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Part seven John was the disciple whom Jesus loved. John experienced the Transfiguration of Christ and, as a captive of the Roman empire, was exiled to the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. By inspiration, the aged apostle came to be on the Lord’s day. Although the apostle saw heavenly things, he was not initially transported in vision into the heavens. His perspective was as [...]

Part six On his final trip to Jerusalem, Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees, and they asked him when the Kingdom of God was coming. The Lord answered them, saying: “The Kingdom of God is not coming with striking observableness; nor will people say, ‘See here!’ or, ‘There!’ For look! the Kingdom of God is in your midst.” - Luke 17:20,21 Jesus had just cured 10 lepers [...]

Part five Search the Scriptures through and through, and you will not find the phrase “invisible presence.” As common sense would have it, Jesus has always been invisibly present. The parousia is something very different. To illustrate the point and prove that the manifestation of Christ is the same thing as the parousia, the apostle John wrote the following: “So now, little children, remain in union [...]

Part four After describing all these things destined to occur, Jesus spoke a series of illustrations---each showing the same outcome. The lesson is, there will be a decisive separation among Christians. Jehovah’s Witnesses have no realistic expectation of such a thing. The Watchtower claims the concluding harvest took place over 100 years ago. Supposedly, the angels separated the Bible Students from the mass of members of [...]

Part three Having established that the presence of Christ with the holy ones, yes, his coming alongside them, does not take place until we “see all these things,” now we will distinguish his coming from his presence. This is all the more necessary because of the eschatological mess the Watchtower has created. While Charles Taze Russell did well to differentiate the two Greek words “parousia” and “erkhomai” [...]

Part two Having established that the presence of the Son of man does not take place at the beginning of the epochal period known as the conclusion and the time of the end, as the Watchtower erroneously teaches, it is self-evident that the actual parousia will not begin until the tribulation is cut short. This is provable by Jesus’ illustration of the first leaves of spring [...]

What is the parousia? When will it occur? And why do Jehovah’s Witnesses believe the presence of Jesus Christ has already begun? These questions will be considered. Speaking to his disciples in one of his last post-resurrection manifestations, Jesus said: “And Look! I am with you all the days until the conclusion of the system of things” Christ being with his disciples [...]

Parousia is a Greek word used in the Christian Greek Scriptures. It appears 24 times in the so-called New Testament. The Greek word parousia literally means “being alongside.” Most translations have mistranslated parousia as “coming”—as in the second coming of Christ. The New World Translation consistently renders parousia as “presence.” That is because presence is in contrast with absence. For example,  Paul wrote to the Philippians: [...]

This is part two of my response to the Watchtower’s Question from Readers column: When Will the Current Preaching Work End? I do not think most of Jehovah’s Witnesses, if any, appreciate or understand that the Watchtower has repudiated itself and contradicted the Bible. According to what the Watchtower has previously published, Babylon the Great fell in 1919. The call to “get out of her” has [...]

I have always believed that the Bible is God’s word. There are no other reliable sources of divine truth. Of course, hundreds of millions of people identify as Christians and claim to believe the Bible. Obviously, merely believing that the Bible is a sacred book does not necessarily equate to understanding it. As public ministers, Jehovah’s Witnesses have firsthand experience trying to teach people the basic [...]