Where is that man who God created to be male, not female? Where is that man who is a leader of and provider for his family? Where is that man’s man who exhibits those qualities that will make him desirable to God’s woman? He is, unfortunately, an endangered species. But if he can’t be found in society, then surely he can be found in the church? Sadly, this is not always the case, for instead of the church being the salt and light it needs to be to a lost and dying world, the world has risen up to imprint its image upon the church. Too many Christian men act neither like Christians nor men. But the image is not faded altogether, for there is Jesus, the personification of what real manhood is all about. And there is Peter, Paul, Timothy, Titus and the others. There are also those qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 that speak to the fullness of Christian manhood:
…without reproach or blameless, given to hospitality, good testimony from without, a lover of good, no lover of money, not greedy for ill-gotten gain, temperate, self-controlled, orderly, gentle, not contentious, not a brawler, soberminded, apt to teach, not a novice, children in subjection, able to rule his own house, the husband of one wife.
This is true manhood and it ought to be what all men of God strive for.
Such a man is the “head of his wife, as also Christ is the head of the church. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything” (Ephesians. 5:23-24). The man of God is not a neutered wimp who has emasculated himself at the altar of an anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-biblical feminism. The true man of God is not willing to relinquish his leadership role in the family or the church, and God’s woman does not want him to do so. This may make us “peculiar” to those around us, but it must be remembered that this is precisely what God created us in His Son to be (cf. Titus 2:14; 1 Peter 2:9). May God help us to be real men, and may we glorify Him in the process.