Just the Messenger

And they started to call Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the main speaker. - Acts 14:12

According to Wikipedia, "Hermes" (the name of a mythological Greek god) may be related to the Greek word "hermeneus" (translated as interpreter), from which his divine function as the messenger of Greek mythology was derived.

"Hermeneutics," the study of interpretation, is a derivative of the same root word and it was for this reason that Paul the Apostle was erroneously identified as Hermes when he and Barnabas ministered in Lystra. Of course, we can understand their confusion. For even though Paul was not the divine messenger they assumed, he most definitely bore a divine message! The deluded citizens of Lystra just did not know the difference and it was up to Paul and Barnabas to correct them.

All pastor-teachers have the fearsome privilege of regularly attempting to deliver a divine message to God's people. Hopefully, they do this with an acute awareness of their own frail human nature. Woe to the messenger who ever begins to think that he is as important as the message he has been charged to bring.

Brothers, we are not gods. Our message, though divine, does not make us so and we must be careful to never assume authority that is not ours, deflecting it when others desire to bestow it upon us.

Only once did God choose a completely sinless preacher. - Alexander Whyte