8 minute read
The Vocation of Christian Fatherhood
by Alex Klages
“Our Father, by whose name all fatherhood is known,” begins a hymn in our hymnal (LSB 863:1). In these words, we have set before us the basic concept of Christian fatherhood. The vocation of fatherhood stems from God our Heavenly Father and the good order He has given to creation. My own understanding of this vocation has been shaped in three ways: by Scripture, by my father’s carrying out of this vocation, and by my own service in this vocation for more than 18 years within my own family.
First then, how does Scripture speak of the vocation of fatherhood? We confess as Christians the Holy Trinity—that our God is one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each person distinct but of one nature. The Athanasian Creed does a wonderful job of delving into this truth. The revelation of God as our Father is a powerful one. In the genealogy of Jesus found in Luke 3:23-38, Jesus’ own ancestry is traced back to “son of Adam, son of God.” Likewise in Isaiah 64:8 we read: “But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter; we are all the work of Your hand.” Thus, God’s Word plainly teaches that all humankind has God as our Father. What’s more, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Lord’s Prayer as well as other places, teaches us to call on God as our Father.
As such, Christian fathers are called to model the kind of love that God the Father shows toward the world and the people He has made. Consider how the Lord describes Himself to Moses: “The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation’” (Exodus 34:6-7) Now, granted that human fathers are not wholly righteous and without sins and flaws, the general concept of what a father should be like is laid out for us here: merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving sins; yet also meting out discipline and correction where it is called for.
In fact, the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews specifically notes the importance of discipline, from both God and from our parents (12:5-11). As this passage reflects on Proverbs 3:11-12, it notes that being God’s children means receiving discipline from Him—just as human fathers are called on to discipline their children. The Greek word for discipline is paideia, which implies not just discipline in the sense of punishment but the broader sense of instruction, training, correction, and so forth. Christian fatherhood, therefore, is about carrying out this kind of discipline alongside the mercy, grace, faithfulness, and love which our Heavenly Father models for us.
The vocation of Christian fatherhood is also set out in Ephesians: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (6:4). That is to say, in whatever we do as fathers, we are called not to cause our children to be angry at us by an improper administration of our vocational duties of discipline and training. Rather, our calling is to be fathers in such a way as to point our children first and foremost to the Lord. The lures of the devil, the world, and the flesh are always with us; and even the best and most loving Christian father may yet have children who wander from the Lord and His ways (as indeed we see throughout the Old Testament!). Yet the primary calling of Christian fatherhood is to point children toward the Lord. As the Catechism notes of itself: “The head of the family should teach it in a simple way to his household.” The father is the head of the family, biblically, and in a spiritual sense as well.
I have been blessed with a father who understands the role of fatherhood very well. He certainly believes in discipline, but not to the point of exasperation. He showed and shows care and generosity in ways which I think as children we took often for granted—driving us to music festivals, coaching our baseball teams and umpiring, building a treehouse for us, teaching us basic woodworking and handyman skills (skills I sadly didn’t absorb well!), making sure the family finances were working in tight times so there was always a roof overhead and food on the table, and so on. As I grew up, my dad continued to guide and provide for me in various ways, physically, financially, and so forth.
But most importantly, my father models faithfulness to Christ and His church. I cannot remember a time when my dad did not serve in some capacity or another the congregations he attended, quite often as an elder or as treasurer (drawing on his skills as an accountant). Family devotions, with my dad reading God’s Word to us from the Bible, were a part of daily life for my family growing up. Sunday church attendance was simply the expectation. For my parents, the Christian faith was and is not something to be taken for granted, and their model of love and faithfulness to Christ certainly played no small part in my own vocational path. The course catalogues on our coffee table for Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary, which my father considered attending at one point, helped pique my interest in seminary as a teenager. Even now as an adult with children of my own, my father continues to be a great support and role model for me.
And it is by reflecting on both God the Father’s love and service and my own father’s love and service that I also have tried to become and be a good example of Christian fatherhood to my own children. Here are some of the ways I have tried to carry out the vocation of Christian fatherhood. First and foremost is our time around the table in devotions and catechism study as a family. Regardless of what else might be happening, that daily pause to gather around God’s Word as a family unit is important to me as a way of keeping our household focused on the Lord and His Word. This also means making sure everyone is in church each Sunday. Perhaps you might think this is taken for granted in a pastor’s family, but our children have had to make hard decisions at times with regard to friends and sporting events. I am thankful that their upraising has led them to choose to be in the house of the Lord. When we are travelling on vacation, we plan out in advance where we will stop on Sunday mornings, to ensure we can attend a Lutheran church with which we are in fellowship so that we can hear God’s Word and receive the Lord’s Supper. Again, these are things which I learned from my own parents.
Being at the same time both sinner and saint as a father, and having sinner-saints for children, there are also times of needed discipline for my children. I hope to have demonstrated both firmness where needed with our children but also grace, mercy, and forgiveness as well. Just as Jesus Christ relied on His heavenly Father’s mercy and found refreshment in time spent in the Word and prayer, so the Christian father is called to show mercy by giving comfort, refuge, and guidance to his children. The world is a strange place and it is important as a father to give my children that safe, Gospel-centred home to find hope and refuge in.
I try to express my love for my children both in word and in deed. One of the blessings of the pastoral office is that I can move around certain things in my schedule to be there with my children at things like music festivals, school trips, sporting events, and the like. I know this is not always possible for all Christian parents; but on the other hand a lot of my evenings are taken up with church events, meaning I have not always been present for bedtimes and such. So it is good to be able to do things in the daytime with my children. Yet my children know the love of their earthly father and their heavenly Father, and that is a great joy indeed.
There is really no one blueprint for Christian fatherhood outside the essentials of loving God and loving your children, and teaching them by the Word, leadership, and example what it means to be a Christian. This is what my father did for me, and what I am trying to do for my children. I am thankful for this calling and pray that God continues to bless my family by means of His Word and grace.
