Show Us the Father

Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” John 14:8

Jesus answered Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Philip and the other apostles got to know Jesus intimately, they had a relationship with Him. What they knew of Jesus, what He did, what He said, they passed all of this to others. Philip the apostle preached in Greece, Syria and Phrygia. Peter led the Twelve Apostles in extending the church “here and there among them all” (Acts 9:32). Then there is Paul who played a very crucial role in the first century. He zealously spread the gospel to the non-Jews with his missionary journeys throughout the Roman Empire and he started more than a dozen churches. Then there is John the evangelist who also played a leading role in the early church in Jerusalem. 

From the first apostles of Jesus, we have the Apostolic Fathers, men who have the words of the apostles ringing in their ears. Clement was converted by Peter in Rome. He is the first Apostolic Father of the Church, one of the three chief ones along with Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp. Clement learned about the church and Christianity from Peter and others who knew Christ. Ignatius and Polycarp also knew some of the apostles. They were there when some of the apostles were still alive and they carried the torch, and handed down the faith. These early church fathers defined the faith during the first 800 years, long before the writings in the New Testament were put together. 

Irineus writes in the 2nd century, that he met Polycarp when he was an old man and that he “always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true.” As a child, Irineus studied under Polycarp, the last known living connection with the Apostles. Polycarp is a vital link to the apostles, who are eyewitnesses. He knew he had to faithfully testify to the truth, and at the age of 86, in 155, he willingly died as a martyr rather than deny that truth. 

We too have not heard from Jesus directly, but we have the Apostolic Fathers, the many Church Fathers after them, that we can study from. They were diligent in defending our faith from heresy. They were core Christian theologians, apologists even. If we are confused with many different ideas, we can go back to their writings, the many letters that have been preserved as an example of the theology of the earliest Christians. We can “see” Jesus through the Scriptures, but we can also glimpse Him in the writings of these devout and faithful men, most of whom died defending the faith. 

Let us ask these men to show us Jesus, and Jesus to show us the Father.