Genuine Friendliness Is Powerful

TRUE worship has a wholesome effect on a person’s disposition. It stirs within him concern for others. Often this manifests itself in a friendly manner of speaking and dealing with strangers. At times such friendliness has had a wholesome effect on bitter opposers of the Bible’s message.

This is what happened on an island of southern Greece. A man was studying the Bible with one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but his wife was bitterly opposed. The celebration of the Lord’s Evening Meal was approaching and the man decided to attend. Noting that her husband was getting ready, the wife inquired as to where he was going. “Listen,” her husband said, “today Jehovah’s Witnesses are observing a unique celebration established by Jesus, the Memorial of his death. I am going to attend. You don’t know how happy I would be if you, too, would come.” The wife became enraged and began cursing the Witnesses and insulting her husband.

Finally the man got ready to go alone. As he was leaving, the wife suddenly called out: “Wait! I am coming also.” The man simply could not believe his ears. Tears came to his eyes. Both attended the meeting and the wife listened in silence. At the conclusion of the talk, a female Witness spoke to her in a very friendly manner and arranged to call on her at her home. A Bible study was started.

Right in the first month this woman told the Witness: “Now I also am a witness of Jehovah, a sister of yours. I have not yet told my husband. I will now disclose something to you that I had in mind doing. The day my husband told me about the Memorial, I had hidden a knife under my pillow and was looking for the opportunity to kill him. While I was determined to do this, he was inviting me to go to the meeting. I finally decided to go, and there call the police to have everyone arrested. I owe it to you for having come to know the truth. And it is owing to the truth that my husband is living and I am free and not in prison.”

What power the friendliness of that Witness had!