Father-hunger and pastoral ministry...

Yet most I thank thee, not for any deed,
But for the sense thy living self did breed
That Fatherhood is at the world’s great core.

-George MacDonald (1)

(Tim) Some years back when I first entered the pastorate, I sat in a small-town café listening to the son of a prominent church member summarize his relationship with his father: “Nothing I did ever pleased him.” In his late twenties, the son was a neer-do-well; divorced and not able to hold down a job, his children were shunted back and forth, week-by-week, from one broken home to another.

He came to church only on Christmas and Easter so our breakfast appointment was about the only chance I had. His eyes revealed the last flicker of what once had been the bright flame of father-hunger—that hunger God places in the heart of every son. None of my seminary professors had mentioned this hunger to me and I was at a loss as to how to cure his soul. Not knowing how to respond to this great sadness, I was silent...

Six years later, another young man began to attend church. He was married, had a houseful of children, and worked to support his family, but he was a hard-drinking womanizer. After attending church for a few weeks, he called mid-week and asked me to pray that he would quit drinking. Admitting his sin, he explained his father had always told him he would never amount to anything.

“I was going to show him wrong,” he said, “but he died on me.”

Songs written of the unrequited love of a man for a woman are a dime a dozen, but when Harry Chapin sang “Cat’s in the Cradle,” the tears of a fatherless child marked our nation’s conscience.

The church I currently serve is in a university community, so we have a steady stream of students joining our congregation. Not a few of the young men struggle with gender identity issues, including homosexual desires. What is the common denominator among such men?

Father-hunger. These illustrations are no denial of the formative influence of mothers in the lives of their children, but the harm suffered by children who have been raised in a home where the father is absent, cruel, or silent is an open sore in the church.

As a pastor grows in his awareness of this tragedy, he also will grow in his love for the promise that brings the Old Testament to its close:

Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse (Mal. 4:5-6).

God cares about the bonding of fathers and children and his servants ought to share this commitment. The recovery of fatherhood in the church, home, and society should not simply be ceded to social scientists or Dr. James Dobson; rather, it must be central to the strategic agenda of the Church as she witnesses to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

What is fatherhood and why does it matter? The subject is inexhaustible, but let’s focus on two aspects of fatherhood—the fatherhood of God over all creation and that of pastors and elders in the Church, the household of faith.

God the Father, from Whom All Fatherhood Gets Its Name:
To get to the meaning and purpose of fatherhood, we must start with the fatherhood of God. Our Lord taught us to pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven…”

When we address God as ‘Father, (2) we are confessing that he is the archetypal father and has imprinted his fatherhood on all creation. This is the significance of the Apostle Paul writing, “For this reason I kneel before the Father (pater), from whom all fatherhood (patria) in heaven and on earth derives its name…” (Ephesians 3:14,15).

Note that God does not get the name ‘father’ from earth, but earth gets the name ‘father’ from heaven. The late F. F. Bruce wrote, “God is the archetypal Father; all other fatherhood is a more or less imperfect copy of his perfect fatherhood.”

A decade ago, Carl F. H. Henry was asked what doctrine he thought most merited the attention of young evangelical theologians. He answered, “First, the doctrine of God. Evangelical theology tends to treat the doctrine of God devotionally. That in itself is certainly not to be disparaged—but it does so to the neglect of the intellectual significance of the doctrine in the contemporary conflict of ideas.” (3)

Nowhere is this more evident than this doctrine of the fatherhood of God. We pray, “Our heavenly Father,” we meditate on the privilege of sonship shared by all those God has adopted, we preach on the sacrifice of love made by the Father when he sent his only begotten Son to die for sinful man, but our focus on God’s fatherhood rarely goes beyond personal devotion. We would be hard-pressed to describe its meaning and significance, let alone defend it, as the war over sexuality rages around us.

At the center of today’s battles over sexuality is the nature of manhood and womanhood, but Christian leaders seem blind to the fact that the fatherhood of God and man stand or fall together. Our Bible translators are quick to reassure us that no changes have been made to the fatherhood of God and the sonship of Jesus Christ in their latest Bible, but some translations have cut out the male marking of hundreds of texts, deleting the manifestation of God’s fatherhood in the life of man.

The language of fatherhood is not merely an expendable human habit. This language is God’s decree, rooted in his very nature and, therefore, universally binding on his creation. David Lyle Jeffrey comments:

In theological terms…‘God the Father’ is not really a metaphor at all—at least not in the minds of the writers of Scripture or early interpreters in Christian tradition…As Jaroslav Pelikan puts it: “Using the name Father for God was not…a figure of speech. It was only because God was the Father of the Logos-Son that the term father could also be applied to human parents, and when it was used of them it was a figure of speech. (Emphases in the original.). (4)

Similarly, John Calvin writes: “It is customary…for God’s names to be transferred to creatures insofar as he exerts his power in them. Thus he himself is alone Lord and Father, but they are also called fathers and lords whom he dignifies with this honor.” (5)  And Hendrikus Berkhof: “When certain concepts are ascribed to God, they are thus not used figuratively but in their first and most original sense. God is not ‘as it were’ a father; he is the Father from whom all fatherhood on earth is derived.” (6)

What glory, that we have been granted the privilege of approaching the living God in prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven!”

We forget what a terrible gulf has been bridged for us by our Lord who gives to all those who believe in him the power to become the sons of God. But that gulf comes into focus when we stop to consider, for instance, the world of Islam. Were we to connive at Islam’s idolatry and claim that Allah is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, an exchange at an ecumenical gathering of over 100,000 held in Berlin, West Germany, back in 1989, would be a rude awakening.

One of the Protestant leaders, Professor Antony Wessels of Amsterdam, called for a spirit of unity between all religions: “I hope we are all Moslems and live in submission to the one God. And I hope we are all Christians and follow Jesus.”

There was no such blurring of the nature of the Islamic and Christian God, though, on the part of the invited Islamic participant, theologian Nigar Yadim, who announced that she opposes mixing religions: “I cannot pray Christianity’s Lord’s Prayer, because Islam does not think of God as Father.” (7)

The fatherhood of God is a peculiarly Christian understanding, revealed from Heaven and given as comfort to those who believe in the Father’s only begotten Son. How precious a truth this is to all believers, particularly those who have never known any benevolent manifestation of fatherhood in their own human families. Christians ought to rejoice in our freedom to know God as Father; we ought to fight for the protection of this divine trait and all its manifestations in the language of Scripture, worship, and life. Many forces are aligned against its beauty; we must study those forces and oppose them in the power of the Holy Spirit, realizing that this battle is just one more area where the feminist heresy lays siege to God’s truth.

We must also, though, work to present to the world living fatherhood that points to God himself. There are many places where such fatherhood may be demonstrated, but for sons and daughters robbed of it in their own childhood, it is most important that it be restored within “the household of God, which is the church of the living God” (1 Tim. 3:15).

Fatherhood within the Household of Faith:
Some years back I began a sermon series on the Ten Commandments and, coming to the fifth commandment, “Honor thy father and mother…,” as was my habit, I turned to Thomas Watson’s exposition and read, “the king…is a political father. (And) these fathers are to be honored.” (8)

Sitting there at my desk, worlds exploded as I thought of the implications of this simple truth: kings, presidents, governors, judges, law enforcement officers, mayors, principals, teachers, and professors bear the image of God’s Fatherhood. Elders and pastors are fathers after their heavenly Father and are to demonstrate his character as they shepherd his flock. Thus Question 124 of the Westminster Larger Catechism reads:

Question: Who are meant by ‘father’ and ‘mother’ in the fifth commandment?

Answer: By ‘father’ and ‘mother,’ in the fifth commandment, are meant, not only natural parents, but all superiors in age and gifts; and especially such as, by God’s ordinance, are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.

It is this understanding of the paternal nature of the eldership upon which the Apostle Paul bases his intimate family appeal to the church in Thessalonica:

…You know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory (1 Thess. 2:11-12).

God has provided for every one of his children’s needs, including their need of flesh-and-blood fathers who will make visible to them some small portion of the perfections of their heavenly Father. Such fathering is a critical part of the ministry of the Word and Sacrament, but also the eldership.

Since the earliest days of the wilderness wanderings of the sons of Israel, when Moses, following the counsel of his father-in-law, Jethro, appointed elders over every group of ten (Exod. 18:13-27), to the apostolic age when the apostles appointed elders over the church in each city (Titus 1:5), those who belong to God are settled in the household of faith where their heavenly Father has provided them spiritual fathers, and those fathers have the wonderful privilege of ministering to their spiritual children.

The Apostle Paul ministered in this way to the members of the Corinthian church, referring to them as his “children,” and to himself as their “father”:

I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. (1 Cor. 4:14,15).

Fatherless Timothy (likely the son of an unbelieving father) (9) also received such ministry; adopted by God, he was placed in the household of faith under the care of the Apostle Paul who corrected, rebuked, encouraged, and loved him as a father his son, tenderly referring to Timothy as his “beloved and faithful child in the Lord.” (10)

Still today, every believer is given the gift of membership in this same household where he or she is granted the privilege of receiving fatherly care from pastors and elders, and it is the calling of those ordained to these offices (11) to study this aspect of our work.

While reading Charles Eastman’s autobiographical account of his American Indian childhood, recently, it struck me that across culture and time children copy parents and sons copy fathers and elders:

What boy would not be an Indian for a while when he thinks of the freest life in the world? This life was mine. Every day there was a real hunt. There was real game. Occasionally there was a medicine dance away off in the woods where no one could disturb us, in which the boys impersonated their elders, Brave Bull, Standing Elk, High Hawk, Medicine Bear, and the rest. They painted themselves and imitated their fathers and grandfathers to the minutest detail, and accurately too, because they had seen the real thing all their lives.

We were not only good mimics, but we were close students of nature. We studied the habits of animals just as you study your books. We watched the men of our people and represented them in our play, then learned to emulate them in our lives. (12)

Our sports were molded by the life and the customs of our people; indeed, we practiced    only what we expected to do when grown. Our games were feats with the bow and the arrow, foot and pony races, wrestling, swimming, and imitation of the customs and habits of our fathers. (13)

According to the Westminster Larger Catechism, the fifth commandment requires of the child “imitation of (his parents’) virtues and graces." (14) The New Testament records similar imitation. For instance, the Apostle Paul writes, “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you,” and “I urge you to imitate me” (Acts 20:18; 1 Cor. 4:16). And the Hebrews are commanded, “Remember your leaders, who spoke the Word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7).

Combine these statements with Eastman’s account of his childhood and we begin to have a picture of the work of pastors and elders rarely considered or taught—that whether or not we are aware or plan for it, we will be an assembly line for character, filling in for absentee fathers and producing sons of our own who someday will themselves be fathers. And although to our untrained ears it seems impious to talk about imitating anyone other than Christ, those of us called to be pastors, elders, (and older women (15) ), must be conscientious in this work.

Recognizing that any choice is somewhat arbitrary, let’s focus on two aspects of fatherhood that are of critical importance: discipline and tender affection.

Discipline:
If we return to the men mentioned at the beginning of the chapter and probe more deeply into their heart-sickness, we will find that their fathers failed to provide their sons proper discipline. This is not to say their fathers never spanked, punched, yelled at, mocked, or belittled them, but that any punishment their sons received was a product of their father’s irritation and anger, rather than an effort to form the son’s character. It might even be that the father was completely passive, neither raising his voice nor bullying his son, but allowing the young man perfect freedom to develop willy-nilly, as he chose.

What can be said about such a son? By the authority of the Word of God we must acknowledge that this son is not loved by his father:

In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation which addresses you as sons? —“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time at their pleasure, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness (Hebrews 12:4-10).

Were I to speak to pastors and elders about nothing else, I would be content with impressing upon them the crucial witness of loving and firm discipline within the Body of Christ, carried out by men who themselves have known, and welcomed, the loving discipline of their heavenly Father.

There is a book in this, but let me simply hit the basic themes. In Acts 20, we read the Apostle Paul’s farewell charge to the Ephesian elders. There Paul characterizes his own work among the flock at Ephesus as follows: he “served the Lord…with tears and with trials;” he “did not shrink from declaring to (them) anything that was profitable, and teaching (them) publicly and from house to house;” he spoke of “repentance toward God;” and “night and day for a period of three years (he) did not cease to admonish each one with tears.” Then summing up his work, he makes this stunning claim: “I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men” (Acts 20:17-31).

Honestly, who among us could think of making such a claim—that we have no bloodguilt because we have been faithful shepherds warning our sheep house to house, day and night, with tears? Yes, the Apostle Paul is quite popular among Bible-believing Christians today; he is our alma mater, feeding us the great doctrines of the Church. But while our shelves groan with the weight of theological treatises examining almost every aspect of his work, one aspect of that work is neglected—fatherly discipline.

Why this neglect? Is it because we are trying to demonstrate the doctrines of grace in our pastoral relationships; is it because we are seeking to lead our flock to the one who is meek and gentle of heart, in whom we shall find rest for our souls?

No. Rather, I fear that too often our talk of grace and parallel neglect of discipline are the products of our aversion to conflict, our fear of a drop in attendance and giving, and our dread of dismissal. Richard Baxter understood pastors when, back in 1656, he first published his classic work, The Reformed Pastor. Concerning pastors’ neglect of discipline, he wrote:

It is a sad case, that good men should settle themselves so long in the constant neglect of so great a duty. The com¬mon cry is, “Our people are not ready for it; they will not bear it.” But is not the fact rather, that you will not bear the trouble and hatred which it will occasion? (16)

Pity the home and church where fathers, finding in their hearts no love for their sons, cast them off without benefit of discipline. And pity the sons who grow up yearning for this proof of their sonship.

Fifteen years ago, now, God taught me a lesson about the connection between discipline and father-hunger, and that lesson has since been a cornerstone of my work. At the time, I was the pastor of a yoked parish serving two congregations eight miles apart, one small town and one out in the country, sandwiched between dairy farms just off the right-of-way of the state highway. The country church had for years been keeping on its membership rolls families that never attended church, except maybe an occasional Easter morning or Christmas Eve.

Sensing our Biblical responsibility to go out house-to-house, warning these souls, the elders undertook their duty with fear and trembling and sickness unto death. Splitting up the names and families, we started to visit each home. With diligence we worked through the list, speaking to each person about his soul and inquiring whether something or someone within our congregational life had offended him, causing him to stop attending. Before leaving, we read a fitting portion of Scripture and prayed for the family, but also left it clear that we expected to see them in church in the weeks to come.

Certainly none of us involved in this work would claim that we did our visits perfectly. Our word choice wasn’t always the best, and we failed to demonstrate the depth of love Christ showed to his own disciples. As we did our work, we were jars of clay, but jars of clay seeking to be faithful in all our responsibilities—not just the easy ones. And so we set out to discipline our flock, including those who felt that having their names on the roll of a Christian church and returning to that church each time they had babies to be baptized, sons and daughters to be married, and grandmothers and grandfathers to be buried, was the normal Christian life and guaranteed their soul’s eternal protection.

The results were predictable. Immediately, some souls returned to the sheepfold where they were greeted with joy. Others needed another push, six months to a year later, before they returned. Some returned at first, but then became sporadic in their attendance and were visited again and again; the spirit was willing but the body was weak. Some cursed us and began gossiping in the community, lying about what had been said and how it had been said.

When some who had heard this gossip called the elders, they explained that none of us wanted to see these persons leave the church; in fact, just the opposite—we were trying to restore them to our fellowship. We commended our consciences to every man as we had occasion, reminding the congregation of their membership vows and their duty  to keep those vows. We went back to the offended parties, delicately trying again to explain our concern over their souls and our desire that they return to the fold. But with a number of those offended, it was to no avail.

After several years of pursuing this work, the time came to remove the names of ten or fifteen people from the list of active members. The authority for this lay within the board of elders, but one family decided to come to the annual meeting that year and publicly oppose the elders’ action.

The day arrived and, following our potluck meal, I called the meeting to order and we proceeded through our agenda. Eventually, it was time for our clerk of session to report on our membership and the battle was joined. Using every tactic at hand, the offended family stood and fought, accusing the elders of being unchristian, unloving, hypocritical, judgmental, and even un-American. With meekness and humility, though, the clerk of session (speaking for all the elders) held his ground.

Two things came of this, one predictable and the other astounding. Predictably, a number of people left the church. We knew this was a probable consequence of our work but we still found it painful. As our overall attendance declined, though, one sub-group began to grow until its presence within the church was the most noticeable thing about our fellowship. Each Sunday morning, halfway back on the left side of the church, young men between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five began to fill up a row and a half of pews.

It was stunning, really, since a number of these men had not been raised in the church. We noticed their presence and began to talk about it, trying to figure out why they were there? Yes, we had a vital youth ministry that extended beyond our own congregation to the youth of a number of community churches, but that had been going on for several years and couldn’t be the whole story. And yes, we had a family in our fellowship that lived in a nearby town and ministered to the young people of that town, having them into their home and around their table, but again, that had been going on for some time and couldn’t be more than a small part of the explanation.

Then it hit us: these young men started coming after the infamous congregational meeting. They had heard about the fathers of the church disciplining their congregation and the father-hunger in them led them to a congregation where there were real men showing faithfulness in discipline, even at significant personal cost.

Watch Hoosiers, my state’s favorite movie, and you will see this same theme: as the coach restores discipline to his basketball team, the townspeople gnash their teeth but the players fall in love with their coach and begin to win. So when a vote is taken to fire the coach, the players defend him and he stays on. As we watched the movie, my daughter observed that the coach as father is at the center of the sports movie genre.

The purpose of the story of the membership rolls is not to argue that elders across the country ought to go and do likewise. There are many different forms of polity within our congregations and disciplinary action appropriate in one church may well be inappropriate in another. Rather, I tell this story as a testimony to the power of God to use sinful men who are willing to be obedient to their duty to discipline God’s flock. Ezekiel records the warning God gave him as a prophet, and that same warning has direct application to the work of pastors and elders today:

Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, warn them from me. When I say to the wicked, “You will surely die,” and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself (Ezek. 3:17-19).

Is it not God himself who has taught us the disciplinary nature of true fatherly love, and has not his discipline proven to us that we are his adopted sons? And what about Paul; did he not exhort the Ephesian elders to be faithful in discipline:

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears (Acts 20:28-31).

Why then is there such an oppressive silence in our seminaries, bookstores, pulpits, and church board rooms on this subject of discipline? Can it be that Christians have evolved to the point that we no longer need this proof of our heavenly Father’s love?

If we ourselves have had the privilege of knowing the disciplinary love of God, let us reclaim that same ministry of discipline for our flocks, giving ourselves wholeheartedly to this duty. And let us trust that God’s servants doing God’s work using God’s tools will never lack God’s blessing and protection.

Tender Affection:
As the men mentioned at the beginning of the chapter lacked their fathers’ discipline, so also their fathers failed to nurture them with tender affection.

This is not to say their fathers never tucked them in at night or gave them a playful jab on the shoulder; but rather, that as the son grew he never had the privilege of burrowing into the fertile black soil of clear outward demonstrations of affection—the kind of thing that every son is mortified to see other fathers doing, but wishes his own father would give him.

Back in the mid-eighties, my father was speaking at a chapel service at Wheaton College. In passing, he mentioned his conviction that college students wanted their fathers to hug and kiss them. To his surprise, the comment provoked a standing ovation.

Happily, my father practiced what he preached. He was a frequent traveler and how distinctly I remember meeting him in the middle of the concourse at O’Hare, throwing our arms around each other and kissing in front of hundreds of starched shirts and suits. And , standing there in my father’s loving embrace, I confess sometimes I thought, “Eat your hearts out, men; I love my Dad and my Dad loves me.”

American men are so stingy with their affection, robbing their sons of the warmth of human fatherly contact so necessary to their sons’ emotional well-being. But this is not the way of Scripture.

Look into the Bible and see how its pages are filled with emotion—with tears, affection, and love. See Joseph as he falls on Jacob’s shoulders crying tears of joy upon his reunion with his father (Gen. 46:29, 30); see Jesus as he weeps at the grave of his dear friend, Lazarus (John 11:35); see him again as he receives (and defends) the tearful and unseemly ministrations of the sinful woman at the home of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50); see him as he pleads with the three beloved disciples to stay awake, to watch and pray with him as his hour draws near (Matt. 26:36-46); see Paul as he bids the Ephesian elders a final farewell there on the beach at Miletus. We read that after giving them their charge, Paul “knelt down and prayed with them all. And they began to weep aloud and embraced Paul, and repeatedly kissed him, grieving especially over the word which he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they were accompanying him to the ship” (Acts 20:36-38).

On this scene, John Calvin comments:

When the Spirit…commends their tears…he is condemning the thoughtlessness of those who demand from believers an iron and inhuman firmness. For they falsely suppose that the feelings, which God has implanted in us as natural, proceed only from a defect. Accordingly the perfecting of believers does not depend on their casting off all feelings, but on their yielding to them and controlling them, only for proper reasons. (17)

What signs of tender affection do our congregations see passing between their pastor and elders? Would there ever be an occasion when they might see a scene in our own church foyers or parking lots similar to the scene of Paul’s departure from the Ephesian elders?

Somehow the Church has been misled into denying the legitimacy of feelings and emotions. What then are we to do with the record left for us in the New Testament, of the tender affection that permeated the apostolic church? Speaking to Timothy, his son in the faith, Paul writes: “I thank God…as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, longing to see you, even as I recall your tears, so that I may be filled with joy” (2 Tim. 1:3,4).

Fatherhood proves itself through discipline and tender affection, and sons of the Church who have grown up in a harsh and loveless home that lacks discipline will respond to spiritual fathers who correct, rebuke, and encourage them with tenderness and love.

In celebration of Father’s Day 2002, The New Yorker carried an autobiographical essay by the actor, Steve Martin, which began:

In his death, my father, Glenn Vernon Martin, did something he could not do in life. He brought our family together.

After he died, at the age of eighty-three, many of his friends told me how much they loved him—how generous he was, how outgoing, how funny, how caring. I was surprised at these descriptions. I remember him as angry. There was little said to me, that I recall, that was not criticism. During my teen-age years, we hardly spoke except in one-way arguments—from him to me. I am sure that the number of words that passed between us could be counted. At some point in my preteens, I decided to officially “hate” him. When he came into a room, I would wait five minutes, then leave.…

Generally…my father was critical of my show-business accomplishments. Even after I won an Emmy at twenty-three as a writer for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” he advised me to finish college so that I’d have something to fall back on. Years later, my friends and I took him to the premiere of my first movie, “The Jerk,” and afterward we went to dinner. For a long time, he said nothing. My friends noted his silence and were horrified. Finally, one friend said, “What did you think of Steve in the movie?” And my father said, “Well, he’s no Charlie Chaplin.” (18)

Picture Martin (or millions of young men like him) walking through the doors of the Church and finding in her fellowship the fatherhood of God in all its beauty, lived out by older men ready to give the encouragement and affection Martin’s father lacked the strength to provide.

In our own congregation located in the shadow of a research university, we’ve decided that one of our mission priorities will be to invest ourselves in raising up, training, and sending out church leaders, both men and women. The repercussions are large in terms of time and money, and the work is often daunting, but we’ve never regretted this commitment.

Over the years, scores of women and men have left this fellowship ready to be spiritual mothers and fathers, themselves. And though it’s painful when they leave, immediately a new crop of young souls springs up hungry for the Fatherhood of God. So we return to our simple commitments: early morning and late evening discipleship groups, students around our dining room tables and flopped on our living room floors, young men preaching in our evening services… Only God knows the full extent of the harvest this work has produced.

Conclusion:
But those willing to give themselves to this work must not be naive. There are some in our congregations who, due to the destructive influence of their own father, stepfather, professor, pastor, or priest, have been hardened in their hatred of fatherhood. Still, fatherhood has never been for the timid. It’s been said, “There’s only one adventurer in the world…the father of a family. Even the most desperate adventurers are nothing compared with him.” (19) Under the guise of pastoral sensitivity, pastoral leaders will be tempted to make concessions to the spirit of our age but our courage must not fail.

The center of our culture’s sexual anarchy is a rebellion against the fatherhood of God, but those who would come to God and worship him as he is, rather than as they wish he might be, must meet and embrace his Fatherhood liturgically, confessionally, and ecclesiastically. To refuse to worship him as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” is idolatry. (20)

Thus the faithful shepherd will lead the sheep in his flock to confess, with all Christians everywhere, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.” And having led this confession, he will work hard to discipline and love his sheep to the end that they will come to grow in their love for the Father from whom all fatherhood gets its name. Father-hunger presents Christians with a wonderful opportunity to testify that fatherhood is, indeed, at the “world’s great core.” May we confess this, our faith, with sensitivity and courage, refusing to turn away in shame.

* * *

Footnotes:

(1) From the dedication to his father of MacDonald’s first book, in 1857.

(2) “Ephesians 3:14 probably means that God is ‘the Father [pater] from whom every fatherhood [patria] in heaven and on earth is named’…every patria is so named after the pater.” Colin Brown, ed., The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 3 vols., (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), s.v. ‘Name,’ by Frederick Fyvie Bruce 2:655.

(3) “Interview of Carl F. H. Henry,” Theological Student's Fellowship Bulletin, March-April 1987,  pp. 16-19.

(4) David Lyle Jeffrey, “Inclusivity and Our Language of Worship,” Reformed Journal, August 1987.

(5) Commentary on Colossians 1:16.

(6) As quoted in Donald G. Bloesch, The Battle for the Trinity: The Debate over Inclusive God-Language (Ann Arbor: Servant, 1985) p. 25.

(7) Harold O.J. Brown, The Religion and Society Report, August 1989, Vol. 6, No. 8, p. 3.

(8) Thomas Watson, The Ten Commandments (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, reprinted 1981) p. 122.

(9) “For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well” (1Timothy 1:5).

(10) 1Corinthians 4:17.

(11) Baptists and congregationalists might have a similar understanding of the office of deacon.

(12) Charles Alexander Eastman, From the Deep Woods to Civilization Including Excerpts from Indian Boyhood (Chicago: R. R. Donnelley and Sons [Lakeside Press], 2001), p. 7.

(13) Ibid, p. 43.

(14) Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 127; (with thanks to Phil Henry).

(15) Titus 2:3-5 indicates the responsibility of older women to teach younger women in the Church.

(16) Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1974) p. 47.

(17) Commentary on Acts 20:37.

(18) Steve Martin, “The Death of My Father,” The New Yorker, 17 & 24 June 2002, 84.

(19) Charles Peguy, as quoted by James Bemis, The Wanderer, June 6, 2002.

(20) For a helpful discussion of the confessional nature of speaking of God as Father, see Donald G. Bloesch, The Battle for the Trinity: The Debate over Inclusive God-Language (Ann Arbor: Servant, 1985).