Acts 8:36
Acts 8:3636As they traveled along the road and came to some water, the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is there to prevent me from being baptized?”
JWs accept the Ethiopian eunuch as a model convert and cite his immediate baptism after instruction as evidence of how seriously baptism is to be taken. The verse is generally read without controversy, though the Watchtower's two-question formula goes beyond what Philip required here.
This is the New Testament's clearest scripted single baptism. Philip has just taught the eunuch from Isaiah 53 — the gospel of Jesus the suffering servant. The eunuch's response is one question: "Look! Here is water; what prevents me from getting baptised?" Philip's response (in the longer textual tradition preserved at v. 37): "If you believe with all your heart, you may." The eunuch confesses faith in Jesus as the Son of God, and Philip baptises him. There is no second question about identification with an organisation, no vow to a visible arrangement, no enrolment with overseers. The doorstep insight: the apostolic pattern is a single confession of faith in Christ, immediately followed by baptism. The 1985 Watchtower added a second question — "do you understand that your dedication and baptism identify you as one of Jehovah's Witnesses in association with God's spirit-directed organisation?" Philip did not require a second question, and the eunuch was baptised as a Christian. What changed between Acts 8 and Watchtower 1985?