Who Taught Us To Call God ‘Father’?

When I was a freshman at Berry College in Rome, Georgia, in the late 1950’s, our chaplain was a lovely cherubic gentleman who looked a lot like Winston Churchill. Dr. Gresham was a superb speaker and was admired by everyone. Now, I was 18 years old and 3 years away from the call into the ministry, but I remember like it was yesterday something he said about “God the Father.”

“Occasionally, I hear people say, ‘I believe in God the Father but I do not believe in Jesus Christ.’ I always ask them, ‘Who taught you to call God ‘Father’?’ Because it was Jesus. You can search the writings of antiquity and you will not find anywhere the teachings that God is our Father. The Old Testament has a couple of places where the Jews referred to Him as the Father of Israel, but no individual ever looked up toward Heaven and addressed Him as ‘Father.’ It was Jesus who gave us this privilege.”

You will recall that when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He said, “When you pray, say, ‘Father….'” That was new. Now, I’ve not done the research but I’ve heard that the Koran has over 90 names for God, but not one of them is Father.

(NOTE: The reason I attribute this to Dr. Gresham instead of just proclaiming it myself is simply that I have not delved into all the historical writings in various cultures on God, and have no way of knowing whether what he said is true or not. I want to believe it; it sounds right. Our history professor, Mae Parrish, said she had never caught Dr. Gresham in a historical inaccuracy, and she was not particularly favorably inclined toward preachers.)