As King David lay dying, he called in his son Solomon for some final fatherly counsel before death transferred the crown from one to the other. Here is what David, the shepherd-warrior, told his heir: “Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses” (I Kings 2:2-3).

Be strong. Act like a man. 

Cultural Confusion About Manhood

In our time, many would dismiss these as the words of a sexist, misogynist, and aggressive old man foisting his patriarchal hatred upon a sensitive son. 

This critique is false. David could speak to Solomon about strength and manhood because they shared an innate, natural, and mutual understanding of masculinity that transcended stereotypes and dealt more simply with the realities of what it means to be a man.

This is particularly important in our time. From transgenderism in the Armed Forces and the Boy Scouts to the advent of same-sex marriage, the beliefs about manhood that have informed the West for hundreds if not thousands of years are being not only challenged but aggressively opposed.

There are stereotypes we must be careful to avoid. There is a difference between being direct and being rude, between being confident and being overbearing, between being strong and being threatening.

We should be careful to avoid stereotypes and false extremes. There’s a difference between being direct and being rude, between being confident and being overbearing, between being strong and being threatening. Severity is not firmness and cruelty is not leadership. It’s not manly to demand a wife or an employee or a child. It’s just mean.

“Reinforcing rhetoric that feminizes emotional expression and masculinizes violence has the power to stunt empathy, drive dominance, and connect respect with fear,” writes Samantha Olson in Medical Daily. She is right. Attention, as Linda Loman says in Death of a Salesman, must be paid.

Still, our culture’s descent into the morass of gender confusion is accelerating. “Gender identity is how you feel about and express your gender,” according the America’s leading abortion outfit, Planned Parenthood. “Culture determines gender roles and what is masculine and feminine.”

Writing in the journal Feminist Theory, Jeff Hearn writes of “the double complexity that men are both a social category formed by the gender system and collective and individual agents, often dominant collective and individual agents, of social practices.” In simpler terms, male cultural dominance is based on both the assertion of individual men and society’s acceptance of male primacy. Or, even more simply, men rule and everyone better deal with it.

Are any of these assertions valid? Unfair male dominance in some professions has prevented women from fulfilling their aspirations and innate potential. But we should also oppose the tendency to diminish the roles of wives, mothers, and homemakers, as if these are somehow less important than white-color jobs.

What Does the Bible Say?

While not all gender roles are etched in stone — no law of nature prevents men from doing the dishes or women from mowing the law — sex differences can be no more reversed than an owl can become a Cadillac. Sex is about more than one’s reproductive organs. It is also about responses to stress, skill-sets with respect to such things as empathy and systemic learning, and unique brain characteristics. It includes differences of perception, cognition, memory and neural functions. As University of California-Irvine neuroscientist Larry Cahill has explained, “Male and female brains are like two mosaics — very similar in some respects, very different in others.”

Paul makes clear that strength and love are not opposites. “Be strong” and “do all you do in love” are simply different sides of the same coin.

How does all of this relate to masculinity? Simply that not all the male and female differences are mere “constructs.” Men and women are distinct biologically, neurologically, and morphologically. These things have a real effect on the way men and women behave and relate to one another, the way they think and the way they react. This is not a matter of inferiority or superiority, but difference. 

The Bible’s clarity on masculinity is pronounced. In his first letter to the church in Corinth, the Apostle Paul writes, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (I Corinthians 16:13-14). 

According to this instruction, a man should keep his eyes open to threats and opportunities. He should be unwavering in his commitment to faith in Jesus Christ. And he should be strong — resolute, purposeful, assured and consistent. As my 13 year-old daughter commented recently to me, a man “gets it done”: He doesn’t quit, back down, or give up.

Paul makes clear that strength and love are not opposites. “Be strong” and “do all you do in love” are different sides of the same coin. A man has the strength to be loving — self-sacrificial, kind, giving, even when it is difficult or even painful. And he has the love to be strong — after listening to counsel, he should be wise and firm in exercising his best judgment for the good of others, most especially those in his family.

Superficial Differences Don’t Matter — Love for Jesus Does

There is no unique template for male conduct or preferences. Some men take great interest in their appearance, others comb their hair once a day. Men have different builds and pitches of voice and heights and hobbies. 

It’s when a man is fake or tries to adopt a persona not his own that he erodes his very manliness.

What counts is not these superficial differences. What counts is a man’s comfort with them. He should be at home in his own skin and not try to “be” something to impress others or make himself somehow more acceptable. When a man is fake or tries to adopt a persona not his own, he erodes his manliness.

As to the relationship of manliness to fatherhood, there is one overarching truth: The greatest gift a father can give his sons is love for Jesus, God in human form. It has been my prayer throughout their lives that God would make my twin sons men after His own heart, even as He did with David.  Now that they are age 19, I realize He is answering this prayer.

Theodore Roosevelt, the warrior who is reported to have said that a baby’s hand is the most beautiful thing in the world, also said that men must be “good and strong, both gentle and valiant — men who scorn wrongdoing, and who at the same time have both the courage and the strength to strive mightily for the right.”

Strength, love, courage, honor: Sounds pretty biblical. Sounds pretty manly.