There’s been other lessons I’ve learned since meeting with my Jehovah’s Witness friends and joining them for their book studies at their Kingdom Halls.

One thing that is painfully sticking out to me is how theologically shallow most evangelicals are as individuals and how shallow our churches are. Where it not for the fact that Jehovah’s’ Witnesses were working against God Himself and that the Lord preserves all that are His unconditionally, we’d be in real trouble I believe. I have a feeling that the average Jehovah’s Witness could have the average evangelical twisted up like a pretzel, using the evangelicals own Bible and a common lexicon.

Do you even know what a lexicon is? The Jehovah’s Witnesses do and they know how to thumb through one and find what they are looking for, do you?

And therein lies a significant problem. First of all, we have done almost no theological training in our evangelical churches in the last 20 years so now an entire generation of people can talk about how God “has a wonderful purpose for my life” yet can not in the most elementary of terms begin to define the doctrine of the Trinity or even the deity of Jesus Christ! We confess both truths, but most people raised in an evangelical church wouldn’t even know where to start if pressed to defend the doctrine of the Trinity.

And beyond just that, because our churches have done such a terrible job with teaching doctrine and theology the natural result is that people simply assume that theological issues are just not important…if theology was important then why doesn’t the church treat it as if it were important? I don’t know how many people I’ve met, including evangelical pastors…even one or two Southern Baptists pastors…who have come right out and told me that they don’t view a denial of the Trinity means one is not saved. “They believe in Jesus and that’s all that matters…” so they say. “Which Jesus?” is always my response which is usually ignored or causes stumbling of the mouth syndrome. Then again, I’m a nit picky fundamentalist in their eyes I’m sure. ;^)

So I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to stop worrying about other pastors and other churches and how they approach “ministry”. Look at what the average evangelical approach has assured in the last 20 years or so.

This is the bottom line. Evangelism. The theological ignorance bred in the average evangelical church in the last 20-25 years has caused such impotence in our evangelism that the vast majority of “evangelicals” could not kick themselves out of a wet theological paper bag. Our view of evangelism will flow out of our theological understanding, after all, evangelism is a doctrine of the Bible.

There is only two options when those nice people knock on your door. You can either politely or impolitely say “I’m not interested, I have a church” and quickly before they can ask a follow up question begin to shut the door or you can engage those people. What do you do? What honors God? 1 Peter 3:15 says “…Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect”.

Are you prepared to give an answer to a Jehovah’s Witness if they were to respectfully ask you to defend, from the Bible, the deity of Jesus Christ? What if they ask you to dig with them into a lexicon to study the meaning and uses of specific words (such as “firstborn” and “image”)?

For most people it’s just easier and takes less time to say “I’m not interested” than to study and learn. But understand the dynamics of what is happening…a sinner just knocked on your door and is asking you to dialog with them about God, salvation and Jesus. If that Jehovah’s Witness dies in their sin, rejecting the deity of Jesus Christ and salvation by grace alone through faith alone in the real Jesus alone…they’ll perish forever in hell. When you say, “I’m not interested” you might as well finish the statement by saying “I’m not interested…in you or your soul”. If that doesn’t make you comfortable thinking that way about the soul of those Jehovah’s Witnesses then the only other option is to dialog with them…and if you are going to keep up with the a “JW” you had better be prepared to take the time to study…to do as Peter instructions and be prepared to give the answers to the questions they’ll have for you.

Christ has not called us to simply focus on those who are satisfied with pat answers and easy to understand “spiritual laws”. We are called to be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks…those Jehovah’s Witnesses at your door are not nearly as confident as they may seem and are, like any other sinner, not satisfied with what they have. God can penetrate their heart, like He does with any other sinner, when His truth is made known.

The main reason sects like the Jehovah’s Witnesses are growing so rapidly in the last 20 years is because true Christians are not the least bit equipped to counter false doctrine. Think about that. One of the elders at the Kingdom Hall I attend has remarked to me in several conversations, “I became a Witness in the early 60’s. Back in those days and all the way up till about the mid 80’s we would frequently have the opportunity to engage in good theological discussion with people. Not anymore. And I’m not talking about people who don’t claim Christendom…I’m talking about churched people. I can’t imagine what is being taught in their churches, it’s not theology I know that for sure…” You can imagine my shame as he was telling me this and I could say nothing in our defense…he’s right.

So here is another lesson from the Kingdom Hall…if we are going to be taken serious by people with real, hard hitting questions then we must be deeply rooted in sound theology and apologetics…or we say to people at the Kingdom Hall around the corner, “you kooks can all go to hell…don’t bother me and I won’t bother you…”