---
title: John 15:18
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-15-18/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-15-18.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 15:18
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 15:18

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me first.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you."

## JW Usage

Used to interpret modern persecution of Witnesses — most prominently the 2017 Russian Supreme Court ban — as evidence that the organisation is the true religion: the world hates Christ, the world hates JWs, therefore JWs are the disciples Christ promised the world would hate.

## Protestant Usage

John 15:18 is true: the world does hate Christ and those who are his. But Jesus did not say "the only persecuted group will be my true church." Persecution is a moral category, not an epistemological one. Mormons were driven from state to state in nineteenth-century America; Falun Gong is brutally suppressed in China; North Korean Christians, Iranian converts from Islam, Coptic Christians in Egypt, Nigerian Christians under Boko Haram, Yazidi and Assyrian Christians in Iraq — all face real and grave persecution. The Christian response is solidarity in suffering and honesty in doctrine. The two are not in tension. Stand against the Russian ban; stand against every other persecution; and let doctrine be tested by Acts 17:11 — Berean comparison against Scripture, not by headlines.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Russia's 2017 Ban on Jehovah's Witnesses — Condemn the Persecution, Reject the Non-Sequitur](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/russia-ban-witnesses-2017.md) — Persecution is real and evil; it is not a proof of doctrine [Authority]