Matthew 23:8-9 [1611 Authorized Version]

8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.

9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.

Fact 1:

Every time you call your priest "Father", you have just violated Matthew 23:9.  Moreover, everytime you call the Bishop of Rome "Pope", you have just violated Matthew 23:9.  From etymonline.com:

Pope 
O.E. papa, from M.L. papa "bishop, pope" (in classical L., "tutor"), from Gk. papas "patriarch, bishop," originally "father."

The very word "Pope" means "Papa" or "Father".  Every single time that word is uttered, it blasphemes Matthew 23:9.  Moreover still, everytime you call someone "Sir", you border upon blasphemy of Matthew 23:9.  From etymonline.com:

sir 
1297, title of honor of a knight or baronet (until 17c. also a title of priests), variant of sire, originally used only in unstressed position. Generalized as a respectful form of address by c.1350; used as a salutation at the beginning of letters from 1425.

sire 
c.1205, title placed before a name and denoting knighthood, from O.Fr. sire, from V.L. *seior, from L. senior "older, elder" (see senior). Standing alone and meaning "your majesty" it is attested from c.1225. General sense of "important elderly man" is from 1362; that of "father, male parent" is from c.1250. The verb meaning "to beget, to be the sire of" is attested from 1611, from the noun.

Thus, every single time you say "Sir", although by the word's deepest "etymological" roots of word-meaning you are merely saying "Senior / Elder", in modern practice you are saying "Father", heretically blaspheming Matthew 23:9.

Note that it would appear that the blasphemous re-definition of "Sire" from "Senior" to "Father" came from the 1611 Authorized Version itself.

Fact 2:

Every time you call someone "Mr.", you have just blasphemed Matthew 23:10.  Again, from etymonline.com:

mister 
as a title of courtesy before a man's Christian name, 1447, unaccented variant of master.

Every single time you and everyone else says it, or writes it, you and everyone else blasphemes Matthew 23:10.

bismarck - you are taking the passage out of its context, which is given in verses 6, 7, namely the pride and desire for status of the pharisees.  the Lords teaching is simply that the disciples were not to be like them.  He is saying that men are not to be given a position and status which distracts from the fatherhood of God.  also you have not taken your approach to its logical conclusion, which would mean we could not call our own dads "father"!

now it is quite clear from the holy scriptures that the elders in the local church are to be viewed as fathers - see 1 timothy 5: 1.  note that im not saying they are to be given the designation as a title.  there would be no scriptural justification for that.  indeed it is hard to see any justification for any title in the bible, including pastor.  functions and offices in the local church do not entail titles

as for your etymological research, i would suggest that the usage of the word gives the meaning, not its etymology

1 Timothy 5 (Authorized Version 1611)

1 Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren;

2 The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.

Saul Paulus does not tell us to call them "father, brother, mother, sister" but rather to treat them as family, treat them in a caring loving familial way.  That is, Saul Paulus tells us to treat a fellow Believer as most men would normally treat their own blood.  This is the doctrine of True Family (see Matthew 10:37, 12:46 - 50) -- a True Believer must by God's Bidding through Yeshua the Messiah be raised up above even your own blood, for Almighty God is the maker and well-spring of all things, while even your blood is one of God's wondrous doings and therefore owes all to Almighty God.  To try to switch this pecking-order is to blasphemously idolize your own created blood-heritage before Almighty God, a grievous sin indeed.  Saul Paulus is making this clear for his readers, in perfect keeping with the teachings of Yeshua the Messiah.  That is the plain reading of the text.

But likewise, the plain reading of Matthew 23:9-10 is "let no one call you 'Father' or 'Master'".  You made two (2) points:

1. The plain text must be interpreted ("according to context")
2. The uninterpreted plain text is ludicrous (it prohibits children calling their own dads "father")

You quickly see the ultimate logical extrapolation of the text (children cannot call their dad "father").  But then you, in point of fact, openly scoff at the text, assuming that such a preposterous situation would never have been intended by the Messiah.

How do you know?

How do you know that Yeshua the Messiah did not mean that, yes, truly, no no seriously, uh-huh yeah, no I'm serious yeah, children cannot call their own dads "father" -- because that cheats Almighty God of His pre-eminence, His first-ness in the hearts of all his creatures.

Why should I believe your interpretation of the text...

over the plain text itself?

Your argument, at the end of the day, does in fact boil down to, "Mmm, nah, the Messiah couldn't have meant that...."  (which in turn justifies your next step of "looking at the words in context" to derive a 'more satisfactory' interpretation).

But what makes you so sure?

Nobody ever said truly doing God's Will was easy (John 12:42)...

Yeshua the Messiah spoke in Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew that was very distinctive and marked out the Messiah's closest followers, like Simon Kephas, who were all from Galilee where the Messiah grew up (Matthew 26:73).

The words Greek and Latin manuscripts ascribe to Yeshua the Messiah are translations from Aramaic.  But in the original Aramaic, such as we see in the Pesh*tta and Khabouris Manuscript, Yeshua the Messiah did not actually say "Father" but "Abba".

Now, please note that B and P are closely related sounds (like T and D, or K and G).  With that in mind, you can see that the Aramaic "Abba" is like unto the Greek "Papa".  From Greek, the word "Papa" was transmitted to Latin, and thence to French through the Roman Catholic influence in the Frankish court of Charlemagne and his successors... and then into Norman... and thence into English when, sponsored by Pope Alexander 2, William the Conquistador murdered off 200,000 Englishmen, women and children (20% of the island's population at the time, witnessed in Willy's own Doomsday Book -- see?  that's what a Papal crusade against "Heretic England" means, see??), drove anybody else who could flee into exile, and ground the Saxon remnant into the mud and mire.  (Note for the record the sequential order of time: Papal Crusade versus England (1066), 1st Crusade versus Holy Land (1095).)

This ultimately Greek word "Papa" (possibly a Semitic loan word) replaced the old Saxon word "Tada" or "Dada", to wit, "Dad".

My point is that the word "Abba" is as intimate and personal as "Dad", as contrasted with the more formal and socially distant "Father".

And Yeshua the Messiah's injunction in Matthew 23:9 was against calling any mortal man "Abba".

So, what I hear is that "Almighty God is, and should be, closer and more intimately part of your life than any and every mortal man -- therefore, reserve the personal and intimate form of address of "Abba" for Almighty God alone, PERIOD."

And since we have shown that "Abba" is cognate to "Papa" (by etymology, word-roots) and "Dada" (by meaning), if you wanted to be very strict in your reading of Matthew 23:9...

You might be able to squeek by with not calling any mortal man "Dad", and keep that word for Almighty God alone (Matthew 23:9).

You could, then, still call mortal men "Father", as long as you deeply understood the difference, between the (social) distance and separateness implied by "Father" as contrasted against the (social) intimate closeness of "Dad".

By plain reading, however, of Matthew 23:9, you must still never utter the word "Dad" to any other mortal being, nor suffer them to so hail you, and you must still ever keep that word "Dad" solely for addressing Almighty God.

Note that this injunction against using "Dad / Papa / Abba" for any mortal man, no matter how many Opus Dei agents work for his vast war coffers, would still preclude using the title of "Pope".

Salam

Fredi, I simply would like to point something out to you.  You are asking Bismarck to do something that you, yourself, refuse to do when using Qur'an ayat for your argument against Islam.  I'm not saying it is wrong to ask someone to take something within a certain context; however, you should treat others are you are asking them to treat you.

PAZ

Sister Khadija

fredifreeloader wrote: no you really must look at things in context.  all the scriptures have to be taken into account.  i was reading in johns epistles the other day and in 1 john 2: 12-14, the apostle makes it clear who hes writing to.  he addresses one group as "little children", another group as "young men" and a third group as "fathers" - he was certainly not blaspheming God by doing so, but showing respect to the elders in accordance with the will of God.  there is also the story told by the Lord in luke 15.  the prodigal son is returning home having spent all his money.  in verse 21 he says - "Father i have sinned against heaven and in thy sight.........." - note that he was not in a prodigal condition at the time, but in a God-pleasing condition ie repentance.  the Lord Jesus would never have had him address his father as father if what youre saying is correct.  there is no question of me scoffing at any text here

The 'Prodigal Son' is a parable for the '10 Lost Tribes of Israel' who were scattered to the four winds, but are now to return unto God's graces with the coming of the Messiah.  His elder brother who stayed home is Judah, who never forsook the Covenant.  Judah scorns the Samaritans for their impurity, is the message in round numbers.

The 'Father' in the parable IS meant to BE ALMIGHTY GOD.

There is, therefore, NO BLASPHEMY in the parable NO MATTER WHAT.  The very use of the word 'Father' may, in fact, be proof, and intended as such, that the parable addresses Almighty God.

fredifreeloader wrote: no you really must look at things in context.  all the scriptures have to be taken into account.  i was reading in johns epistles the other day and in 1 john 2: 12-14, the apostle makes it clear who hes writing to.  he addresses one group as "little children", another group as "young men" and a third group as "fathers" - he was certainly not blaspheming God by doing so, but showing respect to the elders in accordance with the will of God.  there is also the story told by the Lord in luke 15.  the prodigal son is returning home having spent all his money.  in verse 21 he says - "Father i have sinned against heaven and in thy sight.........." - note that he was not in a prodigal condition at the time, but in a God-pleasing condition ie repentance.  the Lord Jesus would never have had him address his father as father if what youre saying is correct.  there is no question of me scoffing at any text here

That is a strong point on the face of itself.

I do, however, want to consult the Pesh*tta and any other Eastern, Antiochene manuscript I can that preserves John's original words in the Aramaic.  Why?  Because, to my understanding, 2 Aramaic words (Father, and Papa / Abba) are collapsed into 1 Greek word (Pateros, Strong's Number 3962).

So, for now, I still suspect that perhaps the Messiah is linking "Abba / Papa / Dad" to Almighty God...

and his followers are using the more informal and (socially) distant "Father" for mortal men...

As with the doctrine of True Family, the message I hear, loud and clear, is that ALMIGHTY GOD must be MORE DEAR TO US than ANY mortal men, even our own blood kin.

In short, I suspect that the Greek is an INCOMPLETE translation in this regard, because it does not differentiate between "Papa/Dada" and "Father", which have different meanings, although subtly so.

Also, what about "Mr." which means "master"?  Let us say I provisionally defray on "Father" until I can find some Aramaic texts...

But I do not see how you have defended the modern practice of calling all men "Mr.". 

Every time you are called, or call someone else, "Mr.", you are calling them, "Master", and violating Matthew 23:10.

And I don't buy that "Mr." only refers to religious authorities, based upon context.  The whole point of the Abrahamic Beliefs (Faiths) is that Almighty God IS the center of gravity of our lives.  There is not, and should not be, any attempt to bottle, cage, confine, leash, shackle, or otherwise chain or push back Almighty God (!) into some finite corner of our lives... as they say, 'Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile', and if that works for mortal men, it works for the Snake too.

Therefore, any authority which 'contests' the title of "Master" is wrestling with God's foothold in this world.  Such a one is not exhonerated because they say, "well, I'm only a secular authority".  For that is a double blasphemy!  First, stealing God's title.  Next, claiming a sovereignty outside of, and beyond God -- to wit, an unGodly authority over 'turf' which God does not rule!  (By definition, that is setting up an island of anti-Godly, that is, Satanic, authority.)

The Protestant Puritans made no attempt to govern without scripture, and they are the first and oldest heart of America.  Hu-rah Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army.  And I say this because the word "Master" was used by the very (Catholic & 'High Anglican') Royalists against whom the Puritans fought in the English Civil War (1642 - 48) over exactly these types of issues -- namely, un-Godly authority, power not rooted in God.  The Puritans' win in that war entrenched the very core principals of the American Constitution, so if you like the 7 articles of the Constitution and its 10 Amendments (cf, 10 Commandments), you are beholden unto the Puritans for a 'thank you'.  (This may be distinguished from what Godless God-hating Communists do in the name of the Constitution.)

SO, at the end of the day, "Mr." comes from "Master"...

"Master" comes from the (Catholic) Royalist nobility of England...

which many Puritans fought against because they thought that authority was unGodly.

If I might make one other point, the reason we call all men "Mr." today, is exactly for the same reason that we call all men and women, "Ladies and Gentlemen"...  see how those words used to be reserved for nobility alone?

And how we call all men and women by the "Second Person Plural" pronoun "You", over and above "Thou", which is the "Second Person Singular".

In Old and Middle English, preserved in the 1611 AV, "Thee / Thou / Thine" means one of you...

whereas "Ye / You / Your" means two or more of you.  What dost thou thinketh, Fredifreeloader?  What dost you thinks, Fredifreeloader, Bob and Bill?  (roughly)

The point is, "You" is technically PLURAL...

And falls in the same ballpark as the "ROYAL WE" by which the (Catholic) monarchs of England long referred to themselves.  And precisely likewise, all (Catholic) nobles were called "You" by the commonfolk.  And why did the (Catholic) nobles force everyone to acknowledge their plurality, even when there was but one of them talking to thee?

Because they were "connected".  The concept survives amongst the mafioso.  Mob bosses and their capos and other "made men" are "connected", they "know people".  And so thou, thou dingy protection-money paying commoner (!), thou must acknowledge that thou art not addressing a single stray lone wolf, nay, but rather merely one of a large and ravenous pack of (Catholic) nobles -- so thou shoulds't not forget thine place, commoner (!), or you will pay with your life and limb!

That is the meaning of the "Royal Plural" -- Royalists are "connected", they are "all part of the pack" (of Norman-rooted Catholic conquering invaders).  So don't mess with them, even if you see one out on a stroll "all by themselves", for a mob hitman is never just "by himself", if you mess with him, the whole crew will come down on you.

That is the exact intimidating implicit threat in the Royal Plural.

And now here's the real kicker.  Although those (Norman Catholic conquistador) nobles pillaged and taxed and stole and thieved and sucked out all the wealth of the Angle and Saxon commoners, thereby driving them into the dingy mire characteristic of disease-ridden commoners in every movie set in the medieval era...

even yet, because they wound up with all the money...

the very commoners they oppressed and pillaged began to look up to them!

And so, a la "keeping up with the Jones'", we started to adopt all of those (Norman Catholic) trappings of royalty...

And playrights began to humor us commoners with "Ladies and gentlemen"... "would you like butter on your popcorn"... etc.

So, my ultimate point is, all these Royalist trappings, of calling ourselves "Ladies and Gents" and using exclusively the Royal Plural in point of actual historical fact...

merely tars us all with the very same (Norman Catholic rooted) Royalist sin against which the Puritans fought 350 years ago, to give birth to the very ideals America was rooted in over 200 years ago!

See?  It is no accident that the word "Master" is tarred with the forced labor of Blacks in America!  Why?  Because when the Puritans' New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell drove the Catholics out of England in the English Civil War (1642 - 48), the Catholic Royalists fled.  Many fled to Catholic Spain (note how treasonous that is, Spain had tried to invade England in 1587 with the Great Armada, and was a longtime enemy of England -- and yet the Catholics put their 'religion' (and all the taxes they got) above all England!  That is why Charles 1, the Catholic Stuart monarch for whom the Royalists fought was beheaded by Cromwell for treason against England!  That was the first time a (Catholic) monarch had ever been subjected to the same laws as his subjects!  Thank you, Oliver Cromwell!!)

But outside of those Catholic Spain loving Royalist traitors, other Royalist traitors fled to Virginia, where they set up shop and tried to reconstitute the manors and plantations they left behind in England.  But there was a problem, with the victory of Protestantism, the notions of individual liberty, individual sovereignty over one's own conscience, and equality before the law were taking root.  Oh no!  White Englishmen don't make good human chattel anymore, what dooo we do??

Well, we substitute black forced laborers for the white Angle and Saxon serfs we had been laughing at for the past 600 years, ever since the Norman Catholic conquest of 1066!

That is, black forced labor in America...

was firstly merely a SUBSTITUTION of black Africans for white Englishmen, when whites stopped tolerating the whip....

and next was confined only to the plantations of the Catholic (and 'High Anglican') Royalist Cavaliers who fled to Virginia when Oliver Cromwell and the Protestant Puritans booted their traitorous English-hating asses out of England!

It is no accident, then, that forced human labor was confined to those lands settled by Catholic Royalists!  The Puritans in New England did not own blacks... neither did the Protestant Quakers in Pennsylvania... nor did the Protestant Presbyterian Scots-Irish in the Appalachian backwoods.  The only whites who ever owned blacks in this country... were the Catholic Royalists who had previously owned whites back in England!

God judges by the heart (Genesis 6:5; Psalm 44:21; Luke 16:15; Acts 5:4, 8:21-2, 15:8).  Perhaps we should try our best to follow suit.  And I offer their is a world of difference between a Catholic Royalist (with a white hide and an English sounding name) and a Protestant Puritan.  In fact, considering as they fought against each other, that has to be true, no matter whose side you take!

So, at the end of the day, the Catholic Royalist Plantation "Masters" who owned blacks in Virginia...

were just demanding those blacks call them by the same term "Master" that they had earlier demanded of their white Angle and Saxon serfs.

NOTE: it's also no accident that the term "Poor White Trash" originated in the South:

Wikipedia wrote: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "white trash" first came into common use in the 1830s as a pejorative used by the slaves of upper-class Southerners, often plantation aristocrats, against poor whites, below even the status of yeomen, who worked in the fields; at the time, it was synonymous with the slurs "sand hiller" and "clay eater"; "white trash" were (hyperbolically) assumed to farm ineptly on poor land and therefore resort to eating clay in order to survive.

That's what we Royalists just love to do, see?  Grind Anglish blood into the muddy mire!  Push harder, boys, wring it dry!  Squeeze that blood out!  Yeah, feels good!!!  The more things change, the more things stay the same.  See BECKET (1964) with Richard Burton for some good visuals on what the Norman Catholics did to the English 'commoners'.)

So, for example, if I allow someone to call me "Mr."...

I am letting them call me "Master"...

which is a Latin-rooted word that's only in my tongue (language)...

because it was put there by the Catholic Norman conquistadors who slaughtered my Angle and Saxon forebears 1000 years ago...

and I need not even appeal to Almighty God to show me how dumb stupid and imbicilic that would make me look....

I need only retreat back to the "5th Bidding of God" to "Give weight to your mothers and fathers!"  ("Give weight to" usually rendered 'honor'; you 'honor' not someone when you take them lightly, is the sense.)

So I need only ask up to my own forebears staring down at me from Walhalla to know that I shoulds't not want to touch the word "Mr. / Mister / Master" with a 10-foot Puritan pike.

But I will if I have to.

And strangely enough, I don't have to contort Matthew 23:10 too much to back up myself and impugn the Catholic Royalists, now do I?  I am going to stop now before I actually do blaspheme something, God help me, but this world if full of ####

Trust in God, and keep your powder dry! -- Oliver Cromwell

STRONG'S CONCORDANCE (Greek #5)

Abba = "father"

1) father, customary title used of God in prayer. Whenever it occurs in the New Testament it has the Greek interpretation joined to it, that is apparently to be explained by the fact that the Chaldee "ABBA" through frequent use in prayer, gradually acquired the nature of a most sacred proper name, to which the Greek speaking Jews added the name from their own tongue.

Mark 14:36

Romans 8:15

Galatians 4:6

It seems clear that "Abba" = "Papa" is reserved especially for prayer, like the Lord's Prayer.  It was a special word that actually acquired a sacred aspect because of its dedicated use in prayer.  This is because in prayer you ask of Almighty God directly and personally and intimately.

This is clearly not the same as the more socially distant "Father", and indeed would you pray earnestly to Almighty God, but use the "stand-offish" word "Father"?  Surely not.

So,

• There is a difference between 'Father' (far) and 'Abba / Papa (Dad)' (close)
• 'Abba / Papa (Dad)' is used more or less exclusively in prayer

My only question is, then, whether non-Prayer uses of the word "Father", such as in 1 John 2:12-14, can be categorically said to not be the same as "Abba / Papa (Dad)".  This is logical due to the exclusive prayer-use nature of the word 'Abba'.

So long as you understand the difference, then, perhaps it is legitimate to call mortal men, like you blood father and, truly even more (not to lessen your blood father, but raise up your spiritual elders), your Spiritual Elders, as "Father"...

but never "Abba / Papa (Dad)".  Indeed, I think this is practically proven by the very fact that the word "Abba" began to take on the sacred qualities normally reserved only for the tetragrammaton YHVH!

oh for goodness sake, bismarck, must we have these endless screeds? - at least your interpretation of the prodigal son was interesting, if wrong.  the context of the 3 parables (lost sheep, lost coin, lost son) is clearly pharisee and publican/sinner - see verses 1,2.  you also clearly have some axe to grind historically.  that is your problem.  i dont know why you should be bringing it all up here.

i will point out a few things i found weird.  the thought that by addressing ourselves as "ladies and gents" tars us with any sin, be it norman, catholic or royalist, is just ridiculous.  i have already given my view that usage is the key.  so mr (and mrs?) are out the window as well?  to be replaced with what? goody? ----well thats how your beloved puritans over in yankland referred to their married women.  (at least according to arthur miller in "the crucible")  is there a male equivalent of goody?

your assertion that the only whites who ever owned blacks in this country (usa?) were catholic royalists is utter rubbish.  kindly note the reference to slave galleries in the first presbyterian church of murfreesboro here

http://www.mtsu.edu/~soc/Bradley/PanelF.html - http://www.mtsu.edu/~soc/Bradley/PanelF.html

likewise in siloam baptist church, perry county, here

http://www.pinebelt.net/~sshope/history.html - http://www.pinebelt.net/~sshope/history.html

now in your explanation of the second person sing/pl pronouns you give two examples 1. what dost thou thinketh? and 2. what dost you thinks?  and then you add - "(roughly)" - yes, very roughly indeed!!!! 1. should read - what dost thou think? or what thinkest thou?  -------2. should read - what do ye think? or what think ye?  ---yes the nominative is ye, not you.  and you have conjugated what should be an infinitive  

might i suggest grammar, rather than etymology?

oh no bismarck, ive just spotted it.  now youre saying we can say father but not dad.  what can i say? thank goodness i have understood matthew 23: 8,9 correctly