Volume 3 · CenteredLesson 28About 23 minutes

Titles and Clergy

What do you call the person who leads your church, and why?

Centered edition for believersSwitch to Honest Heretics (for skeptics)

The center · Matthew 23:8

⁸But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi’, for one is your teacher, the Christ, and all of you are brothers.

Pastor. Reverend. Father. Bishop. Apostle. Doctor. Most churches have a word for the person at the front, and many have a ladder of them. The titles come with the best seat, a reserved parking space and a voice that is hard to question. In some churches, questioning the leader at all is treated as questioning God.

Most pastors work hard and carry their titles humbly, and many deserve your thanks. This lesson is about something else: the ranks themselves, and the habit of putting leaders beyond correction. Let's see what Jesus said about titles. You don't need anyone's permission to read it.