RE Verse reading–Matthew 23 (day four) “And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and He is in heaven.” (vs 9) We call it a “personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ”. I am not sure the words are completely adequate. I am certain that the concept is both correct and necessary. In Matthew 23, the Lord is teaching against our tendency to submit too much to human authority, to imagine that they do more for us than they actually do. The essential fact of fatherhood is the power to impart life. When medieval people called a king “sire” they were crediting him with this power. No man can give life–not through sacrament, inspiration or physical reproduction. Only God gives life. While we submit, for the sake of conscience, to all human authority it is always in a measured/boundaried way. Our real dependence, and therefore our ultimate submission belongs exclusively to God.
