Men

Violence against women is a sin of an extreme nature. It is the opposite of Christ, who loved His bride and sacrificed Himself for her, to dignify her with eternal glory (Ephesians 5:25-27). Therefore, anyone who loves the Christian gospel must oppose violence against women as a sin against our Lord Himself.

But violence against women is wrong for another reason, a very personal reason that goes to the core of what a man is. This reason will mean nothing to some people, but in fact it is the deepest root of this sin and points to the only true remedy.

Violence against women is the rage of the flesh, utterly contrary to the Holy Spirit. According to the New Testament, the flesh – that is, our natural moral psychology, marked by selfish demandingness and excuses and superiority and swagger – proves itself in obvious ways: “. . . enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger” (Galatians 5:19-21). The rage of the flesh is, in fact, hostility toward God Himself (Romans 8:7).

Sir, if you abuse your wife or daughter or girlfriend, physically or verbally, you are more than a bully. You are the enemy of God. You are usurping his place as Judge. You tell yourself she needs a little roughing up. You tell yourself you are doing her a favor. But you are not a good man. You are an evil man and unqualified to judge. You are under God’s judgment.

Here is the choice you face. Go on justifying yourself, go on blaming her, in which case you will go to hell forever. Or own up to your evil and fall at the feet of Christ, the only Savior of violent bullies. He will amaze you with His forgiveness. He will turn you around, so that you become a Spirit-filled advocate for women, starting with the one you have mistreated.

Your problem is not her. Your problem is the deepest you that you are. And Christ is your only escape from you. Run to Him. He will not abuse you.

This article was written by Dr. Ray Ortlund, Lead Pastor of Immanuel Churchin Nashville, Tennessee and a Council member with The Gospel Coalition. It can be found on the Gospel Coalition blog here.

A crisis of fatherlessness marks the lives of millions of boys and young men, with boys growing up without fathers in the home now comprising a majority within some ethnic groups and urban populations. At almost every grade level, boys are performing below girls, and are often left behind as girls go on to more advanced levels of learning. Then, adding insult to injury, reports from scientists indicate that both sperm counts and testosterone levels are falling among some boys and men — blamed on anything from hormone supplements in the food chain to chemical contamination of ground water.

In many churches, young men and older boys are simply missing. The absence of young men ages 18 to 30 is just a fact of life in many congregations. Though this is especially acute in the mainline Protestant denominations, it is increasingly true of many evangelical churches as well.

One dimension of this problem is the difficulty of helping boys develop into manhood — a responsible, healthy, and meaningful manhood. Put simply, many of the most significant man-making institutions of our society are either gone or in big trouble. Military service is now both voluntary and no longer male-only. Organizations like the Boy Scouts attract more opposition and fewer boys. Even as the Boy Scouts of America marks the organization’s centennial this year, that proud American institution that shaped the lives of so many boys is marginalized and under attack.

Add the absence of fathers to all this and this society faces a challenge unprecedented in human history. A society cannot survive without a means of assisting boys to grow into responsible manhood. The same is true, of course, of the church — only in the church the stakes are even higher.

An enlightening (and oddly odorous) illustration of this social problem comes from The New York Times. Reporter Jan Hoffman tells of young boys now using “hypermasculine” products in order to demonstrate their masculinity and advertise their male identity — largely through the smells they put off.

Hoffman tells of Noah and Keenan Assaraf, age 13 and 14 respectively, who live near San Diego, where daily “they walk out the door in a cloud of spray-on macho,” according to their mom. The smell, she says, “drives me nuts.” Even as marketers insist the products are intended for young males ages 18 to 26, the products have now “reached into the turbulent, vulnerable world of their little brothers, ages 10 to 14.”

As Jan Hoffman explains:

Boys themselves, at a younger age, have also become increasingly self-conscious about their appearance and identity. They are trying to tame their twitching, maturing bodies, select from a growing smorgasbord of identities — goth, slacker, jock, emo — and position themselves with their texting, titillating, brand-savvy female peers, who are hitting puberty ever earlier.

And armies of researchers note that tween boys have modest disposable incomes, just fine for products that typically sell for less than $7.

“More insecurity equals more product need, equals more opportunity for marketers,” said Kit Yarrow, a professor of psychology and marketing at Golden Gate University.

Insecurity seems to be a major motivating factor. Jake Guttenberg, a New York seventh grader, told the paper he uses one of these “deodorants” because, “I feel confident when I wear it.”

Lyn Mikel Brown of Colby College was blunt in her assessment: “These are just one of many products that cultivate anxiety in boys at younger and younger ages about what it means to man up . . . to be the kind of boy they’re told girls will want and other boys will respect. They’re playing with the failure to be that kind of guy, to be heterosexual even.”

Interestingly, Hoffman reports that these products are often bought for boys by their mothers, “simply relieved that their sons are thinking about body odor.” Just about any mom will nod in agreement at this point — but where are the dads?

These boys are acting out what society is telling them — urging them to be hypermasculine, hypersexualized, hyperconsumers. You don’t have to consult with Karl Marx to be leery of the marketing of these products to preteen boys. You do not have to know these boys to be saddened that while they understandably and naturally desire to grow up into manhood, think that “masculinity in a can” is the way to get there. Their desire to identify as masculine is natural and healthy — even essential — but the lack of real support in getting there leads them into confusion.

The New York Times also offers evidence of the crisis of manhood in a second article, in which reporter R. M. Schneiderman takes readers into a world of “mixed martial arts” in some evangelical churches and ministries.

“The outreach is part of a larger and more longstanding effort on the part of some ministers who fear that their churches have become too feminized, promoting kindness and compassion at the expense of strength and responsibility,” he explains.

From his report:

In the back room of a theater on Beale Street [in Memphis], John Renken, 37, a pastor, recently led a group of young men in prayer.

“Father, we thank you for tonight,” he said. “We pray that we will be a representation of you.”

An hour later, a member of his flock who had bowed his head was now unleashing a torrent of blows on an opponent, and Mr. Renken was offering guidance that was not exactly prayerful.

“Hard punches!” he shouted from the sidelines of a martial arts event called Cage Assault. “Finish the fight! To the head! To the head!”

In order to reach young men, some churches are turning to mixed martial arts, defined as “a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling, and other fighting styles.”

The main issue here is not the legitimacy of martial arts, but the fact that these churches are making a self-conscious effort to reach young men and boys with some kind of proof that Christianity is not a feminized and testosterone-free faith that appeals only to women.

Of course, Christianity honors the man who fights “the good fight of faith,” and the most important fight to which a Christian man is called is the fight to grow up into godly manhood, to be true to wife and provide for his children, to make a real contribution in the home, in the church, and in the society, and to show the glory of God in faithfully living out all that God calls a man to be and to do. This means a fight for truth, for the Gospel, and for the virtues of the Christian life. The New Testament is filled with masculine — and even martial — images of Christian faithfulness. We must be unashamed of these, and help a rising generation of men and boys to understand what it means to be a man in Christ. The Christian man does not embrace brutality for the sake of proving his manhood.

This much is clear — we are living in strange times, getting stranger by the minute. Churches and parents are right to be concerned about the new challenges of helping boys to grow into manhood. The crisis is real, and this one demands urgent attention.

Boys will never find real masculinity in a can, but boys and young men should find respect for and examples of genuine manhood at church. What about your church?

This article was written by Dr. Al Mohler and originally posted on his blog. You can find it here.

My father, who died in 1991 when a leaky blood vessel burst in his chest, would tell you that God’s mercy alone carried him through D-Day alive. Sovereign grace saw him through the Allies’ Operation Market Garden (which didn’t turn out to be the Allies’ proudest moment). It preserved him through the Battle of the Bulge, where American troops won despite being grossly outnumbered, completely surrounded (it is the Airborne’s job to be surrounded, my father once told me) and deep-frozen in one of the coldest European winters on record. Divine mercy, dad always said, kept him alive to V-J Day and spirited him back to Georgia to marry my mom. And it was mercy all, immense and free, that converted my dad to Christ shortly after they exchanged nuptials. Charles M. Robinson the soldier became an excellent husband and father, faithfully raising three boys to be faithful husbands, fathers and churchmen.

Over the years as I have read God’s Word and reflected back upon his quiet testimony to God’s grace in our home, I have been increasingly thankful for the Godward values he instilled in us. Unfortunately, godly, committed fathers are the exception in today’s culture rather than the rule, but I was blessed by God’s mercy to be raised by one. Though he was far from a perfect man, my father exemplified biblical manhood in many respects and taught me many lessons by example. Following is 12 things that my father’s example taught me about biblical manhood:

• The right thing is not always the easy thing. Ask any of my father’s friends and they will tell you that humble courage, above all other attributes, typified my father. If he feared anything other than the Lord, our family never knew it. Dad was particularly adamant about doing the right thing, even, or perhaps especially, when it was a difficult thing. But courage should always display itself in a manner befitting the humility of Christ, I think he would be quick to say. My father did not believe he was courageous. When I asked him if he was scared the night he jumped into Normandy, his replay was an incredulous “Of course.” So what made you do it? “Because there was something at stake that was far larger and far more important than my safety,” he said. That’s humility wed to courage. That’s like Christ and I want to be like that.
• The right thing is not always the popular thing. Like following Christ, making the right decisions will not always win the applause of others, even some who profess undying devotion to you.
• Greatness is found in humility, not in touting one’s own greatness. I will never forget my father, in the context of teaching me how to play the great game of baseball (the national pastime seems to be imbedded somewhere in my family’s DNA), said, “When you make a great play, hit a home run (I was a singles hitter, so this particular play wasn’t much of an issue) or do something to help your team in an obvious way, act like you’ve been there before.” My father wanted God, not me, to be glorified, even in sports.  Dad was appalled at the strutting of professional athletes and was always put off by those who strutted in life, particularly in the church.
• Men are called to do hard things. Men are called to make difficult decisions in the home, workplace and church. Men are called to do hard things like taking a wife and raising children. My father saw a tendency among young men toward delayed adolescence in my generation and was deeply concerned.  That God makes men a bit rough around the edges is suggestive, he believed.
• Husbands are called to protect their wives. Physically, emotionally and spiritually, a man must be willing to lay down his life for his wife.
• Fathers are called to protect their children. Physically, emotionally and spiritually, a man must be willing to lay down his life for his children.
• Be good at what you do. That 1 Corinthians 10:31 is such an oft-quoted Scripture verse in my home is probably attributable to my father. Whether you were going to be a plumber, professor, athlete, student, doctor, pastor or custodian, you must never stop striving to grow in your ability to do it with great skill and integrity with a sense of stewardship.  My father was a master builder and approached every project as if it were his last. Every sphere of life belongs to God and all must be done to His glory.
• Talk is cheap, especially in the Christian life. “There are men who are talkers and there are men who are doers,” he told me. Dad was a “doer,” which is a North Georgia way of saying, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
• Father/husband, if there is a financial crisis in the home, you are the solution, not your wife. My father took seriously the husband/father’s role as the chief provider for the family. He would have found the modern-day “stay at home dad” ungodly, effeminate and repugnant. If your lifestyle requires her to take on a career and pushes the children to the babysitter where they are being raised by someone else, adjust your lifestyle to fit the man’s wages. If extenuating circumstances make this impossible, the man should take on additional work so his wife can be faithful to her divine calling as a full-time mother. Dad always said, “You are the solution.”
• There is no substitute for “being there.” My dad never had to learn such words as “quality time” and “quantity time.” I do not recall a single baseball game (and I played in hundreds growing up) or important church or school event without my dad (and mom) in the audience. We went to church Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night as a family, no questions asked. That we were being raised as churchmen was an assumption. At home we spent hours talking about everything from God’s Word to sports, the news, good books and the merits/demerits of country/rock/pop/gospel music. In short, his was a huge presence on the landscape of my life and my time with him continues to bear fruit, even as I arrive upon the borders of middle age.
• Treasuring Christ, not material things, will give you ultimate satisfaction. The Lord blessed my father with material means, but I have no doubt it was never an idol. Whatever wealth he had, it never had him. One of my fondest memories growing up in our household was my parents, under my father’s leadership, providing food, Christmas toys, rent/mortgage money and thousands of dollars in other provisions for the poor of our community, which were numerous. “God has blessed us to be a blessing to others,” he once told me. “We must lay up treasure in heaven, not here.” That’s the biblical prosperity gospel.
• Authentic manhood is proven by serving others, not by the deployment of bare knuckles. In the mountains of North Georgia where I grew up, a rite of passage into manhood seemed to be participating in and winning at least one fist fight. This was a huge problem for a runty boy like me, who didn’t tip the scales at 100 pounds until the ninth grade. In high school, I used to joke with my friends, “I’m a lover, not a fighter.” My father, who was as physically tough a man as I have ever met, warned me against confusing real manhood with such boorishness. Real manhood is found in sacrificing your needs, wants and desires in service of others as Christ did on Calvary. The real man is the Christ-picturing servant, not the Rocky Balboa wanna-be.

I am following in giant footsteps and I pray that the Lord will give me grace to set an example that points my children to Christ and His Gospel in a compelling and fruitful way.

This post was written by Jeff Robinson and originally posted here.