Unsound Arguments For The Truth

I recently preached a sermon at a local “preachers’ study” detailing 12 or 15 “Unsound Arguments For The Truth.” Here are the charts for that sermon: http://www.bibledebates.info/Sermons/DigitalProjector/UnsoundArgumentsForTheTruth.docx

One example that you’ve probably heard. The assertion has been made many times by gospel preachers that we shouldn’t call a preacher “Reverend” because that term is only used for God in the Bible (Psa 111:9).

This argument should be as absurd to us as if someone were to say it’s wrong to use the word “gopher” to refer to that type of rodent because the only place that word is used in the Bible is to refer to the wood of Noah’s ark in Gen 6:14. We learn by instruction not by such word games: Is there any passage where Jesus or his apostles ever made an argument anything like? – this is the only place a particular word is used, therefore don’t use that word for anything else …

By the way, Psa 111:9 is not the only place this word is used. Did you know this same Hebrew word (Strongs #3372) is used 314 times in the Old Testament – with a wide variety of uses, including with the requirement to “fear” mother and father (Lev 19:3), saying Israel “feared” Joshua (and Moses) because God magnified him (Josh 4:14), and God calling a wilderness “terrible” (Deut 8:15)? A form of the same English word is used for a son’s “reverence” for his father in Heb 12:9, and the wife is commanded to “reverence” her husband in Eph 5:33.

The definition for “reverend” according to Dictionary.com is “worthy to be revered; entitled to reverence.” If you say there is a difference in the word “reverend” and “reverence,” then you are making the same mistake denominational preachers make when they say the appellation “church of Christ” (singular) is unscriptural because “churches of Christ” in Rom 16:16 is plural.

The right or wrong of calling a preacher “reverend” has nothing to do with Psa 111:9. It is wrong because Matt 23:8-10 forbids using elevating religious titles as a part of Christianity – “But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.” Jesus’ Matt 23 point is – we are all equals (peers) in Christ (Gal 3:28).

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