Page 49 - Cults and Marginal Groups - Textbook w videos short
P. 49
7. Micah 5:2
2 "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Too little to be among the clans of Judah,
From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel
His goings forth are from long ago,
From the days of eternity."
NWT: “And you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, the one too little to get to be
among the thousands of Judah, from you there will come out to me the one
who is to become ruler in Israel, whose origin is from early times, from the days of time indefinite.”
This verse tells us the birthplace of Jesus and is telling us where Jesus’s entry into the human race will
take place, not when he came into being. The phrase “from ancient days” means “days of
immeasurable time” “From of Old” is the exact same Hebrew words used by the prophet Habakkuk to
refer to Jehovah’s eternal nature (Hab. 1:12). The two phrases together are the strongest assertion of
“infinite duration (eternity) that the Hebrew language is capable.
WITNESSING NOTE: Since the phrase “from of old” is used by the prophet Habakkuk to refer to
Jehovah’s eternal nature, then, to be consistent, shouldn’t we conclude that the identical phrase in
Micah 5:2 refers to Christ’s eternal nature?
8. I Cor. 11:3
3
But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a
woman, and God is the head of Christ.
NWT “But I want you to know that the head of every man is the Christ; in turn the head of a woman is
the man; in turn the head of the Christ is God.”
JWs say because God is the head of Christ, then He is superior to Christ and Christ cannot be co-equal
with God, therefore Christ is NOT God.
This verse has NOTHING to do with the superiority or inferiority of one relationship to another. It
simply shows patterns of authority. For example, man and women are equal in terms of nature. They
are both human and both created in God’s image. They are ONE in Christ (Gal 3:28). However, equality
of being and social hierarchy are not mutually exclusive. The husband / wife relationship demonstrates
that while both are equally the same in nature, that because of the fall, God has placed headship
(authority) of the husband over the wife. In the same way, Christ and the Father are utterly equal in
their divine being (John 10:30), but while Christ was on earth, He took upon humanity and humbled
Himself and voluntarily placed Himself functionally in subordination to God the Father. This
subordination to the Father in NO WAY implies that Jesus is any less God no more than saying because a
wife submits to her husband, she is less human.
WITNESSING NOTE: Is a wife inferior in nature to her husband because he
exercises headship over her? If the husband’s headship over his wife does
not mean that the wife is inferior by nature, they why does the Watchtower
48