It was by meekness that Christ conquered sin and death, and it is by meekness that He rides forth to conquer men and nations today. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said rightly, “Meekness is compatible with great strength. Meekness is compatible with great authority and power… the martyrs were meek, but they were never weak; strong men, yet meek men.”3 Central to God’s plan for redeemed and sanctified men is a Christlike meekness that must not be scorned.

I have a story to tell about what it means to be a man. Here it goes.

Some years ago, while sitting in a diner in Media, Pennsylvania at a weekly Bible study with a dozen or so older men, I heard one of the guys – a true son of Delaware County – expressing justified frustration over the state of the world around us. When he paused to take a breath, another one of the guys spoke up and said something along the lines of, “I’m right there with you, but you want to know what bothers me even more? The sinner I see in the mirror every morning when I wake up.”

The rejoinder was crystal clear, but it was not at all combative. In fact, it was quite meek (by Delco standards, anyway). Being meek, it expressed well an all-too-neglected virtue at the heart of what it means to be a Christian man.

As suggested by the order of Christ’s first three beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-5, meekness or gentleness directly and necessarily attends poverty of spirit and mourning over sin. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”1

The meek man stands before God and the perfect mirror of God’s Law clear-eyed about his sin, the sin in the world around him, and the abundance of grace that he nonetheless receives from his heavenly Father’s hand. Such a man is anything but a complainer, a crank, a conspiratorialist, a sensationalist, or an entitled jerk. Rather, he is one who has forsaken all his rights before God and man. By way of a sanctified meekness, he is in submission to God and gracious to other men, impervious to the winds of confusion that sweep across the spiritual barrens of this world. Along these lines, Sinclair Ferguson observes that meekness “enhances manliness.”2

Such meekness is undervalued today. The Bible is full of great men of meekness who underwent attack, ostracization, and even martyrdom. In each case, divine honors attended their suffering for righteousness’ sake. We shall consider a few examples from among many.

In the middle of Israel’s great deliverance and migration out of Pharaoh’s house of bondage and into the Lord’s land of promise, Aaron and Miriam grumbled against Moses for marrying “an Ethiopian woman” (Num. 12:1). In the passage in-question, Scripture honors Moses as “very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth” (Num. 12:3). God immediately vindicated His servant.