Luke 18:19
Luke 18:1919“Why do you call Me good?” Jesus replied. “No one is good except God alone.
is one of the standard JW proof-texts against the deity of Christ. Jesus's question ("Why do you call me good? Nobody is good except one, God") is read as Jesus distancing himself from the title "good" and redirecting it to the Father — evidence that Jesus is not God, but a humble created being showing deference to his superior. The verse is taken as a flat denial of the deity of Christ from Jesus's own lips.
Notice what Jesus does not do. He does not say "I am not good." He asks "why do you call me good?" — a Socratic question that invites the ruler to draw the inference. Then Jesus defines the category of "good" tightly: nobody is good except one, God. Either Jesus meets his own definition, or he does not. If he does not, why does the ruler — and why do we — follow someone who is not good? If he does, then by his own definition Jesus is God. Jesus is not denying his goodness; he is asking the ruler whether he understands what calling Jesus good entails. The verse is a claim to deity disguised as a question, and the Watchtower reading misses the rhetorical structure entirely. The same pattern appears in ("who are you?" — the Greek answer can be read as "primarily what I am telling you").