Call no man 'father'... explained

I had a discussion with a Baptist man, that went something like this…

Baptist Man says: In the Bible-real Bibles, not your added on to Catholic ones, God says we are not to call any man ‘father’ (he then quoted Matthew 23:9 to me…“And do not call anyone on earth ‘father’, for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.”). He continued… yet you Roman Catholics do call mere man ‘father’ all the time. Yet another example of manmade doctrines replacing the Word of God!  You Catholics have no defense for this and you know it! I dare you or any other Catholic to even try to defend your Church teaching against this clear biblical Word of God!

My response...(using the Protestant NIV Bible)

Dear Baptist Man, why is it you cut the previous and following verses out??  Context, Baptist Man, CONTEXT.  You must take ALL of Sacred Scripture IN CONTEXT to have the best understanding.  Let’s look at what is actually said in Matthew 23 AND in the complete context of the Bible, shall we?

Matt. 23:9 "And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven."

True enough that is what verse 9 says… but what does verse 8 and 10 say?  Do you accept verses 8 and 10 too or just verse 9?

Call no man "Rabbi"....   ^Verse 8 “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers."

Call no man "father".... verse⁹ "And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven."

Call no man "teacher"... verse¹⁰ "Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ."

Now let’s think about this for a moment.  Jesus says we are to call no man on earth ‘father’, ‘rabbi’ or ‘teacher’.  Do you call Jewish clergy rabbi?  How about your Baptist Sunday school teachers?  Do you restrict the use of the word ‘teacher’ in your home?  Your church?  Your denomination?  No you don’t, I’ve seen you use those words numerous times over the years.  So why pluck out ‘father’ and point your finger at Catholics for something you yourself do?  Does that not stink of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees?

It’s time to ask just WHAT is Jesus saying here?  Does he actually mean never to refer to anyone as a "father" or "Rabbi" or "teacher"?  Does anyone think that is the case?  No way!  

Of course not!  If you go on to read verse 12 we see Jesus is talking about those who EXALT themselves.  (hint: this is about the First Commandment)

¹¹ The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹² For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.  (Matthew 23)

 

We don't call anyone else "father" as in The Creator, the giver of ALL life.  The Father of all things – there is only ONE Father the Creator of all things, yet there are many ‘fathers’ in the world.  We have fathers of children…fathers of nations…fathers of organizations.  The title ‘father’ for a family, a nation or organization etc., is not wrong.  If we made someone else ‘father’ of something belonging to God and God alone it would be a sin, but not the father of a family or nation.

God the Father in Heaven is a jealous God, He forbids us from giving HIS glory to a false god (again, the First Commandment here). That is how we are not to use the word "father" for someone or something else.  That’s the key here, giving what belongs to God the Father to someone else.  That is God’s Glory, not ours.  If a man has a child he does in fact become a ‘father’ to that child.  That title ('father') belongs to that man.   He has not stolen God’s Glory by siring a child, not at all!  And the child is NOT committing a sin if they call their father by the title 'Father'.  We don't sin by calling Jewish clergy 'Rabbi' or by calling a school teacher 'teacher' simply because those are their titles.  Again, this is about the First Commandment.  If we attempt to give God's Glory to another- then we sin. 

We have fathers; teachers and Rabbi's but we do not give them the REVERENCE of God the Creator in Heaven.  HE is the ultimate Father, ultimate Teacher and ultimate Rabbi.  He is the Creator of all.  That is God’s Glory, not mans.  This Glory belongs to God and we exalt God for it.  We don’t exalt men for what God the Father has done.  That is forbidden.  That is what the Bible warns about.  That is what Jesus is saying in Matthew 23 (and other places).

We can take comfort in knowing that calling someone "father" is NOT a sin or wrong because Jesus Christ uses the term "father" dozens of times referring to people's actual parents and "Father" Abraham as the "father" of a nation.  (As I mentioned above, this is not a sin.  A man becoming the ‘father’ of a nation does NOT in any way attempt to take away God’s Glory)  If using the word "father" for someone other than God was wrong, Jesus Christ would not have done it.  Jesus is our perfect example.

But let’s not limit ourselves to Matthew 23 alone, let’s look at what else the Bible tells us.  In the New Testament we see Paul teaching us that priests are in fact our “fathers” because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is precisely why the Catholic Church refers to her priests as ‘fathers’ – because the Bible tells us so!

1 Cor.4 ^{14 "}I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children. ¹⁵Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. ¹⁶Therefore I urge you to imitate me. ¹⁷For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church." (NIV Bible)

Anyone who claims we are not to call a man ‘father’ because of Matthew 23 clearly has no understanding of what Jesus was teaching.  It’s all about CONTEXT and knowing the First Commandment.  If you pick a verse here and reject a verse there, you will nearly always be wrong.  You will be not only deceiving yourself, but also anyone else you share your personal views with.

Remember, that if it were wrong to call someone ‘father’, ‘rabbi’ or ‘teacher’ then Jesus would not have done it, nor would Paul be telling everyone that he (Paul) is in fact their ‘father’ because he's a priest (1 Cor. 4:15).  The Gospel teaches that the Church's priests ARE our fathers- not THE Father the Creator, but fathers made so by the Gospel.  The Catholic Church teaches exactly what the Bible says and what Jesus taught. 

Luke 23:44-46

It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.

Luke 23:44-46

Christians And Same Sex Marriage

So many Christian's and their denominations are struggling with the issue of same sex marriage and relationships. Why? The bible is clear on this. It has nothing to do with "homophobia" or being "biased" or wanting to make some people into "second class citizens". God, not man, decides what is sin and what is not. Man has the choice to accept the Word of God or reject it. The scriptures list what God calls sin. For Christians, Catholics and Protestants alike we proclaim Christ as our Savior and follow our Lord and his teachings to the best of our abilities. There are many laws in the bible, but on the issue of same sex marriage we need to look at Moral Law and the institution of marriage in the bible between men and women, not people of the same sex. We look to God's Word because we are Christians and the bible is a wonderful tool- gift really- to be used in teaching God's will for us and our lives. Should we thump non-Christians over the head with our bibles? No. They have the choice and free will to accept or reject God's teachings. For those of us who call ourselves Christians, we have made our choice and must adhere to the Word of God in all things in our lives.
Why do some Christians think that the Moral Laws of the Old Testament where tossed out by Jesus Christ in the New Testament? Did Jesus ever say that adultery, fornication and/or sexual immorality etc., are A-Okay under the New Covenant? No, he did not. So that tells us that ALL those things (Moral Law) still apply today for believers. It is still wrong to rape, murder, commit incest, adultery, fornication and all forms of sexual immorality as defined by God (man didn't decide what was immoral, God did). The liberal (religious, not political) argument that is spewed out about Leviticus Moral laws only apply to Jews is a house built on sand with the tide coming in.
The Moral Laws include (but are not limited to) not murdering, raping, stealing, fornicating, incest, sex with animals and more, those things are still wrong. The liberal religious thinking that gay relationships are okay after Jesus came is absurd. You can't pick one Old Testament sexual abomination and say "This one is OK now, but all the others are still abominations." Either they ALL are or they are not. Is it OK for a father to have sex with his daughter now? Is it OK for a brother to have sex with his sister in law now? Is it OK for siblings to have sex now? All of these are listed in Lev.18 as wrong, sinful and you can't pick one out of this list and stamp it as "good" while rejecting the rest as still wrong. That is ridiculous. All the sexual immorality abominations in Lev.18 are still abominations in the New Testament. Jesus never said "Oh and by the way, all those sexual abominations in Lev. still hold true except for the "man with man" one, you can do that all ya want now." That is not biblical no matter how people try to twist the Word of God or justify their actions. God will not be mocked and the Truth will always be the Truth. That will not change no matter who says what.
The Word of God is built on the Rock of Truth, not the sand of the liberal religious wishing to rewrite the Word. The Old and New Testaments up hold Moral Law, all Moral Law.
Romans 1:24 "Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."
Also, 1 Cor.5 addresses the issue of the sexually immoral (in all its forms) within the church and what the church is told to do about these people (vs 13). The strawman that some attempt to build (that we've all heard a thousand times) is "well you eat shellfish! blah, blah, blah" (referencing dietary laws placed on the Jews under the Old Covenant). Apparently these people can't grasp the difference between dietary laws and Moral Law (and Jesus knew it too when he said "Are you so dull?"). Jesus was clear on the dietary law in the New Testament.
Mark 7:18 "Are you so dull?" he [Jesus] asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? 19For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.") 20He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' 21For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'"
The next strawman that gets tossed out by some is "Monogamous gay love is OK with Jesus". Where did that come from? Certainly not God or the bible in any verses we can find. Monogamy has nothing to do with it. The sin is the same if you have one partner or a hundred! It's the relationship that is wrong. That's a bit like saying a father who has four daughters isn't wrong if he has sex with only one of them, but if he has sex with all of them then its wrong. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. The relationship is immoral. That is the sin according to scriptures. The amount of times the act happens is just how many times you need to repent of the same sin. That is The Word of God, no one has to accept it for their lives, Christianity isn't forced on anyone. But if you claim to be a Christian then you must accept and believe the Word of God taught by Christ our Savior. That is how we follow Christ and become Christians by believing the Word and accepting it as the Word of our God and Savior.
If we do not repent or accept God's teaching then God is not our Father but Satan is. Satan is the one rejecting the Word and deceiving people. Jesus came and gave us the gift of salvation. We have free will to reject that gift, but in order to receive that gift we must not deny the Word of God. Repentance is part of our relationship with our Father- but not our whole relationship. If you don't accept what God calls sin and you don't repent of all the things He tells us are sin (God decides what is sin, not man) then we are not being Christians following our Lord and Savior. We are less than true Christians if we only adhere to what we want to accept. God never gave us multiple choice on sins. He declares what is sin and we (Christians) must believe Him. Who are we to tell God He is wrong? The bible is clear on Moral Law, it stands today the same as yesterday and generations ago. God never changed Moral Law, what was wrong before is still wrong now.