WHAT CAN I MAIL TO A JEHOVAH’S WITNESS WHO WROTE ME A LETTER?
“I just received a letter from a Jehovah’s Witness who invited me to study the Bible with them. I don’t have time to study well enough to feel comfortable talking to this person face-to-face. Is there anything I can mail to this Jehovah’s Witness who sent me the letter?”
OUR RESPONSE:
Thank you for asking about resources that are good to mail to Jehovah’s Witnesses. The fact that this Jehovah’s Witness took the time to write and invite you to do a “Bible Study” with them gives you an open door to share your faith through the mail, without feeling pressured to engage in face-to-face contact.
The advantage of corresponding through the mail and/or email versus face-to-face contact can be that it allows you more time to research their objections before you respond. On the other hand, corresponding can make it more difficult to convey emotion and a caring attitude as it is easier to just state the facts on paper and more difficult to see the Jehovah’s Witness’ emotional response to those facts. This can make it difficult to determine if the direction you are going in your witnessing is truly impacting the person. But regardless, if corresponding through the mail is the most comfortable way of witnessing for you, we will provide a few suggestions on how you can respond:
RESPONSE IF YOU DON’T HAVE TIME FOR A LONG DRAWN-OUT DEBATE:
If you are a novice at sharing your faith with people of another religion and don’t have the time to research and study how to effectively present your faith to Jehovah’s Witnesses, we would recommend that you simply give them our gospel tract for Jehovah’s Witnesses and/or send them a couple of witnessing business cards from our website that are designed to get them to reevaluate what they are being told in the Watchtower. It is important to know that Jehovah’s Witnesses are told not to read anything that is critical of the Watchtower, so it is unlikely that they will take the time to read a multi-page article critical of their religion if they know you are not truly interested in talking to them. This is why we recommend the following resources as they are short and more appealing to Jehovah’s Witnesses. You can print these free resources from our website at the following links:
How Can I Have Jehovah’s Approval Upon My Life? – Gospel Tract for Jehovah’s Witnesses- 1 page, 2-sided.
WHAT YOU CAN SAY IN YOUR LETTER TO THE JEHOVAH’S WITNESS:
Dear Jehovah’s Witness,
I received your letter dated ________. Thank you for thinking of me and inviting me to study the Bible with you. I appreciate your desire to help me understand Jehovah’s ways better. Right now, time does not permit me to take you up on your offer, but in appreciation for your concern for me, I am sending you something I hope will be a blessing to you. May you enjoy reading it as you seek to have Jehovah’s approval upon your life.
In Christian Love,
[Your Name]
RESPONSE IF YOU WISH TO ENGAGE IN A DIALOGUE WITH THE JEHOVAH’S WITNESS:
If you are willing to take the time to correspond long-term with the Jehovah’s Witness, we would recommend that you send them our “Facts the Watchtower Doesn’t Want You to Know” report along with your letter, asking them for their feedback on it. Be sure that you place your letter in front of the “Facts” report so they don’t see the report first and throw it away—thinking it is just “apostate” literature.
When you write your letter, be sure to state that you love Jehovah God and the Bible and that you would be interested in anything that helps you draw closer to God. But let them know that you have some concerns over the organization that they are following and that you need to know whether you can trust the material their organization publishes before you can agree to a “Bible Study” with them.
The advantage of starting your discussion with this “Facts” report before engaging in a Scriptural debate is that it starts your conversation heading in a direction that deals with the real issue for Jehovah’s Witnesses – their trust in the Watchtower over what the Bible says. If you can effectively break their trust in the organization, they will be more open to your interpretation of the Bible and less likely to engage in what we call “Bible ping-pong” where you end up going in circles with Watchtower reasoning.
If the Jehovah’s Witness replies to your letter and takes the time to go through the “Facts” report, he or she may challenge you on the accuracy of the information in the report. If this happens, you may want to order the photocopy documentation packet from our ministry that will provide you with all the evidence you need to counter any objections in this regard. In addition to our “Facts” report, our website also provides a number of free resources that you may find helpful in challenging the Jehovah’s Witness’ trust in the Watchtower. Some of the best ones you can print free on our website are at the following links:
WHAT YOU CAN SAY IN YOUR LETTER TO THE JEHOVAH’S WITNESS:
Dear Jehovah’s Witness,
I received your letter dated ________. Thank you for thinking of me and for offering a free home “Bible Study.” I have an interest in Jehovah’s Witnesses and I have a lot of respect for the Bible. I believe it has much to say about Jehovah God and His requirements for eternal life. I would be interested in learning more about what you have to offer, but I don’t feel comfortable having people I don’t know in my home. Would it be possible for us to correspond through the mail or email instead of a personal visit to my home?
In my research on Jehovah’s Witnesses, I ran across some interesting information that I would like to get your opinion on. If what this literature is saying about the Watchtower is true, I’m not sure I would be able to trust the literature the Watchtower publishes for their “Bible Studies.” But I’m not one to believe everything I read, so I would appreciate your feedback on what this literature is saying about Jehovah’s Witnesses. Since I don’t want to believe any lies about your organization, if there is anything inaccurate in this article, could you point the specifics out to me? I’ve enclosed a copy of the article for your review. Your input would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[We suggest that you give your Address below your name to ensure he or she will be able to respond.]
ANONYMOUS MAILINGS TO YOUR JEHOVAH’S WITNESS FRIEND:
If you have a Jehovah’s Witness friend to whom you want to mail our literature but are concerned they will discard it once they see your name and address on the mailing label, our Jehovah’s Witness postcard mailing tracts would be perfect for you to use to mail them “anonymously” to your friend. All you need to do is print our postcards off our website at the following link:
POSTCARD TRACTS FOR JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES
Then open a PO Box and use your initials on the return address label or find a Christian friend (preferably in another area of the country) to mail one postcard a month using your friend’s name and address. Unless you plan on only mailing one postcard to your Jehovah’s Witness contact, we strongly advise that you use a valid return address as we have found that most active Jehovah’s Witnesses return our cards with a “do not mail” request after they have received two or more cards in the mail. So, a valid address would be necessary to ensure their mailing wishes are respected.
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