Session 14 · 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
Father of Mercies
The Father looks like the Son
Book reading: Chapter 14: Father of Mercies
Ortlund's chapter starts from a thought borrowed from A. W. Tozer: what you believe about God shapes you more than almost anything else. So here is a quiet question. When you picture God the Father, is he warm or stern? A lot of Christians quietly assume the Son is the merciful one and the Father is the one who needs to be talked around. The book says that assumption gets him wrong.
Take just three verses. Paul opens one of his letters with a blessing: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.” Of all the things Paul could say about the Father at the start of a letter, he picks mercy and comfort. This is not a description of Jesus. It is a description of the Father.
The Greek word for mercies here is plural. Paul does not say the Father has one mercy and uses it sparingly. He is the Father of mercies, plural, a source from which many kinds of kindness come. Hebrew carries a different picture of the same truth. In Exodus 34:6, where the Lord describes himself to Moses, the word behind “merciful” comes from the same family as rachamim, a Hebrew word tied to the womb and the tenderness of a mother toward her child. That is a separate word in a separate language, but both point the same way: the Father's heart is tender.
Now follow Paul's thought. This God “comforts us in all our affliction.” Not some of it, and not only after we clean ourselves up. Paul adds that the comfort does not end with us. We receive it so that we can comfort “those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” Comfort moves from the Father to us and then through us. In verse 5, Paul says, “as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” The comfort comes through Christ, and the book points to passages like John 14:8-11 and Hebrews 1:1-3 that show the Son shows us what the Father is like. When you see Jesus' compassion, you are not seeing something that he gives and the Father withholds. You are seeing the Father.
This matters if your own father was harsh, cold, or absent. It is easy to carry that picture into your view of God. The Father of mercies is not that man. If that history still hurts, talk with a pastor, counselor, or trusted friend. You do not have to sort it out alone.
The practice today is simple: write down what you honestly believe about the Father, then let these three verses answer you.
Key idea
Paul calls the Father the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, so the tenderness we see in Jesus is the Father's own.
Questions to consider
- Paul chooses mercies and comfort to introduce the Father. How does that compare with the picture of the Father you carry when you are tired or have failed?
- Verses 4-5 say comfort comes to us so it can reach others. Who in your life needs the kind of comfort you have received from God?
Journal prompt
Write two honest sentences describing how you picture God the Father when you are afraid or have failed. Then read 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 and write what you would change in your two sentences.
Practice
Compare your picture of the Father with Scripture. 1) Write two sentences describing your honest picture of God the Father, not the answer you think you should give. 2) Read 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 aloud once. 3) Circle or underline one word in your sentences that does not match the verses. 4) Spend two minutes thanking the Father of mercies for the true description.