Matthew 23:4
Matthew 23:44They tie up heavy, burdensome loads and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
The Watchtower cites against the Pharisees and against Christendom's teachings — the legalism of mainstream religion is framed as the heavy yoke Jesus rebuked. The Watchtower itself is presented as the alternative: Jehovah's arrangement under the Governing Body is depicted as the liberating contrast to Pharisaic and Catholic legalism. The organisation's own catalogue of conduct rules — beard policy, birthday ban, blood policy, voting and jury prohibitions, dress standards, meeting and field-service expectations — is exempted from the same scrutiny.
Hold the verse up as a mirror. Jesus's complaint against the Pharisees was twofold: they bound heavy burdens on others, and they applied the burdens with a harshness that did not match their own willingness to help bear them. The 2023 reversal of the beard policy — after sixty years of brothers being denied pioneering, judicial-committee privileges, and even potential marriages over a rule that was never in Scripture — fits Jesus's description exactly. Pair with ("let each one be fully convinced in his own mind") and (decrees of "do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" as having "the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion"). Wherever an organisation binds the conscience on matters Scripture leaves to the believer, it is doing what Jesus warned against — even when its motives are sincere.