Will You Cling to the Truth?

IF YOU have begun to study the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses, the principal question you must answer to your own satisfaction is, Is this the truth? If you find that it is, will you cling to it? Similar questions confronted people in the days of Jesus Christ and his apostles.

When the apostles preached about Jesus, how did people react? Well, news regarding Christ’s Kingdom, his miracles, his ransom sacrifice, his resurrection, and everlasting life sounded good, and many accepted what they heard as the truth. But the majority did not. In fact, the Christian organization of that time was “spoken against” everywhere. (Acts 28:22) So accepting the truths Jesus’ disciples preached meant going against popular opinion and encountering opposition. Interested people therefore had to prove to their own satisfaction that Christian teachings were the truth. Only then could they take a firm stand.

When Paul and Barnabas visited Antioch in Asia Minor, many people listened to their message with keen interest. The Bible record says: “Now when they were going out, the people began entreating for these matters to be spoken to them on the following sabbath. The next sabbath nearly all the city gathered together to hear the word of Jehovah.” (Acts 13:42, 44) But this initial interest waned in a great number of the people when they heard emotional opposers speaking against the apostles.

Verse 45 of Acts chapter 13 says: “When the Jews got sight of the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began blasphemously contradicting the things being spoken by Paul.” Then verse 50 of Ac 13 goes on to say: “But the Jews stirred up the reputable women who worshiped God and the principal men of the city, and they raised up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas and threw them outside their boundaries.” Interested people had to decide whether to continue listening to Jesus’ followers despite the opposition. They had either to accept what they heard as the truth or to close their ears to it.

Opposition Today

Even as Christians were opposed in the first century C.E., so there are present-day opposers who try to close the ears of interested people to the Scriptural truths Jehovah’s Witnesses are teaching. Friends, relatives, and religious leaders often try desperately to discourage interested ones from studying the Bible with the Witnesses. Without Scriptural proof, the opposers contradict what is taught and make false accusations.

What should interested people do? Should they permit the words of opposers to close their minds and ears as some did in Antioch? Or should they prove to themselves from the Bible whether what they are studying is the truth or not?

The receptive people in the city of Beroea were commended because they examined the Scriptures to see if what Paul told them was the truth. Upon finding that he spoke the truth, they took a firm stand for it. We are told: “The [Beroeans] were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with the greatest eagerness of mind, carefully examining the Scriptures daily as to whether these things were so.”​—Acts 17:10, 11.

The people of Beroea did not permit the statements of opposers to close their minds to the good news. Rather, they examined the Scriptures daily to confirm that the things they heard were truthful. They had found a valuable treasure and were not going to let opposers turn them away from it. Would this not be the reasonable course to take with regard to the same good news that Jehovah’s Witnesses proclaim today?

Why Some Oppose

Sometimes opposers are well-meaning relatives that you love and respect, and you have every reason to believe that they are sincerely interested in your welfare. But you need to consider why they are opposed to your studying the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Do they have firm Scriptural proof that what you are learning is not the truth? Or is their opposition due to what others have told them? Do they lack accurate knowledge about what the Witnesses teach? Many who opposed Jesus did so in ignorance of what he taught and because they believed the false accusations of opposers.

When Jesus was hanging on the torture stake, people passing by “would speak abusively to him, wagging their heads and saying: ‘Bah! You would-be thrower-down of the temple and builder of it in three days’ time, save yourself by coming down off the torture stake.’ In like manner also the chief priests were making fun among themselves with the scribes and saying: ‘Others he saved; himself he cannot save! Let the Christ the King of Israel now come down off the torture stake, that we may see and believe.’” (Mark 15:29-32) What was the reason for this bad attitude?

The people had permitted their opinion of Jesus to be shaped by the religious leaders who hated him because he had exposed them as false teachers whose actions were not in harmony with their claims of being representatives of the true God. With frankness, Jesus had said to them: “Why is it you also overstep the commandment of God because of your tradition? You hypocrites, Isaiah aptly prophesied about you, when he said, ‘This people honors me with their lips, yet their heart is far removed from me. It is in vain that they keep worshiping me, because they teach commands of men as doctrines.’”​—Matthew 15:3, 7-9.

So intensely did the religious leaders hate Jesus and the truths he taught that they conspired to kill him and made every effort to turn the people against him. Today, many religious leaders oppose Jehovah’s Witnesses with the same intensity. And as was the case with the early Christians, the Witnesses are “spoken against” everywhere. But is it wise to permit this popular opposition to shape your thinking?

The same Scriptural truths about God’s Kingdom that Jesus and his apostles preached are being proclaimed today by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Hundreds of thousands of people all over the world are accepting this good news notwithstanding intense opposition by friends, relatives, and religious leaders. Those accepting the Kingdom message have proved to their satisfaction that it is the truth, and they are determined to hold on to it.

So why be like those of the first century who permitted others to turn them away from the life-giving Scriptural truths that came to them through the unpopular followers of Jesus Christ? Instead, continue studying the Bible with the Witnesses, using the written Word of God to prove to your own satisfaction that what you are learning is indeed the truth. (John 8:32) And with God’s help cling to the truth.