Acts 11:26
Acts 11:2626and when he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. So for a full year they met together with the church and taught large numbers of people. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.
The Watchtower acknowledges — "the disciples were by divine providence called Christians first in Antioch" — as genuinely inspired, and even the NWT study notes recognise the Greek verb khrēmatizō indicates divine origin. But the Witness emphasis falls on ("you are my witnesses, declares Jehovah") as the organisation's identity marker. The name "Jehovah's Witnesses" was formally adopted at a convention in Columbus, Ohio on 26 July 1931, under J.F. Rutherford, and is presented as the divinely authorised name for God's twentieth-century people.
is a quietly decisive data point on the question of what name Jehovah chose for his New Testament people. The verb khrēmatizō in the NWT study notes is acknowledged to carry the sense of divine designation — this was not a nickname the Antiochenes invented, it was a designation given in God's providence. then confirms it: "if he suffers as a Christian, let him not feel shame; but let him keep on glorifying God by bearing that name." Peter treats "Christian" as the divinely approved identity marker and calls believers to glorify God by bearing it.
, which JWs cite, is God speaking specifically to the nation of Israel as his chosen covenant witness — the Watchtower's own older literature acknowledges this. The name "Jehovah's Witnesses" was not used anywhere in Christian history between Pentecost and 1931, when Rutherford introduced it at a convention in Columbus, Ohio. Before 1931, the group was called Bible Students, associated with Russell's Zion's Watch Tower. If God providentially gave his first-century people the name Christians — and if Peter calls believers to glorify God by bearing it — then "Jehovah's Witnesses" is a twentieth- century human designation, not a restoration of a first-century identity.