“Be strong and be a man. 1 Kings 2. 2
With these words, man according to God’s heart was dismissed from his son. Of all the things that went through his mind, David judged the counsel: to be a man?The most important thing.
- The text can’t just mean? In the biological sense.
- The manhood according to the scriptures is something to learn.
- Something to achieve.
- This is not an acquired condition.
- But an endowment that indicates a specific way of doing things in the world.
I’m sorry, but I don’t see the counsel, being a woman, in the scriptures. Of course, we might consider the historical context of the time, but let’s face it, with all its strength and fiber, the woman has received in her own body the flexibility and responsibility to nurture the life she generates. Biological nature helps mothers understand the bones of their craft. Keep the baby in the womb, breastfeed and thus find it natural to take care of the offspring.
Biologically speaking, the male is a breeder. It’s hard to explain why a man with all his libido and testosterone gives up his own desires by sacrificing himself for his wife and family.
The male human being needs to learn to fight his impulses, by the grace of God, following the example of great men to finally become MAN, I mean not stereotypes here, but an attitude towards God and life, David explains his advice. to Solomon: “Keep the ordinance of the Lord your God, walk in his ways, and keep his statutes, commandments, judgments, and testimonies, as written in the law” (1 Kings 2. 3). . Masculinity is intimately linked to the idea of discipline, the path to true masculinity is to imitate Christ.
But look, the way to true femininity is also to imitate Christ. So how far are we? The idea of fatherhood helps us to understand what characterizes masculinity, fatherhood is an important achievement for man, not because the male reproduced his blood, but because man responded to the divine call to deny himself and thus serve his offsale. In addition, fatherhood is more than having children of blood, but having children in the faith.
It seems clear to me in the scriptures that every male believer needs to be a father, either as a priest at home or as a disciple of spiritual children. God, the perfect father, who loved the world to the point of abandoning himself is the model of true fatherhood. Therefore, in order to be a man, the Christian man must assume his responsibility and deny himself for the good of others, for the body of Christ.
We are experiencing a crisis of masculinity and therefore also a crisis of fatherhood, criminal statistics related to the absence of the father in the lives of criminals testify to this reality, the world needs parents, men who dominate their own desires and serve their homes. teaching their children to love God and respect limits. In fact, the world needs parents to teach them by example how to treat women with the dignity and attention they need.
Before resolving a dispute between the sexes or getting rid of the Western legacy of fatherhood, either out of resentment against patriarchy or out of personal disappointment, pray for men, pray for parents.
Entertainment culture bombards every day the biblical vision of masculinity and fatherhood. With our limits, men and fathers have received the divine commandment to be “brave and men. “Properly lived fatherhood is a miracle, because to exist, it is necessary for a selfish man to die, so that a new man who sacrifices himself as Christ may be born.
May our fatherhood be the portrait of the perfect love of the FATHER who gave himself for us.
Happy Father’s Day!