Calling the Priest "father"

Most Protestants will say that Catholics are wrong for calling the priest “father.” They will also use scripture to back up their argument. They use Matthew 23:9; Call no man on earth your father: you have but one Father in heaven. Now how do catholic reply to this verse? We reply with a firm AMEN! This will throw them off, thinking that this was supporting their argument. Remember the Catholic Church does not go against scripture, it’s our book! So replying with Amen, would only be agreeing to that verse but not agreeing with their interpretation of that verse. Most of the time, Protestants will take the text out of context. This verse in context is talking about how the Pharisees and Kings were making people worship them; by forcing the people to call them “Father.” Now if the bible was talking about not using the word “father” in any situation then it would contradict itself. Let’s see some scripture that would give this a good argument.

Matthew 3:9= and do not presume to say to yourselves, “we have Abraham as our father.” For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. As we seen here Jesus himself calls Abraham our father. Notice the word father is lower case.

Romans 4:16= For this reason, it depends on faith, so that it may be a gift, and the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to those who follow the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all of us. Abraham is called the father of us all; Notice again, father is lower case.
Now let’s see how this word “Father” is also used in the bible.

Hebrews 12:9-10= Besides this, we have had our earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not then submit all the more to the Father of spirits and live? Notice here, it separates our earthly fathers and the Father of spirits. Also see that our earthly fathers are lower case, and the word Father of Spirit is upper case. Here we see different kind of fathers. Let’s keep going.

Ephesians 3:14 = for this reason I kneel before the Father, notice here they are talking about God the Father so the word Father is once again upper case.

1 John 2:13-14= I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you young men, because you have conquered the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. Again, talking about earthly fathers and God the Father, notice the casing of the word Father when they talk about earthly fathers and the heavenly Father.
So at this point, you made it known that it’s acceptable to call our dad father as they do in the bible, and its ok to call our heavenly Father by Father as they do in the bible as well. But now what about priests? Is that ok? Well let’s look into it and see if the bible says anything about it.

1 Corinthians 4:15= even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. As we see St. Paul is saying he became our father through the gospel. So there is God the Father, our earthly fathers, and now we see a father through the gospel.
Ok, now let’s look at the obvious; the 4^th commandment is Honor your father and mother. We can see here it was ok to call our mother as mother and father as father. If they try to say this is talking about our heavenly Father, then who would it be talking about when it says Mother? For sure, they will not say Our heavenly Mother. The commandments are broken into 2 sections. Commandments one to three call us to a fidelity to God. Commandments four to ten involve a commitment to each other here on earth. Also, see in Exodus 20:12 where the fourth commandment is given, mother and father is lower case, not meaning God the Father.
So we can see the bible uses the word “father” in three different contexts, God the father, earthly fathers, and Gospel fathers. Gospel fathers is where our priest fall in. The real question would be, why don’t protestants call there pastures father, since they are the ones leading them through the gospel?
Here are some more verses you can look up to see that this word father is used not only in God the Father but earthly and Gospel fathers.

Luke 16:24, Matthew 10:21, 1 Tim 5:1, Acts 7:1-2, Luke 14:26, Exodus 20:12, James 2, 21, Mal 1:6, Exodus 21:15 and many more.

-AVM