A man who uses his strength to protect the weak, run toward the sound of gunfire, or go into a burning building to rescue someone is using his God-given strength in a way that blesses his neighbor. A man who crouches in the bushes to victimize a woman and overpower her is using his strength wickedly. His is the same physical strength but utilized in a wicked manner. Men must be instructed to use their strengths to serve their neighbors.

Turn on the TV, scroll social media, and read a magazine or newspaper. Although quite common today, you’ll see a phrase that would have been foreign to us just a few years ago. “Toxic Masculinity.”

Is this just a certain type of masculinity? If cotton candy is a type of candy, and if diet soda is a type of soda, then the prophets of the world would have us believe that “toxic masculinity” is a certain variety of masculinity. In fact, they will argue that it is the most common variety.

Is this true?

In 1 Corinthians 16, one of Paul’s closing admonitions is, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.” If we received that admonition today, I’m afraid we’d have to ask, “What kind of men should we act like?” But Paul assumes that when he says “act like men,” his hearers know what it means. Paul assumes that manhood is manhood. If he’s right (and he is), what is manhood? What is masculinity?

“A gracious woman gets honor, and violent men get riches.

A kind man benefits himself, but a cruel man hurts himself.

Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.”

(Proverbs 11:16-17, 22)

Is this saying that women should be gracious so that they can receive honor and that men should be violent so they can become rich? No, there’s quite a bit more going on here.

God made men, and God made women. He made them different from one another. And their differences are a gloriously good thing. Men ought not to be like women. And women ought not to be like men.

The conflation of the differences forfeits the goodness of God’s design for a badly hacked modern spin on manhood and womanhood that doesn’t serve us or our society well.

God has made men physically strong. And they possess that physical strength in a manner and measure in which women do not. God has made women beautiful, gracious, and nurturing. And they possess those qualities in ways in which men do not. But, because men are sinful and women are sinful- those attributes utilized wrongly are dangerous and destructive.

A man who uses his strength to protect the weak, run toward the sound of gunfire, or go into a burning building to rescue someone is using his God-given strength in a way that blesses his neighbor. A man who crouches in the bushes to victimize a woman and overpower her is using his strength wickedly. His is the same physical strength but utilized in a wicked manner. Men must be instructed to use their strengths to serve their neighbors.