Matthew and Luke share a related teaching in which another aspect of the father’s nature is revealed – his attitude toward supplicants and his benevolent character. The majority of Matthew 6 is devoted to the attitude of the Father toward his children as worshippers and those seeking his aid. The Father is concerned with the inner character or true person of the child rather than outward performance – which is to say that what the child is at a fundamental level is more important to the Father than what the child does. Matthew extends this teaching into an invitation to trust in the benevolent character of the attentive Father who “knows our need before we ask” and yet delights in being asking and in providing for his children while incorporating
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As Gail O’Day notes, while the synoptics tend to use Father language in language of prayer and direct address to God, the Fourth Evangelist much more frequently uses father language (preferring the Greek pater and not emulating Mark’s usage of the Aramaic Abba) in the discourse material in which Jesus or the narrator/evangelist is teaching about God rather than speaking to God.
While father language is used in many other places for God, the Forth Gospel uses paternal language for God more frequently than any other New Testament text and refers to God as father approximately 118 times. As in the other gospels, this language functions as a theological window opening to reveal an aspect of God’s essential personhood through the parental metaphor. Lee suggests that this much father/child language is used in John as an inversion of distorted forms of masculinity and patriarchy common at the time of Jesus because the divine Father in John has power “from giving away, not keeping, and because the Father/Son relationship models the intimately necessary for full human personhood. Father language for God in John, as in all other parts of the New Testament is not primarily about revealing God’s gender but serves a functional purpose for revealing God’s nature and relational desires toward humanity which are an extension of his love and filial responsibility for his own unique son. Who God desires to be relationally to all humanity is revealed in who God is to Jesus
As Gail O’Day notes, while the synoptics tend to use Father language in language of prayer and direct address to God, the Fourth Evangelist much more frequently uses father language (preferring the Greek pater and not emulating Mark’s usage of the Aramaic Abba) in the discourse material in which Jesus or the narrator/evangelist is teaching about God rather than speaking to God.
While father language is used in many other places for God, the Forth Gospel uses paternal language for God more frequently than any other New Testament text and refers to God as father approximately 118 times. As in the other gospels, this language functions as a theological window opening to reveal an aspect of God’s essential personhood through the parental metaphor. Lee suggests that this much father/child language is used in John as an inversion of distorted forms of masculinity and patriarchy common at the time of Jesus because the divine Father in John has power “from giving away, not keeping, and because the Father/Son relationship models the intimately necessary for full human personhood. Father language for God in John, as in all other parts of the New Testament is not primarily about revealing God’s gender but serves a functional purpose for revealing God’s nature and relational desires toward humanity which are an extension of his love and filial responsibility for his own unique son. Who God desires to be relationally to all humanity is revealed in who God is to Jesus