What should I say when Jehovah's Witnesses knock on my door?

Other Beliefs & ReligionsIn theological review

The short answer

Be gracious, and be specific: thank them for coming, agree on one text, and open it together. The most useful verse is John 1:1, because even the Witnesses' own New World Translation calls the Word a god, which raises the question of how many true gods there are. Ask about Colossians 1:16, where their translation adds the word other four times, though it is not in the Greek. Keep the conversation on who Jesus is, offer to read John's Gospel together, and end kindly whether or not they stay.

The fuller answer

Start with tone, because the people at the door are usually sincere, polite and giving up their own morning. Offer water, thank them, and resist the urge to win a whole system in ten minutes. Witnesses arrive with a presentation and with answers prepared for common objections, so the most useful thing you can do is choose one clear text and actually open it together. Ask if you may use their Bible, the New World Translation, since agreement on a translation removes one whole argument and shows good faith on your part.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:1 (BSB)

John 1:1 is the verse to read slowly. Their translation renders the last clause as saying the Word was a god, where standard translations say the Word was God. Ask a genuine question with it: if the Word is a god, and Jehovah is the true God, are there two true gods, and does that sit with Isaiah's insistence that there is no other? Follow it to the end of the same chapter, where the Word became flesh, and to John 20, where Thomas calls the risen Jesus my Lord and my God and is blessed rather than rebuked for it.

For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him.

Colossians 1:16 (BSB)

Colossians 1 is the second place to look, in their Bible and in any other side by side. Paul says all things were created through Christ and for him. Their translation adds the word other, so that Christ creates all other things, placing him inside creation. The word other does not appear in the Greek text of this passage, and in the printed translation it once appeared in brackets and now does not, though it still is not in the Greek. Asking, gently, why the word is needed is a fair question, and most visitors will not have been shown it.

“Truly, truly, I tell you,” Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

John 8:58 (BSB)

Close with Jesus' own words and an open door of your own. When Jesus says, before Abraham was, I am, he takes the divine name of Exodus onto his own lips, and his hearers pick up stones because they understand exactly what he has claimed. Whatever a visitor decides that day, end specifically: offer to read John's Gospel together over a few weeks, an offer costs you an hour a week and treats them as neighbours rather than opponents. If they decline, thank them for coming. A kind ending keeps the next conversation possible.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
Jehovah's Witnesses: official beliefs (jw.org)
New World Translation (2013 revision)

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Dig deeper

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What do Jehovah's Witnesses believe?Jehovah's Witnesses share a great deal of Christian vocabulary and moral teaching, and differ at the centre. They teach that Jesus is a created being, God's first work, who was the archangel Michael before his earthly life, and that the Holy Spirit is God's impersonal active force rather than a person. The historic church, by contrast, confesses Jesus as God of God in the Nicene Creed, and it is on his identity that the two faiths divide.Is Jesus God?Yes. The New Testament calls Jesus God in plain words, shows him doing what only God does, and records him receiving the worship that belongs to God alone. That is why the church at Nicaea confessed him as very God of very God, of one substance with the Father, and why Chalcedon confessed him as truly God and truly man in one person.What is the Trinity?The Trinity is the Christian confession that there is one God, and that this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, each fully God, equal in power and glory. The word itself is not in the Bible. The reality is taught everywhere in it, and the church forged the word to protect what the Bible says from being flattened in either direction.Who is the Holy Spirit?The Holy Spirit is God himself, the third person of the Trinity, not a force, a feeling, or God's power in the abstract. He is there at creation, hovering over the waters. He speaks, teaches, and can be lied to, and when Peter confronts Ananias he says the lie told to the Holy Spirit was a lie told to God.