Acts 15:36
Acts 15:3636Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the brothers in every town where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, to see how they are doing.”
Cited as a model for the shepherding visits and follow-up work the organisation encourages — going back to strengthen those already reached. The Watchtower reads the missionary journeys as a template for organised preaching activity.
This verse matters mostly as the setup for what follows three verses later, so read it as the beginning of a story rather than on its own. Paul proposes a return visit. Barnabas wants to bring Mark. Paul refuses because Mark had abandoned them earlier. The disagreement is sharp enough that the two men separate and the mission splits in two. Keep reading past Acts, though, because the story does not end there. has Paul commending Mark to a church. And in , at the very end of Paul's life, he writes: bring Mark along, for he is helpful to me in the ministry. The man Paul would not travel with is the man he asks for at the end. That is the fruit test applied to the apostles themselves — they fought, and then they reconciled, and the reconciliation is on the record beside the fight. It is a fair standard to hold up beside any movement's founding generation, including one's own. Compare , , .
The NWT reads "the word of Jehovah" where the Greek of has tou kyriou, "the Lord." Through Acts the phrase "the word of the Lord" is repeatedly used of the message about Jesus that the apostles preach, and the NWT's substitution assigns it to the Father in places where the Greek leaves the reference open. Nothing turns on it in this particular verse, but it is one instance of a pattern worth being aware of when reading Acts in the NWT.