Articles
"Show Yourself a Man"
The world associates manhood with testosterone and sex drive. A man who casts down his eyes when passing a scantily-clad woman in the store or blushes with shame when raunchy jokes are flippantly tossed around at the office is a man who is scorned by his peers. Maybe sometimes other men are touched with a twinge of guilt when one of their company refuses to join in lustful looks or talks, but most of the time it is the scrupulous one who is made to feel guilty for being less masculine.
We need to flip this around. Manhood needs to be associated with self-control, not with a lack thereof. King David’s last words spoken to his son Solomon come to mind: “Be strong, therefore, and show yourself a man” (1 Kings 2:2). Being strong is what being a man is all about.
This is not about physical strength. Think of Samson who, despite his immense physical strength (he killed a lion with his bare hands!), lacked the ability to control his emotions and actions. Whatever he felt, that’s what he did. His two greatest weaknesses were anger and women. From Judges chapters 14 to 16 we read of him associating with at least three different women, the last of whom was Delilah. Not only was he so blinded by his desire for her that he failed to connect (or cared less to connect) her incessant pleading with the Philistines’ coming to arrest him, he was ultimately destroyed for his lack of self-control. Ironically, the strongest man in the Bible was also the weakest.
Now consider Joseph, who refused the daily, ever-increasing sexual advances of Potiphar’s wife. I’m certain she tried every trick in the book to seduce him. Eventually, she physically seized his clothes and begged, “Lie with me!” He fled immediately (Genesis 39). If this exact scene were to be duplicated by today’s Hollywood, it would only be to mock how cowardly and incompetent Joseph was. Furthermore, would you have the will to do what Joseph did?
You see, being a man means cultivating and maintaining strength of character. The modern thinking that losing your virginity outside of marriage is a “rite of passage” toward manhood or that a man’s ability to “conquer women” is a gauge for his masculinity is totally backwards. Essentially, it boils down to this: giving in to your feelings = manliness. Yet, we don’t apply this logic to other aspects of manliness. A guy who gives up a workout program after a week is a wimp; yet a man who cannot control his own hormones is macho? That’s not very consistent, is it?
Nor is this very Biblical. The Bible consistently presents abstinence from sex and controlling one’s passions as the more difficult route (Matt. 19:10-12; 1 Cor. 7:1-7; Gal. 5:16-24). It also describes a young man who is easily seduced as naïve and lacking common sense (Prov. 7:7). How difficult is it for unmarried men to abstain from sex outside the boundaries of marriage? The manliest Man of all, Jesus, did it his entire life!
Of course, this equally applies to married men. A husband may not cheat on his wife by physically sleeping with another woman, but does he look at or fantasize about another woman? Sex is easy to find today, and porn is even easier. But God condemns lust and sensuality just as strongly as the act of sex outside of marriage (Matt. 5:27-28; Gal. 5:19). The point is this: giving in to sexual temptation doesn’t make you more manly—it makes you weaker.
David connected strength and manliness with serving God (1 Kings 2:2-3). Men today need to do the same. Don’t buy into Satan’s lies. Do you want to show yourself a real man? Then serve God.
