Mark Driscoll's - Pastor Dad

Pastor Dad – Scriptural insights on fatherhood, by Mark Driscoll.

A good one line description of the scope of Mark Driscoll’s Pastor Dad can be found in the first sentence of chapter 8 (pg.39)

“To many Christians, the principles I have articulated may seem obvious, but they are nothing short of revolutionary in our day”.

The book contains a preface, eight chapters, and a short autobiography by Mark Driscoll. The subtitle says it all; it is a book full of scriptural insights on fatherhood mostly from the Proverbs. It has a simple format, it’s articulated well, is full of scripture and is extremely practical. Surprisingly it has very few stories for being so pastoral in nature. I would encourage young fathers to read it for its basic but profound insights, Old parents to read it for its generational and ongoing wisdom, single men and women for its insights that wisdom leans to the future i.e. self responsibility, marriage, fatherhood and motherhood, generational gospel movement, etc., and finally to Men and Elders for its practical insight that

“the road to the pastorate passes through the home.” (pg.41).

The following are a few quotes and insights by chapter to help you get a flavor for the book…enjoy!

CHAPTER ONE: The Good Life

“The first thing we must note is that before a man can be a good father, he has to be a good Christian. To be a good Christian he must realize that God is his Father, as Jesus taught us to pray.” (pg. 5 paragraph 2).

CHAPTER TWO: Worshiping the God of our Fathers

“Our ultimate goal must be that our children would grow to love and worship our God.” (pg. 7).
“To pursue that goal, we must worship that God first. I must worship the one true God as my Father, by repenting of my sin and coming to him by faith for grace to love him, as an example and pattern for my sons and, God willing, grandsons.” (pg. 7).
“Before any father disciplines his children, he is commanded to delight in them.” (pg. 8).
“Part of that love includes a father disciplining his children as needed to keep them on a path of wisdom and righteousness.” (pg. 8).
“…a godly father models submission to authority and the welcoming of correction by repenting of his own sin, receiving forgiveness, and walking in restored intimacy with God the Father by empowering grace.” (pg. 8).
“…a good father lives out the gospel every day in fellowship with God and his child. And that he knows what to do about sin in the life of his child because he’s been dealing with his own sin in his own life first.” (pg. 8).
“…if a man is going to be a good father, he needs to start by living in such a way that his children will celebrate his life and respect him as a respectable man.” (pg. 9-10).

CHAPTER THREE: The Fruitful Vine

“…godly men desire to have children and that those children would have much fruit in their lives with God.” (pg. 13).

CHAPTER FOUR: Cultivating Kids

“Scripture clearly teaches that the father is ultimately responsible for the cultivatingof his children along with his wife. In addition, other institutions, such as the church and school, assist in instruction the children under the headship of the father.” (pg. 19).
“Instead of abusing children or abandoning them by failing to correct them, a godly father brings his children up with wise training and instruction in the Lord. The ancient Greeks who heard Paul’s words would have understood his language as referring to the total shaping of a person that includes their education, spirituality, work ethic, vocation, social skills, and so on. Therefore, the father’s duty is to cultivate all aspects of his child to maturity in the Lord. Practically, this means that everything in the life of the child is ultimately the responsibility of the father.” (pg. 20).
“Fathers must do their homework before sending their children to school to do their own.” (pg. 21).

CHAPTER FIVE: The Masculine Duty to Provide

“First, a godly father gives spiritual sustenance to his children…Secondly, a godly father provides for the physical needs of his children…a godly father also provides socially for his children by bringing them into a healthy church community.” (Pgs. 23 & 25).
“Work is for a man an act of worship…”(pg. 23-24).
“Friends who love God and live righteously are wonderful influences upon a child. Your children will benefit from playing with their children and seeing their marriages.” (pg. 25).

CHAPTER SIX: Instruction Followed by Correction

“A wise dad may realize that a personal quiet time for himself is unwise”. (pg. 28).
“…as a pastor I have my books and study at home rather than at the church…” (pg. 28).
“…instruction is not a onetime event, but rather a lifetime endeavor.” (pg. 29).
“Since Jesus died for sin, to punish children for sin would be to give them a false gospel.” (pg. 29).
“Through discipline, the father is seeking to cultivate his children so that they can become self-disciplined and not continually need a wooden spoon or jail cell to keep them in line.” (pg. 29).
“…those people who lovingly delight in their children have earned the right to discipline them.” (pg. 29).
“A wise father gives his children what they need, which is not always what they want.” (pg. 30).
“…a wise father honors the mother of his children so that they will also honor her.” (pg. 30).

CHAPTER SEVEN: Protecting from Sin and Folly

“As her father, I am called by God to be the biggest man in her life until her husband earns her love and my approval.” (pg. 34).
“The wise father knows that the ultimate goal for his son is a faithful marriage, and so he encourages his son’s sexual desires toward marriage.” (pg. 34).
“…if they don’t know how to confess, repent, and pray, they don’t know what to do about their sin.” (pg. 35).
“What a father should do is repent for his children and thereby model for them how to deal with sin.” (pg. 35).
“He was repentant, and he was broken. He realized that he was sinning against his family and he was sinning against God. He also realized that I was responsible for him and that he was implicating me in his sin.” (pg. 35-36).
“Hope, gladness, rejoicing, joy, delighting—these are the goals every father has for his relationship with his children. The means to these ends are God’s grace and dads who know how to use it in the cultivation of their children…” (pg. 36).

CHAPTER EIGHT: Countering Culture

“Children of single mothers are five times more likely to be poor and ten times more likely to be extremely poor. They’re more likely to drop out of school, use drugs and alcohol, engage in sex and become unmarried teenage parents, perform crimes, suffer from mental illness, and commit suicide. Subsequently, we have an entire social service army, including prisons and psychiatrists prescribing countless medications, to try to cope with this crisis. Over 60 percent of the nation’s mothers work outside the home, and in cities like mine, more children are admitted to hospital emergency rooms for mental than for physical health issues. Married men who have sex outside their marriage, single men who fool around rather than seeking wives, fathers who walk out on their kids, and fathers who are too lazy to work hard and pay the bills all hate children by their actions. And because God is a father to the fatherless, they have made themselves enemies of God.” (pg. 40).
“Practically, the road to the pastorate passes through the home. Every man in the church is supposed to conduct himself as a pastor in his home. Those men who do this the very best are then qualified to become church pastors because they manage their household well…” (pg. 41).
“Any notion of avoiding marriage and parenting to do ministry is simply antithetical to biblical thinking because those things both train and qualify a man.” (pg. 41).

There is much more to this read, it's pact with practical gold nuggets for all readers. Get the book, support Pastor Mark and Resurgence!