While Jesus said, "And call no man your FatherI call my father for father cause that was what he was....my father, no one else gonna hear those words from me and certainly no clergyman of any kind.
But there is a certain "Fatherhood" did Christ prohibit His people to call to any mancouldnt care less what this jesus forbade, I my self choose what I want to call a man, any man
I am an Episcopalian and we call our priests "Father".
I don't think it 'robs the address "Father" of its meaning when applied to God', as stated in the article that Storm linked to. The concept of divine Fatherhood is crap anyway. God is not a man; God has maternal characteristics as well as paternal.
A priest took an alter boy walking through the woods one dark night.
After a couple of mile through the dense brush, confused and tired, the boy turned to the priest with wide terrified eyes.
" I'm scared father!" he cried.
To this the priest only smiled.
" Your scared? I'm the one who has to walk back alone."
Thank you you a great crowd!
youpi
clappingclaphysterical
Originally posted by finti
I call my father for father cause that was what he was....my father, no one else gonna hear those words from me and certainly no clergyman of any kind.
However, the "fatherhood" of our biological or natural father is not what Christ prohibited to address or call to any man.
Originally posted by etta_turr
I am an Episcopalian and we call our priests "Father".I don't think it 'robs the address "Father" of its meaning when applied to God', as stated in the article that Storm linked to. The concept of divine Fatherhood is crap anyway. God is not a man; God has maternal characteristics as well as paternal.
“And call no man your Father…”
Matthew 23:9
“Catholics rightly, therefore call the priest ‘father’, not to the exclusion of their Father in heaven, but as a manifestation on earth of the supreme Fatherhood of God in the spiritual order, even as an earthly parent is a similar manifestation of that same Fatherhood in the natural order.”
- Rev. Leslie Rumble
Another Thousand Radio Replies
p. 75
Catholic priests are called “Fathers” although they are forbidden to marry and are thus theologically forbidden to have children. They are called fathers in spite of the biblical prohibition which we can read in Matthew 23:9. Catholic authorities assert that a priest is a spiritual father like God who is the Father of spirits.
1. What does the term “father” mean? When is a man called “father”?
2. How is God a “Father”?
3. What fatherhood did Jesus mean when He prohibited the use of the term “father” as a reference to any man?
Let’s answer those questions one at a time.
1. What does the term “father” mean?
When is a man called “father”?
father (n):
(a) he who begets a child, the nearest male ancestor, a male parent
(b) a forefather or forebear, a lineal male ancestor, the progenitor of a race or family
(c) oldest member of any profession or body, a leader or head of the community
(d) one who creates, invents, makes, originates, or composes anything, the author, former, or contriver, a founder, director, or instructor, the first to practice any art
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Sources: Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Webster’s Dictionary
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By the given sets of meanings above, we can determine which fatherhood did Christ mean when He prohibited the use of the term “father” in reference to any man in Matthew 23:9.
(a) The first set of meanings is not what our Lord Jesus Christ alluded to in Matthew 23:9, because in Matthew 15:4 God commanded, “Honor thy father and mother…” In this verse, the father to be honored is not the same “father,” which is forbidden to be called on any man in Matthew 23:9.
(b) The second set is not referred to in Jesus’ prohibition, because this is where the fatherhood of Abraham belongs. Abraham, as we all know, is called the father of the Israelites.
(c) The third set is apparently not referred to by our Lord Jesus Christ as prohibition since this fatherhood is alluded to the leaders of our communities. The senators of ancient Rome were called by this term. They were called “Conscript Fathers”. The term is also used to mean the legislators of any nation or state (e.g. city dads).
(d) The fourth set of meanings is not what Christ had in mind in Matthew 23:9, since this term is commonly applied to philosophy, science and art; such as father of epic poetry (Homer), father of printing (Gutenberg), the pilgrim fathers, among others.
Some application of the term “father” is used as personification or grammatically figurative like “Fathers of Waters” to refer to the Mississippi River, “Father Time” where time is personified as a very old man carrying a scythe and an hourglass, a phrase “gathered into one’s fathers” which means to die.
These meanings are NOT in the statement of Christ’s prohibition.
2. How is God a “Father”?
In an all-embracing sense, He is the Father because He is the Creator of all things. Isaiah stated:
“But now, O LORD, thou art our Father,
we are the clay, and thou our potter;
and we all are the work of thy hand”
Isaiah 64:8
The Prophet Malachi also said:
“Have we not all one father?
Hath not one God created us?…”
Malachi 2:10
God is also our spiritual Father or “Father of spirits”:
“Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us,
and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be
in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?”
Hebrews 12:9
In a narrower sense, God is Father to His chosen people who are specifically referred to as the children of God. He is “a Father to Israel” (Jeremiah 31:9). We know that Israel was God’s chosen people in the Old Testament of the Bible.
God is Father to the Christians in the New Testament. Christians are those who receive Christ and are given the power to become sons of God:
“But as many as received him,
to them gave the power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name”
John 1:12
Catholic priests, on the other hand, who are called “fathers” by their followers, justify this by saying that since Apostle Paul called Timothy “my own son” (I Timothy 1:2) and the Christians of Galatia “my little children” (Galatians 4:19), then he must have been called by them “father’. This is mere assumption, without basis of fact. Nowhere in the New Testament does it say that the apostles were called by the title “father” as that of the Catholic sense. What is evident in the Bible is that their role was likened to that of a father, or of a mother, or of a parent who is taking care of his or her children (I Thessalonians 2:7, 11, TEV).
The fatherhood of the Apostles is considered as “fatherhood in the faith”. And the Gentile converts were considered as “children in the faith”. This fatherhood is not the same as the Fatherhood of God.
3. What fatherhood did Jesus mean when He prohibited the use of the term “father” as a reference to any man?
Matthew 23:9 reads:
“And call no man your father upon the earth:
for one is your Father, which is in heaven.”
This was part of Christ’s discourse to the Jews on their religious functions (Matthew 23). Our Lord Jesus Christ was referring to the Fatherhood of God when He said: “for one is your Father, which is in heaven.” And we all know that God our Father is the only one “Father in spirit”.
The fatherhood of the Catholic priest
Again:
“Catholics rightly, therefore call the priest ‘father’, not to the exclusion of their Father in heaven, but as a manifestation on earth of the supreme Fatherhood of God in the spiritual order, even as an earthly parent is a similar manifestation of that same Fatherhood in the natural order.”
- Rev. Leslie Rumble
Another Thousand Radio Replies
p. 75
The fatherhood of the Catholic priests stipulates the concept that the priests are called:
“parents of Jesus Christ,” and the “words of the priest create Jesus”
- St. Alphonsus De Liguori
Dignity and Duties of the Priests
pp. 32-33
But the Fatherhood of God to Jesus is reserved for God alone for God is the Creator who created Jesus Christ and is the Father of Jesus Christ… not the priests.
The Pope at Rome, on the other hand, is also called “Holy Father”. But the title “Holy Father” was used by Jesus Christ to refer to our God.
“And now I am no more in the world,
but these are in the world, and I come to thee.
Holy Father, keep through thine own name
those whom thou hast given me,
that they may be one as we are.”
John 17:11
And finally, what is really the fatherhood of the Catholic priests being referred to? At the same book by the Catholic Saint himself, Alphonsus De Liguori, it proclaims:
“St. Clement, then, had reason to say that the priest is,
as it were, a God on earth”
- St. Alphonsus De Liguori
Dignity and Duties of the Priests
pp. 36
The use of the term “father” to refer to any man in the meanings of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 23;9 is a usurpation of the honors that belong to God alone. The meanings of the term “father” as “Creator of all,” as “Father of spirits,” as “Father of Jesus Christ,” and as “Holy Father” refer to God alone. Using those meanings to refer to a man is what our Lord Jesus Christ prohibited.
The Catholic priests usurp this title. They are the personification of that:
“son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself
above all that is called God, or that is worshipped;
so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God,
showing himself that he is God”
II Thessalonians 2:3-4
Again, as to our Lord Jesus Christ’s prohibition, He said:
“And call no man your father upon the earth:
for one is your Father, which is in heaven.”
Matthew 23:9
Originally posted by lil bitchiness
So how were we meant to refer to our...uum...male mothers?
But philosophically speaking, "Male Mothers" can still be considered as "Biological Parenthood", I may suggest.