Home  |   Church Home   |  School Home   |  Contact
  Grace Lutheran School  
   
   
 
 
July 2012
Why the Term 'Father'?

God is a God of order not a God of confusion.  As the first person of the Trinity He reveals His creative order in the title given to Him of “father”.

As the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us always submitted Himself to the Father, so His children submit themselves to the Son the Word that became flesh like us and for us.

God’s most visible creature, man, was made in the image of God.  This image was lost in the fall of our first parents, but now is revealed again in the perfect life of Jesus.

You, children of God clothed in the righteousness of Jesus, may now reflect once again this image albeit in a less than complete manner.

Listen to the Word of God as it reveals the truth of Fatherhood and order in the Kingdom:

To Fathers:  “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it”.  Proverbs 22:6

To Husbands: “Husbands”, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.  Ephesians 5:25-28 (NKJ)

And again: So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.  Ephesians 5: 28 (NKJ)

To Children:  Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.  Ephesians 6:1 (NKJ)

To Parents (especially Fathers once again): And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.  Ephesians 6:4 (NKJ)

In the first Epistle of St John writing under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, St. John uses the term ‘child’ or ‘little children’ when writing to the congregations of which he was their “Shepherd/ Pastor”. What does John have in mind with the use of this term?

The Church as Family. Some expressions in John’s Letters have confused interpreters.  For example, when John refers to his readers as “children” (1John: 2:1, 12–13, 18, 28; 3:1–2, 7, 10, 18; 4:4; 5:2, 21; 2John 1, 4, 13; 3John: 4), some have read this as an indication that he wrote the letters when he was old.  This is to miss John’s point about his relationship with the members of the congregations.  It is not primarily an issue of age.  John speaks to his readers as members of his family, the household of faith, for which he is a leader (“elder” or “parent”).  Concordia Study Bible

God keep you faithful always:

Pastor Froh