Fulton Sheen and the Anti Christ

Standing on my head ^ | 11/23/2013 | Fr Dwight Longenecker

[Elsie]

Got it, just the usual dodge tirade and refusal to admit that Catholics have been correct all along.

Father; forgive ne, for I have sinned.

What's it gonna cost me THIS time?

[Mrs. Don-o]

I am not AT ALL confident that calling any man on earth “father” except your birth father, is Nicolaitanism. Especially since St. Stephen did it, right before his blessed Martyrdom, in which he literally saw the heavens open.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Here is a clearly stated comment, indeed command, by Jesus, and all I see is people explaining why we DON'T have to obey it."

Good morning, metmom. And thanks for a good discussion.

The problem here, I think, is that what you interpret as a clearly stated command, is not, and has not been, seen that way by anybody --- starting in Biblical times and for the first 1600-1700 years of Christendom, neither by Protestant nor Evangelical not Catholic nor Orthodox nor anybody else.

Taking this imperatively as a command,"Call. No. Man. On. Earth. Your. Father." --- and equally, call no man your teacher or instructor --- is in fact a quite recent innovation, and one that implies that neither St. Paul, nor St. Stephen, nor St. John knew or cared what Jesus was talking about, nor did any other Christian for a millennium and a half --- but 1600-1700 years later, some guy, probably in Germany, did.

To reprise in fewest words: Stephen, Paul and John called other men father, or were called so, in the verses I cited; so did all Christians for well over a millennium and a half; same goes for "teacher" and all its synonyms; same goes for, historically, all the early Protestants, See Link, #38; same goes for all Protestants to the present day who ever referred to another man as "my teacher" or "my instructor" or "my mentor," or "my tutor" (all synonyms for "teacher") or who accept titles like "Doctor" or "Professor" (likewise synonyms for "teacher.")

Therefore, it is entirely reasonable to ask the innovators --- like, with all due respect, yourself --- for an explanation, both as to why not one person,including the Apostles, and including the Fathers of the Reformation ;^), understood Jesus' words in the imperative sense you ascribe to them, and why your own application of the imperative sense is so fractional that you don't even apply it to Jesus' other strictly equivalent and parallel comments about "teacher" and "instructor".

Can you see it from that point of view?

[editor-surveyor]

>> “Especially since St. Stephen did it...” <<

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Reference? (Biblical, not pagan apology)

[Mrs. Don-o]

Acts 7:2
And Stephen replied:
“Brothers and fathers, listen to me."

[editor-surveyor]

>> “Brothers and fathers, listen to me.” <<

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Seriously?

That is your “evidence?”

Logic demands understanding that he was respecting generational differences, not authority.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Seriously, editor-surveyor?

Accuracy demands that you recognize that what Jesus said --- without your interpretive gloss --- was, "Call no man on earth your father". Or "teacher". Or "instructor." Read back and forth through the chapter. There are no codicils here, no exceptions, and no modifications. By the plain words of Scripture --- as I've been so patiently schooled by my Evangelical brethren and sistren --- it's an exceptionless norm.

Romans 4:16
those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”)—

1 Corinthians 4:15
Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.

Philemon 1:10
I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment.

1 John 2:13
I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him Who is from the beginning.

If that was meant to be a flat-out imperative, then Stephen violated it when he called those men "father." Likewise John violated it when he addressed the older men in his congregation as "fathers". And emphatically, Paul violated the norm when he called himself the father of the Corinthian believers, as well as of Timothy and Onesimus.

You can't get around the fact that Jesus did not make exceptions in his statement, neither for natural fathers, nor for step-fathers, foster-fathers, adoptive fathers, distant ancestors, older men in the congregation, or Apostles: men who,like himself, preached, baptized, taught, governed, and thus called themselves, and were called, the fathers of believers.

All this converges to suggest only two reasonable inferences: either

• All of these above verses are instances of blatant disregard for Jesus' clear and plain command, or
• not a single one of them saw Jesus' words a simple imperative, but as a teaching pointing to the ultimate authority of the Heavenly Father, and of the Messiah, expressed in the well-known rhetorical style of Semitic hyperbole.

Paul calls himself the father of the Corinthian believers, and of Timothy, and of Onesimus, precisely to assert his authority. In the larger context of these same Epistles that you see that Abraham is addressed as "father" int the same way: as a type of the real Father.

This applies, as Jesus said in his exceptionless statement, to EVERY one called "father" --- even natural fathers ---that they have no primary original authority, but only secondary, derivative authority, since every father, of whatever kind, is a "type" of the real Father. It's only because they are types, that anyone --- even our natural fathers --- 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.

[editor-surveyor]

Please stop twisting the obvious meaning of Yeshua’s words!

He commented on this subject sufficiently to make himself clear. If the comment in the gospel is insufficient for you, the comments in the Letters to the Kehilot in the Revelation should clear it all up.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Let Scripture interpret Scripture" is a pretty good hermeneutic to follow. That's why I relied on Stephen, John, and Paul to illustrate how they interpreted Jesus' words. I am confident in your ability to, eventually, see how certain conclusions follow from that.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving, editor-surveyor!

[editor-surveyor]

John and Paul do absolutely nothing to advance your cause; name dropping is just a fun diversion.

[Mrs. Don-o]

This seems to be genuine uncomprehension. No hard feelings, let's move on.

Have a Blessed Thanksgiving.

[editor-surveyor]

When a follower of Yeshua reads those verses, they have full comprehension of what they are saying, because they are not trying to do apologetics for pagan doctrine. Especially John would never make the mistake you attribute to him, since he, his bro James, and his Mother were personally chided by Yeshua for attempting what you assume. (they had their Mother appeal to Yeshua to seat them at his right hand)

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Especially John would never make the mistake you attribute to him,"

This comment makes no sense, since I did not attribute any mistake to John. Quite the opposite: I said he was NOT making a mistake. He addresses people in his congregation as "fathers" and "brothers", and in doing so was NOT violating the Savior's commands.

"...he, his bro James, and his Mother were personally chided by Yeshua for attempting what you assume."

"Attempting what [I] assume"?? What the blue blazes are you talking about? I didn't assume any "attempt" on John's part at all.

Whatever it is you're refuting, it has nothing to do with what I wrote. Where did I attribute any mistake to John? Where did I "assume" he was making some kind of bogus "attempt"? You have it very much twisty-tailed around.

I'm the one who's arguing that it was perfectly OK for John to call men "fathers and brothers."

It is exasperating to be accused of things I never said.

[editor-surveyor]

John never addressed anyone as a father to him. He never elevated any man in any way.

[Mrs. Don-o]

John addressed the men he wrote to as "fathers":

1 John 2:13
I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him Who is from the beginning.

It's a term of respect. Simple as can be.

[editor-surveyor]

A little CONTEXT blows your theory away:

1John 2:

[8] Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.
[9] He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.
[10] He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
[11] But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
[12] I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.
[13] I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.
[14] I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.

So we see that he speaks only in differentiating the generations, not to elevate the stature of the (uncapitalized) fathers.

To imply differently is what I call deception.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"A little CONTEXT blows your theory away... he speaks only in differentiating the generations, not to elevate the stature of the (uncapitalized) fathers."

What do you mean by "my theory"? I didn't write any theory. Quite the opposite: it was perfectly customary and unremarkable in Apostolic times to call older men "fathers". That's very much my point. I sure didn't say anything about elevating the stature of the "uncapitalized" fathers.

So again and again (and again), you're refuting things I didn't say.

(By the way, when you're trying to discern the meaning of a text, it helps to know just a little teeny bit about the original language. The Greek New Testament was written in all capital letters, without spaces, punctuation, accents or diacritical marks. "Uncapitalized" is completely irrelevant in this context: it was all capitalized.)

[editor-surveyor]

The true “original language” was Hebrew; John couldn’t even speak Greek, and certainly couldn’t write it. Hebrew also uses uniform letters, but that isn’t as important as the fact that every early English translator left ‘fathers’ uncapitalized, and did capitalize Father, when it referred to Yehova.

What I mean by your theory goes back to when you first offered the verse out of context in support of addressing men as father in authority. Neither John, Stephen, nor Paul ever did that. It was always generational when they used the word.

[Mrs. Don-o]

That's right: both Hebrew and Koine Greek use uniform letters, so one can't distinguish between capitals and lower case letters. The question of whether to write a word with an initial capital would therefore be a scholarly supposal involving interpretation, not inspiration.

The full rules of capitalization for English are complicated, and have also changed over time. To us, an 18th-century document uses initial capitals excessively. And you can throw all this into the air when it comes to languages like German, which have entirely different rules for capitalization, with different implications for meaning.

Therefore I would caution against reading too much into capitalization or lack thereof, by English Bible translators: your argument could be kaput in German.

And the consensus among biblical scholars is that all four canonical gospels were originally written in Greek. Where do you get the idea that John couldn't read or write Greek? This sort of statement makes me think you are getting your information from sources radically other than, and counter to, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Scripture scholarship.

Who are your scholars? Can you link to a website?

[editor-surveyor]

>> “And the consensus” <<

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Yes, like Global Warming.

The evidence, on the other hand is to the contrary in almost all of the books of the NT. Evidence of translation is strong. The consensus people had an agenda, and so did their Father.