Matthew 15:3
Matthew 15:33Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?
JWs readily apply this verse to Christendom, arguing that Catholic and Protestant churches have overstepped God's commandments with traditions like the Trinity, the cross, Christmas, and Easter. The Watchtower uses Jesus' rebuke of the Pharisees as proof that institutional religion corrupts pure worship with human additions. However, the same critique is never turned inward: the Watchtower's own extra-biblical policies — banning blood transfusions (whole blood, and until September 2026 its main components), enforcing total family shunning for doctrinal dissent, prohibiting beards for decades, requiring field service hour reporting — are presented as "Jehovah's arrangement," not as traditions of men.
Jesus' rebuke exposes a timeless pattern: religious authorities elevating their institutional policies above God's explicit commands. In context (), Jesus accuses the Pharisees of using the Corban tradition to nullify the fifth commandment — "Honour your father and your mother." The parallel to Watchtower practice is direct. The Watchtower's shunning policy instructs baptised family members to sever contact with disfellowshipped relatives — including parents and children — effectively overriding the very commandment Jesus was defending. The blood transfusion ban, imposed under a disputed reading of , overrides the principle that "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" () — life-saving measures subordinated to an institutional rule. The Berean test () and ("do not go beyond the things that are written") reinforce the principle: any organisation that binds the conscience where Scripture is silent, and then unbinds when fashions change, is demonstrating that the binding never came from God.