and deepen our personal understanding of, and relationship with, the biblical God. One final observation before we set forth. Our title is obviously framed from the common trinitarian formulation—“God the Father.” This in itself, as we have seen, is not a term that the Old Testament uses in quite that form. And it would be unfortunate if our reflections in the course of this book on the fatherhood of God were misinterpreted to imply some kind of harsh patriarchal authoritarianism. Certainly the metaphor