Acts 15:22
Acts 15:2222Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to select men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, two leaders among the brothers,
JWs cite Acts 15 as the template for a "first-century governing body" with its modern counterpart in the Watchtower Governing Body. The apostles and elders in Jerusalem issued a binding decree ("it seemed good to the holy spirit and to us"), and the modern Governing Body exercises the same binding authority over doctrine and practice worldwide. — the decision to send chosen men with the decree — is treated as evidence of centralised organisational authority.
Acts 15 is one meeting, called for one issue (Gentile circumcision), attended by Jerusalem apostles and elders, never reconvened, and never replicated elsewhere in the NT. The decree is addressed to "Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia" (v. 23) — not globally or perpetually. The content is exclusively about how Gentile and Jewish believers can fellowship together, not universal doctrinal legislation. Shortly after Acts 15, Paul publicly rebukes Peter — one of the most senior council members — for hypocrisy at Antioch (). If Acts 15 had established an inerrant standing body, Paul's rebuke would be insubordination. gives the identical binding-and-loosing authority to the ordinary gathered assembly — not to a single institutional body. The Watchtower's claim is not continuing Acts 15 but retrofitting it as justification for a body invented in 1879 in Pittsburgh.