Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father’s Day everyone! This weekend we celebrate dads. I want to take a moment and think about our Ultimate Father and try to explain why I look at Him the way that I do. Those that know me well know that I sometimes look at things from a unique (some would say strange) point of view. As I grow in my relationship with God, my particular journey has led me to see the Lord much differently than I once did. Much of that is due to the fact that I have enjoyed studying God’s Word from a Jewish (Hebraic) perspective, which has drastically altered and even challenged some of my previous thinking.

Let me start from the beginning: Our Western cultural heritage has its roots in Greek philosophy, because of this the Greek concept of God has sometimes overshadowed the authentic biblical picture of God. The ancient Greeks' had a very dualistic worldview, which seriously influenced their understanding of God. I believe that it still influences us today. Dualism is the belief that all physical reality is worthless and evil; and that goodness and perfection is found only in the spiritual world. That sounds pretty ‘okay’ at first, but follow their logic; The ancient Greeks believed that if the supreme god is perfect, this god must be beyond the heavens, uninvolved in the material world in any way. Many Christians have sort of inherited from them the idea that God is far away and uninterested in humanity. They believe God may have created the universe, but there’s no way He has involvement in it now. Sometimes we hear that idea from Christians, even though the Bible repeatedly tells us that God was intimately involved in the life of Israel, walked on earth as Christ, and still is present now in the Holy Spirit. We also inherit from the Greeks the dualistic idea that our lives on earth are basically of no consequence, and that what we should really be concerned with is the life to come. In contrast, the Jewish perspective is that salvation is a redeeming of our life here on earth that simply extends on into eternity.

In the second century AD, dualism caused the heresy of a guy named, Marcion to become popular. Marcion believed that Christians should reject the God of the Old Testament as an evil, violent, lesser God than Jesus Christ, Who came to teach about the true supreme God. After all, the God of the Old Testament had created the corrupt material world, so He must be evil too. Marcion wanted to remove the entire Old Testament from the canon (‘canon’ is a big word that just refers to the 66 Books of the Bible that we all love and believe to be inspired), and much of the New Testament, besides the stuff written by Luke and Paul. He considered the Old Testament to be inferior to the New, and its Jewish God angry and unloving, so he focused only on teaching about Jesus. Although the church denounced Marcion as a heretic (yay for the church!), the unfortunate truth is that the philosophy behind his ideas still influences much of our church culture today.

I believe it’s sort of easy to embrace much of Marcion's thinking, unless we take a closer look at the message of the Bible from a Jewish setting, and how the Jews understand God. Years ago, I would have agreed intellectually that God the Father is wise, loving and merciful; but the way I read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, betrayed the fact that in my heart I didn't really believe it. Didn't God choose a nation of complainers, burden them with meaningless regulations, and punish them harshly for their sins? This had a negative effect on my desire to learn about God or even think about trying to grow closer to Him. I knew that Christians were supposed to dedicate their lives to serving God, but was pretty unexcited about that idea. If I did, God would probably call me to some job I hated or make me abandon people I loved. Wasn't that the kind of harsh thing He seemed to always do to the Jews? Even though I believed that Jesus was God too, that did not entirely remove my negative feelings toward His Father, and so… my love and trust in this God was pretty minimal.

Sometimes in church I get a sense that others share the lack of love for their heavenly Father that I used to have. I suspect it when I hear people pray only to Jesus, or sing songs praising Christ exclusively, or talk longingly about seeing Jesus in Heaven, but never mention our Father, the one that Jesus loved and came to bring glory (John 17:4). I also suspect it when every scripture read during every sermon or Bible study comes from the New Testament only, ignoring nearly 80% of the scriptures, ironically the only part Jesus studied. In some circles there is even a tendency to accuse God the Father of evil, even though that would be unthinkable with Jesus. When reading the story of Abraham being called to sacrifice Isaac, I’ve actually heard some say, "I think God is the ultimate child abuser!" But when reading about Jesus initially turning down the Gentile woman who asked him to heal her child (Mark 7:26), it is assumed that His motives were good… even if we don't understand them. Can you imagine saying some of the things of Jesus that we say about God the Father? It’s an interesting schizophrenia that allows us to speak lovingly of Jesus and angrily of His Dad, and yet worship them as One God.

What’s really ironic is that we’re supposed to understand in Christianity that Jesus is the very likeness of His Father (Col. 1:15)… funny then that we’d have any doubt about the goodness of our Father in Heaven.

One thing that will massively challenge us to rethink our picture of God is to start reading from the Jews themselves about how they relate to God. It’s super interesting to see how this people who had only known God's "bad side" in the Old Testament actually relate to Him. Although, unfortunately many God-fearing Jews do not recognize Jesus as anything but a great teacher, it can come as an utter surprise to hear the love that Jews have for God the Father in the prayers that they have used for centuries. Much of Jewish prayer is filled with an attitude of praise, blessing God for the minutest gifts that He has given. One traditional hymn from the 3rd to 5th century AD goes:

Every living soul shall bless Your name, O God!

All created things will give You glory and thanksgiving!

Eternally You are God, and no one can stand before You.

Who but You offers freedom and help,

nourishes us and redeems us, sustains us and saves us,

and at all times views with unfailing compassion our sorrows and distress?

There is no one but You!

Isn’t it amazing how the Jews describe the Father in such loving terms? Why do these people see God's mercy and kindness where often we see the exact opposite? Perhaps it’s because they come to the Hebrew Scriptures with an understanding that is less obscured by a foreign worldview. You see, we westerners like it when our theology is all laid out in a systematic way, with clear creeds and statements of truth. Instead, in the Old Testament, we find stories, rules, and long boring lists of names. It’s foreign to us, so we preach and study mainly out of the New Testament, and only barely dig into the rest of scripture. For thousands of years, the Jews (including Jesus, by the way) have revered this text and memorized it, meditated on it and applied it to their daily lives. They have found some excellent answers for many of the hardest questions, because they seem to dwell in the Scriptures as natives.

A case in point is the commandment to wear tassels with a strand of blue thread. I used to think this was a truly pointless regulation, and was glad to be free from oppressive laws like this. But opening the Jewish commentaries, I see they asked a better question -- what good purpose did a loving God have in giving this law? When they did that, they found that it was a very meaningful command because in ancient cultures, tassels were a sign of nobility and priesthood. It was like telling His people to wear a royal robe each day to show that they were His treasured possession, a nation of priests. What I had seen as legalistic foolishness, they saw as a great gift from God. They even had a good response for laws that do not have any clear function. They would ask, "Why did God give us this command to obey?" and then they’d answer, "To show our love and trust for God, whose purposes are beyond fathoming." Man, that’s an awesome attitude to have!

May this Father’s Day we all get a fresh glimpse of our awesome Father in Heaven. I’m so grateful for Jesus – However, I am MOST grateful that Jesus has made a way for me to not only enjoy forgiveness from my many sins, but also to introduce and usher me into passionate and intimate relationship right now with the One and only Father God, Who is good… and Whose loving kindness endures forever!