By
Shelby G. Floyd
There was a man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews, named Nicodemus. He came to Jesus by night. We don’t know why he came to Jesus by night instead of daytime. The Bible doesn’t tell us; it’s useless to speculate. We just know as a fact that he came to Jesus by night. He addressed the Master as Rabbi. “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher come from God for no man can do the miracles that you do unless God be with him.” The term rabbi was a literary acknowledgment, just like bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, doctor’s degree are literary degrees today among us. The Jews had three of those degrees, rab, rabbi, and rabboni. Jesus said in Matthew 23, “Don’t call any man upon the earth rabbi or father.” In the church we do not distinguish one another, and that includes the preacher, elders and deacons, by some kind of worldly title that tries to exalt one person above another. We do not address one another in the church as doctor or master or rabbi or reverend or any of those terms. In the church we are a family and you don’t address members of your family like that, do you? They are your brothers and sisters. We are all brothers and sisters in the family of God and we do not seek to exalt one person above another by worldly titles. Jesus, being the divine Son of God, accepted those titles when they were addressed to Him. He didn’t rebuke Nicodemus when he called Him Rabbi, even though He rebuked our using those terms to address each other. So Nicodemus said, “Rabbi, we know you are teacher come from God, for no man could do the miracles that you are doing, except God be with him.” Continue reading “THE NEW BIRTH”
