Biblical Manhood

          I think it is very important to look at the biblical definition of what manhood is, as a follow-up from my earlier blog.  While most of my ideas of manhood from before emerge from a Christian worldview, there is much more to be said about men in the realm of faith.  In talking to friends about biblical manhood, one of them asked me if there was one word I could use to describe what it centers around.   My answer was "submission," but submission is both the problem and answer to the weakness of man.

          Back in the beginning of the world, God spoke to create the universe.  At the temptation of Eve, Adam failed to speak, falling into submission for one reason or another.  His failure to speak then was the start of a trend in mankind: an ungodly timidity that renders them useless in the work of God.  This trend has continued into today.

          You can see the submission of man everywhere in today's world, even stereotyped on TV and in the movies with stupid male leads and their patient wives.  You can see the submission of men in the divorce rates, the children without father-figures, and the crowds of bar patrons who stay out late drinking to stumble back to broken homes.  Men of this world are so ready to submit and the world gratefully throws everything it has at men to keep them weak.     

          The other side of the coin, though, is submission to God.  Submission to God produces strong men who are humble and ready to serve.  He know that the most comfortable path is not the one that God wills for him.  That remaining in ignorance is not the way of Christ, even if it should make for an unpleasant conversation.  It is vital for a man to submit his own will to that of God, for alone he does not have the strength to contend with his own nature.  Even if he should build something for himself, all that he worked to make will wither and die under the sun.

          You can observe all throughout history men who did not give in to their submissive nature, but rather to God: Paul faced very visible opposition in many cases, Dietrich Bonhoeffer faced off with the Nazi regime and refused to back down even in the face of a tyrant, and Jim Elliot and his group of missionaries gave their lives to spread the word of God.  

          So while submission is what defines a man in his faith, I think a better word for what biblical manhood looks like would actually be "courage."  A man of faith will face many trials, some great and well-defined, and many less discernible situations, and he must have the courage to act as God wills him to.  It is courage that separates men from boys, though who is truly the man is so easily distorted by the ways of the world.