Matthew 23:1-12 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.
But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
It cannot be much clearer.
I can only conclude that people don't see what Jesus meant because they don't want to see. There can be no other reason.
The (non-Irish) Catholics, at the time, were calling their diocesan clergy (the typical parish priests) "Mister" or the vernacular equivalent (Monsieur, Senor) or Don/Dom.
This all switched around when Irish refugees --- who called both monastic and ordinary parish clergy "Father" ----started pouring into the U.S. during the Great Hunger (1840's).
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I do ask you to read it and comment.
I find it rather telling, that when the most literal of the Fundamentalidts were getting organized in the U.S., they called their pastors "Father," and read Jesus' words about "father,""master," and "teacher" as injunctions against the Pharisees' vainglory, not a ban on applying those words to "any man on earth."
What changed that? Read the history: Irish immigration.
As the author says,
In a class by itself is "Reverend." The most common designation for contemporary Protestant clergy, it also seems the most objectionable. To be sure, "Reverend" is gender-free. But it possesses neither a biblical nor a patristic lineage. The King James Version employs the word only once (for God, in Psalms 111:9)..."
And the Protestant fondness for "Doctor" really clinches the case. "Doctor" is, of course, directly and explicitly "teacher," --- found in verses 9 and 10, almost never quoted in these discussions of Matthew 2:8, 9, and 10.
Strong's
doctor, master, teacher.
From didasko; an instructor (genitive case or specially) -- doctor, master, teacher.
See GREEK didasko
Shall we ban the vainglorious M.Div? Or erase "Doctor" from all those learned Protestant, Fundamentalist and Evangelical clergy??
You tell me.
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Some will twist their minds into Gordian knots to defend the religion of Catholicism, which is not Christianity but an Org which tries to look like CHRIST ianity. Jesus spoke of their destiny ...