Great Biblical fathers

 

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, 52

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. The previous post is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color.

Let each child of God who is seeking to work the work of love in his Father’s service take courage.  The parent with his child, the teacher with his class, the visitor with his district, the Bible reader with his circle, the preacher with his hearers, each one who, in his little circle, has accepted and is bearing the burden of hungry, perishing souls,—let them all take courage.  Nothing is at first so strange to us as that God should really require persevering prayer, that there should be a real spiritual needs-be for importunity.  To teach it us, the Master uses this almost strange parable. [About the man who asks a neighbor for some food for a guest, after bedtime.]  If the unfriendliness of a selfish earthly friend can be conquered by importunity, how much more will it avail with the heavenly Friend, who does so love to give, but is held back by our spiritual unfitness, our incapacity to possess what He has to give.  O let us thank Him that in delaying His answer He is educating us up to our true position and the exercise of all our power with Him, training us to live with Him in the fellowship of undoubting faith and trust, to be indeed the friends of God.  And let us hold fast the threefold cord that cannot be broken:  the hungry friend needing the help, and the praying friend seeking the help, and the Mighty Friend, loving to give as much as he needeth.

 

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, 50

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. The previous post is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color.

The question might suggest itself, whether the Fatherhood of God does not give such confidence in prayer, that the thought of His Friendship can hardly teach us anything more: a father is more than a friend.  And yet, if we consider it, this pleading the friendship of God opens new wonders to us.  That a child obtains what he asks of his father looks so perfectly natural, we almost count it the father’s duty to give.  But with a friend it is as if the kindness is more free, dependent, not on nature, but on sympathy and character.  And then the relation of a child is more that of perfect dependence; two friends are more nearly on a level.  And so our Lord, in seeking to unfold to us the spiritual mystery of prayer, would fain have us approach God in this relation too, as those whom He has acknowledged as His friends, whose mind and life are in sympathy with His.

But then we must be living as His friends.  I am still a child even when a wanderer; but friendship depends upon the conduct.  ‘Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.’  ‘Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect; and the scripture was fulfilled which saith, And Abraham believed God, and he was called the friend of God.’ It is the Spirit, ‘the same Spirit,’ that leads us that also bears witness to our acceptance with God; ‘likewise, also,’ the same Spirit helpeth us in prayer.  It is a life as the friend of God that gives the wonderful liberty to say:  I have a friend to whom I can go even at midnight.  And how much more when I go in the very spirit of that friendliness, manifesting myself the very kindness I look for in God, seeking to help my friend as I want God to help me.  When I come to God in prayer, He always looks to what the aim is of my petition.  If it be merely for my own comfort or joy I seek His grace, I do not receive.  But if I can say that it is that He may be glorified in my dispensing His blessings to others, I shall not ask in vain.  Or if I ask for others, but want to wait until God has made me so rich, that it is no sacrifice or act of faith to aid them, I shall not obtain.  But if I can say that I have already undertaken for my needy friend, that in my poverty I have already begun the work of love, because I know I had a friend Who would help me, my prayer will be heard.  Oh, we know not how much the plea avails:  the friendship of earth looking in its need to the friendship of heaven:  ‘He will give him as much as he needeth.’

Sunspots 786

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: A Sojourners writer is not happy with Franklin Graham's actions on racial justice. The same writer commends the record of Franklin's father, Billy Graham.

A Christianity Today writer says that the recent LBGT Supreme Court ruling was not a death knell for church and state relations.

Christianity Today also has a good article on simple things you can do to enhance your Bible-reading.

Ken Schenck offers thoughts on the Prodigal Parent, on Father's Day.

Computing: An article that says that the real bias of social media platforms isn't against conservatives, but is for extreme views of all stripes.

ListVerse suggests 10 alternatives to commonly used web applications and web sites. The claim is that these alternatives do a better job of protecting your privacy.
 
Environment: Another report, from Gizmodo/Earther, that honeybees are threatened.


Finance: FiveThirtyEight on how the stock market has stayed pretty healthy, while the economy, by most measures, has been hit pretty hard by the COVID pandemic.

NPR reports that banks, and other businesses, are running low on coins -- like pennies, dimes, nickels and quarters.

Health: Gizmodo tells us that Anthony Fauci downplayed the effect of COVID-19 early on, and says that he actually lied about the effectiveness of masks, so that they would be available for health workers.

Gizmodo also tells us that we should shut the toilet lid before flushing.


Politics: A writer for Sojourners is not impressed by the Trump administration's record on religious freedom.

The fourth of a series of posts by Joel Edmund Anderson, taking an in-depth look at the racial situation in the US.

FiveThirtyEight says that the firing of the head attorney for the Southern District of New York was wrong, for four important reasons.

So far, President Trump's poll numbers show that white evangelicals are not nearly as solidly for him as they have been, according to a Fox News poll, reported by Relevant.

Science: Gizmodo reports that astronomers may have discovered a new category of object, larger than our sun, but not much larger.


The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

Thanks for looking!

With Christ in the School of Prayer, 38, by Andrew Murray

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. The previous post is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color.

Blessed Lord!  Thou knowest that this, though it be one of the first and simplest and most glorious lessons in Thy school, is to our hearts one of the hardest to learn:  we know so little of the love of the Father.  Lord!  teach us so to live with the Father that His love may be to us nearer, clearer, dearer, than the love of any earthly father.  And let the assurance of His hearing our prayer be as much greater than the confidence in an earthly parent, as the heavens are higher than earth, as God is infinitely greater than man.  Lord!  show us that it is only our unchildlike distance from the Father that hinders the answer to prayer, and lead us on to the true life of God’s children.  Lord Jesus!  it is fatherlike love that wakens childlike trust.  O reveal to us the Father, and His tender, pitying love, that we may become childlike, and experience how in the child-life lies the power of prayer.

Blessed Son of God!  the Father loveth Thee and hath given Thee all things.  And Thou lovest the Father, and hast done all things He commanded Thee, and therefore hast the power to ask all things.  Lord!  give us Thine own Spirit, the Spirit of the Son.  Make us childlike, as Thou wert on earth.  And let every prayer be breathed in the faith that as the heaven is higher than the earth, so God’s Father-love, and His readiness to give us what we ask, surpasses all we can think or conceive.  Amen.

With Christ in the school of prayer, 36, by Andrew Murray

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. The previous post is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color.

But will not such teaching discourage the feeble one?  If we are first to answer to this portrait of a child, must not many give up all hope of answers to prayer?  The difficulty is removed if we think again of the blessed name of father and child.  A child is weak; there is a great difference among children in age and gift.  The Lord does not demand of us a perfect fulfilment of the law; no, but only the childlike and whole-hearted surrender to live as a child with Him in obedience and truth.  Nothing more.  But also, nothing less.  The Father must have the whole heart.  When this is given, and He sees the child with honest purpose and steady will seeking in everything to be and live as a child, then our prayer will count with Him as the prayer of a child.  Let any one simply and honestly begin to study the Sermon on the Mount and take it as his guide in life, and he will find, notwithstanding weakness and failure, an ever-growing liberty to claim the fulfilment of its promises in regard to prayer.  In the names of father and child he has the pledge that his petitions will be granted.

This is the one chief thought on which Jesus dwells here, and which He would have all His scholars take in.  He would have us see that the secret of effectual prayer is:  to have the heart filled with the Father-love of God.  It is not enough for us to know that God is a Father:  He would have us take time to come under the full impression of what that name implies.  We must take the best earthly father we know; we must think of the tenderness and love with which he regards the request of his child, the love and joy with which he grants every reasonable desire; we must then, as we think in adoring worship of the infinite Love and Fatherliness of God, consider with how much more tenderness and joy He sees us come to Him, and gives us what we ask aright.  And then, when we see how much this Divine arithmetic is beyond our comprehension, and feel how impossible it is for us to apprehend God’s readiness to hear us, then He would have us come and open our heart for the Holy Spirit to shed abroad God’s Father-love there.  Let us do this not only when we want to pray, but let us yield heart and life to dwell in that love.  The child who only wants to know the love of the father when he has something to ask, will be disappointed.  But he who lets God be Father always and in everything, who would fain live his whole life in the Father’s presence and love, who allows God in all the greatness of His love to be a Father to him, oh! he will experience most gloriously that a life in God’s infinite Fatherliness and continual answers to prayer are inseparable.

Sunspots 631

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Relevant reports that Congressional Democrats gathered to pray for Representative Scalise after the Alexandria shooting.

Relevant also asks if we need to go to church every Sunday.

A Relevant commentator points out that the oft-given advice to "always believe in yourself," is not very good advice.

And, again, it's Relevant (and other sources) reporting on the Southern Baptist denunciation of racism, including the so-called alt-Right movement.



Computing: Wired reports that the U. S. Supreme Court has ruled, unanimously, that a person, even a sex offender, cannot be barred from having a Facebook account. Such a prohibition would violate his freedom of speech. (He can be barred from contacting minors, and from some other activities on-line.)

Health: You may remember the tricorders used for non-invasive medical diagnosis in Star Trek. Scientific American says that we are getting there, in developing such devices.

Listverse discusses 10 theories on why we dream.


History: Listverse tells us about 10 times when a contest was won by a single vote.

Politics: An analysis by FiveThirtyEight indicates that President Trump's win, and his rhetoric, have made Europe less nationalistic -- politicians praised by Mr. Trump have lost ground in polls and in votes.

(sort of) A photo of Paul Ryan, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi, smiling together at the recent congressional baseball game.


Science: Scientific American reports that we have discovered 69 moons that orbit Jupiter.

Scientific American also has an essay on why fathers downplay their expression of feelings for their children.


Image source (public domain)

Fathers in the Bible: Some failings

There are a lot of fathers mentioned in the Bible. About all we know about a lot of them is, in the words of the King James Version, that "so and so begat such and such." Which means, of course, that so and so was a sperm contributor. The Bible doesn't usually tell us much else about how good, or how bad, such fathers were.

We know more about some fathers, and their failings. Here's a quick list.

Isaac and Jacob both had favorite sons. This, of course, is not a way to make the non-favored offspring happy. The result was a split family, in each case.

Eli, Samuel, and David didn't discipline their children very well. There were bad consequences, in each case, including some deaths in at the case of Eli's and David's families, and maybe Samuel's.

Omri was a bad man who set a bad example. Two of his children, Athaliah and Ahab, followed him. Athaliah ordered her own grandchildren killed, so that she could be ruler. Ahab let his wife, Jezebel, lead him around, and did, or allowed her to do, some very wicked things. The whole family worshiped abominable idols, although Ahab at least acknowledged God.

Zachariah doubted that God would use his son, John the Baptist, as God told him that he would.

*   *   *   *   *

On the other hand, perhaps the Bible is like today's local TV news. Good things are seldom reported! We are not told much about Joshua's father, Nun, David's father, Jesse, or Samuel's father, Elkanah, Moses's father, Amram, or Zebedee, the father of James and John. There's nothing, or next to nothing, about the fathers of Deborah, Job, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Martha, Mary and Lazarus, Dorcas, Ruth or Rahab. We are told little about Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus. But it's a good guess that at least some of these men did a good job, judging by their offspring. But I'm not sure that is true. Children can be better (or worse) than their parents. The only father I can think of, where there is some description of the good example they set, is Mordecai, Esther's stepfather, or adoptive father.

If fatherhood has ever been easy -- which is very doubtful -- it isn't easy  now. God, help the fathers of today to avoid the flaws of the fathers discussed in the first part of this post, and to emulate good fathers, like Mordecai, and, probably, Jesse, Amram, Zebedee and millions of other unsung fathers, in the Bible and later, who have never run for office, been CEO of a big company, or written a book, but whose legacy is good children.

Thanks for reading. I'm thankful for a good father. I'm thankful for children who have made me look good.

Foster fatherhood -- and stepfatherhood

I don't believe that I had a foster father or a stepfather, although there is, I suppose, such a possibility. I share some characteristics with my father, and I never heard anything to suggest that he wasn't my "real," (meaning biological) father.

The Free Dictionary has this for its first entry for "father:"
1. A man who begets or raises or nurtures a child.

So, to the dictionary, a father is not only a biological father, but, possibly, a stepfather or foster father who has helped to raise or nurture a child, or, perhaps, even done it himself, with little or no help.

As far as I am aware, there is only one example of foster father- or stepfatherhood in the Bible, but it is a very important one, namely Joseph, Mary's husband, and the earthly father of Jesus.

Joseph did a remarkable thing. He married Mary, even though he knew she was pregnant, and he also knew that he wasn't the biological father of the baby she would bear. (See Matthew 1, which describes the manner in which Joseph discovered this fact.) As the Wikipedia puts it, Joseph is not mentioned much in the gospels, "in which he never speaks." Mary speaks, Jesus speaks to his parents, Joseph is given visions, but the Wikipedia is correct -- he never speaks. We have to infer his reaction.

God entrusted Joseph with important aspects of the care of His own Son. Matthew 2 tells us that it was Joseph, not Mary, who was divinely warned to flee to Egypt, and was told to return from Egypt.

Joseph is a great example of an apparently humble man, who did what he needed to do for his foster son, even, apparently, not telling others that Jesus wasn't his son. (Luke 3:23)

In this day and time, a lot of stepfathers, and foster fathers, have stepped up, as it were. They are doing a good, humble, patient job of raising and nurturing daughters and sons that aren't their biological offspring. God bless them, and help them.

Sunspots: A Google search for the words wicked stepmother returns about 169,000 web pages. A similar search for the words wicked stepfather returns less than 92,000. I can't think of a single fairy tale that has a wicked stepfather as a character, but there are several with wicked stepmothers. Why? I don't really know.

I work a little with elementary school children. I ran into a case in which a boy, about 10 years of age, was downright obsessive about his biological father. He told me that his stepfather was a good father, good to him. From what I could gather, his biological father was not -- he had not contacted the boy for months, including at Christmas and his birthday. Yet he was somehow longing for his "real" father, almost all the time. God help him, and others like him, and help fathers (and mothers) to be better at carrying out their responsibilities.

The Wikipedia article on Joseph says that the word τεκτων (Anglicized as tekton, which is probably related to the modern technician.) is used to describe his occupation. (Matthew 13:55). This word, it says, "cannot be translated narrowly; it evokes an artisan with wood in general, or an artisan in iron or stone." That same word is used to describe Jesus, Himself, in Mark 6:3.

Thanks for reading. If any fathers read this, be a good father, God helping you (and me). If any children of stepfathers or foster fathers read this, be sure to let them know how much you appreciate them.

2 comments:

Keetha Broyles said...

Greg was the inventor of our improvised grill and he said to tell you it was amazing - - - we were just sitting around and that grill evolved all by itself!!!

;-)

June 15, 2009

Martin LaBar said...

No intelligent design?

Note: This post got published, by mistake, on June 15th. I deleted it, and re-published, including a comment, and my response, this time, I hope, on the 21st, Father's Day.