---
title: Acts 4:18
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-4-18/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-4-18.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Acts 4:18
testament: NT
section: Acts
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Acts 4:18

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): "not to make any utterance or to teach upon the basis of the name of Jesus"
- NWT (2013 revision): "not to say anything at all or to teach on the basis of the name of Jesus"

## JW Usage

JWs cite the Sanhedrin's command not to speak in Jesus' name as evidence that the apostles were persecuted for proclaiming the truth, parallel to modern persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses. The continuity the Watchtower draws is between apostolic boldness in Jesus' name and modern boldness in Jehovah's name — though Acts itself never substitutes "Jehovah" for the apostolic preaching about Jesus.

## Protestant Usage

The Sanhedrin tells Peter and John not to speak or teach "on the basis of the name of Jesus" — and Peter's reply in vv.19-20 treats Jesus' name as exactly the thing the apostles cannot stop preaching. The whole Acts pattern is unambiguous: the saving name the apostles proclaim, the name they baptise into, the name forbidden by the council, the name the apostles refuse to abandon — every reference is to Jesus. The Watchtower's claim that the saving name of true worship is "Jehovah" cannot survive the NT's actual record of which name the apostles risked their lives for.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders epi tō onomati tou Iēsou as "on the basis of the name of Jesus" — slightly periphrastic ("on the basis of" for the simple "in") but accurate to the referent. What matters apologetically is what the NWT does NOT do here: insert "Jehovah." The Sanhedrin's prohibition was about speaking Jesus' name, and the NWT preserves that. The consistency of the NWT's selectivity across Acts 2:38, 4:18, 9:14, and 22:16 — keeping "Jesus" or "his name" wherever inserting "Jehovah" would identify Jesus as the saving name — exposes what the 237 NT Jehovah-insertions are not for.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Organisation Above Scripture — When the Green Book Becomes Black](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/organisation-vs-bible-authority.md) — Acts 5:29 — 'We must obey God rather than men' [Authority]
- [No New Testament Command to Use 'Jehovah'](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/jehovah-name-no-NT-mandate.md) — The NT's only command about the saving name redirects it to Jesus [Deity of Christ]