“They love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’  But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers.  And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.  Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ.  The greatest among you will be your servant.” - Matthew 23:6-11

Our flesh craves prestige and power.  The Holy Spirit does not accommodate this trait of man.  In the Work of the Holy Spirit, there is a constant struggle to keep our flesh from interfering with the Spirit’s Work, from hurting God’s project.  The Spirit wants to give glory to Jesus and none other.  Our flesh wants at least a little glory for ourselves.  Some people feel a need to be someone “special” – as did the Jewish leaders Jesus describes in the passage above.  One of the main ways pastors give into this urge is to claim some glorious title, something that sounds better than average, or maybe even better than everyone.  This was a problem in Jesus’ day as well.  The Jewish leaders liked to be addressed as “Teacher” or “Rabbi” – a title for religious teachers that was related to the word for “greatness,” similar to calling someone “Reverend” (a person we revere) today.  Jesus forbid his disciples to use these titles.  He also specifically forbids us from using the title “Father” for church leaders – which, ironically, became the universal title for clergy in the Medieval Catholic Church.

For convenience, we need to have some terms that we use to designate the men responsible over church congregation – some moderate or neutral term that simply sums up the function of the person ordained for this task, rather than ascribing special traits or achievement.  Some denominations use the terms “minister” or “clergy,” which are appropriate.  In Maranatha churches, we usually refer to these men as “pastors,” which describes their role in shepherding a flock that the Lord has entrusted to them (most people do not think of “shepherd” as an elevated title).  We speak of the “ministry” as something that the pastor exercises.  Of course, in other languages (especially non-Western tongues), there may be other terms commonly used as the generic name for a person responsible for a local flock or congregation.  We have seminar classes for our pastors where we teach them that they should never require their members to address them with a title like “pastor,” or rebuke someone for calling them by their name instead.  We want our pastors to be humble men, not lording it over the flock or using their position to satiate their fragile egos or pander to their personal insecurities.

The Lord uses some of our pastors in special ways.  Some are very gifted preachers or evangelists.  Others have an extraordinary number of visions, dreams, and prophecies – detailed revelations from the Holy Spirit – that accompany their ministry activity and edify the whole Body.  Still others have additional useful skills, talents, or abilities that enrich all of our churches.

Even so, we do not give any of them titles besides the simple designation of “pastor.”  We know some of the pastors have a prophetic ministry, but we do not publicly call them “prophets” – this is unnecessary and elevates a man, while the purpose of prophecy is to turn everyone’s attention on the Lord.  We have apostles in our midst, but we do not need to identify them individually.  What matters is the fruitful exercise of their apostolic ministry, not the attachment of titles.

In some countries, we have some pastors who are regional coordinators, overseeing an area with dozens – or even hundreds – of other pastors.  We prefer to call them “regional coordinators” or something low-key and descriptive like that.  Every regional coordinator is in submission to the Body and to the Presbytery (the Body of pastors that governs the Body. Nobody acts independently, without accountability.  We are aware that other churches and movements use liturgical names for such positions, like “bishop.”  Such terms can carry connotations of spiritual superiority, as in the Catholic Church, whereas we view coordination as more of an administrative function.

We sometimes encounter religious movements that use almost ridiculously grandiose titles for the leaders – “Prophetic Bishop,” “Apostle of the Prophets,” “Healing Prophet,” and so on.  In contrast, we believe that “the Lord bestows favor and honor” (Psalm 84:11).  We do not need to claim it for ourselves, assert it through some self-designated title, or advertise it by broadcasting our credentials to the public.  Such vanity is, well, vain and empty.  If the Holy Spirit is using a man in the ministry, it will be evident.  He will not need an official title to back him up, or to bolster what the Spirit is doing.  Of course, other churches have professional ministries or full-time pastors, something we normally do not have in Maranatha.  In contexts where the pastor has turned his ministry into his career and livelihood, it is predictable that competition would emerge as it does in every business, and many professional clergy treat the ministry as a business.  In the business world, titles and positions matter because everyone is competing for first place.  When churches become like a business and the ministry is the pastor’s job, we would expect to see an escalation in the titles that ministers claim for themselves.

Some might object, however, that the original church leaders in the New Testament used an impressive designation (”Apostle”) for themselves.  That is only partly true.  James and Jude introduce themselves in their epistles as “servants,” even though we know they were Apostles.  Peter begins his second epistle referring to himself as a “servant” first and “apostle” second – this verse could be the basis for a whole sermon about which is more important.  Paul does the same at the beginning of his letters to Titus and to the Romans.  Both letters to the Thessalonians use no titles in the introduction.    Paul refers to himself as simply a “servant” at the beginning of Philippians (which fits with the theme of that book), and as a “prisoner” at the beginning of Philemon (which fits with the message of that book, which about being “bound by duty” to release a certain Christian captive, Onesimus).  The point is that the Apostles did not always need to call themselves such.  When they did, there was a good reason.

Paul does introduce himself as an “apostle,” at the beginning of the letters to the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, and to Timothy.  Interestingly, these are the letters containing the most guidelines about structure and practice within the churches themselves (handling of spiritual gifts, church discipline, raising new pastors, not observing religious holidays or food restrictions, and so on).  In the era of the New Testament, “apostle” was a descriptive term meaning simply “envoy” or “delegate” – a “messenger” on a specific mission (it also applied only to men, because it involved a legal delegation of authority).  This term did not yet have the churchy, religious connotations it later acquired.  Today, many Christians associate “Apostle” with the “founding fathers” of Christianity – the term has lost all its earlier functional meaning and has take on an air of grandeur and supreme importance for many people.  Similarly, the term “missionary” now has a very specific meaning (someone who travels to another country to preach Christianity, etc.) that it may not have had in earlier centuries.

Paul refers to himself with this descriptive term in cases where he is setting general rules and doctrines for the churches, because his specific role or mission in the early church pertained to this.  He was “sent” or commissioned to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles while the original “apostles” stayed in Jerusalem, reaching mostly Jews.  As the official delegate or envoy commissioned to establish Christianity outside its original cultural context (Israel), part of Paul’s job was to set the protocol for worshipping in a non-Jewish way, with church practices that did not incorporate any Jewish food laws, religious holidays, ceremonies like circumcision, family dynasties of priests, seniority by age, education, or bloodline, etc.  This may seems obvious to us today, but in Paul’s day it was very controversial.  Almost all the Christians before Paul came along were Jewish and kept Jewish religious practices, and Paul was almost alone in pushing to remove these unnecessary cultural trappings from the Work of the Holy Spirit.  Paul knew this was part of his special mission; it was his “job” in the early church, from the Lord’s perspective.  It is not surprising, then, that Paul felt the need to refer his commission as a special emissary (that is, “apostle”) in epistles where he is refuting the encroachment of Jewish “originalism” (”God’s Work started with us”) and establishing official protocol and practice within the Gentile churches.

That was twenty centuries ago.  Today, the term “apostle” has taken on a new meaning, associated more with greatness or leadership than with a specific task.  So then, a young pastor today who has an ambitious or self-confident personality might naturally fancy himself an “apostle,” because most Christians think of this as the highest position or office one can have in the church.  Tens of thousands of Christian preachers call themselves this, and of course, every single one claims that God called him to this office.  Jesus seems to say that “servant” is the best position (and the real Apostles were not afraid to call themselves that instead), and Jesus warns about people who “say they are apostles but are not” (Rev. 2:2).  Calling oneself an apostle does not make it so.  At the same time, we know that some pastors are indeed apostles. The Lord truly gave them this ministry.  Even so, it is wise to avoid the unnecessary connotations that arise from using this today as a regular title in public.  In Paul’s day, it meant he had a job to do.  Today, it sounds pretentious.  We know we have apostles in our midst, but we simply call them “pastors,” and they can still fulfill their calling.  It is better to avoid sounding ostentatious in the church.

The quest for titles was already starting, unfortunately, by the end of the first century.  Paul felt dogged by other (Jewish) pastors who followed him around and took over his churches after he left.  They would apparently tell the new Gentile converts, “Paul introduced you to Jesus, but now we will teach you how Christianity is really supposed to be – based on the original model in Jerusalem.”  These “Judaizers” (those who tried to make Christianity retain its original Jewishness) adopted superlative titles for themselves and broadcast their elevated status. Remember that in the passage above (Matt 23) Jesus warned his listeners that this was a widespread problem within Judaism in his day.  This phenomenon within Judaism of their day crept into the churches along with the other artifacts of Jewish culture.

Paul therefore mentions in a few places, “I am not in the least inferior to the “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing.” (2 Corinthians 12:11).  Paul understood that no man is anything; only Jesus matters.  We see similar statements in 2 Corinthians 11:5.  Paul also explained, “We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves.  When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.” (2 Corinthians 10:12).  Paul thought each of us should compare ourselves with Jesus, not with each other.  When we compare ourselves with Jesus, we realize we are truly nothing, and we are less prone to elevate ourselves with some new title.

This brings us back to the instructions our Lord Jesus gave us.  “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers.  And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.  Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ.  The greatest among you will be your servant…”