Correct, but I think you miss the essence of the point here. A mother, teaching her child the alphabet is being a 'rabbi'... a 'teacher'. That is fine. If she were to insist upon her child calling her 'Rabbi' because she is his teacher, that would not be fine. If she were to insist upon wearing special robes and cause the child to assume some submissive posturing in her presence, while in her robes... well, that's just awful.
As for Father, so you do note that it does have usage in a context other than to refer to God the Father, as in Hebrew it had patriarchal links with the likes of Abraham.
Of course it does, and that continues throughout the NT.
I am an 'original image' guy - I think that the adversary gets unending pleasure from corrupting the images that YHWH set forth (which is why, btw, I am an avid iconoclast). the alternate image skews what the Father intended.
The title of father is ordained by YHWH upon one type, and one class, and the two are intimately inter-related. It is a title with tremendous power... Perhaps the most powerful office ever bestowed upon men:
The father is the strong man of the house. He is empowered to write his own law, and his wife and children, all who are in his house, must obey him. He is, to that house, the chief lawgiver, the chief judge, the chief prosecutor, the chief educator, the chief protector, and the chief provider. He is rightly given honor. As his house grows, and he ages, he becomes an elder, a grandfather, to be honored because of his wisdom. His power is also projected externally, as he is given a seat at the community's table, and participates in decisions there too.
This is the original image of a father. The seat of all human power and wisdom. This is the image given to us, and the one YHWH uses to describe himself. That image needs to be perfectly preserved, because otherwise, if the image changes, then what YHWH calls Himself is changed. And that image IS perfectly preserved right where YHWH ordained that it should be. ALL the rest are false. They do not have the power YHWH put upon the father.
There is little surprise that men would want to co-opt that image to suit their own purpose. And they did, and still DO.
But in the very same passage (Matt 23), Yeshua removes that tendency - beginning with discipleship - The first verses tear down the patriarchal system of the Pharisees. Every disciple is a disciple of Moses, not Shammai or Hillel (as instances). There IS NO succession. There is no tradition.
Likewise, every disciple of Yeshua is a disciple of Yeshua, not Peter, or Paul, or Francis, or Calvin or Luther. All of those spurious spiritual 'bloodlines', the offense of false patriarchy, all of that is down the tubes. And all of the traditions, honorific titles, pomp and circumstance - all of that went with it.
We are left with ONE Father, and ONE Master, over all of us. They deserve to be bowed down to, and they deserve all the honorific titles.
We, who put our pants on one leg at a time, are to be brothers. Equals. Service requires servant-hood - being less than equal to your brothers. the race is to the bottom as far as prestige is concerned.
And by the way, no man's words can hold the weight of the Father and the Master - That only follows.
roamer_1:
We are spinning wheels here. I mean I have laid out the case that the Catholic Church uses Father/Pope{Papa} in the context of “spiritual fatherhood” and “patriarchal fatherhood”, both supported by the NT text and Church Fathers [See article linked earlier from newadvent] and article from ccel linking Saint Augustine’s article to Pope Caelistine where he calls him Father and refers to Boniface as Pope. In that same letter, he refers to other Catholic Bishops as Bishop. So clear reading of the text suggests 1) Saint Augustine saw the Church at Rome and its Bishop [the Pope] as having a unique and special role in helping the Church maintain unity and communion and that he saw the Pope as a “spiritual father” just as the Church at Corinth viewed Saint Paul as one and the Churches that John was writing to in 1 John viewed him.
Again, we are going to have to disagree on how the father can be applied with respect to clergy and pastors, etc.