Every year, for the past 7 years, the joy and weight of Father's Day have exponentially grown in our home, as well as in my own soul. I have, by God's grace, been aware of the gravity of fatherhood since long before becoming a father myself. The confluence of circumstances surrounding my own biological conception, lack of strong paternal investment in my development and upbringing, along with the substantive progenitive descriptions throughout The Bible, was enough to instill the belief that fathers are essential to societal structure and healthy child rearing. Furthermore, I've actually become a father two times over as the chasm between a biblical worldview and acceptable cultural mores has widen exponentially, thereby increasing the importance of the holy burden laid before us, to be fathers compelled, sanctioned, and sanctified by The Lord, God Almighty, Himself.
I am not aware of any role that is more important for a Christian man to fully engage, with the exception of husband, than the transformative one of a godly father. Though the current cultural milieu, with the enlistment of mostly progressive social science professionals, would pejoratively assign terms like patriarchal, or even misogynistic to my further discourse of fatherhood, the following passage from 2 Corinthians encourages me forward.
2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
17
Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
18
and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”
From church partnerships with secular media and promotional organizations, to individual dating and shared intimacy relationships between Christians and unbelievers, many a church and church goer have virtually ignored or altogether rejected any need for discernment regarding the issue of being "yoked." Without a biblical understanding of what it means to be yoked, any theologically meaningful discussion of fatherhood cannot be pursued. Such a deliberation requires all of us to see the levels at which the world, the flesh, and the devil have been partnering with us at a soul clinching, spiritual depth since our births. Those partnerships have despicably corroborated our abilities to yoke ourselves to whomever or whatever we like without objurgation. But if we are to receive the prodigious blessings of verse 18 of 2 Corinthians 6, we must be resolved in verse 14. Upon being riveted into the prescriptive remedy for a life of futility, by living inextricably from the grace, mercy, and person of Jesus, The Christ, we are promised a father beyond compare.
When the Apostle Paul mentions this issue of being "unequally yoked" to the Church at Corinth, he likely drew upon the farming practices of his time in conjunction with his knowledge of The Old Testament. Deuteronomy 22:10 states, "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together." This was not a prohibition because of mere preferential segregation valuing one animal over another. This was The Lord's instruction in recognition of creature purposes, design, and temperament. While oxen and donkeys were compatible stable and grazing mates on a communal animal farm, they would not work well together in terms of equally sharing the burden of the yoke. They are not driven with the same motivation. They do not share the same strengths. They have different responses to the bit, the yoke, and the whip. A field plowed by an ox yoked with a donkey would be very uneven, thereby affecting the seeds sown, and the subsequent harvest it would produce. The Lord's instructions to His people then, are both practically and spiritually significant. Not only does the work become more difficult, the motivation for doing the work, as well as the fruit of the labor are incongruous. Such is the case with animals, as with people.
Hence, the work of the Christian and the Church are guided by principles from The Lord that clearly distinguish them from the unbelieving world. If we've spent more time being shaped by secular forces than by Scripture and The Spirit, we are likely to experience the various aspects of fatherhood from a position of playing "catch up" with the Bible. If The Lord is desirous of being our father, and is encouraging us to desire His parental involvement in our personal lives, then being a father or having a father are ultimately God's perfect design for His children. Many in the secular world would have us believe that fatherhood is neither essential, nor regulative, and no longer qualified or qualifiable by any normative standard. Abstractly muted definitions of gender, by their very nature, must minimize and mystify biblical fatherhood, lest the obvious become universally accepted. Thus the converse is true; the clearly defined, divinely appointed, holy exemplification of fatherhood by The Lord, emulated by His believing children stand in stark contrast to the blurry world.
Notice The Holy Spirit did not lead the biblical authors to promise us a brother, mother, sister, neighbor, friend, or rich uncle. The Lord is established as the Divine Father for all of His children. For someone like me who has experienced less than favorable relationships and encounters with sperm donors and feckless, contractually obliged men, the concept of a perfect Heavenly Father was an idealized longing, though a nonviable abstraction. This until I was apprehended by The Lord, saved by His grace, and nourished by His Word. His matchless fatherhood is unlike anything I've ever witnessed in or heard described by the numerous "should statements" from temporal academics firing off ideological distortions to shame the current hegemony. The Lord is a good father, though not doting. The Lord is a principled father, though not harsh. The Lord is a joyful father, though not silly. The Lord is a bold father, though not arrogant. The Lord is a masculine father, though not misogynistic. The Lord is fiercely protective, promising vengeance upon those who are unrepentant towards Him, as well as harmful to His children. His wrath is not pedantic, but just and final. The Lord is winsome, though not flighty, keeping His promises to the end of history, unabashedly highlighting His glory. I want Him as my Father. I strive to be like him, as a father.
Too many men have vacated a post that has been maligned by television propaganda from the 1950's through our present age. From Jim Anderson (Father Knows Best) to Al Bundy (Married With Children) the caricatures of men have mostly been brutish or bumbling, absent or abject, lacking sufficient nuance or dimension that would even slightly reflect the image of a "man after God's own heart," like King David. Rather than boldly stand in the crosshairs of a nitpicky, cowardly, milktoast culture that wilfully shoots at men who are assured and definitive about truth, morality, and goodness, a second and third generation of men is fastly and furiously becoming submissive and reclusive, forfeiting any DNA residue of a will to fight. But the vacated post is still available and calling men of God to fill it. There is no substitute, real or imaginary, manufactured or manipulated, that can ever replace a man called by God to shepherd his family and father his children. The only way to think otherwise is to have already been indoctrinated and unequally yoked with unbelievers. Without the intervention of The Holy Spirit, no human debate will suffice to convince such a lost person.
For those of you watching men fade into the background, silenced by remote control privileges, subdued by prescribed tranquilizers, neutered by video and social media opposition, know this. The aforementioned are malignant tendrils, rapidly multiplying and wrapping around fading men's masculinity and dignity. The souls of the men to whom God has given the desire to love, protect, and shepherd with their lives, are being farmed by politically correct atheists for repurposing with transgender, asexuals who will be assimilated through brain numbing medication and experimental therapy. The men that The Lord has called are being marginalized by pixelated, intersectional cowards, ultimately victimizing those they accuse of wounding them. Although the minions won't face those they accuse, they will rain torrents of feminist solutions for "the problem with men/patriarchy." You can help these men. Pray for them. Encourage them. Remind these men that biblical manhood, Christ-like fatherhood is wonderful, missed, and appreciated. When you see any semblance of a backbone returning, support it enthusiastically. Act like you want to be equally yoked with someone who is more passionate about The Lord then anyone or anything else. Reminisce about the godly men you've known, if any.
Brothers, men of God, I pray that you are girded up for battle, prepared to be a willful, forceful antithesis to the modern interchangeable father of this age. I pray that God's men will not allow the role of warrior to be played by the mythical fantasies of nerds who imagined Amazon/Wonder Women. Men should know that their presence and strength cannot be replicated by any female regardless of her level of physical fitness. Fathers called by The Lord, lean into the gender specific, masculine identity depicted and celebrated by God Himself. There is nothing like The Father's love, but we can provide a foretaste of it for our children, should we accept His yoke and reject the world's. Happy Father's Day! - PC
On Father's Day
Every year, for the past 7 years, the joy and weight of Father's Day have exponentially grown in our home, as well as in my own soul. I have, by God's grace, been aware of the gravity of fatherhood since long before becoming a father myself. The confluence of circumstances surrounding my own biological conception, lack of strong paternal investment in my development and upbringing, along with the substantive progenitive descriptions throughout The Bible, was enough to instill the belief that fathers are essential to societal structure and healthy child rearing. Furthermore, I've actually become a father two times over as the chasm between a biblical worldview and acceptable cultural mores has widen exponentially, thereby increasing the importance of the holy burden laid before us, to be fathers compelled, sanctioned, and sanctified by The Lord, God Almighty, Himself.
I am not aware of any role that is more important for a Christian man to fully engage, with the exception of husband, than the transformative one of a godly father. Though the current cultural milieu, with the enlistment of mostly progressive social science professionals, would pejoratively assign terms like patriarchal, or even misogynistic to my further discourse of fatherhood, the following passage from 2 Corinthians encourages me forward.
2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
17
Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
18
and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”
From church partnerships with secular media and promotional organizations, to individual dating and shared intimacy relationships between Christians and unbelievers, many a church and church goer have virtually ignored or altogether rejected any need for discernment regarding the issue of being "yoked." Without a biblical understanding of what it means to be yoked, any theologically meaningful discussion of fatherhood cannot be pursued. Such a deliberation requires all of us to see the levels at which the world, the flesh, and the devil have been partnering with us at a soul clinching, spiritual depth since our births. Those partnerships have despicably corroborated our abilities to yoke ourselves to whomever or whatever we like without objurgation. But if we are to receive the prodigious blessings of verse 18 of 2 Corinthians 6, we must be resolved in verse 14. Upon being riveted into the prescriptive remedy for a life of futility, by living inextricably from the grace, mercy, and person of Jesus, The Christ, we are promised a father beyond compare.
When the Apostle Paul mentions this issue of being "unequally yoked" to the Church at Corinth, he likely drew upon the farming practices of his time in conjunction with his knowledge of The Old Testament. Deuteronomy 22:10 states, "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together." This was not a prohibition because of mere preferential segregation valuing one animal over another. This was The Lord's instruction in recognition of creature purposes, design, and temperament. While oxen and donkeys were compatible stable and grazing mates on a communal animal farm, they would not work well together in terms of equally sharing the burden of the yoke. They are not driven with the same motivation. They do not share the same strengths. They have different responses to the bit, the yoke, and the whip. A field plowed by an ox yoked with a donkey would be very uneven, thereby affecting the seeds sown, and the subsequent harvest it would produce. The Lord's instructions to His people then, are both practically and spiritually significant. Not only does the work become more difficult, the motivation for doing the work, as well as the fruit of the labor are incongruous. Such is the case with animals, as with people.
Hence, the work of the Christian and the Church are guided by principles from The Lord that clearly distinguish them from the unbelieving world. If we've spent more time being shaped by secular forces than by Scripture and The Spirit, we are likely to experience the various aspects of fatherhood from a position of playing "catch up" with the Bible. If The Lord is desirous of being our father, and is encouraging us to desire His parental involvement in our personal lives, then being a father or having a father are ultimately God's perfect design for His children. Many in the secular world would have us believe that fatherhood is neither essential, nor regulative, and no longer qualified or qualifiable by any normative standard. Abstractly muted definitions of gender, by their very nature, must minimize and mystify biblical fatherhood, lest the obvious become universally accepted. Thus the converse is true; the clearly defined, divinely appointed, holy exemplification of fatherhood by The Lord, emulated by His believing children stand in stark contrast to the blurry world.
Notice The Holy Spirit did not lead the biblical authors to promise us a brother, mother, sister, neighbor, friend, or rich uncle. The Lord is established as the Divine Father for all of His children. For someone like me who has experienced less than favorable relationships and encounters with sperm donors and feckless, contractually obliged men, the concept of a perfect Heavenly Father was an idealized longing, though a nonviable abstraction. This until I was apprehended by The Lord, saved by His grace, and nourished by His Word. His matchless fatherhood is unlike anything I've ever witnessed in or heard described by the numerous "should statements" from temporal academics firing off ideological distortions to shame the current hegemony. The Lord is a good father, though not doting. The Lord is a principled father, though not harsh. The Lord is a joyful father, though not silly. The Lord is a bold father, though not arrogant. The Lord is a masculine father, though not misogynistic. The Lord is fiercely protective, promising vengeance upon those who are unrepentant towards Him, as well as harmful to His children. His wrath is not pedantic, but just and final. The Lord is winsome, though not flighty, keeping His promises to the end of history, unabashedly highlighting His glory. I want Him as my Father. I strive to be like him, as a father.
Too many men have vacated a post that has been maligned by television propaganda from the 1950's through our present age. From Jim Anderson (Father Knows Best) to Al Bundy (Married With Children) the caricatures of men have mostly been brutish or bumbling, absent or abject, lacking sufficient nuance or dimension that would even slightly reflect the image of a "man after God's own heart," like King David. Rather than boldly stand in the crosshairs of a nitpicky, cowardly, milktoast culture that wilfully shoots at men who are assured and definitive about truth, morality, and goodness, a second and third generation of men is fastly and furiously becoming submissive and reclusive, forfeiting any DNA residue of a will to fight. But the vacated post is still available and calling men of God to fill it. There is no substitute, real or imaginary, manufactured or manipulated, that can ever replace a man called by God to shepherd his family and father his children. The only way to think otherwise is to have already been indoctrinated and unequally yoked with unbelievers. Without the intervention of The Holy Spirit, no human debate will suffice to convince such a lost person.
For those of you watching men fade into the background, silenced by remote control privileges, subdued by prescribed tranquilizers, neutered by video and social media opposition, know this. The aforementioned are malignant tendrils, rapidly multiplying and wrapping around fading men's masculinity and dignity. The souls of the men to whom God has given the desire to love, protect, and shepherd with their lives, are being farmed by politically correct atheists for repurposing with transgender, asexuals who will be assimilated through brain numbing medication and experimental therapy. The men that The Lord has called are being marginalized by pixelated, intersectional cowards, ultimately victimizing those they accuse of wounding them. Although the minions won't face those they accuse, they will rain torrents of feminist solutions for "the problem with men/patriarchy." You can help these men. Pray for them. Encourage them. Remind these men that biblical manhood, Christ-like fatherhood is wonderful, missed, and appreciated. When you see any semblance of a backbone returning, support it enthusiastically. Act like you want to be equally yoked with someone who is more passionate about The Lord then anyone or anything else. Reminisce about the godly men you've known, if any.
Brothers, men of God, I pray that you are girded up for battle, prepared to be a willful, forceful antithesis to the modern interchangeable father of this age. I pray that God's men will not allow the role of warrior to be played by the mythical fantasies of nerds who imagined Amazon/Wonder Women. Men should know that their presence and strength cannot be replicated by any female regardless of her level of physical fitness. Fathers called by The Lord, lean into the gender specific, masculine identity depicted and celebrated by God Himself. There is nothing like The Father's love, but we can provide a foretaste of it for our children, should we accept His yoke and reject the world's. Happy Father's Day! - PC