---
title: Hebrews 13:15
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/hebrews-13-15/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/hebrews-13-15.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Hebrews 13:15
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Hebrews 13:15

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): "Through him let us always offer to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips which make public declaration to his name."
- NWT (2013 revision): "Through him let us always offer to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of our lips that make public declaration to his name."

## JW Usage

Hebrews 13:15 is deployed by the Watchtower as a proof-text for the door-to-door preaching work. The NWT's rendering — "the fruit of our lips that make public declaration to his name" — is read as a direct command to publicly preach the Kingdom message as the Christian's primary act of worship. Field service hours, talks at the door, and public witnessing with the cart are taught as the concrete fulfilment of the verse.

## Protestant Usage

Hebrews 13:15 is universal priesthood language: every believer offers the sacrifice of praise through Jesus as high priest. Pair with 1 Peter 2:9 (royal priesthood of every believer) and Romans 12:1 (bodies presented as living sacrifice). The verse does not authorise organisational mandate of a specific evangelistic method; it describes the general shape of Christian priesthood, in which worship-that-confesses Jesus is the sacrifice every believer offers. The JW extrapolation from "confessing his name" to "logging field-service hours under Governing Body direction" adds structural requirements the text does not supply. The verse frees every believer to worship; the organisational overlay re-collars the worship to a programmed activity.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders homologountōn tō onomati autou (literally "confessing to his name") as "that make public declaration to his name." The paraphrase converts the stative "confess" into a dynamic "publicly declare," which dovetails with the organisation's preaching-work emphasis. Standard translations (ESV "lips that acknowledge his name," NASB "of lips that give thanks to His name," KJV "giving thanks to his name") do not push the verse toward public proclamation as the primary referent. The rendering is not manifestly wrong — homologeo can cover public acknowledgement — but the choice consistently tilts a general priesthood-of-praise verse toward a programmatic witnessing duty.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [A Royal Priesthood — Every Believer is a Priest](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/universal-priesthood-1peter29.md) — 1 Peter 2:9 / Revelation 1:6 / 5:10 — The end of mediating classes [Authority]