Jehovah's Witnesses use many of the same words Christians use — God, Jesus, salvation, the Bible — but they mean something quite different by them. Nowhere is this more important than in their understanding of who God is.

Jehovah's Witnesses are strict monotheists. They believe that Jehovah — the name they use for God, drawn from the Hebrew Tetragrammaton YHWH — is the one true God, and that he alone is to be worshipped. They take the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4 ("The Lord our God, the Lord is one") as an absolute statement that God is a single person, not a Trinity.

This is not a peripheral belief. It is the organizing center of Jehovah's Witness theology. Everything else — their understanding of Jesus, salvation, the afterlife, and Christian practice — flows from this commitment to a strictly unitarian God.

In Jehovah's Witness theology, Jesus is not God. He is the first and greatest of God's creations — the archangel Michael before his human birth, and the archangel Michael again after his resurrection. He is divine in a secondary sense — exalted above all other creatures — but he is not Jehovah. He is not co-equal or co-eternal with the Father.

This teaching is reflected in the Jehovah's Witnesses' own Bible translation, the New World Translation. In John 1:1, where most translations read "the Word was God," the NWT reads "the Word was a god" — inserting an indefinite article that does not exist in the Greek and that no mainstream Greek scholar supports. This translation was specifically designed to support their theological position.

Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe the Holy Spirit is a person. They teach that the Holy Spirit is God's active force — his power at work in the world — similar to electricity or wind. It is not a being with a will, personality, or identity.

This means that when Jehovah's Witnesses read passages about the Holy Spirit speaking, grieving, or interceding, they interpret these as figurative language, not as descriptions of a personal being.

Jehovah's Witnesses are taught that the Trinity is a pagan doctrine invented by the Catholic Church in the fourth century — that it was not taught by Jesus or the apostles and has no basis in scripture. They are often well-prepared to argue this point.

The historical claim is false. The doctrine of the Trinity was not invented at Nicaea. It was clarified there. The early church fathers — writing before Nicaea — consistently described the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as distinct persons who share one divine nature. The Council of Nicaea was a response to Arianism, which taught that Jesus was a created being — essentially the same position Jehovah's Witnesses hold today. Nicaea rejected that position as a departure from what the church had always believed.

John 1:1 — "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Greek construction here (theos en ho logos) is a predicate nominative that identifies the Word as fully divine. The NWT's "a god" requires an indefinite article that does not exist in the Greek and that Greek grammar does not support in this construction.

John 8:58 — "Before Abraham was, I am." Jesus uses the divine name — the same words God used in Exodus 3:14. The crowd understood this as a claim to deity and picked up stones to kill him.

John 20:28 — Thomas says to Jesus, "My Lord and my God." Jesus does not correct him. If Jesus were not God, this would be a moment of serious theological error that Jesus allowed to stand unchallenged.

Colossians 1:15-17 — Jesus is described as "the firstborn over all creation" — a phrase Jehovah's Witnesses interpret as meaning Jesus was the first thing created. But "firstborn" in Jewish usage often means preeminent or supreme, not first in sequence. Verse 17 says "he is before all things, and in him all things hold together" — a description of eternal existence and sustaining power, not a created being.

Isaiah 9:6 — The coming child is called "Mighty God" and "Everlasting Father." Jehovah's Witnesses acknowledge this refers to Jesus but argue "Mighty God" is a lesser title than "Almighty God." But Isaiah 10:21 uses the same phrase "Mighty God" for Jehovah himself.

Jehovah's Witnesses are trained to discuss the Bible, and they will have responses to many of these passages. The goal is not to overwhelm them with arguments but to raise honest questions that invite them to look at the text more carefully.

Ask questions rather than making declarations: "Can you help me understand John 20:28? Thomas calls Jesus 'my God' and Jesus doesn't correct him. What do you make of that?" Questions keep the conversation open. Declarations tend to close it down.

And remember: the person at your door or across the table is not an enemy. They are someone who has been taught a system that keeps them from knowing Jesus as he truly is. Treat them with the same patience and respect you would want if the roles were reversed.