Paul on Fathers
Here’s how Paul put it, “Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15, NIV). This is why the Pope is called the Pope, which is just Latin for “father.” And why so many Catholic or Anglican priests are called “Father.” In the early church, all ministers were called popes or fathers. The idea was that pastors were to be spiritual parents.
I’ll never forget one of our staff members coming into my office, telling me she was pregnant with her first child. Then, as she was leaving, she said: “It’s so weird. I haven’t even told my own father I’m pregnant yet, but I wanted to tell you. You’re just like a father to me.”
And then I received the following email from someone who, at the time she wrote, I had never met:
“My father was a broken man, wounded from the scars of his life, and as a former Marine and Vietnam veteran, he was haunted by demons he just could not escape. Due to these circumstances I lost my father a long time ago. I spent many years hurt over the lack of a strong father figure, and I saw the effects of that meted out in my life. Through Meck and Pastor Jim’s teachings, I see how God has met my need for a father-like spiritual leader. It may seem silly because I’ve never met him in person, but what a deep need it is for a young woman to have wholesome biblical guidance in her life. I can’t express in words how healing it is for me. God has used this church to mend wounds that I’ve lived with since childhood.”
I share these to show how the church is designed to be led like a father would lead a family, and how that leadership can fill father-shaped holes in our life.
And is meant to.
A young woman asked to have coffee with me. She was engaged to be married and wanted to ask me something. We met for coffee and she started off by telling me her story—a terrible one of family dysfunction and abuse and so much more. My heart was just breaking as this lovely young woman shared the ordeal of her life and her terrible mistreatment by her father and, later, stepfather.
Then she shared how she had become a Christ follower, and how her relationship with God as Father had revolutionized her life. How discovering God as her perfect Father intersected her deepest needs. The father-shaped hole had been filled and she was just basking in this new relationship.
