Act Like Men
1 Corinthians 16:13
By Dave Redick
[Author's Note]

There is a confusion of gender roles. Many people don't know what it means to be male and female. They don't know what they are. We have confused women clamoring to get on the battlefield and cross-dressing men clamoring to get into their pantyhose.

Our culture today is being overrun by evil. This is happening, in part, because the church is weak. The church is weak because the family structure has been weakened. The family structure has been weakened because we have weak husbands and fathers. We have weak husbands and fathers partly because men are not often challenged by church leaders to be men. I would like to do my part to rectify this last condition.

The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14, "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love."

Where today, I ask you, are you going to hear words like these taught with any degree of diligence? Paul's words, "act like men," would quickly be labeled as "sexist" by our "politically correct" generation. To say the words, "act life men" is to indicate that there is a way that men are to act that is different than women. Suggest that, even in many churches today, and you will be quickly dismissed as a relic of the past.

There is a confusion of gender roles. Many people don't know what it means to be male and female. They don't know what they are. We have confused women clamoring to get on the battlefield and cross-dressing men clamoring to get into their pantyhose. Homosexuality is out of the closet and into our schools, on our televisions, and in our political system. It's even in the Disney Corporation. More and more people don't know what they are or how they are to act.

Just what did Paul mean when it said, "act like men"? What kind of man was he talking about?

"Be on the alert..." Paul says.

The word he chose here means to collect one's facilities and be awake. It is what the watchman did on the wall of an ancient city as he scanned the horizon by day and listened by night for any encroaching enemy. He was the city's first line of defense. If he was inattentive he endangered all of the inhabitants.

The spiritual man is alert. He watches for danger with regard to his loved ones and family. As their primary protector he doesn't doze at his post. He doesn't allow himself to be distracted by other things to the point that he isn't paying attention to the ever-present threats to his family.

Do you know what my experience is as I consider what I have seen in the church over the past 25 years? More often than not it is the wives who have to watch out for the spiritual issues of the family. Husbands are passed out on the Lazyboy or zoned out in front of the TV or computer. "You'll have to talk to my wife about that" is the oft-heard response of such men. They might wear the pants when it comes to deciding how to spend money and what to watch on TV, but the wife wears the spiritual pants. Someone has to watch over the spiritual dangers and if her husband won't, someone has to do it. She leads by default. The default is his.

I believe it is high time for Christian men to quit making excuses for deserting their post and get back on the wall! Wives were not designed for this job. God says, "Act like men... be on the alert!"

Secondly,

Such a man has planted his feet on solid doctrinal ground and isn't easily moved. He isn't, as Paul said in Ephesians 4:14, like a child "tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine..."

Such a man stands firm in his belief and he is diligent to believe the right thing.

"Stand firm in the faith," Paul says.

A lot of men I know who take up space in pews on Sunday don't even know what "the faith" is. They don't know because they've never applied themselves to learn. Since they don't know, they don't teach their children.

Note that Paul used the definite article. He said "the faith."

There are hundreds of conflicting "faiths" today. What that means, among other things is that you could quite easily stand up for the wrong one. (If there are, say 700 faiths, and only one of them is right, then you have 699 ways to get it wrong and only one way to get it right.

You won't get it right with the kind of half-hearted effort so prevalent in the church today.

Stand firm in the faith men! Act like men!

Thirdly,

It is a characteristic of masculinity to be strong. In comparison to women, most men are stronger and if they aren't then generally they are very uncomfortable about it. That's biology and those who are trying to ignore it today are finding that it cannot be set aside.

The other night, John Stossel of ABC News  was covering a situation where girls were being put into the same wrestling competition as boys. He said the coaches were encountering two problems. First, some of the boys held back because they were afraid they might hurt the girls. I say "amen" to that! When you have a proper respect for a woman, you won't abuse her physically and it is a travesty to put adolescent boys into a situation with that potential. But it was the second problem that caught my attention. What if some of the girls did beat the boys? What effect might that have? Stossel asked that question, too. I think the answer is obvious, don't you? The beaten boys would be humiliated. They would be ashamed. They would probably be stigmatized for a long time among their peers.

I'm not going to get into the issue of whether of not there are times when exceptionally powerful girls are stronger than exceptionally weak boys. Those who advocate such gender-neutral stupidity love to point out the rare exceptions. What I want to say is that in most cases a boy who was whipped by a girl in a physical wrestling match would be effected far beyond a slip in the ratings. He would slink away in shame.

So why is it, brothers, that some of us aren't humiliated when our wives show us up spiritually?

I'll tell you what. If I were a wrestler beaten by a girl I would go into the most extensive training program I could find to be sure that such a thing never happened again! My masculinity would be in great jeopardy and I wouldn't be able to rest until the situation was rectified.

So why is it that in so many cases, the spiritually strong ones in the families are the wives? And why aren't more men ashamed of themselves about that? If that is the case among us here, men, then unless we happen to be brand new Christians married to wives who grew up in the church, we ought to hang our heads in shame. We ought to hide ourselves in the deepest woods until we are able to get into spiritual shape.

Act like men! Be strong.

Actually, to take this a step further, this is one reason why God has placed leadership of the church in the hands of men and not women. Do you know what happens in a public setting when women dominate leadership and show the men up? The men withdraw. They quit talking. Sometimes they quit coming. Suddenly they lose interest in spiritual things. Like a wrestler who might quit wrestling because of the girls who have encroached into the boys' team, they suddenly go out for another sport or quit sports altogether.

Now if I were talking to a group of women here, I might instruct them to step back and let their husbands take the lead. I believe that would be sound advice.

But what can I say to you? The only thing I can come up with is what Paul says here. Be strong. If you're not strong, then launch yourself on a campaign to get strong spiritually. Don't make a big deal about it. Just get with another Christian man who is older and wiser in the faith and commit yourself to training and learning. Pay special attention in every public teaching situation so that you start coming away with solid information and not just a rested body because you took a nap with your eyes open.

Finally, according to this passage,

I suppose a guy could get all motivated to correct a spiritual deficiency and make it a power thing - using whatever improvement he made as a bludgeon on his wife. I've known men who are walking Bible encyclopedias who use their knowledge selectively for their own selfish ends. Such men are tyrants who would probably be better off if they were ignorant of the Bible, which, in fact, they really are. Why? Because a true man of God does all he does in love.

Love puts the needs of others ahead of itself. If someone has to suffer, it steps out first. This love is what causes a true spiritual man to treat his wife with honor and respect.

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her..." (Ephesians 5:25).

When you love you give yourself up - just like Christ gave Himself up. What that means is that you put the needs of the one you love ahead of your own needs. A wife isn't a doormat. She is to be honored and cherished, respected and protected, not walked upon.

"You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered." (1 Peter 3:7).

Love makes that verse a reality. She is the weaker vessel. In simple terms, she is the fine china and you are the cast iron skillet. You don't throw the china around. You put it high up in a protected place so that it doesn't get broken.

If we are ever to see the situation in our culture turned around, the family is going to have to be strengthened. To do that, men are going to have to begin to act like men once again. Alert, firm in the faith, strong, loving.

I leave you with this charge. Act like men!

Author's Note: This message was preached at a men's breakfast gathering. It was short to fit the time slot assigned. [Use "back" button to return to top]

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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