Do Christians Disrespect God the Father in our Churches?

The Son is the One who saved us. It is He that was given a name above all names. He is the Head of the church, and the One will return and gather us and present us holy and blameless before the Father.

Jesus is the One who is preached.

He is before all things. To pay honor and respect to Jesus IS to pay honor and respect to the Father.

 

Your experience may not be typical. In all of the churches I have attended or been a member of, the Father gets most of the attention. Jesus is referenced as the Savior, but rarely the object of worship or prayer. That may be due to a reaction against Roman Catholicism.

Even the classic hymns (songs before the last quarter century of praise music) in the Baptist Hymnal (SBC) have only one hymn of worship addressed to Jesus (Fairest Lord Jesus). What you are experiencing may be an over-correction toward the Son, Jesus.

If we are Trinitarian in our theology, then we know we can direct pray and worship to the Father, Son and Spirit without offending God. In fact, I think it is pleasing to God for us to recognize the fullness of His Persons.

 

I teach my people to pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, and filled with the Spirit. The Father is the God head, the finished work of the cross by the Son is the reason we have the privilege to come before the Father, and we are to pray in submission to the word of God and the Spirit leading.

 

Are you saying that the Son and the Spirit are in submission to the Father, or that a prayer to the Father is prayer to the Son and Spirit as well?

 

Jesus has always pointed us to the Father, and the HS has always pointed us to the Son.

 

I think part of the problem is that many Christians do not understand the God-head, the idea of Trinity, or the characteristics and roles of the three persons of the Godhead. I certainly did not before going to seminary for a degree to be a worker at para-church ministries. Despite having gone to a Southern Baptist church for several years. I think I was and am like most people at church. I didn't understand any of the theology behind what is considered common knowledge by anyone who has a seminary or seminary-esque education.

I mean even many people at a "moderate" (i.e. liberal) evangelical seminary I went to were arguing about whether Jesus was YHVH and the Father someone new entirely revealed by Jesus. This faction was even led by a professor. Which is nuts given a literal reading, but I think the problem here Yeshua is a lack of theological and Church History education in the churches.

Pastors and teachers can help this, but they have to be very conscious of their teaching on the Godhead to do so, in order to communicate what is accurate. I wonder if most pastors have thought their communication of the Godhead through like Revmitchell.

My two cents is that basic seminary knowledge has to be repackaged into something more accessible and then taught to the laity to lay the groundwork to addressing problems of theology in the churches.

 

Amen!!

 

The Father and the Son are distinct persons, but

John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

John 10:30 I and my Father are one.

How we honor the Father:

John 15:8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

 

Jesus is the personal name of the Triune God. So if we understand this, the rest takes care of itself. But if we try to view the trinity apart from the oneness of God, we end up thinking in terms of three.

 

“Now I desire to remind you (even though you have been fully informed of these facts once for all) that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, later destroyed those who did not believe.” (Jude 5) (NET)

 

God is the eternal trinity. But his personal name YHWH = Jesus.

 

If Jesus is Lord, he is YHWH.