Acts 20:20
Acts 20:2020I did not shrink back from declaring anything that was helpful to you as I taught you publicly and from house to house,
JWs cite "publicly and from house to house" as proof that the apostles practised door-to-door preaching — the same method Jehovah's Witnesses use today. This is treated as a distinguishing mark of true Christianity and a requirement for all members, tracked through monthly field service reports.
The Greek kat' oikous means "in [private] homes" — describing the location of teaching, not a door-knocking method. The NWT itself proves this by translating the identical Greek construction in as "in private homes" rather than "from house to house." Jesus in explicitly prohibited the house-to-house transfer pattern: "Do not keep transferring from house to house." Paul's actual method was overwhelmingly public — synagogues (), the marketplace (), the lecture hall of Tyrannus (). The very same verse JWs cite also says Paul "did not hold back from telling you any of the things that were profitable" — yet the Watchtower's gradual-disclosure strategy explicitly withholds distinctive doctrines (Armageddon destruction, shunning, blood policy) from initial contacts. Paul's transparency contradicts the organisation's method.