The word father is used 943 times in the New King James Version. Sometimes details are given about a father, and sometimes he is just a name in a genealogy. Try your hand at identifying the following fathers.

__ 1. My father was a Levite who had two wives. My mother, his favorite, was distressed because for years she was barren. Peninnah, his other wife, had children and made life miserable for my mother. In desperation, my mother vowed to God that if He gave her a son, she would dedicate him to the Lord all the days of his life, and that he would be a Nazirite. God answered and I was born. (Bonus: What is my name?)

__ 2. My father was a ruler of the synagogue, and he came to Jesus pleading for His help. I, his only daughter and a mere 12 years old, lay dying. Then someone arrived saying, "Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher." Jesus comforted my father, saying that if he believed, I would be made well. When He came to our house, people were already mourning, and ridiculed Him when He told them not to weep. He put them all out. When He said, "Little girl arise," I did, and my parents were astonished.

__ 3. Our father lived in Caesarea, and was one of the original seven deacons chosen by the Church to care for the widows. He also was an evangelist, preaching in the city of Samaria, and he was the one who taught and baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. My sisters and I didn't marry, and we were all prophetesses. (Bonus: How many sisters did I have?)

__ 4. My father was a Gileadite, a mighty man of valor, and because he was the son of a harlot, his brothers drove him away from home. He went to the land of Tob and gathered a band of raiders to follow him. When Israel was threatened by the Ammonites, the elders of Gilead approached him for help, and he came back as their leader. My father vowed that if God would deliver the Ammonites into his hand, when he returned he would offer the first thing that came out of his house to meet him as a burnt offering. To his distress, I, his daughter and only child, came out to meet him. Scholars are not sure of my actual fate—whether I was sacrificed or lived as a virgin consecrated to God.

__ 5. My father, a Danite, and my mother could not have children. One day an angel appeared to my mother, announcing that she would at last have a son, and that she was not to drink any alcoholic beverage or eat any unclean thing during her pregnancy. I was to be a Nazirite. When my mother told my father of this visit, my father, wanting to hear for himself, prayed to God to send the man of God again, which He did. This time, my father, realizing that he was talking to an angel, feared for their lives. But as promised, I was born a short time later. My father has a name, but my mother is anonymous. (Bonus: What is my name?)

(a) Jephthah
(b) Philip
(c) Elkanah
(d) Manoah
(e) Jairus

Answers: 1. c (1 Samuel 1); 2. e (Luke 8:41-56); 3. b (Acts 6:5; 8:26-30; 21:8-9); 4. a (Judges 11:1-40); 5 d (Judges 13:1-25).