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Tomorrow, February 7th if everything goes as planned, Jessi will give birth to a baby boy. Though I am excited to have a boy, I’m also afraid. Now I have a man to raise. It’s not as if raising a girl to be a good woman is any easier, but it’s different and there are certain challenges I would probably have been able to avoid.

But I can’t avoid my fears now. I will have a boy and I will try to teach him how to be a man. What does that even mean? I mean, what does he really need to know, what does he need to be like to be called a man? What is the essence of a man? And, what can I actually do to teach my boy to be manly? If you’ve read my last post you’ll know that I took exception to how Francis Chan and Mark Driscoll went about telling men to act like men. It’s not that I’m against teaching boys and men how to act like a man. I just think we should know what that really means, and we should use methods that actually work.

How does a man act like a man?

There are certain skills that a man should have. A man should know how to: use tools, cut wood, build a fire, throw a ball, handle a gun, organize his life, diagnose problems, solve problems, navigate unknown territories, climb a mountain, take care of a garden, cook, pack a trunk, defend himself, dress well, construct things, be respectful of others, have good manners, drive a stick shift, work hard, tie a couple good knots, think rationally, express his opinion in a civil manner, not need someone else to take care of him. I could go on, but that’s a pretty good list to start with; if a man could do those things he would certainly be manly. Yet, everything I’ve listed is either culturally conditioned and/or in no way exclusive to men. As I look at my list I see that the real core skill I want my son to have is the ability to learn whatever skills he needs to take care of himself wherever he finds himself. I want him to be able to handle his business. I want him to be able to take responsibility for his own survival (which does not mean he can’t rely upon others to help him). But wait a second – don’t I plan on teaching my daughter the exact same thing?

Yes I’m going to raise my daughter to take care of herself – not to sit around and wait for a man to take care of her. Now, she might meet a man and get married and decide to be a stay-at-home-mom and that’s fine with me if she chooses that. I’ve got no problem with stay-at-home moms; they (and stay-at-home-dads) perform a very important and honorable job. My wife wants to be a stay-at-home-mom and I’m doing everything I can to make that happen. But, I will not raise my daughter in a way in which that becomes her only option and if she doesn’t find a man to serve she won’t have any purpose, or identity. I won’t raise her to be a woman who can’t take care of herself and her kids if something happens to her husband. That means I need to teach her all those things that are culturally considered man-skills.

Maybe she’ll decide that she can better serve God by remaining single (as both Jesus and Paul teach those who are able to do). Either way, I want my daughter to be the most skillful and talented woman she can be so that no matter what she chooses to do she can take care of herself and be of the greatest benefit to the friends, family and community around her. I don’t want her to be someone who is only fit to be a house servant, and certainly not someone who will be a drag upon those around her.

So, though there are particular skills which I hope to teach my son, and some skills I hope to learn myself in the process, these skills will not make him a man. Though many of these skills are what we think of when we think of manly skills, we must admit that they are simply cultural and not actually the measure of a man. The one general skill which I have so far identified that transcends our culture, self sufficiency, cannot really be identified as distinctively male. It is a skill to be taught to women as well. There is no reason our women need to be helpless victims in need of rescue in order for men to be men.

The relationship between men and women

The Bible tells us,

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it . . . . (Gen 1:26-28)

Now I believe that God’s creation glorifies God’s nature. This means that the nature of God – who God is, what God is like – is revealed through what God has created. In this way the unseen, infinite, indescribable God can be known; God is manifested through the tangible world. In Genesis we see that in the creation of humans God’s image is revealed in a special way. So, let’s think about the different ways in which humans reveal what God is like and how that might relate to what the essence of a man’s identity is.

Humans, not man or woman as individuals, but humans – man and woman together – bear the special image of God. God did not create the man in his image and then create the woman as an add-on. God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”, so, “in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”. The Trinitarian God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the “Us” in the verse created a species with a special capacity for a love relationship with God and each other. I believe it is this love relationship which is the primary way in which humans are image bearers. A man does not bear God’s image in and of himself, nor does a woman. Men and women in community, in union with God are the image of God, and at the present time this image is primarily seen in the Church, not marriage. Sex is a physical image of the spiritual oneness of a husband and wife – the non-physical manifested in the physical. This spiritual oneness can be seen as an image of God’s Trinitarian oneness, but certainly not the primary image, nor the primary way in which humans reveal God’s oneness. Neither can sex or marriage be the primary essence of a man, or woman’s, identity.

Animals are male and female; they have sex. Certainly we can’t say that something animals do is the special thing humans do which make them God’s image bearers, because it’s not special. Animals, like all of creation, glorify God – who they are and what they do reveal God’s being. Since animals and humans have much in common (I would say humans are physically animals), we glorify God in some of the same ways; procreation is one of these ways. However, procreation is not what makes humans special image bearers.

Procreation is not the essence of a man; if it was then a boy could not be called a man until he became a father. But, if this were true than Jesus, who never married and had no children (unless you believe Dan Brown), was not a man. Despite all that he did he never achieved completion as a man; he never fulfilled the purpose of his masculinity. I do not believe such nonsense. So, I must conclude that marriage, sex, and procreation are not essential components of manliness (though they are potential side-effects).

Marriage and sex are not essential to our nature as men and women. In Matt 22:23-33 Jesus tells the Pharisees, who try to trick him with a question about marriage, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (vv 29-30). Jesus taught that our earthly marriages will be made void, human marriage will no longer exist, and I take this to mean we will no longer have sex in the new creation. Yet, the key to understanding this verse is Jesus’ statement about understanding the power of God. The state of our existence after the resurrection will be greater than, not less than, the state of our existence now. I take this to mean that the union which marriage and sex make possible on this earth is less than the spiritual union which will exist between all people and God in the new creation. Truly then the image of God will be manifest in his people – men and women still being men and women, not neutered beings – men and women together bearing the image of the Trinitarian God. If marriage and sex were somehow essential to our nature as men and women then we would lose our identities in such a new world.

Is God masculine?

Just recently John Piper made the claim that God gave Christianity a “masculine feel” (LINK). God reveals himself as Father and Son and all the priests and church leaders in the Bible were male (Piper claims), therefore Christianity is masculine. To Piper this means,

When I say masculine Christianity or masculine ministry or Christianity with a masculine feel, here's what I mean: Theology and church and mission are marked by an overarching godly male leadership in the spirit of Christ with an ethos of tender-hearted strength, contrite courage, risk-taking decisiveness, and readiness to sacrifice for the sake of leading and protecting and providing for the community. All of which is possible only through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

It's the feel of a great, majestic God who is by His redeeming work in Christ inclining men to humble Christ-exalting initiatives and inclining women to come alongside those men with joyful support, intelligent helpfulness, and fruitful partnership in the work

This gets to the heart of what I’m talking about. Piper thinks God and Christianity are masculine, and he thinks masculinity is leadership, strength, courage, risk taking decisiveness, sacrifice, protecting and providing. He thinks femininity is support and helpfulness. But, let’s look at how God reveals himself as Father, Son and Spirit and determine if Piper’s assertion is true.

God does reveal himself as Father, but what does that mean? It primarily refers to God as creator, progenerator. As I said, fatherhood is a possible side-effect of being a man. And the essence of being a father is certainly being the one who plants the seed, so to speak, and generates life. It is true that the male gender reveals something about God’s nature through the act of procreation. But, as I’ve said this is hardly unique to humans, nor is it the essence of masculinity. God is in is essence creator, but does that really mean he is masculine, but not feminine? Was there a father god and mother earth? Though God has chosen to call himself Father, does this mean mothers do not reveal an important aspect of who God is as well? Does God not have both masculinity and femininity in himself? We rightly call God Father, because that is the name God has chosen for himself, but it is wrong to conclude that God is therefore only masculine. Remember male and female are created in God’s image.

In Genesis chapter two we are told a more detailed story concerning the creation of man and woman. In Genesis 2:18 God says, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” The word helper used here is primarily also used in reference to God. And as Andrew Perriman points out in a blog post (LINK) “The “helper” is “an independent person who makes up a significant deficiency or helplessness in the other”. The word says “more about the unsatisfactory condition of the man than the status of the woman.”

In the New Testament the Holy Spirit is called the Paraclete. Also, Jesus is identified as a Paraclete in John 14:16 and 1 John 2:1. A paraclete is “one who consoles or comforts, one who encourages or uplifts; hence refreshes, and/or one who intercedes on our behalf as an advocate in court". The word for "Paraclete" is passive in form, and etymologically (originally) signified "called to one's side" (Wikipedia). So, God is a helper, comforter and supporter. If these are feminine attributes as Piper seems to think, then he must conclude that God is equally feminine and masculine.

Jesus is the Son, and he took on human form as a man. But, does this really mean Christianity has a “masculine feel”? What does Jesus’ work as redeemer really reveal about us as humans? With God we are the responders, not the initiators, we are the wooed, the loved, the pursued. Though I enjoyed John Eldridge’s book Wild at Heart and agree that men should be leaders, risk takers, warriors etc., Jesus is the knight in shining armor and we are the rescued. We don’t pursue God, without first being pursued by him. The Church is in fact the Bride of Christ. Paul even tells us that the union between a man and woman in marriage is a picture of the Church’s union with Jesus (Eph 5:31-32). If anything the Church has a “feminine feel”. Furthermore, if there are men who think they have been called to stand in God’s place as the “masculine leaders” of the Church they risk putting themselves in the place of Christ and thus making themselves anti-Christs.

Does this mean men can’t be “masculine” in church? Are we not men, in our relationship with God? Certainly this is not the case. But, we do not have to be the initiator, leader, and decision-maker to be men. This means these tasks are not essential to acting like a man. A man can be a follower who submits to the initiative and decisions of another and still be masculine. No church can call itself a church which worships Jesus Christ if in an effort to be “masculine”, it teaches its men to rely upon their own self-generated manly virtues and allows them to remain proud.

What is a man?

There are the most obvious physical differences between men and women. Some people think these are the only real differences and all other differences are cultural. However, these physical differences alone actually result in men and women having different capabilities (on average), which results in men and women generally being better suited to different tasks, roles and social functions, and thus they affect the way we think about the nature of man and woman.

Men, on average, are physically stronger than women. They also tend to be more ambitious and eager to take risks – which is fine because they are more expendable than women. Men are physically capable of having more children than women, meaning each individual male is not as precious to a society as each individual female, because we really don’t need as many of them around. Plus it’s actually better for a society if only the best males reproduce. Men need to prove their worth. As a result humans have traditionally used the males of their tribe to do those tasks which are often risky and require physical strength – warriors, hunters, and farmers. This is a good way to weed out the inferior males. (But should Christians think like this?)

There are some people who think the essence of a man is his warrior role. The regrettable existence of war in our society does reveal good qualities which we are right to praise – courage, resourcefulness, camaraderie, strength, self-sacrifice. As I’ve said, God’s creation glorifies him, but so does the presence of sin which corrupts his creation. Because of sin’s presence there are certain qualities in God’s nature which are highlighted in contrast to sin and others qualities which we would never even see if it were not for sin. For example, God’s mercy and forgiveness could not have been revealed if there were no sins to forgive.

If there was no sin in the world God’s warrior nature would not be revealed. But, Exodus 15:3 declares that “the LORD is a warrior”. His warrior nature is manifest throughout the Bible. What does this mean? It is not that God enjoys pain and suffering, but he is loyal, he is courageous, he is powerful, and he is self-sacrificing. And ultimately he has promised to avenge the innocent and defeat the wicked in order to establish justice in this world when he finally reclaims it and redeems it establishing his Kingdom once more on this earth as it was in the beginning. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, will not be so gentle in his return. Again, it is not that God enjoys destruction – but he will not abandon his creation, or allow his people to be trampled by the wicked. He is able to use our sin to glorify himself. God does not desire that humans sin – right now he holds out forgiveness and he desires for all of us to repent and be saved. Yet, because there is sin and rebellion in this world we have seen and will see again the warrior qualities in God.

These warrior qualities which are to be found in the nature of God have traditionally been manifested by men through their role as warrior. And, because of their physical strengths men also fulfilled the roles of hunter and farmer. Since men performed these tasks they were of course responsible for the protection and provision of their families; all simply because they are physically stronger. Therefore the qualities of leadership, strength, courage, risk taking decisiveness, sacrifice, protecting and providing all become synonymous with masculinity. But are these really distinct qualities of masculinity, are they the essence of a man, but not a woman?

Technology and our changing culture have pretty much negated such a distinction. Technology has made it so that fewer and fewer men are needed for the fighting of wars and the producing of food. These days most of our men are not warriors, or food producers. The qualities once demonstrated on the battle field are now mimicked in a small, but rather trivial, way on the sports field. Technology has made physical strength much less important. There are some jobs which still must be performed by strong individuals, but there are other jobs which require skills that are more often found in women – multi-tasking, for example. In fact, more and more jobs in our society value those skills that women excel at. Even a large percentage of our societies’ warriors are now actually women. As a result, women are now just as much warriors, food producers, providers and protectors. We see that they are just as capable as men at demonstrating what we thought were masculine qualities such as inner strength, discipline, courage, valor, loyalty, camaraderie, resourcefulness, leadership, intelligence under pressure, risk-taking decisiveness and self-sacrifice. Once women are given tools which make up for them being less physically strong than men, and which sometime even highlight those natural strengths in which they surpass men, they can be just as much the warriors as men can be.

Furthermore, men are not as expendable as they used to be, because polygamy is no longer an accepted practice. Each male is practically just as important as each female for our species’ reproduction. Even though men are physically capable of having more children than women, our morals negate this physical distinction. This means we no longer have a bunch of excess males to fight wars. We can’t afford our young men getting themselves killed. War is much too devastating. The moral and technological advancement of our society makes the distinctions between women and men’s physical natures, which were very important in the jungle when we lived like animals, practically unimportant.

So, even though warrior, risk taker, aggressor, protector, hunter, farmer, and provider were are roles which reveal something about men’s nature, none of these can be said to be a man’s primary role, nor reveal the essence of his identity as a man. The only attribute which made men most suitable to be the protector and provider was the simple fact that men are, on average, stronger than women. This certainly cannot be of any great significance.

But isn’t the man supposed to be the leader?

I do not believe the Bible actually teaches that men are solely qualified to lead the Church, or that husbands have been placed in authority over their wives. I believe men and women bear equal responsibility and share in the leadership of the Church and the family. I won’t go into all the reasons for why I believe this in this post – (Andrew Perriman does a good job of quickly explaining the view I agree with in another of his posts LINK). But here’s the thing, even if I grant the “complementarians” their position that a man is the head of the household and that women are not allowed to teach men in church or be elders, that doesn’t mean men are always leaders and women followers. Even if God has chosen to put men in charge of these two particular institutions that doesn’t mean men are always in charge, nor does it mean that a woman’s primary role is to support a man. Even if men are the heads of their households, their authority ends in their household and they have no authority over any women outside of their household. Even if men are in charge of their local congregations their authority ends with the congregation in matters of church governance. Men in general do not have some sort of blanket authority over all women in all matters of life. Where can even the complementarian find that in the Bible? Men may be leaders in certain situations, but that doesn’t make leadership the defining essence of masculinity.

As I said before, even if men may fulfill certain roles at certain times that doesn’t mean these roles are the essence of their manhood. A man does not have to be a father, a warrior, a protector, a provider, an initiator, the head of a household or church, or a leader to be a man. Though a man may be these things he can be a man even if he is not these things. A man can even be a helper, an encourager, a support to others, a responder, a follower and still be a man. In fact, if a man is a leader his leadership role makes him a servant. This is the mark of Christian leadership – Jesus himself says,

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matt 20:25-28)

So, what will I teach my son (and my daughter)?

I must conclude that the only real difference between men and women is physical, which does go beyond their physical appearance and results in some big differences. And, our identity and essence cannot actually be separated from our physical being (but that’s another discussion) and therefore it is that we are physically male and female that makes us different. Men and women, on average, have different skills which they excel at. On average men and women relate to others differently. But, these are averages, and they have no moral component of being right or wrong. That means that whoever each individual man and woman is – their personality, their skills – is who they are. There is no sense in admonishing someone to act like a man, if by that what we mean is they should act more like the typical male. Masculinity is simply physically being a male, which in each individual will manifest itself in different ways.

Those virtues we may traditionally identify with masculinity are not in fact masculine. They are just the qualities of a good human. We should admonish all people, men and women, to display these virtues. Be strong and courageous, disciplined, responsible, be able to lead, be able to follow, protect the weak, fight injustice, take risks because you know you can trust in God, sacrifice yourself. Our society is right when it tells our girls to display those qualities traditionally thought to be masculine. And it is right in telling our boys to display those qualities traditionally thought to be feminine. Boys should learn how to be a helper, a servant, an encourager, not self-seeking; they need to learn that the world does not revolve around them and their ambitions. Boys need to learn how to be humble, respectful and teachable, not arrogant and boastful fools who think they know it all. Boys need to learn how to be peacemakers, how to work and cooperate with others. Boys need to learn how to follow. They need to learn how to submit to God, how to properly submit to authority and what it means to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” as Eph 5:21 says. Both men and women need to learn how to be virtuous adults – how to be Christ-like. In Christ there is no male or female (Gal 3:26-29).

I plan on teaching my daughter and my son the same skills for life regardless of whether or not our culture thinks those skills are masculine, or feminine. There will be a few lessons which will be slightly different because of their genders, and they will certainly have different levels of competency depending on the task, but I want them both to learn how to take care of themselves. The moral lessons I teach them will be identical. I want them both to be strong courageous warriors and humble helpful servants who consider the needs of others before their own. They may face different temptations. Their sin may manifest itself in different ways, but really what great difference does that make.

I will teach them both that they are incapable of being good and virtuous without first recognizing the sin which has corrupted them and placed them in need of a redeemer. I will teach them both that Jesus is their redeemer who has saved them from their sins and reconciled them to God. I will teach them both that only by abiding in Christ and allowing his Spirit to work through them can they bear the fruit of righteousness. I will not bother with telling my son to act like a man, or my daughter to act like a woman. I will tell them to act like Christ. And, I will teach them that when they fail, they have a gracious and loving Father God who searches for them and welcomes them back with open arms; they have a righteous brother who clothes them with his righteousness and who presents them to the Father as pleasing and good. They have nothing to fear if they are in union with Jesus. I will teach them grace; I will teach them the Gospel over and over and over again. I will tell them to focus upon God and the love he has showered upon them, not their own performance. Always focus on God, not yourselves, not your virtue, not your femininity or masculinity; to focus upon such things will only lead to self-righteousness which is the last thing I want to see in my children.