Posted on 08/24/2014 3:18:46 AM PDT by markomalley
I sometimes use *pastor*, which is more in line with *shepherd*, but most of the time, use their first name.
Does that still excuse Catholics disobeying a direct, clear, simple command of Jesus?
I thought Catholics were the champions of the very words of Jesus Himself being of higher import than the rest of Scripture.
So what gives here, with this passage? Is it exempt? All of a sudden the very words spoken by Jesus are subject to revision and interpretation?
They don’t mean what they say?
That is an excellent question. Thanks for bringing it up.
metmom:
Yes the centrality of the Bible is the 4 Gospels, not that there is a canon within a canon, but the Person of Christ, all of it, is the key to how everything else is interpreted, including the NT epistles.
And of course, as I already have shown, Saint Paul disobeyed it as well, numerous times.
metmom:
The misuse of the term Father. God is the Creator and source of everything, thus in that Context, God is Father. But the term Father can refer to a Father of a nation [Abraham, Issac, David of the OT] were Fathers of the Jewish People in so much as they were chosen by God to be and cooperated with God in that fashion. Does not negate God as Father by calling each of them Father, which the NT does. A Father is also a biological term and God clearly had no problem allowing the use of the term as he commanded Honor thy Father. Saint Paul was a spiritual Father to the Churches he guided and pastored, again cooperating with God who is still God the Father, yet God works with and through human experiences and thus Saint Paul was a Father in a certain Context.
Mt 23:9 does state call no man Father, it also says do not call anyone teacher. Yet, later, In Mt 28:19-20 Christ commands his Apostles to do what, “teach” and who teaches, a “teacher” Saint Paul in 1 Timothy actually dares to call himself what? “a teacher”, along with apostle [1 Timothy 2:7].
So now we have Saint Paul calling himself 1)Father and 2) Teacher, both of which were referred to back in Mt 23.
So now Saint Paul is guilty of 2 Heresies? Calling himself “father” and “teacher”, if I were to use Fundie sola ego meo interpretation principles that you FR prots hold to. Of course, I don’t and never will.
I repeat my question since your response didn’t address it at all: What did Jesus mean in Matthew 23:9? He must have meant something. Since you reject an interpretation that seems to fit very well, what do you believe Jesus was saying?
Sorry, but you’ve now gone fully off the rails. Paul is a didaskolos, a teacher, but that is not only not a forbidden ecclesiastical title, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit given to some in the assembly for the edification of all. What Jesus prohibits are honorifics like “rabbi,” which actually means something more like “great one,” not “teacher.” It’s these lord high muckety muck titles that Jesus prohibits, not terms of natural relationship. An adjective is not a title unless everyone is expected to say it as part of your name. Such titles in the church foster pride and even idolatry, which Augustine himself understood to be the meaning of this passage. Google it.
But your strategy is the real problem here. First you make the category bigger than it really is, then you discredit it because of your alleged “obvious” infractions by Paul or whoever, and at the end of the sequence you have a command you can give lip service to, but which has no practical effect, because everybody gets to keep their honorific titles despite a plain command of Christ to the contrary. Brilliant!
Again, its your business what choices you make for yourself. As for me, I would never advise anyone to disregard a clear command of Christ, least of all because some institution says I can. Risky business.
Peace,
SR
Meant to ping you to 467. Itchy trigger finger syndrome. :)
No, Jesus said call no one teacher in Mt 23:9 [Rabbi] which means teacher. The Protestant translation that was cited was instructor, which hints at getting around the literal meaning [although it is a dynamic equivalent translation, I do recognize that].
The Catholic Dhouay Rheims Translation translates it as Rabbi, most modern Catholic Translations use Teacher which is a literal translation of the word Rabbi
No Rabi means Master of and Teacher of Jewish Law. It does not mean Great one. It’s most literal meaning is Teacher. Why don’t you look that one up?
And again, the use of the Greek word Papas was used for all Bishops of the Greek Catholic [mostly Orthodox now] to describe all Bishops and we have evidence of this dating to the 3rd century and it was also applied to priests as well. Papas means Father. Did the Greek speakers of the first few centuries of the Church not understand their own culture and language and it takes American Protestants today to figure out the true meaning of the text. Really????????????????? and you wonder why the term Ugly American is sometimes applied to Americans by non Americans. Arrogance.
Again, it has nothing to do with hygiene - No soap, no scrubbing, no cleaning under the nails - just the pouring of water from a proprietary jug, and a blessing... And it is not couched as a tradition - it is (in the blessing) directly called a commandment of YHWH, and is (in the Jewish tradition) a primary proof of the Pharisees' direct ability to add to Torah. Research the matter and you will find I am right.
You are correct though - There are times when YHWH required cleanliness - To include soap and scrubbing, and cleaning even under the nails... When one is to don the white garments, one is to be scrupulously clean (and perfectly quaffed). So the concept of actual cleanliness is not unknown - Hence, this ceremonial washing of the hands is different from that, and wholly invented...
And He continues in the passage to tick off example after example, just to drive the point home. Taken in it's context, Yeshua is railing against the traditions the Pharisees had built around the Torah.
And He did so time after time - In every instance, Yeshua derided the traditions as burdensome to the people and in some cases, directly opposing YHWH's commandments.
The Sabbath is a particularly good example - If one keeps Shabbat as YHWH commanded, it is a joyous time of rest. I look forward to it, and my reserved time with YHWH every week. But add to Torah the tenets of the Pharisee, and it truly is a burden - something it was never meant to be. And I would extend that remark to the same sort of strictures found in your religion, and among many of the Protestants.
Start from this premise: Yeshua necessarily had to have kept Torah, or He cannot have been the perfect sacrifice. So His example is the best possible example we could have wrt YHWH's intended use of Torah. So it seems to me that the things He endorsed and the things He derided necessarily hold tremendous weight.
This is an extremely important thing, as this same misplaced sense of authority is what enables our religions to be so far off the mark...
Nope. Go back and do your homework on rabbi. Means “great one.” Doesn’t mean these “great ones” didn’t do some teaching. But that was not their title. You look it up. For your reading pleasure, I will do a further word study later when I have access to my Hebrew resources. So if you don’t want to Google it, you can wait for that.
As for Ugly Americans, I never claimed to be pretty, so there! :)
Peace,
SR
Rabi is a teacher of the law and it is derived from Master, which means great one.
Exactly true, but with some extra sauce - The emphasis is upon following Torah, and not the commandments of men... Traditions.
Understanding the Pharisaical structure gives very important insight into what the problem was. They claimed direct succession from Moses by laying on of hands. They claimed TWO Torahs were handed down at Sinai, one penned by Moses for the people, and another, carried orally, to become the traditions which they employed. They claimed both the power of priest and prophet. They claimed that even YHWH HAD TO contractually listen to THEM, such was their power. They claimed congressional/corporate infallibility - They could not be wrong. They claimed to be YHWH vicariously. And they claimed that their pronouncements had the same power as Torah, or in cases, transcended Torah.
If you study what Yeshua did, you will find that He tore the core right out of their theology. If He was right (and He was), they were nothing more than usurpers - That is why they hated him so.
So, IOW, just because you think that some people may have disobeyed a clear, direct COMMAND of Jesus, that it’s OK for everyone to?
Is that how a free pass to sin works?
Gee, David committed adultery and murdered Bathsheba’s husband to try to cover it up. Just because he did, does that mean it’s OK for everyone else to as well?
metmom:
Totally different.
Nonsense.
This is what the Douay-Rheims translations says.
Matthew 23:9 And call none your father upon earth; for one is your father, who is in heaven.
http://biblehub.com/matthew/23-9.htm
And here's a link to the Greek, where it shows the word for *father* is used in the Greek.
http://biblehub.com/text/matthew/23-9.htm
The Greek word is *pater*.
Arrogance is what it is in flaunting the commands of Jesus and calling religious leaders by the title of *father* in direct defiance of the clear and plain, COMMAND of Jesus to not do so.
God said in the Ten COMMANDMENTS, do not commit adultery.
People did anyway. That doesn’t make it OK.
Jesus said to not call any one on earth by the title *father* and yet people do it anyway. But that doesn’t make it OK, either.
A command is a command. Jesus command was not a suggestion. It contained no exceptions.
All the rationalization and justification in the world isn’t going to excuse anyone from the consequences of flagrantly defying the clear command of Jesus.
So as far as CC’s question then, just what WAS Jesus forbidding when he issued that command.
Don’t think that it hasn’t been noticed that his question has been evaded.
What was nonsense, the rest of the passage just before it:
“And they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues, [7] And salutations in the market place, and to be called by men, Rabbi. [8] But be not you called Rabbi. For one is your master; and all you are brethren. [9] And call none your father upon earth; for one is your father, who is in heaven. [10] Neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, Christ.
Commentary for this Catholic Link for the DR translation
[9] Call none your father upon earth: Neither be ye called masters. The meaning is that our Father in heaven is incomparably more to be regarded, than any father upon earth: and no master to be followed, who would lead us away from Christ. But this does not hinder but that we are by the law of God to have a due respect both for our parents and spiritual fathers, (1 Cor. 4. 15) and for our masters and teachers.
Disobedience is disobedience no matter how you slice it.
The command is clear.
Call no man *father*. Period.
In context, Jesus is talking about titles given to religious leaders, which makes it all the worse for the Catholic church to openly defy His command and try to rationalize and justify it, and demand that the laity sin by using that title, to boot.
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