A Father's Role - Planting The Seed

"And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also." - Gen 38:8-10


The father's primary role in these New Testament days has not changed from the days of the Old Testament. We have been and always will be called to proclaim Christ and God's salvation in Jesus as the Messiah (the Anointed One) for we know that there is "no other name under heaven by which a man may be saved".

In the days of the prophets before Jesus, they were called to preach the promises of the covenant of God to His people. However, that was not their only duty. They also, in faith looking forward to the Messiah, were partakers in the procreation and proliferation of the seed knowing that one day the seed would bruise the head of the serpent and defeat death which had entered through Adam's sin. [Gen 3:15]

Today, the seed is no longer the way in which the Messiah would come in the person of the Lord Jesus. However, our role fathers has not changed in principle. We are still to plant the seed, but that seed is now the planting of the Gospel into the hearts of our families. Let us do it in faith by the power of the Spirit rather than defiance and shame as Onan had done.

Happy Father's Day to my fellow brothers out there. Praise God for revealing to us our sin and His righteousness.

My Daughter, The Apologist

Sitting with me as I was listening and critiquing a Mark Driscoll sermon, little Izabella (my 7-yr-old daughter) blessed me by displaying the fruit of our labors to teach her not merely to memorize scripture but rather to understand and apply them.

BELLA: Is he a false preacher or a good one?

PAPA: He's not preaching Christ in the message.

BELLA: Really? But isn't everything in the bible about Jesus because "in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God"? That's John 1:1, right?

PAPA: Amen!

What a joy to see God answering our prayers in her bearing such fruit and producing the very thing we strive for in teaching her - an understanding of Christ through the scriptures.

Here is another dialog that Bella had with Leilani that I just found out about...

BELLA: Hey Mommy, you know what? Taylor really wanted to win this notebook today in class and so she kept saying, "Please God, if you let me get this, I'll do anything for you."

MOMMY: Oh did you think that was weird?

BELLA: Yeah, God doesn't need her to do anything for Him! Because the bible says, "I am the vine you are the branches, you can't do anything apart from Me."

Christian, if you have been blessed with children, let us not raise them to be intellectual, religious zealots but rather to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus. May we raise up a new generation of evangelists in this dark world in need of the "light of the world" - our Lord Jesus.

122 Years Later...

The following is an excerpt from the "Sword and the Trowel" - Spurgeon's newsletter in the late 19th century. It's interesting that the very downgrade of the modern day evangelical church follows a very similar pattern from the church in England 122 years ago.

We are glad that the article upon "The Down Grade" has excited notice. It is not intended to be an attack on any one, but to be a warning to all. We are asked whether Methodists are upon "The Down Grade," and we are happy to reply that we do not think so. In our fellowship with Methodists of all grades we have found them firmly adhering to those great evangelical doctrines for which we contend. This, however, is no answer to the historical fact that Arminianism has been the route by which the older dissenters have traveled downward to Socinianism; neither is it a reply to the charge that not a few have in these days gone far beyond Evangelical Arminianism, and are on the road to Unitarianism, or something worse. We care far more for the central evangelical truths than we do for Calvinism as a system; but we believe that Calvinism has in it a conservative force which helps to hold men to the vital truth, and therefore we are sorry to see any quitting it who have once accepted it. Those who hold the eternal verities of salvation, and yet do not see all that we believe and embrace, are by no means the objects of our opposition. Our warfare is with men who are giving up the atoning sacrifice, denying the inspiration of Holy Scripture, and casting slurs upon justification by faith. The present struggle is not a debate upon the question of Calvinism or Arminianism, but of the truth of God versus the inventions of men. All who believe the gospel should unite against that "modern thought" which is its deadly enemy.

On all hands we hear cries for unity in this, and unity in that; but to our mind the main need of this age is not compromise, but conscientiousness. "First pure, then peaceable." It is easy to cry "a confederacy," but that union which is not based upon the truth of God is rather a conspiracy than a communion. Charity by all means; but honesty also. Love, of course, but love to God as well as love to men, and love of truth as well as love of union. It is exceedingly difficult in these times to preserve one's fidelity before God and one's fraternity among men. Should not the former be preferred to the latter if both cannot be maintained? We think so.