Role of Man

How do you define masculinity?  What does it mean to be a man?

Matt Chandler, lead pastor of The Village Church, looks at the first three chapters of Genesis and contends that man is wired to be a builder, a cultivator, and achiever and that this distinctive role informs what it means to be husband and father.

Matt was the voice in my head as I ran this past week.  I have no hesitation in recommending these 3 talks: Defining Masculinity, Role of Man as Husband and Role of Man as Father.

Here are a few of my take-aways:

• God has given man the primary (not sole!) leadership role in the family
• Being there and taking initiative are key
• God is committed to who we are right now as men, not to some future version of who we ought to be
• Where our present situation and practice is less than God’s ideal, that is the place where God’s grace abounds

Raising boys

Raising boys, that is the topic of this post. I have three and let me say right out of the blocks that I am no expert. I have learned that each of my sons is not like the other: one loves guitar, another basketball and the third politics. So…I am learning…my approach to each one needs to be customized. With that I need help. Maybe you can relate.

An article entitled “How to Fix Boys” caught my attention. It is an interview with Leonard Sax, family physician and research pathologist in Maryland. Here are some quotes that caught my attention:

The six-year-old boy and the six-year-old girl differ from each other much more than an adult man and adult woman do. We all wind up in the same place: there’s very little difference in terms of adult men’s and women’s maturity, ability to sit still, how they learn. But there are huge differences in the ability of the average six-year-old girl and boy to sit still and be quiet.

Policies which ban children from playing with pretend swords or toy guns are not grounded in any research findings demonstrating that those policies accomplish anything good.

If you have such a son, who is very much engaged by competition and mastery, these games [video games] may pose a particular risk. They can be addictive, and I use that term speaking as a medical doctor: literally addictive.

The most startling change between teenage culture today and 30 years ago is the way more and more teenage boys have moved away from the courtship of girls. Online pornography has displaced the pursuit of real girls for a significant number of boys.

Dad has an important role to play, but boys have to see a lot of different men to have a healthy sense of what it means to be a man. They need a community of men, and we don’t provide that.

Look again at the last point. The church needs to be a place where boys find healthy role models. I would love to hear what your church is doing in this regard.

3 Keys to being “Husband”

What does it mean to be a husband according to the Jesus Way? Recently I took a shot at defining the essentials based on Eph 5:21-33.

Husbands need to be passionate about the well-being of their brides. That passion is expressed in at least three key ways.

First, husbands are pro-active servant-leaders. Just as Jesus took the initiative and gave himself up for his bride (v. 25), so guys we should be taking the initiative to step up to our responsibilities, to step in to the situation and to step out for our brides. Sure there are times when I don’t feel like taking initiative. It’s harder to be pro-active, but ducking my responsibilities to my wife is not loving her like Jesus loved the Church. It’s also hard to make sure my leadership is serving God’s purposes for my wife rather than serving my self-centred interests. Anyone relate to that?

Second, husbands protect their bride. Jesus sacrificed himself to “sanctify” his bride (v. 26). He gave of himself to deliver his bride from corruption and death to holiness and life. As earthly husbands our role is analogous. We take the initiative to protect our bride from that which threatens her well-being, whether that threat is physical, spiritual, or otherwise. Protecting our wife is not dominating her with self-serving rules or putting her in her place with our remarks.

Third, husbands provide for their bride. Just as Jesus nourished and cherished the Church (v. 29) so we should care for the needs of our bride. We might quickly think about providing her material needs and that is a good start, but guys we need to be the one that provides our bride with security and affirmation so that she can flourish and become the woman God intends.

Seven things men struggle with

Are you compelled to read on? Maybe you are a bit like me, you don’t really want someone to point out the things you struggle with, particularly if it seems like they are just adding to the list you are already keeping. But wait, I could have easily (and maybe more wisely) entitled this post “Seven things men can overcome”.John, one of the twelve who followed Jesus wrote these words,

I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one. (1Jn 2:14b ESV)

As men of the Way we have overcome the evil one. Not on our own, but because the word of God dwells in us. This is what John heard Jesus himself say,

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (Jn 8:31-32 ESV).

We no longer need to be enslaved by the sins that seem to so easily entangle men. And what are those things? Read on.

• Addictions
• Anger
• Arrogance
• Arrears (i.e., caught in a debt trap)
• Anarchy (i.e., rejection of authority)
• Absenteeism (i.e., being checked out physically or emotionally from the family)
• Abdication (i.e., abandoning our responsibility of servant leadership)

Do you see yourself in any of this? If you say no, you might want to check out this link.

Living in the moment

Do you know people that live for the moment? What about those that seem to be haunted by the past? And others that live in fear of the future?

The guys talked about that (and prayed about that) over our weekly fix of doughnuts. Here is my two cents.

As followers of Christ, our past may be full of “issues”, some that we own and some that was dumped on us; either way Jesus can deliver us from that darkness. Our past doesn’t need to cast condemning shadows on the present. We are free.

As men of the Way, our future is secure with God. He knows what we need to live and grow and he promises to provide that. The future need not be a source of fear or worry or paralysis. It is a destination we anticipate with hope.

As sons of the King, we are able to live fully in the moment, but we do not live for the moment. Our priorities and passions are becoming kingdom-centred not self-centred. Our moments are opportunities to lead boldly by serving Truth.

What is your two cents?

It’s your move!

Where was Adam when his bride was being accosted by the serpent? Don’t give me the line, “The text doesn’t say exactly.” Maybe not ‘exactly’, but what it says is plenty for my point. Adam, wherever he was ‘exactly’, he wasn’t ‘there’ putting himself forward to protect his wife from the craftiness of the Father of all lies. He wasn’t ‘there’ putting himself forward to provide guidance about God’s command. Wherever he was, he wasn’t up front giving himself for his wife and he is not up front for the rest of us husbands either. We must look elsewhere for a role model.

Paul points us in the right direction. He writes,

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph 5:25)

Whereas the first Adam gave up his bride when God came a callin’ in the garden, the second Adam gave himself up in the garden for all those that would become his bride the church.

Here is the deal: Men of the Way, step up, put up and give themselves up for the wellbeing of their bride.

Take this on-line poll

Markers on the journey

He flunked you the first time. It didn’t matter how well you did in the test. It didn’t matter how careful you were. If you were a teenage boy he flunked you the first time. He flunked me the first time, but I had been warned. I left the car and immediately booked a second driver’s test. I wasn’t a kid anymore and getting my license was a key event marking my journey into adulthood. For me it was a rite of passage that would not be denied; delayed yes, but it was going to happen.

Dave Conklin at Warrior’s Hand recently flagged an article promoting the value of carefully and thoughtfully marking a boy’s journey into manhood with some type of rite of passage.

What is your take on this? Was your journey into manhood marked by some particular event or symbol? Is there merit in investigating how we could celebrate this passage for the teen boys in our lives?

Taking the insult out of unjust criticism

How does one handle criticism? That is what we discussed this morning accompanied by our weekly indulgence in polycalorific, fat-enriched, omega-free doughnuts.

What type of criticism makes you snap back? In this post I want to make a few comments about responding to unjust and unfounded criticism.

Jesus suffered that kind of treatment, yet he did not retaliate. Instead, he “continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1Pe 2:23b ESV). Jesus sets the example for those of us that follow in his way. Tempted as we may be to lash back at our critics, or to justify ourselves, we are called to suffer the injustice.

Doesn’t that seem like asking the impossible? I would say it is impossible if we are relying on our social graces to hold our response in check. I think we need to look deeper than “technique” to understand more fully how we might follow Jesus’ lead.

Foundational to Jesus’ response was his relationship with the Father. Vindication would come according to his Father’s timetable. Until then Jesus was secure in his relationship with the Father; he was loved by the Father and the Father was well pleased with him (see Mt 17:5). That committed and affirming relationship created an impermeable firewall against insults and criticism.

For many of us, our relationship with the Father in Heaven is not foundational to who we are as men. We have been beguiled by cultural sirens that bid us to build our identities on something other than on God. When that foundation is called into question, when people unjustly criticize what we do, or what we know or what we have, it is our identity that is being attacked. We can do nothing much other than to fight back.

In the context of Jesus not answering his critics, Peter reminds us:

For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls. (1Pe 2:25 NASB)

I would suggest that we are not going to have much success in responding to unjust criticism until this truth becomes active in our lives. Our souls find their care, their keep and their security in God. The world may insult what I do, what I know, what I say, what I believe but it cannot call into question the merit and value of who I am, because my true identity has been committed to the care of the one who created me and called me into real relationship with him (see 1Pe 4:19). With that settled, I believe we like Jesus can leave our vindication up to God.

Dressed for action?

I know it is tough to say, “This is what it means to be a man” or even to say “This is part of what it means to be a man”. Nonetheless this is what I read today in Job 40:

⁶ Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm:

⁷ “Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

or another translation reads:

⁶ Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

⁷ “Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.

This isn’t the first time that God has addressed Job like this (see Job 38:3). Each time God hammers Job with a series of rhetorical questions which in my view make it clear to Job that, Job the man is not supreme, he is not the creator, he is not the sustainer, he is not in a position to correct God. Not only that, but Job is in no position to evaluate God’s justice. Job the man does not have the power to judge the proud, nor the power to save himself. Only God does.

For many men (not to say women don’t) we need to be confronted with the same facts. We are not supreme, we do not have the world by the tail, we are not capable either to correct God, judge others or save ourselves.

However, and here maybe I step out on thinner ice, as men we are particularly accountable and answerable to God. To be a man is not a position of power or prestige or perks, but of submission and responsibility to God.

Is that how you dress for action?

Running for cover to please the crowds

The historical personage, Job, is making his final defense in chapter 31 of the Old Testament book that shares his name. Job lists a number of sins that he could have been guilty of, but is not. It struck me that this list is very much from a guy’s perspective (e.g., lust, infidelity, unjust marketplace practices, materialism). Maybe you won’t think so, but that is how it hit me. In fact the one that particularly caught my attention is this one:

³³ if I have concealed my sin as men do,
by hiding my guilt in my heart
³⁴ because I so feared the crowd
and so dreaded the contempt of the clans
that I kept silent and would not go outside

It is both my observation and experience that peer affirmation or at least the avoidance of peer put-downs messes with our willingness or our ability or both to recognize and deal with sin as such.

Have you seen this tendency among men?

In my estimation just another reason why as men we need to live out our faith in the company of other Christ followers who we learn to trust and to whom we give the right to call us to account when we “cover up” sin.