned to Michael. So what they would say is that today, the person we know as Jesus Christ is actually

Michael the Archangel, okay? So that's what you have to realize.

They believe that Jesus was Michael before He comes to earth as a man, returns to being

Michael the angel. So this is going to cause, I think, some

Christians to go, what? I understand. But this is what happens when people try to answer questions that our human minds can't comprehend.

This is what happens when you deny the Trinity that is in Scripture and you deny that and what ends up happening is in that denial, you end up having to answer questions.

You can't, how do you get around the fact that in the Scriptures, God the

Father is said to be the creator and yet you also see very clearly as we looked at in the passage in Colossians 1 that Jesus created all things, that there was nothing that was created apart from Jesus.

That's where you get into these dilemmas and you have to start coming up with this stuff. And that's what you end up having.

So let's look at the deity of Christ. Jesus Christ, according to Jehovah Witnesses, Jesus Christ is not

Jehovah God but instead a God, in quotes, a God. Now this is from John 1 .1.

The New World Translation, do I have that? I didn't remember the slides. Okay, so just put the next slide up.

Nope, that's not it. Alright, so I will just read it. How's that? Alright, sorry about that folks.

I didn't give the slide and I was bad and didn't label the slides so they just have numbers on them and the engineer doesn't know which one's which.

So this is what it says, John 1 .1 in the New World Translation says, quote, in the beginning the

Word was and the Word was with God and the

Word was a God, unquote. That's the New World Translation.

So Jesus is seen to be on earth as a perfect man and only spoken of as a

God in the sense of being a perfect man but not more and not less.

So let's put that passage up that we did have up. So, and this is from, should you believe in the

Trinity, Jesus is no more and no less a perfect human, became a ransom that compensated exactly for what

Adam lost, the right to perfect human life on earth.

The perfect human life of Jesus was the corresponding ransom required by divine justice.

And so what you see there is quite clearly, is there another slide? Okay, let's put that up.

That's not the one I was thinking so let's hold off on that. Alright, so the quote I was looking for is from The Truth Shall Make You Free, 1943, page 47, it says, the true scriptures speak of God's Son, the

Word, as a God. He is a mighty

God but not the almighty God who is

Jehovah. Notice the distinction there that they're making. So when they speak of God we have to be careful, okay, because as Christians we're going to have a mindset there that we don't want to put onto them because it's not the way they would speak of this.

And so because of that we always have to be careful when we're trying to understand someone else's position that we don't apply to them something that they would not hold to, okay?

So when they speak of Jesus as a God, they're not arguing for polytheism, okay?

Polytheism is the idea of many gods. Many Christians will hear that and say, oh so you have many gods?

And they'll say, no we have one God. They believe God the Father, Jehovah God, is one and only

God. And that there are no other persons that make up God.

So it's God the Father, the only person that is God. Now Michael becomes this perfect being that becomes a

God. So he's called God only in the sense that he lives a perfect life.

But he, as you saw in that passage, is the ransom for us. Well if he's the ransom for us, why don't we live perfectly anymore?

I mean even Jehovah's Witnesses continue to sin, so how is, you know this is the question

I would end up asking is how is it that he could be that making up for what

Adam did? See when Adam sinned, all of us are now born with the curse of sin.

Actually Romans 8 says the entire universe is groaning under that curse and waiting for the day that God will restore those things.

But here we see that according to this, Jesus restored everything but yet not.

And that's confusing to say the least. It's confusing in the language to say he's a

God, he's a mighty God, but he's not the almighty God. And now in John 1 what they're going to argue, because in John 1 it says in the beginning was the

Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And their argument from the Greek will be, well there's no definitive article before God, therefore it's not the

God, it's just a God. And they're correct, there is no definitive article. But you don't need a definitive article to always be there to be speaking of a single person or in this case a single

God. So the argument that they end up arguing for is that he's like a lesser

God but he's greater than man. Okay, that's basically how it ends up being.

And what you see is you see them also having some confusion with this term son of God. Okay, they often misunderstand son of God as an offspring of God because that's what son of means in our day and age.

However, you know if you watch the way they speak, you'll see that they'll often do that and yet you could turn to say

Mark 3 .17 that talks about James and John being the sons of thunder.

No one is going to think the two lightning bolts got together, cracked, you know they made that cracking noise and that sound produced

James and John. And if you ask them what does it mean that they were the sons of thunder, these drove witnesses will,

I've never had one not say this, they will always say it means that they had the essence of or the nature of or the characteristics of thunder.

They're loud and boisterous, they're just speaking very loudly. Oh, so son of God means character of, essence of, yes.

So when we say son of thunder it means that then why not son of God meaning that Jesus is the essence of God, the nature of God, the character of God.

No, no, no, no. There it means an offspring, a product. He's produced. Okay, do you see the inconsistency?

Son of can in some context mean the offspring of but that's not the only meaning.

So when we see the phrase son of God it does not mean that they are the offspring of God but the

Jews at the time wanted to stone Jesus when he was called the son of God for what? For blasphemy because him being a man is called

God. So the Jews who lived at the time understood when Jesus would use the term son of God of himself that it was a terminology of claiming to be deity and that's why they wanted to kill him.

And the other phrase that causes them problem is the phrase firstborn. You see that in some passages actually in Colossians 1 where he's the firstborn of creation and they'll say see he was first created and rather than seeing that as a preeminent or superior one.

Now in Jeremiah 31, sorry in 31 9 and you'll see that Ephraim was called the firstborn even though Ephraim was not the firstborn his brother

Messiah was. You also see this in Genesis 41 in there you end up seeing this is where again it's referring to what's mentioned in Jeremiah.

Joseph named his firstborn Messiah or Messiah. So if you look at that and cross reference it the firstborn was not the one mentioned in Jeremiah 31.

In Jeremiah 31 Ephraim is mentioned as the firstborn and so when you look at that you have to realize that firstborn does not mean the order in birth but it means a priority.

It means that there was a that they were the firstborn they were the preeminent they came before in in the order of inheritance.

That is the understanding we have to take these things and understand what they meant at the time in which they were written.

So we end up seeing that let me give you some quotes though support some of this stuff.

In other words this is from let me give you where this is from this is from the

Kingdom is at hand 1944 pages 46 to 49 mentions this.

It says quote in other words he was the first and direct creation of Jehovah God unquote from paradise lost to paradise gained 1958 page 164.

This is the one that we we read actually so we could just put this one back up. No not that one sorry maybe

I don't I didn't have it sorry forget that it says quote the Bible shows there is there is only one

God greater than his creation by God had a beginning.

I skipped a whole sentence let me read that again please forgive me so this is from paradise lost paradise regained 1958 page 164 quote the

Bible shows that there is only one God greater than his son and that the son as the firstborn only begotten and the creation of by God had a beginning that the father is greater and older than the son is reasonable reasonable easy to understand and what the

Bible teaches unquote so notice what that reasonable to understand that's their problem they're trying to answer for a

God that is beyond our ability to understand and you always see this with the with when it comes to the Trinity people are trying to answer the question of that I can't comprehend this it doesn't make sense to me this is not reasonable

God is greater than our ability to understand him that's the first attribute of God that we looked at in the school systematic theology we looked at that to say that we looked at the attributes of God he's incomprehensible that doesn't mean we can't know what

God reveals about himself it means that what he does reveal we can know but there's a lot more he doesn't reveal

Deuteronomy 29 29 says the secret things belong unto the Lord but that which he has revealed to you obey and teach to your children so what you have there is the fact that we are to obey that which

God has revealed but he hasn't revealed everything and so there's going to be things we cannot comprehend because we are not

God with that being said what we want to do is recognize the fact that we cannot comprehend the

Trinity and people get into trouble when they try to get into the

Trinity so the next quote I think is the one that you had put up there earlier um why don't you put that up is it the one from should should you believe in the

Trinity no that's the one it starts uh yeah that's not the right one nope that's not the right one so we'll get to those two sorry so I'll just read this quote this is from should you believe in the

Trinity uh 1989 quote thus Jesus had an existence in heaven before coming to the earth but was it as the one of the persons in an almighty external triune godhead no for the bible plainly states in the pre -human existence

Jesus was created spirit being just as the angels were spirit beings before God neither the angels nor Jesus had existed before their creation now notice what's done in that passage actually if you read it you will see nowhere where they say that the bible plainly states his pre -existence they don't support that at all what they support in the support is that the angels had an existence before men so the issue that you end up seeing is they they and this is something to always watch people say plainly in other words if you disagree with it you must be you must be dumb or something it's very clear to everybody any thinking person that word is put there that to to in basically you know put into your mind the idea that this is very clear and very simple to understand but yet they don't support it because the bible doesn't clearly or plainly teach that Jesus had a pre -existence outside of being eternal they don't the bible nowhere talks about him being created it talks about him being first born and because of their confusion on that that's what causes the dilemma that they have all right let's move on so we can get through this lesson the resurrection of Jesus Jehovah Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ was raised a spirit creature that's your blank there spirit creature they teach that Christ's human body was not raised from the dead his body dissolved into gases or otherwise annihilated

Christ permanently forfeited his human life when he gave it up for a ransom for Christ to have taken back a human life would have meant that he was taking back the ransom price so now we could put that verse up let

God be true is that no the next one there we go Jehovah God raised him from the dead not as a human son but as a mighty immortal spirit son for 40 days after that he materialized as angels before him had done to show himself alive to the disciples now notice what that is so he had to show himself alive so the the risen

Jesus he they would say that he appeared as a man to the disciples because Thomas didn't believe see

Thomas he was doubting he didn't believe so he had to appear as a man for Thomas's sake um and I know

I won't have this one so but um let me see which quote that is oh

I'm looking for the quote well I'll just read all let me finish this section and I can

I can read all the quotes how's that that we're I don't miss so the risen Jesus though was obviously more than a man why because Jesus had divine qualities and status

Jesus throughout his life had divine qualities attributes that only

God could possess but he had divine qualities exact exact representation of of gods you see it in Hebrews 1 3 you see it in Colossians 2 9 he wasn't just a spirit and therefore uh he must be a spirit

John 4 24 says he's a spirit but Jesus was a spirit with some supernatural abilities I mean he was able to be invisible and be shown and they'll argue that this is how he how they know he's just a spirit uh but the argument is they'll say uh this is from let let

God be true 1946 edition page 476 quote the first the firstborn of the dead was raised from the grade not a human creation but a spirit unquote from that same book page 41 quote

Jesus did not take a human body to heaven to be forever a man in heaven had he done so that would have left him a little lower than the angels

God didn't did not purpose for Jesus to be humiliated forever but being fleshly man however no but after he had sacrificed his perfect manhood

God raised him to deathless life as a glorious spirit creature unquote now do you see the the argument they're making is out of pro at a psalm sorry psalm 8 where it says that man is a little lower than the angels and they falsely get into the idea that if Jesus remained a man he'd be lower than the angels however if they read

Hebrews chapter 2 they would see that that says that he was lower than the angels for a while yeah just for a short time but he would be greater than the angels as he returns he became a man and men are lower than the angels but he never stopped being

God and the whole book of of Hebrews is to show the superiority of Christ the first two chapters show that Jesus is superior to angels he's not one of them and superior as one of them the author of Hebrews makes the point that he's superior to them period all right let's move on from uh from paradise lost to paradise regained page 144 quote usually they could not tell it was

Jesus for he had appeared in different bodies it appeared that he disappeared just as angels had done because he was resurrected as a spirit creature only because Thomas would not believe did

Jesus appear in a body like that which he had died in unquote so you see because Thomas was doubting he had to appear in a human body

I guess if he didn't doubt um he would not have uh been able to to you know know that Jesus was

God no risen from the dead I mean you just think of that and go okay there's a problem there the problem that you have is that we end up looking at this and seeing that you have him teaching or you have the the

Jehovah Witnesses teaching that he had to appear in other bodies because he was a spirit and he had to show himself he actually had to put on his own body again but where was his body how did he put that body

I mean there's a whole lot of problems that we could see there all right um let's move on the after after his resurrection

Jesus returned to be Michael the archangel we said that Jehovah Witnesses believe that Christ's invisible presence began in 1914 and we mentioned this last class and this this gets into their whole study of of uh that his res the the the timing of the

Daniel passage ends up leading to the end of 1914 is when the end of the

Gentiles came and so the issue here that we end up seeing though that we want to focus on is that they are seeing that that he is a spirit today not human um now we would disagree with this as Christians we would see that Jesus is

God all throughout he never stopped being God and that he became a man and continues to have a human flesh but yet he's still

God can I understand that no I can't but I'm not God just saying so let's look at the next topic if we could the next topic is the topic of sin what is the

Jehovah Witness view of sin this is a short one so I think we can get this done in the next 10 minutes and wrap this up we will have one more lesson uh to go so Jehovah Witnesses believe that Adam's sin in the garden caused death and condemnation in past on to sorry let me read that again

I'm reading my notes Jehovah Witnesses believe that Adam's sin in the garden caused death and the condemnation is passed on to all of his offspring they would hold to a view of original sin is imputed to all people unlike the

Mormons Jehovah Witnesses teach that all men have a sin nature um I think that this may be from life yeah life uh this is 1929 page 194 this says by the disobedience of Adam Adam's sin became active and he was sentenced to death and condemnation resulted to all his offspring hence all were born sinners all were born sinners so you see they do hold to some view of an original sin uh it is important to note in discussing

Jehovah the Jehovah Witness view of the eternal state that they do not believe that man has an immortal soul and we're going to look at that next class they believe that man is a soul but does not have a soul that's a distinction let's put up uh the next quote we could look at that uh this is from reasoning the scriptures 1985 page 375 this is so this is uh they quote genesis 3 uh sorry genesis 2 7 quote

Jehovah God proceeds to form the the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life and the man came to be a living soul notice that this does not say the man was given a soul but became a soul a living person unquote and the emphasis that i have in that is original that is what you see from there so they make an emphasis to point out that man has has a soul not is a soul what's that distinction if he is a soul a soul does not die so he has a soul but not is a soul that becomes important because we're going to see next class they do not believe that we live on forever immortally but that we if we're bad we poof out of existence we get annihilated right so not only do

Jehovah Witnesses believe that man does not have a soul but is one they or that he has a soul um they also state that the doctrine of man having an immortal soul is from paganism uh we don't have these slides but let me give you this is from insight on the scriptures volume 2 1988 pages 1005 and 1006 quote man came to be a living soul hence man was not a soul he did not have a soul as something immaterial invisible and intangible residing inside of him unquote also in the book is this life all there is 1974 page 43 it says quote how then did this belief about an immortal soul find its way into the teachings of christendom's churches today it is through the influence of pagan grieco philosophy unquote so we get this idea of an immortal soul from greek philosophy that's what they would argue no we get it from um the bible just saying so um with that uh we are we will finish this up next week next class we'll look at the view of salvation and the view of the eternal state within Jehovah Witnesses and then we will look at christianity what does christianity believe then we will look at each one of these doctrines that we've been going through the the authority god the trinity christ and his deity man and his sinfulness salvation and eternal state and we're going to look at each one of these in response and giving a more sure response from scripture of how to support each one of these six doctrines so that's what's coming up if you have questions about this lesson or any other i encourage you to email us at strivingforeternity .org

also i would like to say again if you would be interested in purchasing my book go to striving for eternity you can also pick it up at amazon as well so if you're overseas and want to pick it up there you could do that but you can also get a kindle version if you like that but what do they believe in made a study of the major western religions that is available and a lot of what we went over today is based on that so that would be a good resource if you would like to have your church host one of our bible interpretation made easy seminars that would be a wonderful thing we would greatly appreciate it you could find out all the information at strivingforeternity .org