Our Purpose in Life

At the outset, a brief description of Jehovah’s Witnesses and our purpose in life will be helpful. We are an international body of Christians who can be found in more than 200 lands throughout the world. Our way of worshiping God involves our entire outlook and manner of life.

Since we are convinced that God is a real being, we consider it vital to maintain a close, personal relationship with him as our Father. (Matthew 6:9) Among other things, this involves knowing him by his name. At Psalm 83:18 the Bible says: “That people may know that you, whose name is Jehovah, you alone are the Most High over all the earth.”

As Christians, we also try to fashion our lives around the example of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. That he was an outstandingly well-educated man is evident from the wisdom of his teachings. But Jesus used his knowledge for the benefit of others and not to gain a secure financial position or great prominence. The biggest thing in his life was his service to God. “My food,” Jesus said, “is for me to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work.”​—John 4:34.

We feel the same way. To this end, Witnesses worldwide value a good education. We encourage our youths to expand their horizons​—to get knowledge and understanding of their environment and what life is all about. To this end they read, and often use in their schoolwork, our journal Awake! that covers practically all fields of human knowledge. Some educators also use this magazine in preparing their school courses.

The educational training our children receive has helped many of them to develop their creative potential. The Journal of Personality observed this in its report on an Australian study about the “creativity” of 12-year-olds. The researchers said: “In particular,  a disproportionately large number of highly creative children were Jehovah’s Witnesses.” This can be attributed to the fact that the religion of the Witnesses encourages them to use their thinking ability.

Even though Witness youths are interested in a good education, they do not pursue schooling with the intention of obtaining prestige or prominence. Their main goal in life is to serve effectively as ministers of God, and they appreciate schooling as an aid to that end. So they generally choose courses that are useful for supporting themselves in the modern world. Thus, many may take vocational courses or attend a vocational school. When they leave school they desire to obtain work that will allow them to concentrate on their principal vocation, the Christian ministry.

View of the Bible

As you can appreciate from the foregoing, Jehovah’s Witnesses take the Bible as a daily guide more seriously than many do. They really believe that “all Scripture is inspired of God.”​—2 Timothy 3:16.

In keeping with those words, we believe that everything recorded in the Bible is accurate and should guide a Christian in life. As a result, a Witness youth’s view of certain school activities may be quite different from that of a student who may not take Bible teachings so seriously. This brochure will consider school activities that are involved and endeavor to help you understand why Jehovah’s Witnesses take the position they do regarding such activities.

Since, as you may know, the Bible is outstandingly a book of prophecy, we would like you to consider the effect that faith in its prophecies has upon the Witnesses’ attitude toward school.

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Witnesses worldwide value a good education

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Used as a daily guide