---
title: Luke 3:10
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/luke-3-10/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/luke-3-10.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Luke 3:10
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Luke 3:10

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> The crowds asked him, “What then should we do?”

## JW Usage

Luke 3:10 functions in JW publications as a setup verse for John the Baptist's ethical instruction to those who came to be baptised. The Watchtower draws devotional applications about repentance bearing fruit. The verse takes on apologetic weight in the firearms-and-careers discussion because it introduces the soldiers' question two verses later (v.14) — to which John gives an answer that does not require leaving the army.

## Protestant Usage

The crowds' question — "what then should we do?" — is the verse that frames John's three pieces of practical instruction in vv.11-14. He answers tax collectors, soldiers, and the general crowd in turn, and in each case his counsel is reform within the calling rather than departure from it. The structure matters: three categories of people ask the same question, and John answers each in their existing vocation. The verse is the hinge that introduces the soldier-convert pattern that recurs at Acts 10:1 (Cornelius) and Matthew 8:5-13 (the centurion) — God-fearing armed men, welcomed in faith without a requirement to resign.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Career Extension of Blood-Guilt](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/blood-guilt-firearms-careers.md) — Romans 13:4 — God Appoints the Sword-Bearer [Practice]