The 1919 Appointment: How Jehovah's Witnesses Explain the Governing Body's Authority

On October 6, 2012, at the Watch Tower Society’s annual meeting in Jersey City, six members of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses spoke on three verses of Matthew. Jesus asks there, in the New World Translation, “Who really is the faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time?” The answer, published in The Watchtower of July 15, 2013, was precise: the slave is a small group of anointed men at the movement’s world headquarters, the Governing Body, and Jesus appointed it in the year 1919.

How Governing Body authority works in practice is covered in The Governing Body and the “Faithful and Discreet Slave”. This article asks a narrower question: why 1919? It looks at what Witness publications taught before 2012, what happened to the Bible Students in 1918 and 1919, and how the claim reads beside Matthew 24 and the ancient Church.

Much rests on it. The 2013 study article says: “Our spiritual health and our relationship with God depend on this channel.” A claim of that weight deserves to be stated accurately and tested with charity toward the sincere Witnesses who hold it.

In brief

Since 2013, Jehovah’s Witnesses have taught that the illustration of the faithful and discreet slave (Matthew 24:45-47) is fulfilled only in the “last days,” which they date from 1914. Christ inspected His people from 1914 to early 1919 and in 1919 appointed a few anointed brothers at headquarters, now the Governing Body, over His “domestics,” meaning all Witnesses. The appointment “over all his belongings” is placed in the future. Until 2012 the same publications taught that the slave was all anointed Christians on earth since Pentecost in 33 C.E. and that 1919 was the year of the second appointment. Earlier still, Russell taught a collective slave in 1881, while the Watch Tower treated Russell himself as the servant for some years after his death. The movement’s own histories show that the Bible Students of 1919 held beliefs and practices later dropped. The text of Matthew names no year, and the ancient Church read the parable as a call to every steward in a household it believed had never been left unfed.

Thesis: The 1919 appointment is a conclusion drawn from a prophetic chronology and a reading of the movement’s own history, not from anything the parable says, and Witness publications have themselves changed its meaning more than once.

What Jehovah’s Witnesses teach today

The current teaching, set out in The Watchtower of July 15, 2013, and the 2012 annual meeting report, has four parts.

First, timing. The article concludes that “his words about that faithful slave began to be fulfilled only after the last days began in 1914.” It adds a reason: in the first century the apostles worked miracles, so “there was hardly a reason to ask such a question” as “Who really is the faithful and discreet slave?”¹ The 2012 meeting report draws the consequence directly: “Although they were anointed by holy spirit, the apostles and other first-century Christians were not ‘the faithful and discreet slave’ prophesied by Jesus.”²

Second, identity. The slave “is made up of a small group of anointed brothers who are directly involved in preparing and dispensing spiritual food during Christ’s presence,” and “in recent decades, that slave has been closely identified with the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”¹

Third, the year. Christ and His Father “came and inspected the temple, or spiritual arrangement for worship, from 1914 to the early part of 1919” (Malachi 3:1-4). They were pleased with “a small band of loyal Bible Students,” though, the article adds, “of course, they needed some cleansing.” Then, “in 1919, a time of spiritual revival, Jesus selected capable anointed brothers from among them to be the faithful and discreet slave and appointed them over his domestics.”¹ The domestics are “those who are fed,” anointed and “great crowd” alike, Governing Body members included.

Fourth, the future. Jesus will appoint the slave “over all his belongings” when He comes for judgment during the great tribulation, a reward to be shared with all the 144,000 (see Who Are the 144,000?).

A companion article explains why no earlier group qualifies. After the apostles, “there was no consistent, organized channel for dispensing spiritual food.” Even the pre-1914 Bible Students were not that channel: “Were the Bible Students in the years that led up to 1914 the appointed channel through which Christ would feed his sheep? No.”³ In 2016 the magazine added that the captivity of God’s people to “Babylon the Great” (false religion) “lasted from the second century C.E. to 1919.”⁴

{{very-strong: Since 2013 Witness publications have taught that the slave is the Governing Body, appointed over the domestics in 1919.}}

How the teaching has changed

Witnesses describe such changes as increasing light (Proverbs 4:18); the general question is treated in “New Light” or Doctrinal Revision? Here are the earlier views, from the movement’s own histories.

Russell and the years after his death

According to Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom (1993), “In 1881, Brother Russell himself had expressed the view that that ‘servant’ was made up of the entire body of faithful spirit-anointed Christians.” Later many Bible Students saw Russell himself as the “faithful and wise servant” (KJV). The history says that Russell “did not personally promote the idea, but he did acknowledge the apparent reasonableness of the arguments of those who favored it,” and, according to Russell, his wife was the first to apply the text to him. “Particularly following his death” in 1916, “The Watch Tower itself set forth this view for a number of years.” The collective understanding “was reaffirmed by the Bible Students in 1927.”⁵

So on the Society’s own account, in the years between Russell’s death and 1927, which include 1919, its magazine presented the faithful servant as one man, already dead.

From 1927 to 2012

For most of the twentieth century the slave was a class. The Watchtower of March 1, 2004, stated that the expression “refers to all members of that anointed spiritual nation as a group on earth at any particular time from 33 C.E. until now.” It placed the second appointment in 1919: “Jesus did this in 1919, after the slave had passed through a period of testing.”⁶

The Governing Body was then described as drawn from that larger class. The Watchtower of March 15, 1990, said that “Christ chose a small number of men out of the slave class to serve as a visible governing body,” and it dated Christ’s inspection of His house to 1918.⁷ A 2017 study article notes that the expression “governing body” “began appearing in our publications in the 1940’s.”⁸

The 2012-2013 revision

The 2013 article summarises the former view itself: “At Pentecost 33 C.E., Jesus appointed the faithful slave over his domestics. The slave represents all anointed Christians on earth as a group at any one time since then. The domestics refer to the same anointed ones as individuals. In 1919, Jesus appointed the faithful slave ‘over all his belongings.’”¹ The companion article marks a second adjustment in a footnote: “This is an adjustment in understanding. Previously, we thought that Jesus’ inspection took place in 1918.”⁹

Question	Before 2012 (e.g. 1990, 2004)	Since 2012-2013
Who is the slave?	All anointed Christians on earth as a class	A small group of anointed brothers, the Governing Body
When did it begin?	Pentecost, 33 C.E.	Appointed in 1919; not the apostles
Who are the domestics?	The anointed as individuals	All who are fed, anointed and “other sheep”
What happened in 1919?	Appointment “over all his belongings”	Appointment over the domestics
“Over all his belongings”	Already fulfilled in 1919	Future, at the great tribulation
Christ’s inspection	1918	1914 to early 1919

The year 1919 survived every revision while its meaning changed: once the promotion of a slave that had served since Pentecost, now the slave’s first appointment.

{{very-strong: Before 2012 the same publications taught that the slave was all anointed Christians since 33 C.E., appointed over all the master’s belongings in 1919.}}

What happened in 1918 and 1919

Joseph F. Rutherford was elected president of the Society on January 6, 1917. In July 1917 The Finished Mystery appeared; the official history says its cutting remarks about the clergy led clergy to press the government to suppress it. On May 7, 1918, federal warrants were issued for Rutherford and several associates, and “by mid-1918, Rutherford and seven associates found themselves in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia.”¹⁰ Convicted under the Espionage Act, “seven of the defendants were sentenced to terms of 20 years and the eighth to a term of 10 years.”¹¹

On March 26, 1919, the eight men were admitted to bail of $10,000 each in Brooklyn and released.¹² On May 14, 1919, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed their convictions. Judge Ward wrote for the majority, with Judge Manton dissenting: “The defendants in this case did not have the temperate and impartial trial to which they were entitled, and for that reason the judgment is reversed.”¹¹ On May 5, 1920, the government withdrew the prosecution.¹³ In September 1919 the Bible Students met at Cedar Point, Ohio, where Rutherford announced a new magazine, The Golden Age.¹²

Witness literature reads these events through prophecy: the refining of “the sons of Levi” (Malachi 3), the revived witnesses of Revelation 11 and the dry bones of Ezekiel 37. For a community whose leaders had been imprisoned, 1919 felt like resurrection, and it is easy to see why the year matters so much to them.

The court record deserves fair mention. The appeals court did not declare the men innocent: it held that “there was sufficient evidence upon which to submit the case to the jury,” and reversed because of the trial judge’s prejudicial handling of witnesses. Witness publications call the men “falsely convicted,” and the case was dropped. The record shows an unfair wartime trial reversed on appeal, a real vindication, but not a judicial finding on the charges.

{{strong: The 1919 appeals decision reversed the convictions for an unfair trial without ruling on guilt or innocence.}}

Where the evidence complicates the story

What the 1919 Bible Students believed

God’s Kingdom Rules! (2014) acknowledges that in the years leading to 1914 the Bible Students “believed that Christ’s presence had begun in 1874,” a date later abandoned.¹⁴ The same book says that by 1919 they “had already cleansed themselves of many false religious teachings. Still, they needed some further cleansing spiritually.” Christmas, it reports, “continued to be celebrated even by members of the Brooklyn Bethel family” until 1926, and the cross-and-crown emblem began to be set aside only from the late 1920s.¹⁵ The Witnesses answer that Christ chose them for their hearts, not perfect understanding: they “needed some cleansing, but they humbly responded during a brief period of testing and refining.”¹ That is coherent, but it means the evidence for the choice cannot be what they taught in 1919.

Who the slave was in 1919

The 2013 article says that “throughout the last days, the anointed brothers who make up the faithful slave have served together at headquarters,” and the 2017 article that “even in those early years” a small group at Brooklyn headquarters “prepared and distributed spiritual food.” The official history adds that from 1884 until a reorganisation adopted on December 4, 1975, publishing and the oversight of the work were “cared for under the direction of the office of the president” of the Society.¹⁶ In 1919 that president was Rutherford, and by the Society’s own account its magazine then treated Russell as the servant. The present identification is read back onto a period whose own publications described things differently.

What 1919 depends on

The 1919 date stands on 1914, when the inspection is said to begin. The 1914 date rests on placing Jerusalem’s destruction in 607 B.C.E.; historians of the ancient Near East date it to 587 or 586. (See 1914 and Jehovah’s Witnesses.) If 1914 falls, the inspection has no starting point and 1919 has no frame.

Reading Matthew 24:45-51 in context

In the New King James Version the passage reads: “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods.” Then comes the evil servant who says “My master is delaying his coming” (24:48-51).¹⁷

The Witness argument that the parable sits within a prophecy about the end has some force: the master’s “coming” in verse 46 is the Son of Man’s coming. But the parable’s point is readiness at an unknown hour, the theme of a section that begins “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming” (24:42). Mark’s parallel ends, “And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!” (13:37). In Luke’s parallel Peter asks, “Lord, do You speak this parable only to us, or to all people?” and Jesus answers with the same question about “that faithful and wise steward” (Luke 12:41-42). The question works as a challenge, inviting each hearer to be that servant. The Greek has the master “appointed” (katestēsen) the servant over the household and “will appoint” (katastēsei) him over all his goods.¹⁸ Nothing in grammar or context names a year or a committee.

St John Chrysostom, in his homilies on Matthew, noticed the open question: “For He blesses him indeed, For blessed, says He, is that servant; but He says not who this is.” He then applied it broadly: “But these things are spoken not of money only, but also of speech, and of power, and of gifts, and of every stewardship, wherewith each is entrusted.”¹⁹ That does not by itself refute the Witness reading, but it shows the passage was long read as an exhortation to faithfulness, not a riddle to be solved in the twentieth century.

The 2013 article’s reason for setting aside the first century, that “there was hardly a reason to ask such a question” when the apostles worked miracles, also sits uneasily with the New Testament. Paul warned of “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:13). The church at Ephesus is praised because it “tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars” (Revelation 2:2). The question was live from the start.

{{debated: That Matthew 24:45-47 points to an appointment made in a particular modern year.}}

The Orthodox reading: a household never left unfed

The deepest disagreement is not about a date but about whether Christ’s household went without any appointed, organised channel of spiritual food from the second century to 1919, as the 2013 and 2016 articles teach.

The Orthodox Church reads the evidence the other way. Christ promised, “on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18), and “lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). St Clement of Rome, writing to Corinth late in the first century (usually dated about 96, though some argue earlier), says that the apostles “appointed those [ministers] already mentioned, and afterwards gave instructions, that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry.”²⁰ St Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom in Rome around the turn of the second century, wrote to Smyrna that “wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”²¹ St Irenaeus of Lyons, writing while Eleutherius was bishop of Rome, answered the Gnostics by pointing to public succession: “we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times.”²²

That is why the Creed confesses belief “in one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”²³ In the Orthodox view, the “food in due season” is the apostolic faith, the Scriptures read within that faith, and above all the Eucharist, given Sunday by Sunday, by bishops and presbyters who are themselves servants accountable to the Master. Orthodoxy does not claim its clergy have always been faithful; the evil servant of verse 48 is a warning every Orthodox pastor must apply to himself. It claims that Christ did not abandon His household, and that its continuity can be traced in public documents. (See Did the Early Church Believe in Apostolic Succession?, the apostolic succession guide, and The Biblical Case Against Total Apostasy.)

The strongest objections

Objection: the fruit shows who the slave is

Witnesses point to a worldwide preaching work and a disciplined, morally serious community. The 2017 article sets out three kinds of evidence under the headings “Evidence of holy spirit,” “Evidence of angelic assistance” and “Reliance on God’s Word.”⁸ Witness zeal and sacrifice, including in Nazi concentration camps, deserve respect. But growth and zeal are found in many movements with incompatible teachings, and cannot show that one group received an appointment in a particular year. Fruit tests every steward’s faithfulness; it does not prove an exclusive office.

Objection: the Governing Body admits it can err, so this is not a claim to infallibility

That is accurate. The 2017 article says, “The Governing Body is neither inspired nor infallible.”⁸ But the slave’s own identity is one of the doctrines revised. If the channel’s identification of itself can change, confidence in it must rest on something outside its statements, here the chronology of 1914 and 1919.

Objection: Orthodoxy also claims an authority beyond private reading of Scripture

Fair. The Orthodox Church does claim that the Spirit guides the Church and that Scripture is read within Tradition. The difference is the evidence offered: letters, lists of bishops, councils and liturgies that any historian can examine, failures included. The 1919 claim rests on an invisible inspection whose start depends on a contested date.

What we can say confidently

• Since 2012-2013, Witness teaching has identified the slave as the Governing Body, appointed over the domestics in 1919.
• Before 2012 the slave was taught to be all anointed Christians since 33 C.E., with 1919 as its appointment over all the master’s belongings.
• By the Society’s own history, Russell taught a collective servant in 1881; for a number of years after his death the Watch Tower treated him as the servant, and the collective view was reaffirmed in 1927.
• Rutherford and seven associates were released on bail in March 1919; their convictions were reversed on May 14, 1919, for an unfair trial, and the prosecution was withdrawn in 1920.
• By the Witnesses’ own account, the Bible Students of 1919 still kept Christmas and the cross-and-crown emblem, and had earlier dated Christ’s presence to 1874.
• Matthew 24:45-51 names no date, place or institution; Chrysostom applied it to every stewardship.

What remains disputed

• Whether the faithful-slave parable has a special end-time fulfilment at all, or is a general exhortation to all disciples and especially to pastors.
• Whether the 1914-1919 inspection is a reading of Malachi 3 that the text can bear. It depends on the 1914 chronology.
• How far the Bible Students’ 1918 imprisonment resulted from clergy pressure, as Witness histories argue, and how far from wartime law and the content of The Finished Mystery. The court record shows an unfair trial; it does not settle motives.
• How the 2013 view that anointed Christians were always on earth fits with its denial of any organised channel before 1919.

Conclusion

Jehovah’s Witnesses take the parable of the faithful servant seriously, and in that they honour it. The Lord did ask, “Who then is a faithful and wise servant?” The Orthodox answer points not to a committee appointed in a modern year but to the Lord who promised to be with His Church always, who has fed His household in every century with His word and His Body and Blood, and who will come at an unexpected hour to ask each steward what he has done with what he was given. That question is addressed to Orthodox bishops and priests as sharply as to anyone, and, as Chrysostom said, to all of us. Our Witness neighbours deserve that answer given with patience, honesty about our own failures, and an invitation to the Church whose table has never been bare.

Notes

1. “Who Really Is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?” The Watchtower (Study Edition), July 15, 2013, pp. 20-25, paras. 2, 3, 6-7, 10, 12-13, 15-19. wol.jw.org.
2. “Annual Meeting Report: ‘Food at the Proper Time,’” jw.org, report of the 128th annual meeting, October 6, 2012.
3. “Feeding Many Through the Hands of a Few,” The Watchtower, July 15, 2013, pp. 15-19, paras. 14, 16-17.
4. “Questions From Readers,” The Watchtower (Study Edition), March 2016. jw.org.
5. Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom (Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1993), ch. 28, “Testing and Sifting From Within,” p. 626 and footnote c.
6. “A ‘Slave’ Who Is Both Faithful and Discreet,” The Watchtower, March 1, 2004, pp. 8-12, paras. 9, 18.
7. “‘The Faithful Slave’ and Its Governing Body,” The Watchtower, March 15, 1990, pp. 10-14, paras. 7, 15, 18.
8. “Who Is Leading God’s People Today?” The Watchtower (Study Edition), February 2017, pp. 23-28, paras. 10, 12-15.
9. “‘Look! I Am With You All the Days,’” The Watchtower, July 15, 2013, pp. 9-14, para. 6 and footnote c.
10. Proclaimers, ch. 6, “A Time of Testing (1914-1918),” pp. 65-71.
11. Rutherford v. United States, 258 F. 855 (2d Cir. 1919), decided May 14, 1919 (Ward, J., for the court; Manton, J., dissenting). Text from the Caselaw Access Project (static.case.law) and CourtListener.
12. Proclaimers, ch. 7, “Advertise the King and the Kingdom! (1919-1941),” pp. 74-77.
13. Proclaimers, ch. 29, “‘Objects of Hatred by All the Nations,’” p. 654.
14. God’s Kingdom Rules! (Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 2014), ch. 5, para. 5, p. 50.
15. God’s Kingdom Rules!, ch. 10, “The King Refines His People Spiritually,” paras. 7-8, 12-13, pp. 101-104.
16. Proclaimers, ch. 15, “Development of the Organization Structure,” p. 234.
17. Matthew 24:42-51; Mark 13:37; Luke 12:41-42; 2 Corinthians 11:13; Revelation 2:2; Matthew 16:18; 28:20, New King James Version. New World Translation quoted from the 2013 revision (Matthew 24:45).
18. Matthew 24:45, 47, SBL Greek New Testament.
19. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 77, trans. George Prevost, rev. M. B. Riddle, NPNF1 vol. 10 (1888). newadvent.org/fathers/200177.htm.
20. Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians 44, trans. John Keith, ANF vol. 9 (1896). newadvent.org/fathers/1010.htm.
21. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 8, trans. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, ANF vol. 1 (1885). newadvent.org/fathers/0109.htm.
22. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.1, trans. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut, ANF vol. 1 (1885). newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm.
23. The Symbol of Faith (Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed), Orthodox Church in America translation, oca.org.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
• The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition. Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010.
• Rutherford v. United States, 258 F. 855 (2d Cir. 1919).

Orthodox and patristic sources

• Clement of Rome. First Epistle to the Corinthians. Translated by John Keith. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9. Edited by Allan Menzies. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1896.
• Ignatius of Antioch. Epistle to the Smyrnaeans. Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1885.
• Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies. Translated by Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1885.
• John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew. Translated by George Prevost, revised by M. B. Riddle. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 10. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1888.
• Orthodox Church in America. “The Symbol of Faith.” oca.org.

Other scholarship (including scholars who disagree)

• Chryssides, George D. Jehovah’s Witnesses: Continuity and Change. London: Routledge, 2016. (Further reading: a non-Witness scholar’s history of Witness teaching and its changes.)
• Penton, M. James. Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015. (Further reading: a historian and former Witness.)

Sources from the tradition discussed (Jehovah’s Witnesses)

• New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (2013 Revision). Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. wol.jw.org.
• The Watchtower, July 15, 2013 (Study Edition): “‘Look! I Am With You All the Days,’” pp. 9-14; “Feeding Many Through the Hands of a Few,” pp. 15-19; “Who Really Is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?” pp. 20-25.
• “Annual Meeting Report: ‘Food at the Proper Time.’” jw.org, 2012.
• “Who Is Leading God’s People Today?” The Watchtower (Study Edition), February 2017, pp. 23-28.
• “Questions From Readers.” The Watchtower (Study Edition), March 2016.
• “A ‘Slave’ Who Is Both Faithful and Discreet.” The Watchtower, March 1, 2004, pp. 8-12.
• “‘The Faithful Slave’ and Its Governing Body.” The Watchtower, March 15, 1990, pp. 10-14.
• Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1993. wol.jw.org.
• God’s Kingdom Rules! Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 2014. wol.jw.org.