---
title: Acts 2:46
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-2-46/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-2-46.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Acts 2:46
testament: NT
section: Acts
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Acts 2:46

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> With one accord they continued to meet daily in the temple courts and to break bread from house to house, sharing their meals with gladness and sincerity of heart,

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): "And day after day they were in constant attendance at the temple with one accord, and they took their meals in private homes and partook of food with great rejoicing and sincerity of heart."
- NWT (2013 revision): "Day after day they were in constant attendance at the temple with one purpose, and they took their meals in different homes. They partook of food with great rejoicing and sincerity of heart."

## JW Usage

The Watchtower rarely features Acts 2:46 in its door-to-door case. The verse describes the early Christians eating meals together, which fits the JW framework of congregational fellowship without raising questions about public-preaching method.

## Protestant Usage

Read the verse with Acts 5:42 side by side. The Greek phrase in both verses is identical — κατ' οἶκον ("in each house" / "according to house") — and the natural sense is locative: teaching, eating, and meeting happened *in homes*, the first-century house-church setting. Paired with Romans 16:5, Colossians 4:15, 1 Corinthians 16:19, and Philemon 2 — all of which describe congregations hosted in private homes — Acts 2:46 sketches the real shape of early Christian gathering: small, domestic, hospitable, and led by ordinary believers whose homes were opened for the purpose. The picture is house-church fellowship, not residential canvassing.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders κατ' οἶκον at Acts 2:46 as "in different homes" — a locative sense that is faithful to the Greek. Seven chapters later at Acts 5:42, the same Greek phrase is rendered "from house to house" (directional). The inconsistency matters because Acts 5:42 is a load-bearing text for JW door-to-door ministry, and the door-to-door reading depends on the directional rendering there. If the NWT's translators judged κατ' οἶκον to mean "in homes" at 2:46, the same judgement applies at 5:42. The divergence between the two renderings reveals a theological choice rather than a lexical one.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Jesus Said 'Do Not Go From House to House'](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/luke10-house-to-house.md) — Luke 10:7 / Acts 5:42 / Acts 20:20 [Practice]