Can You Progress to Baptism Without Bible Study Aids? [Opposers Dismythed]

The purpose of our publications is to provide a standard of knowledge in line with 2 Timothy 1:13 so that all who are baptized may "speak in agreement" in line with 1 Corinthians 1:10. The Bible is indeed the source of truth from God, but as Peter said, "However, some things in them are hard to understand, and these things the ignorant and unstable are twisting, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction."--2 Peter 3:16

It is true that the Bible provides all we need. We do not need to draw truths from other sources. But drawing up those truths may require a spiritual bucket as with Bible study aids and a person to draw it up with in the form of your Bible teacher.

Reasoning From the Scriptures

It is each individual's choice in what they will believe, but if anyone is to be baptized, they should be properly convinced with reasoning in line with 2 Timothy 3:14.

You will not find anyone as devoted to reasoning on the Scriptures as Jehovah's Witnesses. This is because the Scriptures encourage it. "According to Paul’s custom he went inside to them, and for three sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving by references that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead." (Acts 17:2, 3) "Entering the synagogue, for three months [Paul] spoke with boldness, giving talks and reasoning persuasively about the Kingdom of God." (Acts 19:8) "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, a sacred service with your power of reason [* or, thinking ability]." (Romans 12:1) However, not all have the same teaching ability, and the publications help make up for any deficiency.

The Benefits of Study Aids

The best quality teaching that you are going to receive is from our publications. They take you into the Bible in exactly the same way as a Bible teacher, if not more so. What claim can you make about learning from a Bible-based publication that does not also apply to a Bible teacher? What is the difference between a study aid and an email, for instance? But publications have the added benefit of making sure that what you are being taught is in line with what Jehovah's Witnesses teach. Without the publications, you have no idea if your Bible teacher is teaching God's thoughts or his own ideas.

There are many Bible study programs in the world, and they will all tell you different things, but most just expect you to buy into whatever they say with little question. We, on the other hand, expect you to think and to do study in your own time and ask questions, which is why we ask you to study the publication ahead of time, so that you can "make sure of all things; hold fast to what is fine."—1Thessalonians 5:21

Consider a new viewpoint about your formal Bible study. The formal Bible study is not your personal study time. It is your teacher's time that they are sacrificing out of love to show you what we teach based on the Scriptures. Before and afterward, in your personal study time outside the formal study, you may check the scriptures cited in our publications to make sure that the scriptures in their context really mean what we claim they mean. You will not get that encouragement from anyone else in my experience. You can do as much personal Bible reading as you care to in your own time. Our motto is "Read your Bible daily."

We also encourage notetaking so that you may record key concepts and investigate matters that interest or concern you. Later, you can discuss the results of your investigation with your Bible teacher to find out if they might have study material that can help your investigation further in your own time. This allows you to make sure that your concerns get addressed. If your Bible teacher is a bit flaky on subjects, the publications make sure you get the full picture.

If this is not good enough, then we will not force you to believe anything. You are free to continue or discontinue your Bible study at any time.

Spiritual Food

The Bible is like a 12 lbs. beef roast. The study aids are like the slicing of the beef into digestible portions. Along with it they make it easy to swallow the way a drink does. But as Paul said, new Bible students need milk, not solid food. (1 Corinthians 3:1, 2; Hebrews 5:13, 14) Study aids help students to develop to the point of eating solid food. A study of the Bible from front to back does nothing to help you understand the Bible's words, but a topical study as provided in study aids helps you to see how subjects relate to each other in the Bible.

But now, if you are not willing to study using our publications in order to reach baptism, it means a number of things that disqualify you for baptism: 1) a lack of humility, 2) a lack of obedience, 3) a lack of respect and appreciation for the spiritual food painstakingly prepared by spiritual men whom you can be certain are faithful and discreet. It was prepared for you and all Jehovah's people to feast upon. (Compare 1 Corinthians 10:1-4) If you understood the pains and years of development that they go through to make those study aids, you would surely trust the aids over your teacher.

Sometimes something seems harmless by the world's standards, but after a time of spiritual maturity, we may come to realize the underlying principles. Pride is not always overtly noticeable. At some point, the student will need to become comfortable with study aids. Every week we have congregation studies using those aids twice a week. If a person is not willing to use study aids, then they will never feel at home in our meetings. They will also find the ministry very difficult without them. The publications make the ministry much easier on the preacher (we call publishers), and on the teacher as much as the student.

Appreciation involves more than just accepting the use of study aids. It means realizing their benefit and looking forward to receiving that benefit and acknowledging the effort put into making sure you are well fed spiritually. The other thing I mentioned was obedience, which principle is found at Hebrews 13:17. To resist that direction is to defy the scripture. For what reason? Again, that goes back to pride, a lack of humility.

Make Sure

When the disciples were writing the letters we now call Scripture, do you think anyone was allowed to reject them because they were not the Hebrew Scriptures? While our publications do not claim inspiration, how do you know that something will not end up being called scripture in the far future? But neither should our publications be accepted as such. "Now [the Beroeans] were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they accepted the word with the greatest eagerness of mind, carefully examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." You see, even though they happily received the words of men, they still checked the Scriptures to make sure that what they were being taught was true.

Yet some rejected their letters as brought out at 2 Corinthians 10:9-11 and 3 John 9, 10. Besides, if one never reads them, how could they investigate them? Yes, investigate what is written, but a student would be being prideful to reject them without reading and investigating them. Paul expected his letters to be read aloud in the congregation, which was also the custom for the Scriptures. (Colossians 4:16)

The fact that his letters came to be spread to all congregations so that they were copied many times until they came to be preserved in the Bible shows that they had an appreciation for what he provided in those letters. Most people had to attend a congregation to even hear the Scriptures, but now every person can have their own copy for free along with study aids in abundance. The letters recorded in the Bible are the first examples of Bible study aids.

Imagine someone coming up to a first century disciple and saying, "I have studied the Scriptures on my own and am ready to get baptized." Considering 2 Peter 3:17, do you think that the disciple would be convinced that the person understands the Scriptures in line with truth? Instead, he would test out what he knows and make sure he understands in line with truth and is willing to give up his worldly ways and pursue a Christian life. (Read Luke 18:18-23) Then that person could be baptized. That is why we need a Bible study teacher, and the publications not only make sure we teach in line with truth, they help us check all the boxes in our teaching and in identifying the student's level of advancement. It was a provision that they did not have in the first century because of the late advent of the printing press.

Today people are far less likely to believe and are often quite savvy. Judaism and religions claiming to be Christian are so far removed from first century teachings in the Bible that they fight against every truth. It makes overturning their teachings very difficult and time-consuming. Jehovah's Witnesses are very grateful to have study aids to help ensure and abbreviate this process.

Additionally, as according to 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, we no longer have the spiritual gift of knowledge, so that we always know what to say and that it is always correct. (See the box "The Ethiopian Eunuch" below.) Our human imperfection makes us faulty in memory. Even what we once knew perfectly can slip after a time. The publications help the teacher as much as the student.

So no, you cannot progress to baptism without Bible study aids. Those study aids will be the very reason you acquire enough accurate knowledge and become convinced of the truth so that you eventually come to obey the word of God in order to qualify for baptism. (Mt 28, 19, 20) Through them God's name is being sanctified in correct teaching in line with truth. It is not MY truth, nor your Bible study teacher's truth, nor the truth of a single man, nor a body of men, but is God's truth that the publications teach as far as God has made known to his people.

The Ethiopian Eunuch

The account of the Ethiopian eunuch gives us several details that tell us that his was a special case of qualifying for baptism. Let us examine them:

• An angel spoke directly to Philip to go to where the eunuch would be. This was only one of two very important instances when God got directly involved in the ministry of an apostle in order to spread the good news to far away nations.—Acts 8:26


• Philip himself was an apostle of Jesus Christ, a personal witness and friend of Jesus himself.—John 12:21, 22


• The man was from Ethiopia where there was a substantial community of black Jews of which he was clearly a proselyte (Convert).


• He was a eunuch and court official with trusted authority over the treasures of queen Candace, which almost certainly meant he was a scribe.—Acts 8:27


• Being a proselyte and trusted with treasures, and courtier also meant that he was already morally and physically clean.


• He was already familiar with the scriptures and was an avid reader of them which is why he had his own scroll and was in middle of reading it aloud at the time.—Acts 8:30; Psalm 1:2


• Philip had a Bible study with the eunuch and took time to explain the prophecies regarding Jesus, which the man accepted.—Acts 8:30-35.


• He was returning from a festival of the Jews. Likely he had attended previous festivals. He might even have heard about the commotion regarding Jesus, but had no prior opportunity to learn about him in detail.—Acts 8:27, 28


• He loved God enough to travel hundreds of miles to attend the festival.


• Philip had direct intervention of holy spirit to help him know that the man could be baptized.—Acts 8:29, 39

      With all these facts in mind, all that was left was for him to put faith in Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah having come in the flesh, which he did and declared his desire to get baptised. (Acts 8:36-39) But as shown at Acts 19:8, it was not always so easy to make disciples. This demonstrates why studying the scriptures alone is not enough.