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What we lack is a biblical image of redeemed masculinity that attracts, inspires, galvanizes, and steadies fellows into fruitful manliness. The place to start is Jesus, but even here we need to remove some cobwebs. Many aspects of his personality are obscured in popular perception by his safer, more sympathetic qualities.

Pagan men in my city are surprised to find out that Jesus spent a lot of his time ignoring protocol, defending the weak, electrifying multitudes with his words, upsetting hypocrites, speaking the blunt truth to politicians, giving his best friends nicknames (including "Satan" on one occasion), and getting very angry.

Culture Shapers, Leaders, and Warriors

Here I am only unfolding the idea of masculinity launched in the Bible's opening pages. Adam, from day one, was soberly called to a life of industry, responsibility and, when necessary, conflict (Genesis 2:16-17). In fact, it was his sheer unwillingness to engage in conflict (with the serpent in Genesis 3) that led to his ultimate failure.

The fact is that men are the principle—though not exclusive—culture makers. Statistics prove that if you win a man to Christ, his wife and children are many times more likely to follow than if the woman is converted first. Of course we want to see women and children saved, but I'm saying that we will reach them too by aiming for men.

The three core callings of culture shaper, leader and warrior, while not only held by men, are certainly weighted towards them. And it is the Bible, and the worldview it teaches, which provides this dignifying and inspiring identity for men—an identity only attainable by virtue of creation in God's likeness and redemption in Christ through sheer scandalous grace. Guys will work at, lead and fight for whatever the church does; it's only through the gospel we preach that these God-given and sin-tarnished characteristics can be deployed rightly.

So how has the worldview, with the most tantalizing and rewarding design for manhood, managed to alienate men so successfully in our day? Wherever have we gone wrong? I tentatively suggest (and I may need to be less tentative and more manly) that we have created church environments that are effeminate—positively off-putting for most real guys.

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Masculinity Reclaimed Series: Click | View Series

Would you like Barack Obama on your kid's work rota? OK, maybe someone with his leadership gift and—assuming he loves Jesus—you'd be pleased, right? Not a man to let go lightly. Well, a former US President (and a legendary one) was let go. Why? As a young man Theodore Roosevelt, serving in a Sunday school, noticed a boy arriving with a black eye. When Roosevelt asked, the boy explained with embarrassment that another boy had pinched his sister, so he'd taken a swing at him and gotten into a scrap. Roosevelt gave the kid a dollar and a pat on the back. The future president was quietly removed that week.

I reckon there's a parable for us, and by "us" I mean the contemporary church. There is an expression of masculinity—an aggression, protectiveness, and a sense of injustice—which is primal in all men. I even see this in my boys. (The youngest seems to have come out of the womb yelling "charge!") Sure it has been horridly distorted in all men by the fall, but it's there.

The Choices

Men are wired with instincts, and it seems we have three choices:

• Abdicate indiscriminately to these instincts. This option leads to ungodly, ill-disciplined, boastful masculinity (chauvinism).
• Exclude them. The second leads to what we have had for centuries: churches that can't cope with men who reward boys for fighting for their sisters. (Churches which, in the words of Leon Podles, are "women's clubs with a few male officers." The husbands stay home or get dragged along, and look glazed till they hear the golden words, "We'll close the meeting there.")
• Redeem and channel them. The third option is the most difficult and the least fashionable, but it's also the most biblical and the most promising when it comes to getting the world changed for good.

One Saturday afternoon, I sat in my car outside a football ground (soccer field) in my city as it emptied. As thousands of young blokes spilled onto the pavements, I imagined the force for God unleashed in Brighton should the vigor, comradeship, belligerence, and strength before me be put to use for Jesus' kingdom! What would have to change for us to harvest and harness this multitude? Probably quite a lot (the next Teddy Roosevelt would get to keep his job, for example). Is it worth that price?

Death By Love:

Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears tackle some of the most serious redemptive aspects of Jesus' work in these twelve letters of counsel to individuals. Find out more.

As part of the Trial series in which I recently preached through 1 Peter, one sermon in particular got a lot of traction both online and on the radio. The response to Marriage and Men from 1 Peter 3:7 has been very encouraging, and I want to sincerely thank those who took the time to listen to that sermon and pass it on to their friends. Since posting it we have had churches ask if they could replay it at their churches for men’s groups, Father’s Day, and so on. The request has been very humbling, as even an amazing church of 10,000 people is planning to show it for their Father’s Day services. So the guys in my Preaching and Theology Branch of Mars Hill Church have been kind enough to post the sermon online in a 720p video format for free download, in a higher resolution than our normal video files, for use by anyone who wants it.

Download “Marriage and Men” in the downloads section of this media page.

Trial Study Guide:

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This last point will, for some, seem peculiar as the closing section of our “Long Live the Dead Guys Week” tribute to Old New Calvinists. However, I believe it is incredibly important.

One of the tasks of New Calvinists is to winsomely, correctly, passionately, and effectively discover fresh ways to say old truths. Another task of New Calvinists is to follow in the example of faithful Bible preachers and teachers who have preceded us by handling the big issues of our day as they did in theirs.

This leads us to complementarianism. In our age of great gender confusion—from feminism to chauvinism—and homosexuality, the issue of God-designed, complementary gender roles is incredibly timely and vital for the well-being of God’s people.

Three Views on Gender Roles

There are three basic views prevailing today in the home and church:

• Egalitarian (Feministic): There is no innate distinction between the roles of men and women in the home or church. Women can be pastors and men can be stay-at-home dads so that their wives can pursue their careers.
• Complementarian (Moderate): Men and women are partners in every area of life and ministry together. Though equal, men and women have complementary and distinct gender roles so that men are to lovingly lead and head their homes like Jesus, and only men can be pastors in the church.
• Hierarchical (Chauvinistic): Women are not only commanded to follow male leadership, but are not given a voice with male leaders, as women are often chauvinistically kept under thumb as the polar opposite of egalitarian feminism.

An Undergirding Truth

The New Calvinists are committed to complementarianism in the home and church. In some ways, this is a very important undergirding fact that binds us together. Over a meal in Vancouver, B.C., some years ago, a friend and wonderful brother, Bruce Ware, who has worked tirelessly on this issue, commented that he believed that someone’s view of gender roles in fact reveals much of their theology, including their view of God, the Bible as God’s Word, and how the Bible is to be interpreted. His words were both insightful and helpful.

Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

I can still remember having been saved a few years when John Piper and Wayne Grudem published the epic book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood with my friends at Crossway. My pastor told me to read the entire book, and so I did. It changed my life, family, and ministry—including Mars Hill Church, where I pastor, and Acts 29, which is a complementarian church planting movement. That book and my accompanying biblical study solidified for me a complementarian position that has never wavered an inch; the more I am hammered for the issue, like a straight nail, the deeper the conviction goes.

Without the courage shown in the early 1990s on this issue, I do not believe we would have the kind of courageously lovingly and selfless masculine men who are rising up to lead the New Calvinism that Time magazine says is the third most important idea changing the world right now. So, I want to close “Long Live the Dead Guys Week” by thanking the living guys who echoed the dead guys and planted a flag of truth to which a generation is running. Finally, if you want to read that book for yourself, you can find it free of charge here.

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Mars Hill Bible Church opened its doors in February of 1999 with a stated desire to exist as a "church where scripture would be taught in a new way, a way that would reach a changing culture."

Gary Knapp and his wife, Becky, were among the first members of the Grandville, Mich., church, which now numbers more than 1,000 members and some 10,000 weekly attendees. Knapp taught an adult Bible class at Mars Hill and led a small group in the church for more than two years.

Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis. By William J. Webb. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001. 301 pp. n.p.

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes I wonder if egalitarians hope to triumph in the debate on the role of women by publishing book after book on the subject. Each work propounds a new thesis which explains why the traditional interpretation is flawed. Complementarians could easily give in from sheer exhaustation, thinking that so many books written by such a diversity of different authors could scarcely be wrong. Further, it is difficult to keep writing books promoting the complementarian view. Our view of the biblical text has not changed dramatically in the last twenty five years. Should we continue to write books that essentially promote traditional interpretations? Is the goal of publishing to write what is true or what is new?

The Apostle Paul prohibits the exercise of authority over men by women when he says, "I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, for Adam was created first, then Eve" (1 Tim. 2:12-13, NAS95).

With this simple statement Paul explicitly affirms what is implicit throughout God's Word, that the order of creation establishes patriarchy as God's pattern for leadership in human relationships. Addressing the matter of propriety in prayer, the Apostle Paul again emphasizes this order:

For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.
1 Cor. 11:8-9, NAS95.

Imagine a new believer, thoroughly confused by the sexual anarchy of today's culture, discovering the truth inherent in passages such as 1 Corinthians 11:3-16, 14:34-35, Ephesians 5:22-33, 1 Timothy 2:9-15, and 1 Peter 3:1-7. What a deep sense of relief to discover that the order of creation establishes timeless principles for the relationships between men and women.

The last few decades have witnessed an increasing awareness of the importance of hermeneutical procedure in interpreting the gender passages in the NT. Grant Osborne contends that "the determining factor in the discussion [of gender passages in the NT] is hermeneutical."¹ Robert Johnston attributes the differences in approach regarding the role of women in the church taken by evangelicals to "different hermeneutics," calling the study of women's roles a "test case" of evangelical interpretation.²

If Johnston is correct, evangelical hermeneutics seem to have failed the test, since the existing exegetical conclusions on the NT gender texts vary widely. What is perhaps even more disturbing is the apparent lack of consensus regarding a proper methodology.

In 1974, when I left the States to teach in "godless" France, the cultural revolution was a Left coast/San Fran' phenom', and America was still "Christian." When I returned in 1991, I was in for culture shock, but still never imagined what lay ahead.

One man warned us. In 1978, Pastor Charles Mcllhenny recorded his experiences after his church fired a homosexual organist (When the Wicked Seize a City). Church property was repeatedly vandalized and his family almost killed by a firebomb. "Law enforcement" never found the culprits. Mcllhenny used San Francisco as a striking example of what America might become. Are we "goin' to San Francisco?" as the 60s hit song asked?

The publicity brochure of the New Revised Standard Version sounds so sensible. At last, we are told, misleading, masculine-oriented language has been removed from the Bible. Jesus no longer says, "and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself" (RSV), but instead, "And I...will draw all people to myself" (John 12:32, NRSV).

This is an improvement: the word men isn't specified by the Greek text, and all people is a faithful rendering of the Greek pronoun pas. Changes like this use "gender-neutral" language without sacrificing accuracy in translation. In addition, the NRSV has not gone as far as some people wanted, because it still calls God "Father" (not "Parent"), for example, and calls Jesus the "Son of God" (not "Child of God")--probably in large measure due to the conservative influence of the chairman of the NRSV translation committee, evangelical New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger.

But there are many other changes -- literally, thousands -- that should cause evangelicals much concern. The translators consistently disregarded precise, grammatically correct English equivalents and resorted to gender-neutral paraphrases. The preface explains that the copyright holder (the Division of Education and Ministry of the National Council of Churches of Christ) required that "masculine-oriented language should be eliminated as far as this can be done without altering passages that reflect the historical situation of ancient patriarchal culture." To fulfil this requirement, the translation committee explains that it had to depart from its ordinary principles of making "essentially a literal translation."