Bible Study - Thoughts for Father’s Day

Two times in the Gospels Jesus says very similar things about fathers (and parents). In Luke 11:11-13, He refers specifically to fathers. In Matthew 7:9-11, Jesus speaks of “men,” but uses a term that sometimes just means “human beings” and not just “males.”
(Jesus preached for three years, off and on, and said similar things to many of the people, but did not always use the exact same words, as we see in these passages. Take a look at both passages, to begin with.) In both passages, Jesus says something that seems contradictory. He says to fathers (and mothers), very bluntly, “You are evil.” Yet at the same time he says, “You know how to give good gifts to your children.” You would not give stones or serpents or scorpions to your children, but you give what they need - bread or fish or an egg.

Why would Jesus particularly say to fathers (and mothers), “You are evil"? That’s not what we want to hear on a day like Father’s Day. (I’ll just speak about fathers, since I am a father.) Jesus always spoke the truth,  and so He had to speak the Law of God to us. Ever since the fall into sin, we have all been sinful people, born with a sinful nature.
As early as Genesis 6:5 we read, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intention of his heart was only evil continually.”  The Lord said through Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it” (Jeremiah 17:9). Jesus Himself said, “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts… false witness, slander”…. and so much else (Matthew 15:18-20).

The commentator Martin Franzmann says that the Matthew passage might be the strongest “indictment" of us in the Sermon on the Mount. “Jesus is here taking man at his best, in his fatherhood, where the very structure imposed on his life by the Creator forces a certain selflessness on him - Jesus is taking man as the giver of good gifts to his children and is even there calling him evil. Man’s incapacity for real righteousness… could hardly be more strongly stated” (Discipleship, p.50-51).

At the same time, Jesus always also preached the Gospel. As we hear in this week’s Epistle lesson, Romans 5:6-15,  we have, at times, been “weak,” “ungodly,” “sinners,” and even “enemies of God” (Romans 5:6-10). “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us… We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son… and saved by His life.” Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:17-19: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this from God… In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” Again, Paul wrote, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel,” the same one Jesus preached, “for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).  He also said that those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ are loved by God and called to be saints” (Romans 1:6-7). This all means that in Christ, we are now forgiven sinners, but also saints, headed for eternal life, in Christ.

We can also, as a new creation in Christ, give good gifts to our children and be a blessing to them. We know the tension we still face in this life, as both a saint and a sinner. We have good intentions, but can’t always seem to keep them. We make promises, but can’t or don’t always follow through on them. We battle our sinful nature, even as fathers, as Paul describes in Romans 7:15-25. Yet we rejoice that God loves and forgives us and that our children and spouse love and forgive us, too. That is the grace of God at work in us all, because “our (perfect) Father who is in heaven gives His greatest good gifts to us, in Christ.

God’s love and forgiveness help us learn and do better as fathers, too. Just before the Matthew 7 passage, Jesus had taught that we need to be careful about judging others too harshly, if we want God to continue to be merciful to us with our own failings. We can grow in being more forgiving, as we have been forgiven by our Lord (Matthew 7:1-5). Jesus also said, right after the Matthew passage, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12).

We can grow into being better fathers, as the Lord works mercifully in our own lives, but we need God’s power to do so. That is why just before the Luke 11 passage, Jesus was teaching about prayer and the need to keep praying for the Lord’s help for our lives, even as fathers. We can “ask and seek and knock” and the Lord will hear our prayers and answer in the way that is best for us (Luke 11:1-10). It is a great privilege to be fathers and to give good gifts to our children and spouse and others around us. What joy we can bring to others and receive from them, in our families, as we work and serve together. And we have the promise of Jesus that our caring Heavenly Father will keep giving us His Holy Spirit to strengthen our own faith through His Word and help us in dealing with our children and spouse and family (Luke 11:13).

One last thought. We rejoice in our own fathers who have been a blessing to us and gave us good gifts and good examples, as imperfect as they were, too. And even if our fathers were not so helpful or even troubling or absent, we have a Heavenly Father who can bring us healing and strength and help to go a better way through His love and care. As Peter wrote, “In everything may God be glorified through Jesus Christ. To Him belong glory and dominion forever” (1 Peter 4:11).