"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)

If the Catholic church was accused of getting it wrong, the apostles would also be guilty. As we see another type of fatherhood emerging in the New Testament which is a spiritual fatherhood. St Paul explains this best in 1 Corinthians 4:14-15 "For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel." Paul often refers to Timothy and Titus as his children although they were not biologically related. In Philemon 10, he also addresses himself as the father of Onesimus. Paul goes one step ahead so as to call the entire church under his care as children in 2 Corintians 12:14 and Galatians 4:19. John also addresses his readers as children and so also Peter refers to Mark as his son. 

The apostles see their roles as spiritual fathers and following the footsteps of the apostles the church calls priest as fathers as they groom us in the faith. The word Pope also comes from the Latin papa, meaning father. The term 'holy' is not reserved only for God in the Bible. Something which is consecrated to God is said to be holy such as Israel the holy nation, early Christians called themselves holy ones or saints, even the goat to be sacrificed in Leviticus 10:17 is called holy. If we are called holy people, it would be fitting to call the head of these people on earth 'Holy Father'. 

If therefore, we can use the term father in these circumstances, what does Jesus mean when he says "call no man your father". Jesus often uses figure of speech, such as Hyperbole to bring across a point. For example when he says " If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26) He obviously doesn't want us to hate our families but to make God the first priority in our lives. In the same way the point Jesus is trying to make when he says "Call no man your father" is not to equate another human being as equal to God. There is a good reason he said this. 

In the beginning of chapter 23 of the Book of Matthew, Jesus tells us "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat". The law was given by God through Moses and the Pharisees were now in charge of teaching it however pride got the better of them and they started to see themselves as the ultimate authority. They used the law to exert power over people and made it a heavy burden while conveniently creating loopholes for themselves. Jesus criticizes their proud attitude of demanding honor and not humbling themselves before the God. He warns against the need for power for domination and demands the power of service. 

If one were to hold on to the notion that it is wrong to call priest fathers, they must also explain why they use terms like 'teacher' or 'master', as Jesus in the same passage says call no one rabbi/ teacher and call no one master/instructor. The use of terms such as 'doctor' would also not be applicable as it means teacher. Therefore commonsense should tell us not to take the statement literally but to understand it as the early church did that is "if you want to be great, you must be the servant of all".