Grace Seeker
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Re: What's the difference between "Children of God" and "Servant/Slave of God"?
It is good that you understand the difference between the original meaning of speaking of God as our Father and some of the later constructs. The biblical use of the term was to convey a metaphorical image that does not have any actual physical or biological aspects to it. Other religions and other societies however have other understanding that often corrupt the ways people think of God as father. So today some view the idea of God as father in ways wherein that conveys the idea of bloodlines and conveyance of genetic material. It seems that for some the metaphor has replaced what the metaphor was trying to convey, namely the intimacy that God wants to have with his creatures that was striking missing from most people's understanding of the nature of a divine being outside of the biblical story.
Even in the Greek world or the Mesopotamian myths where gods and goddesses had intimate relations with humans, they didn't actually enjoy the sharing of loving relationships with humankind, but were more "users" and "tools" than anything else.
In Roman society, the pater familias (i.e. father or the family) was more of a godfather type figure than a warm, intimate caring person. This pater familias had all authority in a Roman household. It was even so ultimate, that the child of a freeman who worked in the household was at birth laid on the ground before the pater familias, and if as head of the household the pater familias accepted him then the child would join the household. But if the pater familias turned his back on the child, then everyone else in the household, even the child's own mother, was required to do the same. Such children were set out on the street for any passerby who wanted to claim or they were eaten by the birds and other scavengers in the city.
The biblical imagery of the fatherhood of God was set against these sorts of misunderstandings about the nature and character of God that the Greeks and Mesopotamians had, the misanthropic understanding of the nature of fatherhood that was practiced in societies like Rome, or the idea that being a father is all about genetics. These ideas may all be aspects of what some people hear when they hear the term fatherhood of God, but they are not what is meant.
It is good that you understand the difference between the original meaning of speaking of God as our Father and some of the later constructs. The biblical use of the term was to convey a metaphorical image that does not have any actual physical or biological aspects to it. Other religions and other societies however have other understanding that often corrupt the ways people think of God as father. So today some view the idea of God as father in ways wherein that conveys the idea of bloodlines and conveyance of genetic material. It seems that for some the metaphor has replaced what the metaphor was trying to convey, namely the intimacy that God wants to have with his creatures that was striking missing from most people's understanding of the nature of a divine being outside of the biblical story.
Even in the Greek world or the Mesopotamian myths where gods and goddesses had intimate relations with humans, they didn't actually enjoy the sharing of loving relationships with humankind, but were more "users" and "tools" than anything else.
In Roman society, the pater familias (i.e. father or the family) was more of a godfather type figure than a warm, intimate caring person. This pater familias had all authority in a Roman household. It was even so ultimate, that the child of a freeman who worked in the household was at birth laid on the ground before the pater familias, and if as head of the household the pater familias accepted him then the child would join the household. But if the pater familias turned his back on the child, then everyone else in the household, even the child's own mother, was required to do the same. Such children were set out on the street for any passerby who wanted to claim or they were eaten by the birds and other scavengers in the city.
The biblical imagery of the fatherhood of God was set against these sorts of misunderstandings about the nature and character of God that the Greeks and Mesopotamians had, the misanthropic understanding of the nature of fatherhood that was practiced in societies like Rome, or the idea that being a father is all about genetics. These ideas may all be aspects of what some people hear when they hear the term fatherhood of God, but they are not what is meant.
