Family
“If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?” Luke 11:11-12
George Burns said: “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” One of the reasons for George making this statement being that so many families fail to get along and get togethers are more like guerilla warfare than a picnic. A story that made the rounds years ago tells of a child at Coney Island watching a family unload from an improvised school bus/camper. It seemed like an endless parade of children. The child asked the man, “Mister are these all your children and is it a picnic?” The man replied, “Yes, son they are all my children and believe me it ain’t no picnic!”
I did a search on the word ‘father’ and found it is used 977 times in the Bible. Strangely, except when it is used as a figure of God, the word father implies also being a husband. When you couple the two meaning biblically, culturally and historically you begin to get a fuller understanding the awesome responsibility God has placed on the shoulders of fathers.
To be a husband along with being a father involved far more than most men of that time or the present want to commit to. Sayings of all ages reveal the inequality between the husband and wife. Much more of a moral nature was expected of the wife than of the man. In most of civilization at any given point women were held in low esteem. Plato counted a state disorganized where slaves are disobedient and wives are on equality with their husbands. Socrates taught; “Is there a human being with whom you talk less than with your wife?” We know from the teachings of Jesus that God’s plan for all time is for one man and one woman to marry and engage in the filling up of the earth with grandchildren.
Easton’s Biblical Dictionary says, “Husband=House-band; that which binds together. Easton says further on husbandman; One whose business is to cultivate..
A human father is one who willing assumes responsibility for the welfare, both physical and spiritual, for his wife AND children.
The verses heading this sermon point up the care and attention to detail the father gives to his son. A father in the process of ‘cultivating’ his son will give to him good things and will withhold the evil, harmful things.
By contrast, the majority of modern fathers withhold the good and give the serpentine things of evil. For instance, every study, secular or Biblical emphasizes the importance of the father’s presence in the home with the wife and children. Fathers refuse to do this, substituting large buildings for home, games, TV, toys and a host of pacifiers rather than the power of a godly dad. Wives for the most part neglected physically, emotionally and definitely, spiritually are also relegated to substitutes for the real biblical husband.
The agnostic, Bertrand Russell had a better grasp on the role of fathers than many preachers when he wrote: “The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf!”
Think about the exemplar laid out in the scripture and honestly ask, “Am I anywhere near the biblical model?”
Biblical words for the husband/father include, Purging or to clean up, in these case to lighten her load. Prune, enable to do more important things, grasp her importance through abiding, thank God she is given to enable you to maintain sexual purity. Benevolence is to be extended to her. Due Benevolence according to Albert Barnes means affirming that you understand that you belong to Christ and to each other in the sacred bonds of marriage and this is a tender rather than a master/slave relationship. That prayer is part of a husbands responsibility is asserted and Paul says that ‘he that is married careth for the things of this world, how he may please his wife’ teaching he attempting to care for her total needs. Ephesians teaches us that fathers/husbands are to provide direction for the wife; we are to love her sacrificially as does Christ the church. Further we are to see our wife as holy, as unspotted, rather than bringing up her faults all the time and as without wrinkle. If she is growing under your leadership she will remain without wrinkle in her spirit, where it really matters. To nourish is certainly to provide the best the Lord enables. Cherish is the idea of a brooder, or a hen watching tenderly over newly hatched chicks. It’s it the image of tenderness, of provision and a love that cares about the safe growth of the person/living thing loved.
Any sane man reading this will immediately recognize that he needs Jesus to be this kind of father, this kind of husband.
I have taken a good deal of my allotted space to attempt to bring the role of the father into balance. In addition to the care and feeding of the wife, the children are also on dad’s plate. The man who thinks he can raise the children to do and be right without paying attention to requisites concerning his wife is a candidate to buy unseen Florida land. To kid yourself into thinking you are caring for the children while neglecting the wife is along the lines of utter folly. Suppose a man spent all of his time taking care of the stalk on his corn crop, but never over the years paid any attention to the ground. It would not take long for him to produce pathetic crops. It is worth repeating that the best thing a father can do for his children is to let them SEE how deeply he loves their mother. This deep, biblical love will negate the supposed ‘need’ for internet sites that would make Satan blush and will cause ole dad to commend modestly dressed women rather than letting the offspring know you like to ogle the stripper types at ball games etc.
As Christ gives grace, the best gift to the children is a mother who is the beneficiary of a husband who takes his instructions from the Lord seriously. In honesty I don’t know how some women are able to do as well as they do when the slovenly, carnal, often cruel husband is factored into the family equation.
When considering the role of a godly father, I had so such model to emulate when growing up. My poor little wife and I prayed and still do humbly asking the Lord to teach me the correct biblical way. I have made mistakes by the wagon load. (Shipload is more like it. Joyce). For too many years I was like the man in the following story. I wish it were anecdotal.
The man in our story went to a ‘Run Your Home’ seminar. Upon returning to the dwelling place he informed the little wife of his youth, “Look here, woman, from now on I’m the man of this house and from now on you will have breakfast ready when I get up, you will have good lunch packed, and there had better be a nutritious hot meal on the table when I get home. And furthermore, you will wash and iron my clothes and keep the house clean. And little dearie, who do you think is going to shave me and comb my hair?” The wife with the courage of a lioness never bothered to look up from her sewing said; “Why, I suppose the undertaker.”
Fathers must above all else be in the habit of forgiving as exemplified by the Prodigal’s father in Luke 15, when upon seeing repentance to run to the erring child with compassion, and, as they say in Southern climes, hug his neck and kiss him and on top of that restore him. None of this “I will never speak to my son again.” Shame shame shame.
Better. Do it the way Christ taught. LML
***********
The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy!
Sam Levenson
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
William Shakespeare
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.
Charles Wadsworth.
“According to Dr. Urie Bronfenbrenner a group of children monitored by hidden camera found that fathers spent an average of only 37 seconds a day, averaging 2.7 encounters ten to fifteen seconds.”
And we scratch our hear and wonder, WHY? LML
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