If there is one thing people know about Jehovah’s Witnesses, it’s that nearly all of them witness door-to-door on a regular basis.

A number of former Jehovah’s Witness elders who left the Watchtower have stated publicly that the number of hours a Witness reported was the primary measure of spirituality and the deciding factor in whether they would be offered a position of responsibility in the congregation.

I will vigorously defend the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to proselytize from house to house (so long as they respectfully take no for an answer and leave), but why does the Watchtower insist that all of them do so and, in practice, make it a test of spirituality?

In giving the Great Commission  (Matthew 28:19), Jesus said, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…,” but he said nothing there about methods.

So why do Jehovah’s Witnesses consider door-to-door witnessing to be a biblical mandate?

On page 206 of its book Reasoning from the Scriptures, the Watchtower explains:

Why do Jehovah’s Witnesses preach from house to house?

Jesus foretold for our day this work: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” He also instructed his followers: “Go . . . and make disciples of people of all the nations.”—Matt. 24:14; 28:19.

When Jesus sent out his early disciples, he directed them to go to the homes of the people. (Matt. 10:7, 11-13) The apostle Paul said regarding his ministry: “I did not hold back from telling you any of the things that were profitable nor from teaching you publicly and from house to house.”—Acts 20:20, 21; see also Acts 5:42.

Examining Watchtower claims

Whenever the Watchtower cites verses without actually quoting them, it’s always wise to look them up.

Even when it does quote them, it’s wise to examine the context.

So let’s get into the Word. I’ll quote from the Watchtower’s own translation.

Matthew 10:11-13

“Into whatever city or village you enter, search out who in it is deserving, and stay there until you leave. When you enter the house, greet the household. If the house is deserving, let the peace you wish it come upon it; but if it is not deserving, let the peace from you return upon you.”

If Jesus were talking about witnessing from one house to the next, his directive to “stay there until you leave” would make no sense.

Of necessity, you stay in a house until you leave it.

My conclusion is that he was telling his disciples that when they entered a city or village, they were to find a receptive home in which to stay and to make that their residence and base of operation until they were ready to depart the town.

Let’s look at a parallel passage to test that interpretation.

Luke 10:5-7

“Wherever you enter into a house, say first: ‘May this house have peace. And if a friend of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if there is not, it will return to you. So stay in that house, eating and drinking the things they provide, for the worker is worthy of his wages. Do not keep transferring from house to house.”

Look at the last sentence: “Do not keep transferring from house to house.”

Why didn’t the Watchtower cite that verse?

If that were instruction about methods, it would be forbidding door-to-door witnessing!

But that’s not what Jesus was talking about at all.

He wasn’t telling his disciples to witness from door to door, nor was he forbidding them from doing so.

Rather, he was telling them to find a receptive household in which to stay while they were in the city and to accept their food and drink as wages for their work.

They were to make that their headquarters rather than moving from one house to another.

Discussing this passage, the evangelical Christian website “Got Questions” comments, “Jesus’ disciples did not go from house to house, uninvited, but they could enter a house where they were welcomed and stay with that family, telling them about Christ.”

It notes as an example that in John 4, Jesus talked with a Samaritan woman at a well. She told the townspeople about their conversation, and she and they “persuaded Jesus to stay with them for two days, and many more became believers (citations omitted). Jesus and His disciples did not canvass the Samaritan village first.”

Acts 20:20-21

“…while I did not hold back from telling you any of the things that were profitable nor from teaching you publicly and from house to house. But I thoroughly bore witness both to Jews and to Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus.”

The Watchtower uses this excerpt from Paul’s farewell speech to the Ephesian elders as proof that he witnessed door to door.

But that’s not what it means.

In those days, Christians and others they invited often met in homes because there were no church buildings, so Paul often taught them there.

In fact, let’s look at what the previous chapter tells us about Paul’s ministry in Ephesus.

Acts 19:8-10

“Entering the synagogue, for three months he spoke with boldness, giving talks and reasoning persuasively about the Kingdom of God. But when some stubbornly refused to believe, speaking injuriously about The Way before the crowd, he withdrew from them and separated the disciples from them, giving talks daily in the school auditorium of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all those living in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.”

If door-to-door canvassing were Jesus’ and Paul’s prescribed method of witnessing, surely that would have been described here.

To the contrary, this account of Paul’s time in Ephesus makes no mention at all of him engaging in or organizing a door-to-door evangelistic effort similar to the Watchtower’s.

Acts 5:42

“And every day in the temple and from house to house they continued without letup teaching and declaring the good news about the Christ, Jesus.”

The Got Questions website article I referenced earlier comments on this verse, saying:

The first Christians did not go from door to door, either, as far as we know. The early Jewish Christians in Jerusalem spoke in the temple every day (Acts 2:46) and taught in each other’s houses as often as possible (Acts 5:42). The apostle Paul certainly spoke to strangers in the marketplace about Christ (Acts 17:17), but that’s about as close to door-knocking as we see in Scripture.

Conclusion

The Got Questions article ends with a statement which I endorse wholeheartedly:

“There is nothing wrong with going from door to door. It might produce results, and we are grateful for any soul who comes to Christ. But there is no explicit biblical precedent for that particular method.”