Of Good Fathers

I have learned more about the Christian faith from my father than probably anyone else.  My father taught me how to read the Scriptures, taught me the importance of the original languages, and taught me what it means to be a man of faith.  While I know that God can use whatever means he wants to in order to teach a man, in my case, much of what I learned came from my father, at least in seed form.  Even today, when I have questions or I want to double check my interpretation of a passage I'll call my father and talk with him, because I still want to learn from his wisdom, and I know that he has more experience and has studied Scripture longer than I have been alive.  The first command with a promise is to honor your mother and your father that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving to you, and my God has made it easy for me to be able to honor my father.

My father is the one who taught me how to see the themes of Scripture and how to read the bible with a focus on the development of the thematic elements within the text.  He taught me to how to realize that God is consistent, and is consistently revealing himself in a progressive manner from Genesis to Revelation.  As I developed in reading Scripture and began to see the importance of Christ in both the Old and New Testaments, the inspiration my father gave me helped me to go from simply reading words on a page, to really understanding the depth and value of Scripture.  There was a time that I thought learning the bible would be as simple as memorizing words and concepts, but then I began to see the intricacies of God's word, that each part plays into the other in a complex web and pattern, and I realized that I would never glean all that is in Scripture.  All of this because my father taught me that what I see in Genesis carries through to what I learn from Revelation.

I would be lying if I said my father taught me Greek or Hebrew.  The fact is my father rarely mentioned the Greek alphabet and may have used a handful of Hebrew words in my life.  But, my father taught me the value of knowing Greek and Hebrew from the way he turned to those languages when I had a question.

When I wanted to know whether Isaiah really meant for us to understand Immanuel as "God with us" my father pulled out a Hebrew concordance (I still love that book) and showed me the word "el" in the Hebrew, told me it was the word Isaiah used there, and then showed me where that concordance listed every single instance of that word in Isaiah.  I then went through the whole book of Isaiah, read every verse and section that mentioned God, and realized that Isaiah only ever uses the word "el" to denote divinity.  While my father did not teach me Hebrew, he did teach me the value of knowing the language.  That's why I spent five semesters in Hebrew and Greek study in seminary, because of my father's influence on me in seeing the value of knowing the languages of Scripture.

More than knowing languages, and more than simply knowing how to read Scripture, my father taught me what it means to have faith in Scripture.  I cannot think of a time when my father ever expressed a doubt in the awesome care and love of God to me and my brothers.  Even through times of difficulty, my father has always been steady in his care of his family and his belief in Christ.  I'm sure my father has had struggles to which I was not a party, just as I have had struggles which no one will ever know about but God himself, but his words and his manner have always been strong despite those difficulties.

I have written this not just to honor my father, though I have sought to do so.  I have written this to encourage young men who have not had strong father figures, that they might know what an impact they could have on their sons and daughters if they will be the men they wish their fathers could have been.  I have written this to remind each of us of the importance of fathers and father figures, and to remind those in the church that there is a need of fathers in this world.  In America today far too many children do not have fathers, and if the men in the church are not willing to be their fathers, Satan certainly has enough of his own lined up who are ready to do the job.

I could cite statistics and new reports about how children who grow up without fathers do worse in school, are more prone to crime, and more likely to get involved in gangs and other violent activities.  I could go on and on about how single mothers are forced to leave their children unattended for long periods of time in order to work and bring home food, thus leading to even more strife in the home.  I could discuss the poverty that many children without fathers live in.  But, the reality is God made us to come from a father and a mother, and he intended for that relationship that led to our creation to also continue on in our upbringing.  It is sufficient that this is the plan of God, the horror stories are simply proof of the goodness of God's plan.

Fathers are essential to a healthy home.  God has declared himself to be a loving father.  How will we learn about God when we do not understand the idea of what it means to be a loving father?  Dear Christian men, let us honor our father in heaven, and be fathers to the fatherless in whatever way we can.  You men who have sons and daughters, care for them as best you can, and if already you have a child with a woman who is not your wife, then plead with God that you might still be a father to that child, because he will need you.  I write this as a man who had a good father, and as a man who has seen the heartbreak of many friends who did not.