A Theology of Fatherhood

Our expectations should not be that God is always up to hurting or damaging us; instead, God’s pleasure is to provide a table for us in the presence of our enemies.

I am working on revising that little work published ten years ago. It’s a rewarding and humbling process, especially to see how my writing changed and how much more clearly I see things now as a father of 15 years. I hope subscribers enjoy these revisions, which will eventually be re-published in 2024 with additional chapters. All paid subscribers will get a PDF copy of the book, and hopefully, I can send out several physical copies.

If you want to follow the progress, here is the revised introduction.

Chapter One

Imitating God

“Every real thing is a joy, if only you have eyes and ears to relish it, a nose and tongue to taste it.”

–Robert Farrar Capon

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

– C.S. Lewis

God looks at history as a Father. History is not cruel to the children of God. Look how great a love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God (I John 3:1). History takes us from glory to glory to a place of exaltation at our Father’s side, basking in his eternal love through Jesus Christ. But though history is not cruel, and while God’s children dwell in his steadfast love, it is also not safe for the children of God. Much like Aslan in C.S. Lewis’s fiction, history is not safe, but it is good.

History displays a dangerous God who is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29). But the initial days of creation did not carry the judgment of God’s wrath. God made us as his image-bearers and put us in a garden to play with all sorts of safe animals. There was an innocence to the life of the first sanctuary. Man was not corrupted and lived in that state of innocence. The animals were not fierce and violent as the creatures we see on National Geographic episodes. But the fall was violent. It plunged man into a furious and dangerous world. Man and beast no longer played in the games of Eden, but the beasts of the field roared in anger when they saw the sons of Adam.