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RABBI
Title of respect, meaning “my great one” or “my superior one,” used in Jesus’ day for Jewish religious teachers.
According to Matthew 23:7, “rabbi” was evidently used as a common title of address for the Jewish scribes and Pharisees. However, in the NT it is most commonly used as a title of respectful address when others were speaking to Jesus. It was used by Nathanael (Jn 1:49), by Peter and Andrew (v 38), by Nicodemus (3:2), by the disciples as a group (9:2; 11:8), and by a crowd generally (6:25). Mary Magdalene (Mk 10:51) and blind Bartimaeus (Jn 20:16) both use the longer form, “rabboni,” to address Jesus directly, thus indicating even more profound respect than the use of the shorter title “rabbi.” By the time of the writing of John’s Gospel, the title “rabbi” meant “teacher”; John explicitly states this in 1:38 and implicitly says this in 3:2.
Jesus condemns the scribes and the Pharisees for their evident pride displayed in their love of being greeted in the marketplaces and their insistence on having people call them “rabbi” (Mt 23:7-8). Jesus prohibited the use of the title for his own disciples, saying, “You are not to be called rabbi.” However, Jesus’ prohibition was more against seeking to be called this and insisting on it than the legitimate possession of the title itself. In fact, when people did use the title of Jesus in a reverent way, they were not in any way rebuked.