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No Need for a Grand High Poobah (and Jesus Forbids it!)

From the fancy-pants and the scholars, to the beggars and the crippled and the poor… Jesus offers something very different than “another world religion.” If you didn’t see it before, can you see it now? Can you see how He would not possibly be trying to compete with all of the world religions for just a different holy day, with different symbols and rituals, and different kinds of “dress up” and titles for their holy men? No way.

With Christ as the Source and with the River of His Spirit flowing through every member of His Body, why would He bottle it up in a few “religious professionals”? Why recreate “intermediaries” out of mere men?

He didn’t and doesn’t, and in absolute terms He forbids that. “Why would we call him ‘Lord, Lord’ and NOT do what he said?!” What would be our excuse?

All of us, including those in western religions, are guilty of some grotesque twisting of what Jesus intended.

I have heard people of all ages try to justify their religious buildings and hired hands and hierarchy by saying, “Well, we can trace it back to the ‘church fathers’ so it must be right.” People try to prove their positions through whisper-game “connections” and some very flimsy documentation, basing their whole lives on things that contradict Jesus, Paul, John, and Peter.

Jesus forbids hierarchical structure with titles. And the apostles didn’t do it or tolerate it, all the way to AD 100 with John. Even at the end of the first century, John condemns Diotrephes precisely because he “loves to be first.”

And then, remarkably soon afterward, the language changes. By the early second century, Ignatius (15–20 years after John) is repeatedly insisting upon submission to the "bishop, presbyters, and deacons." The "bishop" now is granted a position of power and prestige and religious authority. Why do you think Jesus told Peter that He would decide how long John would be around? No doubt so that the dress-up hierarchy and other world religion stuff of Ignatius would look foolish by comparison, just fifteen years after John.

Two hundred seventy years later along that whisper-game trail, Eusebius would help solidify a historical narrative with a conjured “church history” undocumented by any measure of scientific scrutiny, and deeply swayed by his employer Constantine. Succession is a dangerous and make-believe concept created long after Jesus said there would be no Head or Boss or Father or intermediary—except Him alone.

Can we PLEASE cut it out with the “Grand High Poobah” clergy medicine man, master of ceremonies, uninterruptible holy talking head stuff. Please? Yes, that’s a rough way to say it. I know. Sorry. But it’s NOT negotiable, and it tears up the potential of Jesus being the actual head of His Body, worldwide. “You are all only family siblings!” “A priesthood of Believers,” said the Lord of Glory! A Royal Priesthood, from Exodus to Revelation.

When you can walk on water, raise the dead, heal the lame and the blind, command the storms, and multiply loaves and fishes, then you can speak into the discussion. Until then, CUT IT OUT, okay? Please? It’s a crutch. It’s arrogance. It’s fear. We are all PAWNS at best, not “reverends” (gag) or “fathers” or “pastors” or ANY title.

Of course it’s the “another world religion” problem, nothing new. But Change is now. Time is short, and the power is out.

Starting in AD 30, Matthew 20, 23, when the Second Adam came to tell us God’s ways, there are NO MORE of any of these:

I’m not listing all of those to be mean. I’m listing them because Jesus did, as is recorded in Matthew 23. And Paul missed 50 chances to use titles in his letters to churches. It’s just forbidden.

This is not a Christian title-cleanup. Guru, Imam, Rabbi, Pastor, Pope—it’s the same forbidden slot in every world religion.

Every religion’s poobah is the same forbidden grab, because the throne is already taken. The throne belongs to Jesus alone. There is only ONE Mediator. Jesus. Period.

It is easy to recognize the religious hierarchy in somebody else’s world and completely miss it in our own. And this isn’t only about the people who accept these titles and positions. It is also about those of us who give them that place. So, if you see yourself anywhere in that list—on either side of it—Don’t. Never again. Not once.

Let me say it again.

A mere human acting as a tribal “intercessor” or “intermediary” has always proven a disappointment, but we do it anyway. Cut it out with the “Grand High Poobah” nonsense. Jesus Commanded that we not call anyone by a religious title. So, don’t ALLOW anyone to call you by a religious title. “You are all only family siblings, you are all but brothers and sisters!” said the Lord of Glory!

We have “ONE” and He is Jesus, the Second Adam, and the ONLY “Mediator between God and man.”

He shared human DNA so that those who bow to Him alone might share his gift: His Intention for His community of Eternity-Life. He is ALIVE!

His Intent has ALWAYS been “a kingdom of priests”—a “holy nation of priests”—a “royal priesthood” that “from the least to the greatest they all Know me.” “I was with you, I shall be IN you. Christ IN you, plural, the Hope of Glory!”

A Kingdom of Priests, a Royal Priesthood, Gifts, parts of Him, Jesus now ALIVE, and SCALED in His Body!