LUKE 2:49; PSALM 89:26

When the boy Jesus was found missing after a Passover festival, his parents found him in the temple. They asked him why he was there and he replied, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (NRSV)

First, two comments regarding the translation of this reply:

1. Since Mary and Joseph were hearing Jesus' comment and not reading it as we are, they would be naturally confused since Joseph's house certainly wasn't in Jerusalem. And even if they had read the reply, they still wouldn't have been able to distinguish between Father and father, since such capitalizations didn't exist in Aramaic, Greek or Hebrew.

2. In the original Greek, you may be surprised to learn that the word "house" isn't present at all. That is the reason other translations read differently:

    "about my Father's business" (KJV)

    NASB has "house" in italics but footnotes the fact(s) that (a) the passage literally in the Greek reads "in the things of my Father" and (b) "affairs" is an alternative translation.

    "busy with my Father's affairs" (Jerusalem Bible)

Next comes a trick question: Is it true, as some commentators have remarked, that this is the first time in the Bible someone called God his Father?

Most scholars will rightly point out that on the few occasions where someone in the Old Testament prayed to God saying "My Father," he was doing so on behalf of the nation of Israel and using the phrase in a collective sense, not a personal one. 

However, they ignore Psalm 89 written by Ethan the Ezrahite. All ten commentaries I consulted on this psalm agree that this is a prophecy specifically concerning King David. In verse 26, Ethan transmits God's message: "He shall cry to me, 'You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation!'" So we know that if this prophecy came true, then David was the first one in the Bible to call God his personal Father, not Jesus.

Mounce (The Book of Revelation, p. 71) states that the promises are to David and extended to his descendants, culminating in Jesus.  And Derek Kidner (Psalms 73-150) specifically says that here amazingly the phrase "my Father" is to be addressed by an individual not the corporate people.