Wednesday, March 6 All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.—Rom. 3:23. Before a person can develop lifesaving faith, he must acknowledge that he is a sinner. The idea of being such would not be strange for those who grow up believing in God and having some familiarity with the Bible. (Eccl.7:20) In some lands, however,the average person is not raised thinking that he (or she) was born a sinner, that he inherited sin.Granted, he probably realizes that he makes mistakes,has undesirable traits, and may have done some bad things. And he observes that others are in a similar situation. Still, given his background, he does not really understand why he and others are like that. In fact, in some languages,if you say that a person is a sinner, others may think that you are saying that he is a criminal or at least a person who broke some rules. Obviously, a person growing up in such an environment may not readily think of himself as a sinner in the sense that Paul meant. w11 6/15 1:10, 11
Now that is a valid and important observation, showing how even a corrupted form of Christianity as practiced by ‘Christendom,’ still serves to lay a basis for the truth as contained in the Bible, without which the rest of mankind with all their non-Christian religions would really have no idea about such vital concepts as inherited sin and the need for Jesus as their Saviour, which further illustrates that God views all Christian denominations as His nominal people with whom He will have an accounting over what they have done with the privileged information entrusted to them in the Gospel. JWs are just a noisily obnoxious minority arriving late and big-noting themselves on a field prepared largely by those whom they now so self-righteously despise. Let them go to fresh missionary fields in the non-Christian world and show 'Christendom' how it is done.