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Shalom ( Peace ) to all , Matt 23:9 KJV : Jesus Said this ; And Call NO MAN your Father upon the Earth : for one is your Father , which is in Heaven !!! Bless all that Posted , glory to God through Christ , amen shalom !!!

Jesus was using hyperbole. For He was not forbidding us to to call those "fathers" who actually are such—either literally or spiritually. If you call your actual father your "father", you would be stating a fact, a truth, and of course Christ is not opposed to truth. Rather, He is warning people against inaccurately attributing fatherhood, or a particular kind or degree of fatherhood, to those who do not have it. Incidentally, our Lord also condemns calling people doctors (teachers) in Mt 23:10, however again, He is speaking in hyperbole.

St. Paul referred to himself as a father to the young bishop, St. Timothy, when he wrote in Phil 2:22: "But Timothy’s worth you know, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel" (Phil. 2:22). Also, St. Paul refers to himself as a father to a few other of his converts: "To Titus, my true child in a common faith: grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior" (Titus 1:4); "I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment" (Philem. 10). Neither Titus nor Onesimus were St. Paul's biological sons. Rather, St. Paul is speaking of himself as their spiritual fathers. St. Paul also told the Corinthians that he was their spiritual father: "I do not write this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (1 Cor. 4:14–15).

God bless,
Campion

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Contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere. - St. Thomas Aquinas

In context, Jesus was speaking to the equality of all believers before God. Christ is our common mediator with God and we are all his disciples, no one else's. Matthew's gospel was written to a Jewish audience who probably understood the term "father," as Jesus used it here, as meaning an authoritative teacher of the law who would have his own disciples—something more than a title of respect, which is the way modern Roman Catholics generally use it. In actual usage, the modern Roman Catholic title of "Father" parallels the Protestant usage of "Reverend" and "Pastor." It was not the word that Jesus objected to, but the meaning that Jews in his time attributed to it.

Use of the title of "Father" is not unique to Roman Catholic Christians. According to David L. Holmes, a professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary, "Father" was a commonly used term in colonial America for respected Protestant clergymen and other respected men of the church: missionary pioneers, founders of religious communities and denominations, and elderly men who were mature in their faith. Meanwhile, Roman Catholic priests in colonial America were usually addressed as "Mister" because they were mostly nonmonastic clergy and Roman Catholic practice restricted "Father" to priests of monastic orders. Protestants in America only discontinued their usage of the term after the surge in Irish immigration during the 1840s. Irish immigrants were mostly Roman Catholic and their practice was to address all priests as "Father." By the end of the Victorian period, the Irish had influenced English-speaking Roman Catholicism to call every priest "Father" and Protestants came to view the term of address as characteristic of the RCC.

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Thanks to each of you for a very helpful discussion of an issue which has disturbed me a good deal for years. Perhaps one of the most important issues in this discussion is recognition that our Christian language, and perhaps even some of our worship practices, may need to change over time because of the changes in our culture and the need to change to be sure we communicate (and evangelize) effectively. I am very curious how Bible.org readers feel after this discussion about the use of the term father.
I am currently reading CS Lewis' The Grand Miracle, which includes a chapter (9) on Christian Apologetics that stresses the importance of recognizing language changes and multiple meanings-- which I strongly recommend despite some concern that this posthumous publication (1970- ed by Lewis' secretary and executor, Warren Hooper) may have made some fairly extreme alterations to the Lewis classics Miracles and God in the Dock. I suppose that warrants a separate post elsewhere, hopefully soon.

I think Christ was saying God the Father is the final authority. No one else is.

God the Father alone, provides and protects us. Look to no one else for these things. It's all up to him.