---
title: 2 Timothy 2:25
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/2-timothy-2-25/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/2-timothy-2-25.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 2 Timothy 2:25
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 2 Timothy 2:25

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> He must gently reprove those who oppose him, in the hope that God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "instructing with mildness those not favorably disposed. Perhaps God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth,"

## JW Usage

Read as instruction for how Witnesses should conduct themselves in the ministry — mild, patient, teaching those who oppose in the hope they will come to accurate knowledge. In practice the mildness is understood as applying to outsiders being reached, not to members who have come to different conclusions from within, who fall under the provisions for apostasy instead.

## Protestant Usage

This is the Bible's own instruction for handling someone who holds what you believe to be the wrong view, and it is worth reading slowly with a Witness: verses 24 and 25 together. A servant of the Lord does not need to fight. Gentle toward all. Showing restraint when wronged. Instructing with mildness those not favourably disposed. And the hoped-for outcome is left to God — perhaps God may give them repentance. Now set that beside what happens to a Witness who reaches a different conclusion about a teaching. The Bible's answer to wrong belief here is patient instruction over time; Jude 22 says show mercy to those who doubt; Galatians 6:1 says restore gently. Not one of these texts authorises severing contact. The distinction worth surfacing is that 1 Corinthians 5:11, the basis for congregational removal, lists conduct — immorality, greed, idolatry, abusive speech, drunkenness, swindling. There is no entry for reaching a different conclusion. Paul guarded behaviour; these verses tell you what to do about belief. Compare Jude 1:22, 2 Corinthians 2:7, 2 Timothy 2:15.

## NWT Issue

The NWT reads "repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth." The Greek is epignosis — knowledge, or full knowledge — and standard translations render the phrase "a knowledge of the truth." The NWT renders epignosis as "accurate knowledge" consistently across the New Testament, and that phrase has a specific meaning in Watchtower vocabulary: the body of teaching supplied through the organisation. A reader encountering it here hears the goal of instruction as arriving at the organisation's positions, which is more than the Greek carries. The same pattern appears at Daniel 12:4, where "knowledge" becomes "the true knowledge."

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Shunned for Belief, Not Behaviour](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/shunning-belief-not-behaviour.md) — 1 Corinthians 5:11 lists conduct — not a change of conviction [Practice]