Posted on 11/23/2013 3:32:28 PM PST by markomalley
They are referred to as fathers but none are addressed by anyone as father as your references indicate...So it's not a personal interpretation, it's what God says...It would be very odd that millions of people could come up with the exact same personal, private interpretation...
Abraham is the only one who is addressed as Father but he in that case is a type of the real Father...
Nor tomorrow...
The anti-Christ know exactly who and what God is...
Of course the elect will be deceived and follow the antichrist. They already do.
Nope...The elect have not nor will they be deceived and follow the anti-Christ...Both of these positions are anti-biblical...
Great article. Thank you.
I was using an “interpret Scripture by Scripture” argument. That’s not the same as an “everyone else is doing it” argument.
I don't know of any "millions" who have come up with "this exact same private interpretation." There are almost no churches which teach such a thing. In fact none of them teach, exactly, what a literal interpretation would dictate, that "no man on earth" is to be called father. All of them permit calling fathers, fathers. And teachers, teachers. And instructors, instructors. All of them
I don't know of a one of them who object, even, to calling Martin Luther the "Father of the Reformation," or John Paul Jones the "Father of the Navy," or James Madison the "Father of the Constitution" or George Washington the "Father of His Country." These are still just derivatives of, and analogies to, the Only Father.
"Abraham is the only one who is addressed as Father but he in that case is a type of the real Father..."
Yes. YES! There you have it! Furthermore, all of the churches understand, just as Catholics do, that EVERY father is a "type" of the real Father. It's only because they are types, that they can be called 'father' at all:
Ephesians 3:14-15 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its name.
OK, Scripture interprets Scripture..
About Peter = rock thing.....
Hey, Elsie, about those passages on God = rock.....
And then we can get back to the eucharist and the prohibition against eating blood.
And while we're at it, the whole who we pray to.
And whether any human being can be sinless.....
And the list goes on....
Why when Catholics want to call their priests *Father* do they insist on *Scripture interprets Scripture* and when non-Catholics do it with some other sacred cow of the Catholics, it's called YOPIOS and not valid?
Don't you know a PICTURE worth a thousand words?
Call narses for his input...
Why verga?
Well; I was thinking of him and just KNEW he'd feel slighted if not included...
And then we can get back to the eucharist and the prohibition against eating blood.
Darn it; I have a LIFE!!!!
If they wanna eat blood; let 'em!
It makes ZERO impact on a person's salvation anyway.
Heck...
They can call them Ray if they want...
Why do you criticize me for not posting a picture?
Yep context is everything. You folks keep forgetting the preceding verse. As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.
How do protestants weasel out of that one?
All I saw was that he asked you a question.
Elsie's posts sometimes need to be taken with a grain of salt. A BIG one sometimes.
It would help to chill.
What Protestants call their leaders *Rabbi*?
That’s right they don’t try and weasel out of it they just dodge the question. Now about trying to actually answer the question.
It seems that protestants also used the title, father. Pesky things these facts.
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1916
Such opposition, however, is ironic in the context of church history. For American Protestants regularly called their clergy "Father" 200 and 300 years ago, and some continued to do so a century ago. And during the same years, Protestants addressed venerated women in their churches as "Mother."
The title "Father" was used in four ways in addressing clergy (see my article, "Fathers and Brethren," Church History [September 1968], pp. 298-318). In early America "Father" was a title of respect for elderly men. Although, for example, "Mister" (the designation of a gentleman and a college graduate) was the normal title for Puritan clergy in colonial New England, Congregationalists. Baptists, Methodists and German Reformed commonly addressed older ministers as "Father" well into the 19th century.
Furthermore, Protestants also employed the title for younger ministers who influenced Christian commitment and served as spiritual fathers. This usage is evident in the correspondence between early American ministers and their theological students. The journals of Methodist circuit riders as well as the records of Protestant missions to Indians and seamen also indicate this usage. Herman Melville, for example, based his character Father Mapple -- the whaleman-chaplain in Moby Dick -- on Father Edward Thompson Taylor, the Methodist pastor of Boston’s Seamen’s Bethel.
Protestants of earlier centuries also addressed founders of denominations and religious communities as "Father." American Methodists, for example, referred to John Wesley not only as "Mr. Wesley" but also as "Father Wesley." Following the custom in both genders, the Shakers called their matriarch ‘‘Mother’’ and their male leaders "Father."
Closely related was the custom of calling missionary pioneers "Father." In the 19th century, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregationalist, German Reformed, Methodist and Universalist missionaries were given the title throughout the New South and West. And American Lutherans used "Father" for their pioneer pastors, their first missionary to India, and their patriarch, Father Henry Melchior Muhlenberg.
Few in Protestant churches of earlier generations would have seen a theological problem in addressing spiritual fathers, founders or missionary pioneers as ‘Father." Just as the author of I John addressed as "fathers" the elderly who were advanced in the knowledge of Christ (I John 2:13-14), so Protestant churches applied the title to experienced ministers who had been long in the service of the church. "Fathers and Brethren" sat in ecclesiastical assemblies, and in the New Testament "Father" denoted the difference between generations.
Moreover, if calling clergy "Father" had violated biblical norms, the Christian Church and Disciples of Christ surely would have opposed it, for these groups were formed in an attempt to restore not only the doctrine and practice of primitive Christianity, but also its very nomenclature. Warren Stone’s motto was "Bible names for Bible things." And Thomas and Alexander Campbell stood on the phrase, "Where the Bible speaks, we speak: where it is silent, we are silent." Ridiculing "Reverend" and "Doctor" as "unscriptural," Alexander Campbell even employed the words of Jesus in Matthew 23:8-10 as a motto for his magazine, the Christian Baptist.
Yet church history clearly indicates that members of the Restoration Movement commonly addressed both the Campbells and Stone as "Father." Furthermore, the three founders used the term for their own clergy as well as for each other. And none of the movement’s opponents ever seemed to exploit a contradiction in the movement’s use of "Father" as a clerical title. They apparently saw no contradiction.
Maybe they haven’t looked at their Bibles for a long time and have forgotten that the words “Rabbi”, “Teacher”, “Master”, “Rabbuoni” were all spoken to or about Christ.
Is the pope your earthly father or spiritual father?
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