ContradictionsReading order 204Bible context 3 min read
Is it OK to call your father (or anyone else) father?
Matthew's sweeping prohibition clashes with other texts' ordinary and honorific uses of father for human beings.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Major
- A major event or claim with wider implications.
The broad prohibition on calling earthly men father overlaps with accepted human addresses, but the intended scope of the title remains uncertain.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Biblical speakers call earthly relatives and leaders father
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Exodus 20:12
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Exodus 20
Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Deuteronomy 5:16
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Deuteronomy 5