Kids & Parenting

We Want a Father

by J.W. Phillips
06/11/25
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Jesus always called God Father. Philosophers and theologians have entertained different thoughts about God.

To Aristotle, God was “Pure Actuality.”

To Barth, he was “The Wholly Other.”

To Bultmann, he was “The Beyond in our Midst.”

To Tillich, he was “The Ground of Being.”

To Teilhard, he was “The Omega Point.”

To Otto, he was “The Numinous.”

To Altizer, he was “The Kenotic One.” 

But in contrast to all these abstract, honorific designations, Jesus called God “Abba,” a child’s name for “Daddy,” and he never called him anything else.

Think of the alternative: What if Jesus had chosen another name instead, such as Captain—Captain of the Lord of Hosts? Can you imagine how our view of God would have been radically altered had Jesus kept calling him Captain? 

Hannah Whitall-Smith wrote:

In the Old Testament God was not revealed as the Father so much as a great warrior fighting for his people, or as a mighty king ruling over them and caring for them. The name of Father is given to him only a few times there, six or seven at the most; while in the New Testament it is given about two-hundred or three-hundred times.¹

According to John Owen, the eminent Puritan theologian, “Abba is the Syriac or Chaldee name for Father, then in common use among the Jews.…”² But while it was common in its usage for earthly fathers, it was not at all common as a reference for God.

Horatio Bonar wrote:

We are apt to associate God only with what is cold and abstract and ideal; ourselves with what is emotional and personal. Herein we greatly err. We must reverse the picture if we would know the truth concerning him with whom is no coldness, no abstraction, no impersonality.³

A.W. Pink declared, “Nothing is more calculated to warm the heart and give liberty of utterance than a realization that we are approaching our ‘Father.’”⁴

Samuel Chadwick wrote, “It makes a tremendous difference when the soul realizes that God is … not a shrouded mystery but a living personality, not an unsympathetic embodiment of power but a loving and tender Father.”⁵ 

How we want a father like that!

Of course, most homes don’t have a father like that. A high percentage of children are born out of wedlock and an increasing number of families are led by a single parent. Many children don’t have a father on the scene at all. 

Deeper down every child wants a father worthy of respect and emulation. Dick Gregory described his own feelings about this in his autobiographical account.

It was on a Thursday, the day before the Negro payday. The eagle always flew on Friday. 

The teacher was asking each student how much his father would give to the Community Chest. On Friday night, each kid would get the money from his father, and on Monday he would bring it to the school.

I decided that I was going to buy me a Daddy right then. I had money in my pocket from shining shoes and selling papers, and whatever Helene Tucker pledged for her Daddy I was going to top it. And I’d hand the money right in. I wasn’t going to wait until Monday to buy me a Daddy. 

I was shaking, scared to death. The teacher opened her book and started calling out names alphabetically.

“Helene Tucker?”

“My Daddy said he would give two dollars and fifty cents.”

“That’s very nice, Helene. Very, very nice, indeed.”

That made me feel pretty good. It wouldn’t take too much to top that. I had almost three dollars in dimes and quarters in my pocket. I stuck my hand in my pocket and held on to the money, waiting for her to call my name. But the teacher closed her book after she called everyone else in the class.

I stood up and raised my hand.

“What is it now?”

“You forgot me.”

She turned toward the blackboard. “I don’t have time to be playing with you, Richard.”

“My Daddy said he’d...”

“Sit down, Richard, you’re disturbing the class.”

“My Daddy said he’d give... fifteen dollars.”

She turned around and looked mad. “We are collecting this money for you and your kind, Richard Gregory. If your Daddy can give fifteen dollars, you have no business being on relief.”

“I got it right now, I got it right now, my Daddy said...”

“And furthermore,” she said looking right at me, her nostrils getting big and her lips getting thin and her eyes opening wide, “we know you don’t have a Daddy.”

Helene Tucker turned around, her eyes full of tears. She felt sorry for me. Then I couldn’t see her too well because I was crying, too.

“Sit down, Richard.”

And I always thought the teacher kind of liked me. She always picked me to wash the blackboard on Friday, after school. That was a big thrill. It made me feel important. If I didn’t wash it, come Monday the school might not function right.

“Where are you going, Richard?”

I walked out of school that day, And for a long time I didn’t go back very often. There was shame there.⁶

Isn’t this sad? How desperately little Richard wanted a daddy!

But to all the Richards of this world, God has said that he will be a “Father of the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5)—the provider, the protector, and the standard-bearer of their homes, as well as the encourager of their dreams and the comforter of their hearts.

Notes

1. Hannah Whitall-Smith, God of All Comfort, (Gainesville, FL., Bridge-Logos, 2006), p.57.
2. John Owen, John Owen on the Holy Spirit, (Kindle Edition, 2010; Kindle location: 18127).
3. Horatius Bonar, Rent the Veil, Public Domain, published 1874, Edinburgh, (Pensacola, FL., Mt. Zion Publications), p.8.
4. A.W. Pink, Gleanings from Paul, Public Domain, (Monergism Books, Kindle locations: 135-136).
5. Samuel Chadwick, Humanity and God, (Salem, Ohio, Schmul Publishing Company, 1982), p.16.
6. Robert Raines, Soundings, (New York, Evanston, and London, Harper and Row, 1970), pp. 94, 95.