---
title: Acts 14:14
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-14-14/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-14-14.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Acts 14:14
testament: NT
section: Acts
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Acts 14:14

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul found out about this, they tore their clothes and rushed into the crowd, shouting,

## JW Usage

The rs book on images (pp. 183-187) does not typically cite Acts 14:14 as a primary proof-text, but when it surfaces in discussion the Watchtower framing is that Paul and Barnabas's refusal of worship at Lystra — "tearing their clothes" when the crowd attempted to sacrifice to them — supports a blanket ban on all religious iconography. On this reading, if worshipful honour directed to two living apostles was rejected so vehemently, honour directed to any Christian symbol (cross, nativity scene, painting of Jesus) is worse.

## Protestant Usage

Acts 14:14 is the pattern passage for what the second commandment actually forbids. Paul and Barnabas's horror was triggered by the Lystrans preparing to *worship* them as Hermes and Zeus. Their response — tearing their garments and crying out "Men, why are you doing these things? We also are humans having the same infirmities as you" (verse 15) — is explicitly about worshipping a *creature*, not about creating representational art.
The passage belongs alongside Acts 10:25-26 (Peter refusing Cornelius's prostration) and Revelation 22:9 (John told not to worship the angel). In each case the prohibition is specific and narrow: *do not worship a creature*. That is exactly the Protestant reading of the second commandment — idolatry is the sin, not representation. The tabernacle and temple were saturated with representational art by divine command (cherubim on the ark in Exodus 25:18, cherubim woven into curtains in Exodus 26:1, carved cherubim and palm trees on Solomon's temple walls in 1 Kings 6:29, twelve bronze oxen holding up the Sea in 1 Kings 7:25). Jehovah commanded all of it. What he forbade was not making images but *worshipping* them. Acts 14:14 is a textbook case of Paul enforcing that distinction — and by the Watchtower's own operating principle for its illustrated publications, Protestants who display a memorial cross without worshipping it are doing exactly what Acts 14 actually authorises.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Images Are Not the Problem — Worship Is](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/images-in-worship-protestant-response.md) — Numbers 21:8 / 2 Kings 18:4 / Exodus 25:18 [Practice]