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Showing posts from January, 2019

"Call no man on earth Father" - what did Jesus mean?

  One of the objections other denominations of Christians have with Catholics is the use of the term 'father' for priests. You will find them quoting Matthew 23:9 "Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven". For them, calling the Pope 'Holy father' is almost blasphemous.  If you take what Jesus said literally, we wouldn't be able to address even our biological father as 'father'. Forbidding it would rob the essence of God's role as Father as we would have no earthly way of understanding it. Again it cannot prevent us from calling our ancestors as fathers or addressing someone out of respect, as the Bible refers to "our father Abraham" (Acts 7:2) "our father Isacc" (Romans 9:10). Should we forget Elisha crying out " My father, my father!" to Elijah as he was taken up to heaven in 2Kings 2:12. Then again we have Job calling himself "father to the poor" (Job 29:16)