LABELS REINFORCE BRANDS
Within each religious organization there are various tiers of leaders with titles. Titles are labels that establish a person’s legitimacy to serve in that position of leadership. Examples of such labels include Pastors, Priests, Rabbis, Apostles, Bishops, Elders, Deacons, Overseers, Popes, Missionaries and Evangelists. This link provides an extensive list of labels for most well known religions in the world.

Christian Leaders who have attained academic degrees will typically include the abbreviated name of their degree in written communications. This link provides an extensive list of academic degrees within Christian denominations and ministries.

It is a major disconnect within Christianity that leaders who are trained in Bible knowledge will brazenly apply these labels and titles to themselves despite Jesus’ clear exhortation in Matthew 23:1-12 that his followers should not be called father, master, or even teacher. It is so common a practice that it seems as though leaders somehow think that this exhortation should not apply to them. Worse than that, no one else seems to find any fault with the practice either. Thus, people in a church or ministry will freely call their leaders teacher, rabbi, and other honorific names that affirm a superior standing within the congregation. These names, along with social deference shown to people with titles, show clearly that people, especially those who have the titles that separate them from the general body, do not take seriously what the Bible says about divisions in the body of Christ. They may call themselves Christian, but they show no evidence that Jesus’ words apply to them. They may all be very religious, but they are not Biblical as most of them will claim to be.

What we have in this community of religious organizations with its labels and titles is another example of doing what other religions do in direct defiance of what God said. We have self-proclaimed leaders and followers subtracting from the word of God and not feeling any shame about it. In titles and labels we have adornments of an intangible kind that are designed and employed to make the wearer look good just like physical adornments are worn to enhance physical attraction and earn favor of one kind or another.

The way we see it, this all discredits the legitimacy of the organization, its leaders, its followers, and any ministry that it claims to provide. Just like leaders who claim to be followers of Jesus but who blatantly disregard Jesus’ teachings, they fail to live up to the label (Christian) they have assigned to their corporate identity. If the government monitored such things, they could be accused of false advertising.