NEW |Tattoos: can a Jehovah’s Witness get one? What the Bible really says — and what the elders’ manual leaves out

The Student Kit — index

Six modules. No rush.

Choose the module that calls to you most. You don’t have to read them in order. You don’t have to finish them all. Take the time you need.

The Student Kit

Tools to think with your own head, before decisions that matter.

A Member of the Lovers of Truth — bombablu.org

Who this Kit is for

Dear reader,

if you have this document in your hands it's likely that you find yourself in one of these situations:

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You're studying the Bible with Jehovah's Witnesses

For a few months, or for a couple of years, and you feel a kind of pressure: some say "get baptized," others say "don't rush," and you no longer know what to feel.

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You're an unbaptized publisher

You go out in the ministry, you attend meetings, but something inside you keeps saying not yet.

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You're a young person raised inside

You're 18, 22, 25 years old. You're about to choose a university, work, relationships, baptism — and you feel as if these decisions weren't really yours.

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You love a Jehovah's Witness

And you've been told that to be with them you should study and, one day, get baptized.

If you recognize yourself in any of these lines, you're in the right place.

What this Kit is NOT

It is not a list of reasons "against" Jehovah's Witnesses. It will not tell you what to do. It will not push you to get baptized and it will not push you not to. It is not a manual for breaking away or for fleeing.

What this Kit IS

It is a toolkit to think calmly, with clarity, with your own head, before making decisions that will have consequences for decades.

Our only bet is simple: if a human being thinks well, if they reason with honest tools, if they stop to distinguish their own fears from their own convictions, then their decisions — whatever they may be — will be more theirs. More free. More worthy of the human being you are.

"Make sure of all things; hold fast to what is fine." (1 Thessalonians 5:21, NWT 2013)

We didn't invent this sentence. The apostle Paul wrote it. And — note this — it doesn't say "make sure of some things." It says all things.

Why this Kit exists

Think of baptism as a marriage. It is not one decision among a thousand: it is the one that changes your life forever. And as in a marriage, the real question is not "will you marry?" — it is "will you marry truly knowing the person you are about to marry, with their bright sides and their shadow sides?".

Those who marry without knowing discover the flaws afterward. And the divorce that follows brings dishonor to the covenant, suffering to the family, sadness to God.

We have seen many brothers and sisters get baptized young, with a heart full of love for Jehovah, without having access to certain nuances of the organization. When those nuances emerged — years or decades later — the dissonance created enormous suffering: family ruptures, loss of friendships, and — saddest of all — confusion between the human organization and the God you love. Many, in their pain, ended up blaming not just an institution, but even the very name of Jehovah.

This Kit exists to prevent that suffering. Not to push you out. Not to push you in. To give you the tools to know everything — the good and the less good, the bright and the dark, the strengths and the fragile points — before the covenant is sealed.

If, after knowing everything, you choose to get baptized, your journey in the organization can be lasting and joyful. It will not rest on ignorance of something that one day might emerge. It will rest on full awareness — and full awareness is the ground on which a solid faithfulness grows, the kind that brings honor to the name of Jehovah.

If instead, knowing everything, you feel that this is not yet your time, you will have the freedom to wait, to grow, to choose when you are truly ready. Without the grief of having invested years in something you didn't know.

In either case, the choice will be yours. True. Free. And faithfulness to the name of Jehovah will lie precisely here: in a choice made with eyes open, and with a heart that has taken the time to look deep.

A small note, if you're a minor

If you are under 18 and you are reading this Kit, first of all: we love you. But we ask you one thing. Before applying what you read to important choices (baptism, relationships, studies), talk to a trusted adult outside the organization — a teacher, a non-Witness relative, a school psychologist, a family doctor. Not because you cannot think for yourself, but because every human being needs a friendly and independent voice. Jesus himself sent the disciples out two by two (Luke 10:1). No one faces life alone.

How to use the Kit

The Kit has six modules. You can read them in order or skip to the module that interests you most. Each module has this structure:

A Socratic question — to open the heart, not to give you answers.
A clear explanation — without big words, with examples from your real life.
A practical exercise — something you can do with pen and paper.

We recommend keeping a notebook and a pen next to you. You don't need an app, you don't need digital notes. You need the slow gesture of writing by hand, which is the way the human brain reasons best.

There's no rush. You can do one module a week. You can stop. You can reread. The Kit is yours.

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Module 1