Romans 1:16
Romans 1:1616I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek.
Watchtower commentary cites to support the preaching work as the means of salvation. "God's power for salvation to everyone having faith" is read as the message that JW publishers carry door to door — and accepting the Watchtower's preaching is the entry point to receiving the good news. The verse anchors the centrality of the organisational preaching activity in Watchtower theology.
is Paul's thesis for the whole letter. The gospel itself — the message of Christ crucified and risen for sinners — is "God's power for salvation." The mechanism is faith, not any organisational mediation. And "Jew first and also Greek" signals universal scope: the same gospel saves anyone who believes, regardless of ethnic or organisational membership. Paul's "obedience by faith" of 1:5 returns at 10:16 ("they have not all obeyed the good news") — believing the gospel and obeying the gospel are the same act. The Watchtower needs the preaching work to be the entry point; Paul needs only the gospel and the believer's faith.
The NWT renders euangelion as "good news" rather than "gospel" (consensus ESV/NASB/NIV/KJV). Lexically defensible — euangelion literally means "good news" — but consensus English versions preserve "gospel" as the technical theological term for the apostolic message about Christ. The NWT's deconsecration of the term aligns with the Watchtower's preaching-work parlance ("the good news of the kingdom").