Can We Call Our Father, Father?

In Matthew 23:9, Jesus makes a rather confusing statement: "[d]o not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven," (Matthew 23:9 NASB1995). Verses such as Exodus 20:12 and Ephesians 6:2, among others, seem to contradict this statement. To answer this supposed contradiction, it is best to find out what Jesus means here.

Scholars such as Dr. Keener have noted that men in antiquity "often addressed elders ... as "fathers" (Keener 104). Jesus is making the point that rather than giving the Rabbis or elders such excessive respect, it should be given to God alone (Keener 104). This is not to say we cannot give respects to our elders, "but he prohibits his disciples from using these terms in the way the Pharisees used them, in a spirit that wrongly exalted leaders and reinforced human pride" (Crossway 1871).

References:

ESV Study Bible. United States, Crossway, 2008

Kitchen, K. A.. On the Reliability of the Old Testament. United States, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006.