Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? The parental analogy that grounds the ask-seek-knock promise: no good father gives his hungry child a stone when bread is requested. The analogy moves from human parenting to divine parenting in two steps: even human fathers give good gifts; how much more does the heavenly Father? The reductio ad absurdum of the stone-for-bread image communicates the absurdity of doubting the Father's responsive care. The father who gives a stone to a hungry child is a monstrous parody of fatherhood; the Father who does not respond to his children's petitions is equally unthinkable given his character.

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