Acts 19:1
Acts 19:11While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the interior and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples
Scene-setting for the Ephesus account, and cited in Watchtower material for Paul's methodical travels and the spread of the preaching work. The verse itself carries no doctrinal content in JW usage.
This verse only sets the scene, so use it as the doorway to the passage rather than as an argument. Paul arrives at Ephesus and finds some disciples who have received only John's baptism. What follows is the New Testament's clearest case of someone being re-baptised, and it is worth reading through because of what was corrected: their understanding of Jesus. Paul explains that John pointed forward to the one coming after him, and they are then baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. The whole episode turns on Christ, and the formula Luke records is the same one he uses at and . So if a Witness cites Acts 19 to argue that baptism requires correct knowledge first, agree — and then ask what the correct knowledge here consisted of, and what the men were baptised into when they had it. Compare , , .