Abba: What It Means to Be a Father

The supreme test of any civilization is whether it can socialize men by teaching them to be fathers.

-Margaret Mead

Over twelve years ago, my life changed dramatically. We were a small family of three, our two year old was about to have a baby brother. Living in Chicago was difficult living as a family and so we decided to move to Grand Rapids to be near my wife’s family. We were hoping to have Julie stay home full-time and this was a major motivation in moving. However, before I had one interview she had two great job offers. We were pressed into deciding what to do, especially since we had a baby on the way in three months. Should Julie work full-time and I become a stay-at-home dad? Eventually, we decided to try it as a trial-run. That decision dramatically changed my life. Even though I was only a stay-at-home dad during my years in seminary, we would not have changed that decision looking back. That decision way back then threw me into many days and nights of wrestling with what it meant to be a man and a father. It also challenged me to look at God who asks to be called our Father (or as He really desires, Daddy). But there are many products out there who want to sell you on what it means to be a father. There are many cultures who have varying degrees of what it means to be a father. With all this, we are thrown into a quagmire of questions: what is a father to be? Is he the leader? Is he a breadwinner? How is he there for his family and wife? Is he to be the patriarch? What exactly is he to be?

It is not simply the loss of fathers, but the loss of the idea of fatherhood and of our belief in the importance of fathers. We no longer have a distinctive "cultural script" for fatherhood. When I become a father, what have I become? What am I to do in that paternal role? How should it alter my life and habits? A society in which there are no culturally given answers to such questions is one that may experience grave difficulty drawing men into the role of fatherhood and its accompanying tasks and burdens.

-Gilbert Meilaender, The Eclipse of Fatherhood

When it comes to this question of fatherhood we have a two pronged problem in our western worldview. The first, is this, our culture offers the counsel that fathers are unnecessary. There is a view that is largely prevalent that it is not important to be a father. We call this the problem of fatherlessness. The second problem is that many in our culture do not know how to “dad.” We have grown up with a vision of fatherhood that our culture has given us that is false. We need to move away from these ideas and discover what the biblical vision for fatherhood is.

The Problem of Fatherlessness

As the work of fathers has taken them further and further from home, and fewer citizens have had personal experience of fatherhood, the world has lost touch with fatherliness to the point of sometimes declaring it unnecessary or nonexistent, or even harmful. But the security that a child receives from the perceived strength and wisdom of a father is immeasurable.

-Christine Vollmer, The Danger of Unisex Fatherhood

The David Blankenhorn’s book, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem shows us that our culture has two unhealthy views of fatherhood which are prevail today. They are these: the Unnecessary Father and the Old Father, which will be detailed below.

The Unnecessary Father

For many fathers in America their view of fatherhood is an absent one. They either have been told they are not necessary or they just do not care to fulfill the role. Fatherlessness in America and the west is a dominant worldview that we must face. Look at the statistics.

• An estimated 24.7 million children in America (36.3%) live absent their biological father.
• Children who were part of the "post war generation" could expect to grow up with two biological parents who were married to each other. Eighty percent did. Today, only about 50% of children will spend their entire childhood in an intact family.
• With the increasing number of premarital births and a continuing high divorce rate, the proportion of children living with just one parent rose from 9 percent in 1960 to 28 percent in 1996. Currently, 57.7 percent of all black children, 31.8 percent of all Hispanic children, and 20.9 percent of all white children are living in single-parent homes.

Listen to these alarming statistics: over a third of children do not live with their fathers; over half will never know what it means to grow up in a family! We are not here to discuss the implications of fatherlessness in America even though if we were to look at more statistics they would be just as grave. This is just a fact in America that this is a prevalent view many men hold to as they think of fatherhood. Many children go home without a father not because of divorce or because they work far away; simply, their father’s don’t exist because they have shirked their responsibility. You can well imagine the mindset of a child who grows up with this attitude. As you can guess, this is not a biblical view of fatherhood! The question is then asked with trembling; what will we reap with this type of lifestyle?

The Old Father

There is another view of fatherhood that is very prevalent in our culture which Blankenhorn calls the Old Father. In a research study done on male attitudes toward masculinity the Old Father is revealed.

Thompson and Pleck (1987) found similar attitudes about what the male role should be in a more recent study of 400 college men. After a factor analysis of subject responses, their data revealed three major dimensions of perceived masculinity: "status," which relates to "men's need to achieve status and others' respect"; "toughness," "that men should be mentally, emotionally, and physically tough and self-reliant"; and "antifemininity," "the belief that men should avoid stereotypically feminine activities and occupations" (p. 28).

These traits are of the Old Father: tough, emotionally and mentally self-reliant, secluded. The Old Father loves to listen to Simon & Garfunkel’s I am an Island. Anyone growing up before my generation had this idea of what a man is, what a father was to look like. The problem here too is that this is not biblical either, even though the American man has held this view for generations. This father is far-off, does not know how to nurture, encourage, even talk. Look at beer commercials, this is the American dad: loud, hard and distant.

Indeed, since we identify a distinctive paternal role with the "Old Father," who was distanced and authoritarian…Whereas for the Old Father work was a way of being committed to his family - proximity through distance (Meilaender, 2000)

This is where the notion of the breadwinner as the father came into its misguided fruition. This is the father who spends day and night at the office for the family. “I get them everything they need, don’t I!” That was the rationalization that failed when his children and wife didn’t want anything to do with him after 20 years of “at the office or the factory.” The Old Father is not just a workaholic; he was also distant, and the loner most particularly when it pertained to his children. The Old Father does not know how to express his emotion; he is bottled up, unaffectionate. Again, this has been learned; this is the view of what it means to be a father in America.

The Father, Biblically Speaking

So who is the man and father when it applies to biblical principles? Scripture has many references to fatherhood. First, Proverbs 1:8 says, “My son, listen to your father's instruction, And don't forsake your mother's teaching.” This is a verse that is spoken over and over in this book of wisdom and throughout the Bible. Fathers, as well as mothers, are to instruct our children about every avenue of life: practical, spiritual, emotional, sexual, physical. Because this theme is repeated over and over; the Scriptures lead us to believe that this is a top priority for fathers. One of the main traits one would think of as fatherhood is one of disciplinarian. This is a half-truth and is a word that is fraught with problems. The Bible actually prefers the word, teacher. Fathers are to teach their children about all of life and in this it is essential that they are around and available to give their children practical as well as spiritual instruction.

In the New Testament we also find instruction in what view we need to take of fatherhood. Even though this passage is speaking of the leadership of Paul toward the Thessalonian church, implicit in these verses is the roles inherent in being a father.

You are witnesses with God, how holy, righteously, and blamelessly we behaved ourselves toward you who believe. As you know how we exhorted, comforted, and implored every one of you, as a father does his own children, to the end that you should walk worthily of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. (I Thessalonians 2:10-12)

By dissecting the verse, first, fathers are to exhort their children. From the Latin hortari, we are to encourage our children. Fathers need to press their children into greatness, to reach beyond themselves for something more in their lives. We are our children’s loudest cheerleaders. Next, fathers bring comfort in their children, when they are wounded, or have failed. This requires affection and attention, attributes the opposite of the Old Father which was discussed above. Lastly, we are to implore. Again, it is helpful to look at the root of the word. The word is taken from the Latin implorare, which means to do something in weeping. We need to be on our knees for our children calling out to our great God for help. Our hearts need to be broken for our children, praying without ceasing for them. Our voices not only have to cry out for greatness to our children, but for our children, to our God who has given us the greatest responsibility: to imitate him as father.

The book of Job also has some intriguing teaching when it comes to being a father.

I was eyes to the blind, And feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy. The cause of him who I didn't know, I searched out. I broke the jaws of the unrighteous, And plucked the prey out of his teeth. (Job 29:15-17)

A good father does not only lead his own family, but others as well. These verses say that he searches out those who are needy, going to the point of even risking his own life in protection. A man who wishes to be a father needs to be looking for the needy to touch. Again, a father knows the life of sacrifice.

Another scripture that adds an interesting light to fathering is in the book of Ephesians, “You fathers, don't provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” The New International Version uses the phrase, “do not exasperate your children;” we are not to be too rough; we are not to intensify an already difficult challenge for them. God in his foreknowledge knows the emotional composition of fathers and understands that sometimes we can be too demanding. He instructs us to lead, but to not push so hard that you shove your children away. The use of ‘nurture’ here is an interesting word; one typically thinks of this being a motherly trait, and yet God instructs fathers to do the same.

Lastly, if one wants to be an exceptional father, one has to look at the qualities of our Father and how he treats us. Listen to these aspects of his personality:

Do you thus requite Yahweh, Foolish people and unwise? Isn't he your father who has bought you? He has made you, and established you. (Deuteronomy 32:6)

For whom Yahweh loves, he reproves; Even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights. (Proverbs 3:12)

A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in his holy habitation. (Psalm 68:5)

Like a father has compassion on his children, So Yahweh has compassion on those who fear him. (Psalm 103:13)

For the nations of the world seek after all of these things, but your Father knows that you need these things. (Luke 12:30)

There are other verses that speak of God as our Father, but these verses are ones repeated over and over throughout the Scripture. So what do they say? First, we need to make our children into who they are to become. We are to establish them. In this we will need to reprove them and instruct them in what is right and good and what is not. Children are not blank slates that just fill in; they need to be led and fathers need to lead their children as our Father does with us. Another aspect is that we need to be men of compassion. When our children fail, we need to show empathy and patience. Lastly, these verses show us a God who gives us good things. We need to provide for our children in the abundance we have been given. A good father is a “blesser,” sanctifying his children with a financial, emotional and spiritual inheritance.

Final Words

Whether you are a father or mother, these are difficult times to figure out what you are supposed to be. Our culture is such an amalgamation of ideas concerning what it means to be a father, mother, woman, man, child, person. In the 20^th century we went through a string of ideological, cultural changes that has shaped and confused the masses. What it means to be a mother or father is very different from even the 1950’s. And just as little as 30 years ago, at least there was stability in the structure of the family. Today that is not so. The class rooms today are filled with latch-key children who go home to one parent. My sons are growing up in a world that is dramatically different then the one I grew up. But there is hope. Most importantly, we have a Father, who we can imitate, and who can teach us how to lead our families in a way that brings about freedom, love and security. Make no bones about it, husbands and fathers have tremendous responsibilities:

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the assembly to himself gloriously, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.

For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly; because we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. (Ephesians 5:25-27)

Inferred here is also a role for fathers. Our model is none other than God himself! We are to be like Jesus as fathers, one day presenting our children and wives to him “without spot or wrinkle,” “loving them as our own body.” There can be no higher calling.