What does it mean to be a man today?
What does true biblical manhood really look like?
Where do we learn to be a man?
There are so many church studies and men's groups today that try to answer these questions. Just wander through any Christian bookstore or go to the men’s section of any church website and you will encounter a multitude of books and studies and videos that all address these questions. But looking through these studies and videos, we find that too many of them actually promote a severely toxic version of masculinity. These studies claim to be based on biblical principles, but they pick and choose scripture that they then take out of context and twist to fit their version of what they think a man should be. Many of these studies frame being a man in contrast and competition with women. A recent study I was part of spent a significant amount of time during the introduction session describing all the way women are out-excelling men, with plenty of unsourced statistics to show how they're pulling ahead and how men have abdicated authority and leadership. Men are losing.
These studies describe a top-down leadership; being a man means being in control. It means being in the lead. It means taking back authority and leadership and making sure everyone knows it. Even for men who are not married, these studies promote a vision of masculinity that says I am strong, I am the alpha (side note, in software development, the alpha release is the one with the most problems, the most incomplete, the one that isn’t ready for the public). They say never be the follower, always be out front. They say emotion is for women and kids. We don’t let emotion drive us. We don’t let emotions control us. We don’t make decisions out of emotion.
A recurring trope in these studies is the depiction of men as warriors. They promote the idea that men are willing to fight for their family, to fight for Christendom, and to fight for God. Men are presented here as the protector, they must stand in the gap and defend their family and their faith, whether they need it or not. But in reality, as we see far too often, the reverse is true: people need protection from men. And these ideas are always drawn from Old Testament examples. They call us “The Mighty Men of God”: David, Samson, Gideon, Joshua. However, nowhere in the New Testament does it describe men as warriors. True, the New Testament talks about fighting the good fight, and putting on the armor of God, but these are metaphors. Got that? These verses do not describe actual fighting and armor. Let’s be very clear. Ephesians 6 is not talking about equipping us to fight. It is talking about equipping us to stand.
Verse 11: “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”
Verse 13: “…So that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”
Verse 14: “Stand firm then…”
But what about the Sword of the Spirit? Swords are offensive weapons used to fight. Yes, they can be. They are also defensive weapons, but let’s get back to the original point. The armor of God is metaphorical. We are not talking about a real sword. The sword is the Word of God. You don’t fight, you read. And you pray. Look at the very next verse:
Verse 15: “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”
Further, keep in mind that in Hebrews, where the word of God is described as “… Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) It is God who wields the sword, not us.
Finally, Jesus very clearly rebukes the idea of man as a warrior when he tells Peter “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” (Matt 26:52) He goes on to make it very clear that He does not need us to defend Him: “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matt 26:53) So really, the idea of a man as a warrior was invented just to soothe and cater to insecure, fragile, male ego and to promote the idea of the man in charge.
The other way these studies like to frame masculinity is to (mis)quote is Ephesians 5:23 - "the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church". This verse is usually presented as meaning the man is the head of the house, the man is in charge, reinforcing the idea of the top-down leadership. And they usually only spout the first half while ignoring the second. Now, disregarding the fact that the Greek word for head used here has nothing to do with actual leadership, the key point of this scripture really is the second part: "...as Christ is head of the church." Our identity as husbands and our relationship with our wives specifically, and women in general, must be rooted in this scripture. But we'll look at that in more detail later.
So if we’re not going to define masculinity as being a warrior and being a man is about more than just how we relate to women and family, How do we define it? We need to explore what it means to be a man in totality. We need to look at the full personhood of being a man. What is our model? Where do we learn what it means to be a man? Where do we find the architype of manhood? As men of faith, the answer is pretty simple. Everything about who we are as men must flow from Jesus and His identity as a man. We need to redefine what it means to be a Mighty Man of God to mean a man who reflects the masculinity of Jesus, not David.
So let's look at the personality of Jesus and what attributes He personifies that we must emulate. And keep in mind that this list is not what you’ll typically see from a men’s study. These are not attributes that are lifted up as “manly” attributes in most circles, and certainly not in the studies we see in the church at large today. Each one of these attributes will be a topic we’ll cover through the course of this study. We will look in depth at what each means, how did Jesus personify each, and how do we emulate these in our own lives.
Humility
Empathy
Servanthood
Encouragement
Gentleness
Emotional control
Confidence
Strength
Love
In these personality attributes of Jesus, we can find the real definition of what it means to be a biblical man.
There’s one final topic that we need to cover in this introduction. Much of our idea of what it means to be a man is shaped by our fathers. Whether they were good, bad, absent, or indifferent, they shape our perspective of what it means to be a man as well as our perspective of God as our father. If we’re going to define manhood based on the person of Jesus, then we need to look at how Jesus related to His father and at how our own fathers shaped our understanding both of what it means to be a man and what it means to relate to God as our father.
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