The Perplexing Use of Religious Titles

Richard Hollerman

In our online outreach, especially on Facebook but also in other venues, we are constantly amazed at how some of our readers are utterly devoid of spiritual sense and analytical powers.

So many of these (and we are speaking of dozens and dozens of people), in their zeal to exalt themselves (apparently), are insistent on using religious titles—and these in an unbiblical way.

For example—and for your benefit—someone recently wrote who apparently is a “King James Only Proponent” (which, in itself is an untenable position to take!). The heading his site or post uses a large Hebrew word (the tetragrammaton), and he calls himself an “evangelist.” Sadly, he even uses this as a religious title, “Evangelist so-and-so.” Of course, those who know God’s Word realize that the few times the Greek euangelistes is used, it is never used as a title of any kind.

In Acts 21:8 we see reference to “Philip the evangelist” and there is no indication that the term is used as a title. We also see Ephesians 4:11 where “evangelists” is used along with several other terms to refer to positions in the early assembly—but none of them would be a title. The third and final use would be 2 Timothy 4:5 where Paul (the apostle) refers to Timothy and encourages him:”Do the work of an evangelist.” Again there is no indication that the term is used as a title of some kind.

But not only is this dear writer using “evangelist” in a wrong way, but we continue to read, “Yahweh’s Street Bishop’s Ministries.” Whatever this means, we don’t find any title of any kind here. We do find “bishop” used in an unbiblical manner. And “Yahweh” is also used. Probably every Biblical student reading this knows that “Yahweh” is never used in the New Testament. We know that there were other terms used in unscriptural ways, other than “evangelist” and “bishop” and “Yahweh” but we only copied one single page of print.

Again, we read this: “My name is Reverend . . . I’m a Licensed Minister Of GOD and I’m a Ordained Evanglist Of GOD.” What? My “name” is “Reverend”? And spelling “evangelist” like this? This person goes on to refer to the following: “ABBA FATHER HIS SON YAHUSHA AND RUACH.” Those of you who are Bible students know that “Abba” means Father, and we suppose that he refers to Jesus and the Holy Spirit.” But in his misguided zeal to use the Hebrew language, this Facebook young man is “butchering” this fine language.

This should encourage all of us to follow the time-worn but helpful adage: “Let’s use Bible terms in Bible ways, and call Bible terms by Bible names.” We can’t be too Biblical in our usage