Acts 1:14
Acts 1:1414With one accord they all continued in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
JWs read — "with one purpose all these were persevering in prayer, together with some women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers" — as an ordinary narrative detail. Mary is listed as one of many disciples awaiting Pentecost. The rs book's broader argument against Catholic Mariology treats Mary as essentially a bystander in post-Ascension Christianity — included in the prayer meeting but carrying no distinctive honour or role.
actually supplies the positive Protestant position on Mary — honour without veneration. She is present with the disciples at the foundational prayer meeting before Pentecost, identified specifically as "the mother of Jesus," alongside "his brothers" (Jesus's half-siblings — James, Joseph, Simon, Judas, and "all his sisters" from , whom Protestants read the same way JWs do).
Mary's presence as a fellow disciple, not as an enthroned mediator, is exactly the Protestant balance. has Mary saying in her own Magnificat, "from now on all generations will call me blessed" — Protestants can and should call Mary blessed; the text requires it. has Elizabeth, "filled with holy spirit," calling her "the mother of my Lord" — the New Testament's functional equivalent of Theotokos, and the NWT capitalises "Lord." says God sent his Son "born of a woman, born under the law." Mary is worthy of honour without becoming an object of prayer. Protestants reject perpetual virginity, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, and prayers to Mary — the entire Catholic Marian apparatus — while affirming that the one she bore is God incarnate ( in the NWT: "in him all the fullness of the divine quality dwells bodily"). That Christological affirmation is why Theotokos was kept by Luther, Calvin, and Barth. itself models the right posture: Mary in the room, in prayer, with the church.