The Bible says call no man father! Answers to common objections IV, seriatim.

dd it is that the same per­son who insists that “This is my body” is just a metaphor also insists that “Call no man father” must be utter­ly lit­er­al. But no one real­ly thinks that I can not call my dad “father.” No one real­ly thinks I can not call George Wash­ing­ton “the father of his coun­try.” (Well, maybe there are a few odd­balls who do say such things, but the real objec­tion is not to call­ing dads “father” or Wash­ing­tons “father” but to call­ing priests “father.” They reserve this objec­tion for priests.)

And, to be fair, there is a cer­tain log­ic in this par­tic­u­lar lim­i­ta­tion. Even though Christ says “call no man father,” the con­text is a dis­cus­sion of reli­gious titles. This is part of a longer pas­sage in which Christ con­demns the Phar­isees.

All their works they do for to be seen of men. They make broad their phy­lac­ter­ies, and enlarge the bor­ders of their gar­ments, and love the upper­most rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the syn­a­gogues, and greet­ings in the mar­kets, and to be called of men, Rab­bi, Rab­bi. But be not ye called Rab­bi: for one is your Mas­ter, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heav­en. Nei­ther be ye called mas­ters: for one is your Mas­ter, even Christ.

Of course, Christ does not just say “Call no man father,” but “call no man mas­ter” and “call no man teacher.” So must we not use the phrase “mas­ter crafts­man”? Should I refrain from say­ing, “Dr. Allen is my piano teacher”? For that mat­ter, should we stop giv­ing any­one doc­tor­al degrees? (“Doc­tor” means “teacher,” since it comes from the Latin docere, mean­ing “to teach.”)

Yes, I know the con­text is reli­gious titles. And I am get­ting there. But no one objects to call­ing John MacArthur, a not­ed anti-Catholic min­is­ter, Dr. MacArthur. No one cites Matt. 23:10 in a huff and says don’t call Dr.* James White “doc­tor,” with or with­out the aster­isk. The unac­cred­it­ed diplo­ma mill is enough of an objec­tion where he is con­cerned.

So, again, this is all very selec­tive. This is all about the Catholic priest­hood. The one thing Christ real­ly for­bids, appar­ent­ly, is to call priests “father.” And cer­tain­ly, cer­tain­ly we are for­bid­den to call popes “Holy Father.”

But we are allowed to call our ances­tors “father.” “Was not our father Abra­ham,” St. James asks, “jus­ti­fied by works?” (See what I did there?)

Now lis­ten up. Abra­ham was not mere­ly the father of the nation of Israel. He was also the father of the faith of Israel. Indeed, Abra­ham, accord­ing to St. Paul, is the father of all who have faith:

There­fore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abra­ham; who is the father of us all. (Romans 4:16)

So here—and specif­i­cal­ly in a reli­gious context—Abraham is called “the father of us all.” More­over, Paul fre­quent­ly reminds us of his own role as a spir­i­tu­al father. He is a father to Tim­o­thy (1 Cor. 4:17; 1 Tim. 1:2; Phil 2:22). He is a father to Titus (Titus 1:4). He is a father to Ones­imus (Phile­mon 10). And he writes to the Corinthi­ans: “I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Cor. 4:14–15).

So then, what did Jesus mean by “call no man father”?

I think the key to answer­ing that is to note that, if he is speak­ing about reli­gious titles, he is also speak­ing about con­ceit and pre­ten­tious­ness. That’s the more per­ti­nent con­text. Christ is not upset with titles per se; he is upset with peo­ple who lord their titles over oth­ers. They love to be called “father” and “mas­ter” and “teacher.” The title could be any­thing; it could be “Mr. Pres­i­dent,” or it could be “Grand Poohbah of the Fifth Realm.” Father is inci­den­tal. They love the chief seats, the upper rooms, greet­ings in the mar­ket­place. Like Nar­cis­sus, they would gaze into the water upon their broad phy­lac­ter­ies or long cap­pa mag­nas. It’s not titles that pique Christ’s ire, but pre­tense.

And this is why Christ decides to give his dis­ci­ples a les­son, not about vocab­u­lary, but about the fact that the source of all author­i­ty, the source of all father­hood, and all knowl­edge, and all instruc­tion, is in God. It’s not all about you, Phar­isees; stop being so vain. That’s the sense of what Christ says; “call no man father” is hyper­bole to make that point.