CONFRONTING THE CONFUSION:
SPIRITUAL FATHERING!
By Apostle Joseph Prude
That scripture is,
Matthew 23:9 (KJV)
And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
I. BIBLICAL EXEGESIS
A. One of the fundamental principles of biblical exegesis is this, you cannot build a doctrine based on one verse. The Scripture plainly teaches us that every word is established by two or three witnesses.
2 Corinthians 13:1 (KJV)
This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.
B. The Greek word here for word is the word (rhema) which means a revelatory or revealed word. So, in other words, "every revelation must have other witnesses beyond just the revelation." We cannot take one verse to build a doctrine.
C. There is another important element of proper biblical exegesis. It is what we call biblical modeling. We see this plainly as Jesus gave instructions to the disciples. As they later became apostles, we see them modeling his teaching, applying it, and fleshing out everything that Jesus said. Soo, their modeling and fleshing out of what Jesus said, gives us clearer insight, as to what he meant.
D. Therefore, with that as a foundational principle, let’s begin to look at how the apostles understood Jesus’s instructions not to call any man father upon the earth.
To see this we will look at some of the statements of the Apostle Paul. He had a greater revelation of Jesus, than the other 11 had. He had never seen Jesus in the flesh, but he saw the resurrected Christ, which was an even greater revelation.
Recently, there has been the spread of a false teaching in the body of Christ, that says there is no such thing as a spiritual father or spiritual fathering. This teaching is basically built around the misinterpretation of one single verse of Scripture.