From the Official Website of Jehovah's Witnesses/JW.ORG
Faith Helps Those Looked Down Upon
In recent years newspapers have reported on civil wars in Africa. Particularly horrifying are accounts of young boys who are trained as soldiers.
These children are drugged, brutalized, and forced to engage in dehumanizing behavior against their relatives in order to ensure that their sole loyalty is to the faction for which they are fighting. Is a Bible-based faith strong enough to change the lives of such youngsters? In at least two cases, it was.
In Liberia, Alex served as an altar boy in the Catholic Church. But at the age of 13, he joined a warring faction and became a notorious child soldier.
Alex saw many of his companions killed, but he survived. In 1997 he met Jehovah’s Witnesses and found that they did not look down on him. Rather, they helped him to learn what the Bible says about violence. Alex left the army. As his faith began to grow, he followed the Bible command: “Let him turn away from what is bad and do what is good; let him seek peace and pursue it.”—1 Peter 3:11.
Meanwhile, a former child soldier named Samson came through the town where Alex now lived. He had been a choirboy but in 1993 became a soldier and got involved in drug abuse, spiritism, and immorality.
Samson was heading for Monrovia to join a special security force when a friend persuaded him to study the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses, and as a result, he developed a Bible-based faith. This gave him the courage to abandon his warlike ways. Both Alex and Samson now live peaceful and moral lives. Could anything but Bible-based faith make changes in lives that had been so brutalized?
The Right Kind of Faith
These are just a few of the many, many examples that could be cited to illustrate the power of genuine faith based on the Bible. Of course, not everyone who merely claims to believe in God lives up to the Bible’s high standards. Indeed, some atheists may live better lives than some professed Christians. That is because Bible-based faith involves more than merely claiming to believe in God.
The apostle Paul called faith “the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld.” (Hebrews 11:1) Hence, faith includes a strong belief—based on irrefutable evidence—in unseen things. It especially involves having no doubt whatsoever that God exists, that he is interested in us, and that he will bless those who do his will.-the wathtower, taken from
w00 1/1 pp. 2-5
REQUEST A FREE BIBLE STUDY FROM JW.ORG!
Faith Helps Those Looked Down Upon
In recent years newspapers have reported on civil wars in Africa. Particularly horrifying are accounts of young boys who are trained as soldiers.
These children are drugged, brutalized, and forced to engage in dehumanizing behavior against their relatives in order to ensure that their sole loyalty is to the faction for which they are fighting. Is a Bible-based faith strong enough to change the lives of such youngsters? In at least two cases, it was.
In Liberia, Alex served as an altar boy in the Catholic Church. But at the age of 13, he joined a warring faction and became a notorious child soldier.
Alex saw many of his companions killed, but he survived. In 1997 he met Jehovah’s Witnesses and found that they did not look down on him. Rather, they helped him to learn what the Bible says about violence. Alex left the army. As his faith began to grow, he followed the Bible command: “Let him turn away from what is bad and do what is good; let him seek peace and pursue it.”—1 Peter 3:11.
Meanwhile, a former child soldier named Samson came through the town where Alex now lived. He had been a choirboy but in 1993 became a soldier and got involved in drug abuse, spiritism, and immorality.
Samson was heading for Monrovia to join a special security force when a friend persuaded him to study the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses, and as a result, he developed a Bible-based faith. This gave him the courage to abandon his warlike ways. Both Alex and Samson now live peaceful and moral lives. Could anything but Bible-based faith make changes in lives that had been so brutalized?
The Right Kind of Faith
These are just a few of the many, many examples that could be cited to illustrate the power of genuine faith based on the Bible. Of course, not everyone who merely claims to believe in God lives up to the Bible’s high standards. Indeed, some atheists may live better lives than some professed Christians. That is because Bible-based faith involves more than merely claiming to believe in God.
The apostle Paul called faith “the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld.” (Hebrews 11:1) Hence, faith includes a strong belief—based on irrefutable evidence—in unseen things. It especially involves having no doubt whatsoever that God exists, that he is interested in us, and that he will bless those who do his will.-the wathtower, taken from
w00 1/1 pp. 2-5
REQUEST A FREE BIBLE STUDY FROM JW.ORG!
