content/08/03.md
---
pagetitle: Why are superiors styled Father and Mother?
date: February 19, 2020
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prev_date: Aug 2
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short_date: "0803"
this_date: Aug 3
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---
#### Larger Catechism
<span class="q">Q 125.</span> Why are superiors styled father and mother?
<span class="q">A.</span> Superiors are styled father and mother, both to teach them in all duties toward their inferiors, like natural parents, to express love and tenderness to them, according to their several relations;[^fnref:wlc1] and to work inferiors to a greater willingness and cheerfulness in performing their duties to their superiors, as to their parents.[^fnref:wlc2]
[^fnref:wlc1]: <div class="esv"><h5>Ephesians 6:4</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p49006004.01-1">Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.</p> </div><h5>2 Corinthians 12:14</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p47012014.01-2">Here for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.</p> </div><h5>1 Thessalonians 2:7-8</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p52002007.01-3">But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.</p> </div><h5>1 Thessalonians 2:11</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p52002011.01-4">For you know how, like a father with his children,</p> </div><h5>Numbers 11:11-12</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p04011011.01-5">Moses said to the <span class="small-caps">Lord</span>, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers? (<a href="http://www.esv.org" class="copyright">ESV</a>)</p> </div> </div>
[^fnref:wlc2]: <div class="esv"><h5>1 Corinthians 4:14-16</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p46004014.01-1">I do not write these things 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. I urge you, then, be imitators of me.</p> </div><h5>2 Kings 5:13</h5> <div class="esv-text"><p id="p12005013.01-2">But his servants came near and said to him, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” (<a href="http://www.esv.org" class="copyright">ESV</a>)</p> </div> </div>