---
title: 1 Corinthians 1:13
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-1-13/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-1-13.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 1 Corinthians 1:13
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 1 Corinthians 1:13

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Is the Christ divided? Paul was not executed on the stake for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?"

## JW Usage

Read as a rebuke of the personality cults dividing Corinth, which the Watchtower contrasts with its own unity. The verse is not usually connected to the JW baptismal questions, in which a candidate publicly affirms that their dedication and baptism identify them as one of Jehovah's Witnesses associated with God's spirit-directed organisation.

## Protestant Usage

Paul asks three rhetorical questions and expects "no" to all of them. The third is the one to sit with: were you baptised in the name of Paul? His point is that baptism attaches a person to Christ and to no one else. Attaching it to any other name — even an apostle's — is the error he is writing to correct. Romans 6:3 and Galatians 3:27 say believers were baptised into Christ; Matthew 28:19 gives the formula, into the name of the Father, the Son and the holy spirit. Then lay the second JW baptismal question beside it. Since 1985 the candidate is asked, in front of the congregation, whether they understand that their dedication and baptism identify them as one of Jehovah's Witnesses in association with God's spirit-directed organisation. The 1955 form did not include the organisation. The question to ask is Paul's own, gently redirected: who did you belong to when you came up out of the water? Compare Acts 19:5, Acts 8:16, 1 Corinthians 3:20.

## NWT Issue

The NWT reads "Paul was not executed on the stake for you, was he?" The Greek verb is stauroo, "to crucify." The NWT renders the whole word group with "stake" and "execute on the stake" throughout, in line with the Watchtower's teaching that Jesus died on an upright pole rather than a cross. The choice is doctrinal rather than lexical — by the first century stauros was the ordinary word for a Roman execution cross, and John 20:25 has Thomas speak of the nails, plural, in Jesus' hands.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Baptised Into An Organisation, Not Into The Triune Name](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/baptism-into-organisation.md) — Matthew 28:19 / Acts 2:38 [Practice]