---
title: 1 Corinthians 11:24
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-11-24/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-11-24.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 1 Corinthians 11:24
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 1 Corinthians 11:24

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): "this means my body"
- NWT (2013 revision): "this means my body"

## JW Usage

JWs treat the Memorial bread as a pure symbol with no real presence of Christ. They cite the NWT's "this means my body" as proof the bread only represents Jesus' body, and use the same reading to frame the observance as an annual remembrance rather than the regular Lord's Supper of historic Christianity. Inside the same chapter, only the 144,000 anointed partake; the great-crowd majority pass the emblems untouched.

## Protestant Usage

The Greek verb is estin — the ordinary copula "is." Every major formal-equivalence English translation (KJV, ESV, NIV, NASB, CSB) reads "this is my body" because that is what the Greek says. Whether one is Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, or Memorialist, the translator's task is to render the verb the author chose and let the church work out the meaning. "This is my body" preserves the question; "this means my body" pre-decides it.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders estin as "means" at every Last Supper account (compare Matt 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19, 1 Cor 11:25). Greek had plain words for "represents" — semaino at John 12:33, allegoreo at Galatians 4:24 — and none appear here. The Watchtower's own Kingdom Interlinear prints "is" as the literal gloss beneath the Greek and "means" in the smooth column above. The translation has decided a centuries-old doctrinal question by changing the verb.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [This Is, Not This Means](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/this-means-my-body-eucharist.md) — Matthew 26:26 — The Greek Verb Estin at the Last Supper [NWT Translation]
- [When 'Is' Becomes 'Means'](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/is-to-means-broader-pattern.md) — The NWT's Pattern of Paraphrasing the Greek Copula [NWT Translation]