Millions of people call Jesus the Messiah their Lord and mean it warmly. This is not a piece about scolding them. It is about one word, and what happened to it when it crossed from one language into another.
Rabbi means my lord
In Hebrew, rav means great one, chief, master. Add the little ending that means "my", and you have rabbi: my master, my lord. In Aramaic the same word with more warmth in it is rabbouni.
In Arabic, a cousin language, the same root gives rabb: lord, in the sense of one who owns, raises and sustains.
The Recitation shows it doing both jobs in one book. Joseph, a slave in an Egyptian house, says of the man who owns it, indeed, he is my master (The Recitation 12:23). And Abraham says of the Lord God, my Lord is the one who gives life and causes death (The Recitation 2:258).
It was an ordinary title among the Children of Judah, and it was never one man's. Teachers were greeted with it in the marketplace (Matthew 23:7), and John the Baptist's own disciples call him Rabbi (John 3:26). It meant roughly what "sir" or "teacher" means to us, with respect attached.
Which is how people spoke to him
The Gospel is careful to translate it for readers who did not have the language.
Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which is to say, being interpreted, Teacher), "where are you staying?"
Nicodemus comes at night and opens with the same word, and calls him "a teacher come from God" (John 3:2). Mary, in the garden, says "Rabboni", and again the Gospel stops to explain: it is to say, Teacher (John 20:16). He accepts the title and says the people using it are right to (John 13:13).
And once, he warns his own followers off the title.
But don't you be called 'Rabbi,' for one is your teacher, the Christ, and all of you are brothers.
Then the word travelled
When the Gospel was carried out of Judea to Greeks and Romans, "Rabbi" had to be rendered into Greek. The word that did the work was kyrios. In Greek it can mean master or sir, the same everyday sense. But it was also the word used of the gods, and of the emperor, whose subjects were required to say kyrios Kaisar, Caesar is Lord.
So a title that meant "my teacher" in a Galilean village landed in a city where the same word was what you said about a god. The letters that went to those cities use kyrios of the Messiah constantly, and they were read aloud to people who heard the emperor called it every week. Words carry their neighbourhood with them, and this one did.
What the Lord God revealed in the Recitation about the whole question
Chapter 3 addresses this with unusual precision. It does not accuse any prophet. It says a prophet would not do it.
It is not for a human that The God should give him the Scripture and authority and prophethood and then he would say to the people, "Be servants to me rather than The God," but, "Be pious scholars of the Lord because of what you have taught of the Scripture and because of what you have studied."
And the next sign says he could not order anyone to take angels or prophets as lords (The Recitation 3:80). Read those two together and the charge is never laid at the Messiah's door. It is laid at the door of a later habit.
That fits what the Gospel has him say. He tells Mary he is going to "my God and your God" (John 20:17). He says that knowing "the only true God" is life (John 17:3). Asked why someone called him good, he answers, "No one is good except one—God" (Mark 10:18).
The one who was promised to sort it out
The Messiah told his companions he was leaving them something.
However when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak from himself; but whatever he hears, he will speak. He will declare to you things that are coming.
Not speaking from himself. Speaking what he hears. Whatever else is said about who that is, the job described is to clear up exactly the kind of confusion a travelling word can cause.
Said kindly
Nobody chose the Greek word out of malice. Translators do the best they can with the words a language has, and kyrios was the honest choice for rabbi. People who say "my Lord" today are usually saying what Mary said in the garden: my teacher, the one I follow.
Where we differ from brothers on this, we differ with the verses on the table and nothing sharper. They read Thomas in the upper room (John 20:28). We read what he sent to Mary that same morning (John 20:17) and The Recitation 3:79. We ask the Lord God to reward everyone for what they meant by it.
Questions people might ask
Is it wrong to call Jesus "Lord"?
People said it to him in his lifetime as a title of respect, the way one says "sir" or "master". The trouble starts when the word is taken to mean the Lord God. He himself pointed away from that (Mark 10:18).
What did Jesus say about who to worship?
To the tempter he quoted the Torah: worship the Lord your God and serve Him only (Matthew 4:10). In his prayer he called the “Father” the only true God (John 17:3).
What does the Recitation say to Christians?
It calls them the People of the Scripture and tells them not to say "three", because The God is one (The Recitation 4:171). Read the messages for Christians on this site for the whole of it.
