A WORD TO FATHERS

By Gary McDade

The God of heaven thought so much of His placement of fathers as the head of their households that in the first twenty-five hundred years of the world’s existence He spoke directly to the heads of the families that eventually spread across the wide world and populated it with now beyond eight billion people. His attention directed to the fathers at the dawn of time declares their importance in God’s plan and will for the human family. The book of Genesis records God’s interaction with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as heads of their families through whom He would orchestrate and perpetuate a descendancy that would ultimately serve as the entry point into the world for His Son, Jesus Christ the Savior of the world.

As the deeply-embedded, strong, and solid foundation of a towering skyscraper or a massive roadway remains in place to the accomplishment of the plan and purpose of the architecturally designed and professionally engineered structure so the laying of the groundwork in the beginning of time that God created remains in place as an integral part of His great design for the existence and effective performance of the human family. The iron-clad respect and submission to the loving God who made all the universe and all the people within it—including those so close to the hearts of the fathers—God intended to remain so long as the world stands.

How dedicated, therefore, to the daily life and guided future of his family the father in the home should be. So as not to be missed or minimized He commanded, “Husbands love your wives,” and not to be misunderstood, He paralleled the love of the husband for his wife to the love of Christ for His church, in particular that he gave His life for her as His only bride (Ephesians 5:25). When in a kind providence the fruit of the unique union produces offspring, the father is to “bring them up in the nurture [teaching] and admonition [discipline] of the Lord”—perfectly compatible with the Lord’s revealed will, the Bible (Ephesians 6:4). Upon entering the great beyond and presenting the report of his life to his Maker, each father will see his destiny and that of those under his charge assigned their place eternity. May each father awake and arise to duty’s demands while time and opportunity remain.