What Is a Real Man?

Good question.

Another is, ‘where do you go to find the answer?’ Do we like many, look at what the world is telling us or do we go to the source - by ‘source’ I mean the Bible.

If we read the scriptures there are certain fundamental things that leap out at you about who a man is and what he should be like. “So God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them” (Gen.1:27) – chikking!!!

Whoops, one to God and a fat zero for the popular world view of what a man is. In other words, man is masculine and woman is feminine and neither the twain shall meet.

There is a complimentary relationship between man and woman for sure, but the world wants to blur the distinction and turn men into something they were not designed to be. With recent stories in the media of pregnant men (she was really a woman anyway) and distorted ideas about roles, sex and the needs of men, is it any wonder that even Christians are becoming confused.

And if the church is confused, is it a surprise that traditional or masculine men feel that going to church is not for them?

Men are the least represented gender in our denomination. An average attendance figure recently released says that worldwide, SDA men make up about only 30% attendance on any given Sabbath morning. That figure ought to send alarm bells ringing across our church but it hasn’t.

So in a world of mixed up ideas about men and their roles, who can we look to for a blueprint of what a man should be like? I hope the answer is obvious – it’s JESUS with a big “J” but even here we need to be careful that popular notions don’t creep in.

When teaching our children about Jesus, do we only emphasise His softer virtues and ignore the more radical and dangerous sides of the Saviour? To be sure Jesus was the Lamb of God but he also was the Lion of Judah. Jesus was no church mouse and often had issues with how the religious leaders of his day were doing church. He not only had an appeal to women but he also appealed to rough fishermen and Centurions of his time.

When presenting Jesus, do we unwittingly skip over the more radical episodes like when He drove out the money changers from the temple, to the gentle ripples of his lakeside talks among the daisy’s?

Are we only presenting a gentle Jesus meek and mild without considering the impact on our boys who may need to see His masculine side which appeals to their sense of heroism? One thing is for sure, our job is to confront the current gender gap for what it is: a strategy of the evil one to weaken the church.*

We need to be careful of offering popular theories why men are not in church such as, men are less spiritual than women, or saying things like, men should just...... It’s not about what men should be - if we can’t start with men as they are, we’ll never reach them.**

Jesus get’s my vote as a real man anyway and if I’m ever in doubt all I need to do is turn up to the Gospels to see my hero in action.

By Danny Bell

References:
* Murrow, Why Men Hate Going to Church, 9.
** ibid, 10.