Module 6 — You Are Not Alone

A question, before anything else

If you didn't need any human organization to be saved — how would you feel? Smaller, or greater?

Sit a moment with this question. Because the whole emotional scaffolding that keeps you attached to the organization rests on one idea: that without it you would be lost. Spiritually alone. Abandoned. Without spiritual food. Without protection. Adrift in a world "lying in the power of the wicked one" (1 John 5:19, NWT 2013).

But open any page of the Gospel. Jesus promises an enormous number of things — but he never promises that you will need an organization to reach them. He promises Himself.

Christ is the only mediator

Open with us 1 Timothy 2:5 (NWT 2013):

"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, a man, Christ Jesus."

Read this sentence calmly. One. Only. Mediator.

Not "an organization and Christ Jesus." Not "a faithful slave and Christ Jesus." Not "a human hierarchy that interprets Christ Jesus." A man, Christ Jesus.

This sentence is so simple that it is easy to skim past. But it is the key to the whole New Testament. Christ is the door (John 10:9, NWT 2013). Christ is the way (John 14:6, NWT 2013). Christ is the truth. Christ is the life.

Truth is not an organization. Truth is a Person.

John 14:6 — the sentence that changes everything

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6, NWT 2013)

Let's pause on three words:

• "I am". Jesus speaks in the present, in the first person. He doesn't say "the way is an organization" nor "the way is a doctrine." He says "I am." Access to God, according to Jesus, passes through a personal relationship with Him, not through membership in an institution.
• "The truth". One word, the highest. The truth is Him. When the word "truth" is used in the organization as a synonym for "our doctrine," it is taking a title that the Bible gives only to Christ.
• "No one comes to the Father except through me". The mediation is His. Exclusive. No man, no group, no intermediate channel.

If this sentence is true — and the entire Christian faith lives or dies on it — then you don't need any other mediation to pray, to read the Scriptures, to love God, to be saved. You need Christ. And Christ is reachable. "Look! I am standing at the door and knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into his house, and I will have the evening meal with him and he with me." (Revelation 3:20, NWT 2013).

John 8:32 — the truth that sets free

"You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:32, NWT 2013)

Some Witnesses read this sentence like this: "You will know the doctrines of the organization, and the doctrines will set you free." But Jesus, two verses later, specifies: "So if the Son sets you free, you will be truly free" (John 8:36, NWT 2013). Who sets free? The Son. Not the organization. Not a slave. The Son.

Christian freedom, in the New Testament, is not "freedom inside a system." It is freedom from the system. Freedom from fear. Freedom from the burden of having to be perfect. Freedom from the wheel of rules. "You were called to freedom, brothers." (Galatians 5:13, NWT 2013).

Whoever has come to know Christ no longer needs to be continually told what to do, by whom, at what hour, with what opening sentence. They have within them the Spirit, and the Spirit speaks to them directly. "You do not need anyone to teach you; but the anointing from him is teaching you about all things." (1 John 2:27, NWT 2013). Yes, this sentence is in the Bible. Yes, it is surprising.

God is love

If there is one sentence that must stand above all others, it is this:

"God is love." (1 John 4:8, NWT 2013)

Not "God has love." Not "God acts with love." God is love. The essence of God is love.

When a doctrine, a practice, a behavior of an organization makes you feel crushed, unseen, unloved, do something simple: place it next to 1 John 4:8 and see whether the two sentences can coexist in the same room.

• A removed brother who cannot speak with his mother for twenty years — can it coexist with "God is love"?
• A young person who gives up the woman he loves because "she's not in the Lord" — can it coexist with "God is love"?
• A father who refuses a transfusion for his child based on Acts 15:29 applied literally — can it coexist with "God is love"?

We are not giving the answer. You are giving it to yourself. You are learning to use "God is love" as a touchstone — as the mirror in which every human doctrine must be looked at.

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts fear outside." (1 John 4:18, NWT 2013). If a doctrine makes you live in fear, something is not working. It is not God who is missing. It is the human translation of God that is getting something wrong.

You are not alone

Millions of people, in the world and across time, have made this journey before you. Some have remained inside their traditions, growing in silence. Some have found smaller, less structured Christian communities. Some have lived faith in the silence of their own room, with Christ, no longer needing institutions.

You, today, are not the first and you are not the last.

And above all: Christ is with you. "Look! I am with you all the days until the conclusion of the system of things." (Matthew 28:20, NWT 2013). All. The. Days. Even on those when you don't yet know what to think.

Where to find concrete help

If after reading the Kit you feel you need external resources, visit the /supporto area of the bombablu.org site. There you'll find:

• Books (Factfulness by Hans Rosling, The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi, Letting Go by David Hawkins — non-religious resources, useful for rebuilding tools of thought and serenity).
• YouTube channels of brothers and sisters who have made journeys of verification.
• Free Italian associations (such as veramenteliberi.org) that offer emotional support, legal counsel for formal disassociation, family mediation.
• Reflections and testimonies of those who have passed through before you.

None of these links is asking you to decide anything. They are just tools. You use them if they help, you leave them if they don't.

Final words

You don't have to have decided anything, after reading this Kit. You don't have to have left, you don't have to have stayed, you don't have to have spoken with anyone. You only have to have thought.

The very fact that you arrived at these lines is, in itself, a small miracle. Because to think truly, to think honestly, to think at the cost of discomfort — is one of the rarest things a human being can do. And you have done it.

Come back to this Kit whenever you want. Share it with whoever you think needs it, without forcing. Remember, every day, that:

Truth is a Person. Christ is that Person. And you are loved, exactly as you are, today, in this moment.

With affection,

— A Member of the Lovers of Truth

bombablu.org

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