Special Protection for the Fatherless

“Protecting yourself is self-defense. Protecting others is warriorship.”

Bohdi Sanders

But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you against the evil one.

2 Thessalonians 3:3 NRSV

HUSBAND TO THE WIDOW, FATHER TO THE FATHERLESS

When a child grows up without a dad, they are at a disadvantage in many ways, like financially and emotionally, as well as spiritually. God has always made promises in the Bible to protect and care for widows and those who have no one to turn to. When a single mother has a child, God is her husband and father.

The fatherless, the widowed, and the foreigners were the poorest people in any local community. They were also the people God cared about the most. He was a father to the orphan, a husband to the widow, and a friend to the poor people. If the Lord cared about people so weak, no one in Israel should forget them.

The Book of Exodus contains the following passage:

Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.

These words come from the book of Deuteronomy, which tells the Israelites that they were enslaved people in Egypt and rescued by God. It tells the people not to take advantage of a widow or an orphan.

Psalms say that we should fight for the rights of the weak and fatherless, protect the poor and oppressed, rescue those who need help, and free them from the hands of the wicked. These are some of the things we should do.

God is Our Father

The Bible calls God “father.” It’s not like God and his son Jesus is afraid to use maternal metaphors to show how much they care for their people. God will care for all single parents, including dads and their kids, even though these images aren’t aimed at widowers or people who have lost their parents. In one sense, though, the single father has biblical justification for thinking of God as his wife and the mother of his children.

God took care of widows and orphans, and when they were abused, it was one of the crimes that God took care of. This is one of the ways that the Mosaic law shows how big, complete, and spiritual it is. It isn’t true, as people think, that God bound His people by a set of fixed and literal rules. It was up to them to use their common sense and be kind to each other.