Module 4 — The Decisions You're About to Make

A question, before anything else

When have you decided, in your life, in a conscious way? Think of a precise decision. Maybe the choice of a school. A move. A person to be in a couple with.

And then think of a decision that happened, more than was decided. Something that came because "everyone was doing it," "it was what was expected," "I didn't know how to say no."

Feel both these memories well. Feel them in the body. The first decision — the conscious one — probably gives you an impression of solidity, even if in hindsight it went badly. The second — the one undergone — probably leaves you with a small knot in the stomach, even if in hindsight it went well.

This module exists for a simple reason. Some decisions you're about to make are nearly irreversible. Not in the sense that "you can't go back." In the sense that going back costs years, relationships, identity. And we want that, if you make them, you make them in the most conscious way possible.

For each decision, we propose the same scheme:

1. What are you really deciding? (the decision stripped, without rhetoric)
2. How reversible is it?
3. Pros and cons (not as a list, but as an honest matrix: who gains what, who loses what)
4. Reflection questions — questions to leave to rest for a few days before answering

Decision 1 — Baptism

What you're really deciding. You are not "simply dedicating yourself to God." You've already done that, if you have an honest heart, in the silence of your prayers. With Jehovah's Witness baptism you are doing two very specific things of different nature. The first is a personal dedication to Jehovah through Jesus. The second — which is done with the same question, in the same moment — is the formal adherence to the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses as "instrument directed by God." These two things are not the same, and in most Christian traditions they are kept separate. In Jehovah's Witness baptism they are unified.

Reversibility. Very low. Once baptized, leaving the organization entails:

• Disfellowshipping or formal disassociation, with the implications you know (all baptized brothers and most family members stop talking to you, except for recent policy clarifications that nonetheless need to be verified in the actual practice of your local congregation). To understand what the Bible really says about shunning, read the article "Remove the wicked man from among yourselves".
• Effects on family relationships: if you have baptized relatives, the dynamics change.
• Psychological effects: the loss of an entire community is a grief that in clinical literature is documented as particularly severe.

Before baptism, deciding "not yet" or "no longer" has very different consequences: it does not entail shunning, it does not entail announcements from the platform, it does not break relationships in the same way.

This difference is not small. It is the heart of the decision. Getting baptized is not "confirming" an already-Christian life. It is signing a social contract with very high exit costs.

Honest matrix. Who gains what: your social group (a new adult inside, more service, more studies), your family (genuine joy, peace, sense of fulfillment), you yourself in the short term (sense of belonging, clarity, recognition). Who loses what: you yourself in the long term (zeroed reversibility, identity tied to a specific organization), possible future relationships with non-JW people (they become more difficult), your future choices (blood, university, career, politics).

Reflection questions — sit with these questions for at least seven days before answering:

1. If God existed exactly as you know Him but the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses were not His exclusive channel, would I love Him just the same? Would I get baptized anyway, in a different form?
2. If tomorrow the organization changed an important doctrine (as has already happened many times — see Module 3 and the article The "new light": what it really means), would I feel my faith collapse, or would I just feel an administrative change?
3. Am I deciding to get baptized because I have discovered Christ, or because others expect me to?
4. If I delayed the decision by a year, what would I lose? Would anyone be harmed? If yes, who, concretely?

You don't have to answer any of these questions now. Keep them in the notebook. Come back to them in a week.

An important note. Our Kit does not tell you not to get baptized. Many sincere Christians have made and will make this choice, and it should be respected. We are only asking you not to do it out of inertia, or out of fear of disappointing, or because "I'm already in." If after seven days of reflection your heart and mind say "yes, this is my path," it is a conscious choice, and we wish you all the best. If after seven days you feel more confused, that's an excellent signal: it means you've stopped deciding on autopilot. Take more time.

Decision 2 — University and career

What you're really deciding. You are choosing how you will spend the next forty to fifty years of work, skills, income, human contacts. It is not a spiritual decision. It is a decision that has enormous material consequences, and it deserves to be made with real data.

What the real data say. The organization's publications over the past forty years have, in various ways, discouraged or dissuaded university (remember the principle of "new light" and subsequent updates). The concrete numbers:

• An Italian graduate earns, on average over the course of life, much more than a high-school graduate. The ISTAT and OECD data are public and verifiable.
• A graduate has less probability of losing their job in cycles of economic crisis.
• A graduate, when they reach retirement age, on average has a higher pension.
• A full-time pioneer, after twenty years of service, has not accumulated pension contributions, has not accumulated a professionally recognized résumé, has not accumulated competencies certified by third parties. If, for any reason, they had to stop, they would have to start from scratch in a market that will have dozens of peers already twenty years ahead.

These are facts. They are not criticisms. They are data to put on the table before choosing.

Reversibility. Low, but not zero. You can start university at any age — there are people who graduate at 45 or 55. But every year of delay relative to your peers weighs, especially in technical fields.

Honest matrix. Who gains what from your renouncing university: the congregation (more hours of service), the group (more exemplary pioneers to cite in talks), your family (spiritual joy). Who loses what: you (income, skills, human contacts that would have been part of your life), society as a whole (one less professional in a useful field).

Reflection questions:

1. If "the time remaining" — the argument used for decades to discourage long careers — is my criterion, how is it that the organization itself continues to build masonry Kingdom Halls, to plan three-year assemblies, and to hire personnel at Bethels for multi-year contracts?
2. If God has given me a talent (mathematical, artistic, medical, technical), does it make sense to bury it (Matthew 25:14-30)? Or is the one who buries the talent called a "wicked and lazy slave" in the text?
3. If tomorrow, without the organization, I had to support myself and a family, what would I know how to do? This question is called "the professional survival test" and it hurts. Do it anyway.

Decision 3 — Relationship "only in the Lord"

What you're really deciding. You are told that, to obey God, you must form a couple "only in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 7:39). In the organization's practice this means: marrying only another baptized Jehovah's Witness. But is that what the original Greek text says?

A look at the text. The passage in 1 Corinthians 7:39 speaks of a widow who is free to remarry "only in the Lord" (Greek: mónon en Kyrío). The expression "in the Lord" (en Kyrío) is used many times by Paul to distinguish Christians from pagans — that is, from those who worshiped deities of the Greco-Roman pantheon. The Pauline distinction was between Christian faith and pagan idolatry.

In the first century, "in the Lord" meant "belonging to Christ." It did not mean "belonging to my specific Christian denomination." Denominations did not exist yet. There was Christianity, in many local communities, with even significant disagreements among them (read Galatians 2 for a disagreement between Paul and Peter), but all Christians. All "in the Lord."

So: another person who loves Christ — whatever the Christian denomination in which they express it — is "in the Lord," according to the original Pauline use.

This does not mean that every "inter-denominational" couple works well. Differences of practice matter, extended families matter, children matter. But the doctrinal question — "who is in the Lord" — does not have the exclusive answer the organization gives.

Reversibility. The choice of a life partner is among the least reversible decisions of adult life, with effects on children and on subsequent generations.

Reflection questions:

1. If "in the Lord" means "Christian," and if another person sincerely loves Christ, on what precise biblical basis can I exclude them from my emotional horizon?
2. Do I personally know inter-denominational couples who live their faith serenely? If yes, what does their experience tell me?
3. If I am giving up a person I love only because of their non-membership in the organization, am I obeying God or a human rule that attributes God's authority to itself?

Decision 4 — Blood and advance directives

What you're really deciding. You are deciding whether to sign an Advance Healthcare Directive that preemptively refuses blood transfusions — a legally binding document in Italy under Law no. 219 of December 22, 2017. Once signed and filed according to law, the directive is valid even when you are unconscious, in a life-threatening emergency, in the ER.

Factual information (not legal advice — for that, go to an independent lawyer):

• The text of Law 219/2017 is published in the Official Gazette and is freely available. Article 4 regulates advance directives.
• The directive can be revoked at any time, in the ways provided by law (typically: authenticated private writing, public deed, or video recording if physical conditions don't allow writing).
• In Italy there are associations that accompany free of charge those who want to draft or revoke an advance directive. One is listed in the /supporto area of our site.
• The choice on transfusions is personal and must be protected both for those who say yes and for those who say no. The important thing is that it is informed.

Important biblical note. The doctrine on blood, in the organization's current form, is based on a specific reading of Acts 15:29 ("abstain from blood") applied to transfusions. This application was not the original interpretation of the text (which concerned the prohibition for gentile Christians to eat improperly bled animals, in keeping with the Judeo-Christian sensibilities of the time). On our site you'll find the dedicated article "Blood and transfusions: what really changed" with the extended analysis, references to the update of March 20, 2026, and sources.

Even just on this: the doctrine has changed many times. Originally organ transplants were forbidden, then permitted. Originally blood fractions were forbidden, then permitted. Originally accepting blood after childbirth was forbidden, then admitted in certain forms. Each change was presented as "new light."

The question, therefore, is not only "what does the organization believe today?". The question is "am I ready to bet my life — or the life of my child — on a position that, historically, has been revised many times?".

Reversibility. Very high regarding the document (it can be revoked). None regarding a transfusion refused in an emergency that would have been life-saving.

Reflection questions:

1. If I study the original context of Acts 15 — really, calmly, with the NWT 2013 in hand and an external biblical commentary alongside — do I naturally arrive at the organization's current position? Or do I get there only after many interpretive steps?
2. If the organization, ten years from now, were to issue "new light" on blood, and I in the meantime have died for refusing a transfusion — how does God stand with this story? And my loved ones?
3. Am I signing this directive out of deep biblical conviction, or because not signing it would be noticed by the elders of my congregation?

One last thing. We are not telling you not to sign an advance directive. We are telling you: do it informed, with an independent family doctor who explains to you well what each clause means, with the law printed and read, and with the freedom to revoke if one day you change your mind. Italian law allows you to. It is your right.

Decision 5 — Full-time service (pioneering)

What you're really deciding. You are choosing to dedicate 50, 70, 90 hours a month to preaching activities and to give up, proportionally, paid work, study, the building of a career.

Expectations vs reality.

Expectations (as told from the platform): a simple life, joy, Jehovah's blessings, deep friendships, a sense of purpose.

Reality (as told by those who have done it and then stopped, in testimonies collected over the years): the joys are there, but they come with repeated physical exhaustion (the hour quotas are heavy), economic fragility over the long term (no regular pension contributions, no marketable professional qualifications), chronic guilt every time you don't reach the quota, difficulty re-entering the labor market after years of pioneering.

Reversibility. Stopping pioneering is as simple as filling out a form. Rebuilding a lost career is much less simple.

Reflection questions:

1. After a year of pioneering, do I see myself physically and economically sustainable? And after five? And after twenty?
2. Do I have a plan B? A trade, a skill, a human network that will support me if, one day, I had to stop?
3. Am I making this choice because it is my deep vocation, or because it's what is expected of a "good young person" in my congregation?

A common note for all decisions

None of these choices is wrong in itself. Some people find in pioneering, in baptism, in the advance directive and in endogamous marriage a full and sincere life. To them goes our respect.

But the Kit's question is not "are these choices right?". The question is "are these choices YOURS?". And a choice is yours only if you could have said no, if you looked at all the data, if you let doubt have time to speak.