The Roman Catholic Church is guilty of inappropriately elevating its clergy. Consider the language the Catholic Encyclopedia uses in its article on "Cardinals":
The honorary rights of the cardinals are also numerous. They come immediately after the pope, and precede all other ecclesiastical dignitaries. As Roman princes they follow immediately the reigning sovereign, and rank with the prince of reigning houses... They alone have the right to the name of cardinal and are addressed as Eminentia, Eminentissimi (Your Eminence or Your Eminences), a title formerly borne by the German ecclesiastical prince-electors and, to the present day, by the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John. Urban VIII instructed them (10 June, 1630) to cease correspondence with any sovereign who refused them this title. [101]
A cardinal, according to Rome, is to be referred to as "Your Eminence," and they are to refuse correspondence with anyone, even a head of state, who refuses them that title.
The Bible, in contrast, offers no such elevation of clergy.
The Apostle Peter wrote:
"The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock" (1 Peter 5:1-3, emphasis mine).
Peter very clearly told the elders not to use their position to lord over the people, and not to do it for "lucre" (money).
During the New Testament period, the Corinthian Church had a problem with elevating their leaders inappropriately. Paul straightened out this error with these words:
"For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase" (1 Corinthians 3:3-6).
The Bible teaches that those called into ministry are no better than anyone else, and that calling is to help others, not promote the minister. Paul said he was nothing; Christ was everything! The Bible teaches that with God there is no "respect of persons" (Ephesians 6:9).
Charles Spurgeon had this to say about those who elevated themselves with the religious titles of the Roman Catholic Church:
When a fellow comes forward in all sorts of curious garments, and says he is a priest, the poorest child of God may say, 'Stand away, and don't interfere with my office: I am a priest; I know not what you may be. You surely must be a priest of Baal, for the only mention of the word vestments in Scripture is in connection with the temple of Baal.' The priesthood belongs to all the saints... The very word "priest" has such a smell of the sulphur or Rome about it, that so long as it remains, the Church of England will give forth an ill savour.
Call yourself a priest, sir! I wonder men are not ashamed to take the title: when I recollect what priests have done in all ages ? what priests connected with the church of Rome have done, I repeat what I have often said: I would sooner a man pointed at me in the street and called me a devil, than called me a priest; for bad as the devil has been, he has hardly been able to match the crimes, cruelties, and villainies which have been transacted under the cover of a special priesthood. [102]
Spurgeon lived in the 19th Century, but his words against the "villainies which have been transacted under the cover of a special priesthood" could easily have been lifted out of newspaper articles in the 21st Century.
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