DOOR KNOCKERS

 

DOOR KNOCKERS

I don't like to pick apart other churches and am even wary about saying much about cults because I don't know enough about them to feel confident about what I'm saying. But I just looked up the name of the buildings where a certain group of people I will call Door Knockers meet. The buildings are called Kingdom Halls. They are called that because the word translated "church" in the Bible refers to a group of worshipers -- the people. Duh. It seems the Door Knockers prefer to focus on the building rather than the people.

They don't display symbols and that includes the cross. I remember visiting a friend when I was in my early 20s when some Door Knockers came knocking on her door. She graciously let them come in. One Door Knocker was training the other. The one doing the training started "witnessing" how we who are not Door Knockers have many erroneous beliefs, such as Jesus being hung on a cross. She insisted He was hung on a tree. I told her the cross was fashioned from a tree. Jesus didn't carry a tree up the hill where he was hung. I had to hold back a giggle when the trainee, standing behind her mentor, started nodding her head at what I was saying. I realized that day how important it is to know the Bible so you are able to "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth" 2 Timothy 2:15. 

A third thing I know they focus on, especially in their handouts, is the end times. I was approached one day in my back yard by a couple of Door Knockers and they started talking about how their teachings are so much more accurate than ours, meaning those of us who aren't Door Knockers. I asked them why they focus so much on the end times. They denied that they do. I asked them to turn their literature over and let me see the back. There was an article about the end times. I had noticed that the end times was discussed in their literature in the laundromat and wherever else they left their handouts. That seemed to take the wind out of their sails and they left. 

Again, it's so important to know what's truth and what isn't. The devil tempted Jesus by using scripture out of context but Jesus came back with the full meaning of those scriptures. It isn't that the devil didn't know the real meaning of those scriptures; he purposely altered the truths or didn't tell the whole truth and meaning of the verses. 

I have a cousin whose whole family are diehard Door Knockers. They are so involved that they moved from the Benton area to Fairview Heights just to be near a Kingdom Hall. When she was high school age, my cousin lived with our family of ten for a year while things weren't going well for her at home, but she won't have anything to do with us now because we're not Door Knockers and won't go along with her beliefs. She is always on my mind when the subject of Door Knockers comes up. It makes me sad. She has three beautiful daughters and a son. That's as much as I know about them because even though we are blood kin -- her mother is my dad's twin -- we are not Door Knockers.