However, context is everything.
Jesus is addressing His believers and telling them not to address religious leaders by the title of *father*.
In no sense in that text or context is Christ saying anything about calling your own father * Father* or *Dad* or whatever.
It’s a misapplication of that verse to claim that it means children should not call their own fathers *Father*. Hyperbole is not the best thing to use for proper interpretation of Scripture.
And even should it be that Jesus meant that children should not call their dads *Father*, then the argument is, if Jesus forbids it, is it OK for Catholics to call their priests *Father* just because everyone else does it?
Is everyone else (allegedly) sinning justification for the Catholic church to disobey a command of Jesus?
If everyone else jumped over Niagara Falls, would you too?
Paul is calling himself Father. A spiritual Father.
:o) Ahem. "Context". Right you are.
Look metmom, we're not talking about nutty people going over the Falls in a barrel. We're talking about New Testament Apostles and Martyrs---- in the following quotes, Stephen, Paul and John --- addressing religious leaders as "father," and referring to themselves as "fathers" of their converts:
Acts 22:1
“Brothers and fathers, listen to the defense that I now make before you.”
Romans 4:16
For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, 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.
In none of the above cases is "father" used to mean, literally, begetter or sire. It is used to mean "father in the faith," "spiritual father," --- the same way Christians have, for millennia, called their spiritual leaders "father."
Context!
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?