When our boys were growing up at home and had friends of either sex over to our house I was always interested in meeting them and visiting with them. I was interested in knowing about them and their families. One question I would sometimes ask was, “What does your daddy do?” I always felt that question provided some insight into the kind of family the young person was from.
If I was told that the father was a bootlegger or a used car salesman or a lawyer or an entrepreneur, I was always a little leery of the young person’s background. (Only kidding except for the first occupation mentioned). If I was told that the daddy was a farmer or a mechanic or a banker or a preacher or a teacher or a football coach or a firefighter or a doctor I at least had some idea as to the kind of home that young person was from.
In Scripture the specific occupation of a man does not have that much importance attached to it, but a husband and father is to work at an honorable job and provide for his family. Paul wrote: “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (I Timothy 5:8).
Though providing physically and financially for their families is extremely important, what daddies do in the way of teaching and training their children to be good, honorable, God-fearing people is more important. Noah was a boat-builder, but more significantly, he “walked with God” (Genesis 6:9), and trained his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, to do the same. When the massive flood came and wiped out all civilization, Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were the only survivors (I Peter 3:20).
Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel) was a Bedouin shepherd who had twelve sons and a daughter. Though human and therefore marked by imperfections, in time the twelve sons became the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel. From the descendants of one of these sons—Judah—Jesus was born.
Eli was a priest of God and apparently a good man himself, but he did a poor job of training his sons. “Now the sons of Eli were corrupt; they did not know the Lord” (I Samuel 2:12). God said, “For I have told [Eli] that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them” (I Samuel 3:13). Growing up in a religious home is no guarantee that the children will turn out to be men and women who love and honor God.
Zacharias also was a priest in Israel, and he and his wife Elizabeth “were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1:6). They became the parents of John the Immerser of whom Christ said, “Among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11). John never lived to see the kingdom of God (the church) established and to be a part of it, but he was a great man, due in no small part to his father, Zacharias.
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Joseph was the step-father of Jesus and worked as a carpenter. What kind of man Joseph must have been for God to choose him to be the one entrusted with the rearing of His only begotten Son! Like all Jewish boys, Jesus learned an honorable trade and also became a carpenter (Mark 6:3).
Men have a great responsibility to their children. Sadly, many children do not know who their father is! They have been born to promiscuous women who have had children by a multiplicity of men and are never sure of who is the father of which child. This has weakened the moral fabric of society and brought shame to our nation. Then there are those fathers who simply neglect their children and fail to have any part in their rearing.
The Bible commands, “And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). How urgent it is that fathers do that! Yet before daddies can train their children in the way of the Lord, they must know the way of the Lord themselves!
I had a wise old English professor at Freed-Hardeman University (a Christian university), W. Claude Hall, who pointed out the difference between “raise” and “rear” by noting that a farmer may “raise” hogs, but fathers are to “rear” their children. Brother Hall would then say, “Of course, some people just ‘raise’ their children!”
What does your daddy do? What are you doing as a daddy?
Hugh Fulford
