Religious titles and exaltation of men

In Matthew 23:8-12, Jesus said that men are not to assume “religious titles,” which only serve to exalt themselves. He asserted that men should not be called titles like Rabbi, Dad Prayed professor. However, Messianic Jews “Christian leaders” call themselves RabbiCatholic priests call themselves Dadand numerous Christian leaders across many denominations take upon themselves the “religious title” of professor; All this in flagrant defiance of Jesus’ command in Matthew chapter 23. Furthermore, thousands of Christian ministers have the audacity to call themselves “Reverend”, even though Psalm 111:9 states that “Reverend” (KJV) is His (God’s) name. According to “Strong’s Extended Exhaustive Concordance”, the original Hebrew word translated as Reverend in this passage from the King James Translation, it literally means “to be afraid”, “to be in awe”, “awe”, “reverence”, etc. These solemn descriptive terms apply to our appropriate response to a Holy God, not the mother of men. And, it is reasonable to assume that other contemporary titles used to exalt religious leaders today, such as “Doctor,” “Master of Divinity,” and “bestselling author,” would fall into the same category as the Rabbi, Dad Y professor titles forbidden by Jesus. He said that those who exalt themselves with these titles will be humbled (Matthew 23:12).

Contemporary Christian churches and ministries not only exalt their leaders with religious titles forbidden by Jesus, but also print “study bibles” bearing the names of their ministers. What “scrawny men” would dare put their names in the Holy Bible? However, many of them have done just that; They will answer to God. And unfortunately, this exaltation of mother men within the Christian Church goes beyond the religious titles and personal names of men that are placed in the Holy Bible.

The Church has now degenerated to the point of building a “statue”, which is a recorded image, to a human preacher, as was done recently with the statue of Billy Graham. Although the Catholic Church has been guilty of making and revering carved images for many centuries, the Protestant Evangelical Church has now made the unfortunate decision to compromise on this issue as well. The second commandment of the Ten Commandments prohibits the construction of “carved images” (Exodus 20: 4-5), but the modern Church has degenerated to such an extent that it defies God’s word and tramples on his commandments to exalt mother men. Those who have made this pledge regarding the “Graham statue” may try to excuse their sin by saying that this commandment only applies to the worship of graven images, but such a claim is false. There are two parts to this commandment; the first part, in verse four, forbids “making” graven images; the second part, in verse five, forbids “worshipping” images.

Would the Apostle Paul, whom God used to write half of the New Testament, have approved of the construction of a carved image/statue to honor him? Absolutely not! Paul is the one who “rebuked” the Corinthian Christians for exalting men like Apollos, Peter, and himself, in 1 Corinthians 1:12-15. Paul is also the one who said that the Corinthians were behaving in a way carnal way when they were exalting Apollos and himself; Furthermore, he claimed that he and Apollos, who were apostles of Jesus Christ, “they were nothing“, but God is the one who is something (1 Corinthians 3:4-7). Furthermore, Paul is the one who tore his clothes when the people of Lystra were going to offer sacrifices to him and Barnabas (Acts 14:11-19) And you can be sure that Paul would have acted similarly if someone had tried to erect a statue/carved image to honor him, Billy Graham was a dedicated gospel preacher for many years, and I commend and respect him, but he is not worthy of comparison to the Apostle Paul, who was repeatedly beaten, imprisoned, flogged, shipwrecked, stoned, and ultimately martyred for His faith, and therefore Mr. Graham should also not have a carved image/statue built in his honor