Men: Practically Living Responsibly
- Jan 20, 2004
- Series: Men
We concluded last session examining the general responsibility of men. This responsibility is revealed throughout scripture in specific as we looked at Adam/Eve/Creation, God's establishing Covenants and headship.
This session looks to take the step from establishing our general responsibility to specific and practical ways we are to live this out. There are really two questions that we set out to answer today:
- What specific responsibilities do we, as men, need to keep?
- How does this work out practically?
Prior to starting let us re-examine this idea of headship. ( Q – Who can provide a definition of what this means? How did we discuss last week that headship was demonstrated in scripture?) Headship is…
How does headship work out within a relationship?
Responsibility
Provide
Lead
Serving in Leading
Pastor at Home (Eph 5:26 , 1 Cor. 4:35 )
-Qualifications of Pastor
Responsibility
Men are called to exercise responsibility as a response to God's design; it is not a place of privilege but one of humility. It is not designed to be a burden (1 John 5:3) but it implies and reflects God's intended design. This is illustrated in Genesis 3:9 when God sought Adam first, asking “Where are you?” even though Eve had sinned firs. Adam was held responsible by God for his family in the Garden of Eden. It is important that we do not take this to mean the woman has no responsibility. It is only a reflection of how God created us to compliment one another.
Provide
As demonstrated in the curse, the consequence of sin greatly impacted both man and woman's central domain. As sin impacted motherhood and the role of wife, it impacted man's responsibility to provide for his family.
Again it is easy for us to react and say does this mean a woman cannot participate in providing for the family. This is not the case. In fact historically the home was the center of the marketplace and woman's role is critical in the home economics. Even today many cultures continue to have woman carry a great load of providing and caring for the needs of the family. We see a beautiful picture of this in Proverbs 31, which includes a woman who has created side business ventures, made investments and manages a number of others who work under her direction.
The point of this responsibility is that the man should take on the necessary endeavors to ensure there is food and the essentials for the family.
He speaks of the difficulties he will have in his toil (i.e., while seeking to subdue the earth) to secure bread (Genesis 3:17 -19): “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Thus He delineates what is the main calling for man, namely, the responsibility of breadwinner and provider for his wife and family. It will be helpful for all our discussion to keep this perspective in view and realize that it is the perspective God has given and not some “Victorian” or “traditional” view that has grown up out of some society or culture and been adopted unwittingly as the Biblical norm.
Therefore it is important in marriage and the family for a man to realize his responsibility as the primary breadwinner and to assume that responsibility willingly and gladly. It is equally important for a woman to realize her responsibility as the primary one to care for the children and the home, as these verses indicate, and as Proverbs 31 (see below) also indicates. This will provide the security and necessary time and energy for the woman to bear children but also to be with the children in their formative years when they are very dependent on their mother and need her presence. It is in this spirit that the Apostle Paul encourages young widows “to get married, bear children, keep house” (1 Timothy 5:14 , nasb). Christ's apostle exalts the home and women's duties in it and encourages women to be “busy at home” (Titus 2:5).
Lead
One problem with language is that words tend to carry very different connotations for different people. Hence the word “lead” will sound strong and domineering to some, but moderate and servant-like to others.
Another problem is that one word carries many different nuances and implications for different contexts and situations. For example, the word “lead” could refer to what people do when they direct an orchestra, or persuade a friend to go to the zoo, or inspire a group for a cause, or command a military platoon, or make the first suggestion about where to eat, or take the driver's seat when a group gets in the car, or take the initiative in a group to push the button in an elevator, or choose a door and open it for another to go through, or chair a committee, or sing loud enough to help others, or point a lost motorist to the freeway entrance, or call the plays on a football team, or call people together for prayer.
Therefore, I need to explain in some detail what I have in mind by the mature masculine responsibility to lead. Otherwise false ideas could easily come into people's minds that I do not intend. Following are nine clarifying statements about the meaning of mature masculine leadership. (These points are from the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem)
Mature masculinity expresses itself not in the demand to be served, but in the strength to serve and to sacrifice for the good of woman.
Jesus said, “Let the greatest among you become as the youngest and the leader as one who serves” (Luke 22:26 ). Leadership is not a demanding demeanor. It is moving things forward to a goal. If the goal is holiness and Heaven, the leading will have the holy aroma of Heaven about it - the demeanor of Christ.
Thus after saying that “the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church,” Paul said, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her” (Ephesians 5:23, 25). Jesus led his bride to holiness and heaven on the Calvary road. He looked weak, but he was infinitely strong in saying NO to the way of the world. So it will be again and again for mature men as they take up the responsibility to lead.
Mature masculinity does not assume the authority of Christ over woman, but advocates it.
The leadership implied in the statement, “The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church” (Ephesians 5:23 ), is not a leadership that gives to the man all the rights and authority that Christ has. The analogy between Christ and the husband breaks down if pressed too far, first because, unlike Christ, all men sin. Christ never has to apologize to his church. But husbands must do this often.
Moreover, unlike Christ, a husband is not preparing a bride merely for himself but for another, namely Christ. He does not merely act as Christ, but also for Christ. At this point he must not be Christ to his wife lest he be a traitor to Christ. Standing in the place of Christ must include a renunciation of the temptation to be Christ. And that means leading his wife forward to depend not on him but on Christ. And practically, that rules out belittling supervision and fastidious oversight. She also stands or falls before her own master, Jesus Christ.
Mature masculinity does not have to initiate every action, but feels the responsibility to provide a general pattern of initiative.
In a family the husband does not do all the thinking and planning. His leadership is to take responsibility in general to initiate and carry through the spiritual and moral planning for family life. I say “in general” because “in specifics” there will be many times and many areas of daily life where the wife will do all kinds of planning and initiating. But there is a general tone and pattern of initiative that should develop which is sustained by the husband.
For example, the leadership pattern would be less than Biblical if the wife in general was having to take the initiative in prayer at mealtime, and get the family out of bed for worship on Sunday morning, and gather the family for devotions, and discuss what moral standards will be required of the children, and confer about financial priorities, and talk over some neighborhood ministry possibilities, etc. A wife may initiate the discussion and planning of any one of these, but if she becomes the one who senses the general responsibility for this pattern of initiative while her husband is passive, something contrary to Biblical masculinity and femininity is in the offing.
Mature masculinity accepts the burden of the final say in disagreements between husband and wife, but does not presume to use it in every instance.
In a good marriage decision-making is focused on the husband, but is not unilateral. He seeks input from his wife and often adopts her ideas. This is implied in the love that governs the relationship (Ephesians 5:25 ), in the equality of personhood implied in being created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27 ), and in the status of being fellow-heirs of the grace of life (1 Peter 3:7). Unilateral decision-making is not usually a mark of good leadership. It generally comes from laziness or insecurity or inconsiderate disregard.
On the other hand dependence on team input should not go to the point where the family perceives a weakness of indecision in the husband. And both husband and wife should agree on the principle that the husband's decision should rightly hold sway if it does not involve sin. However, this conviction does not mean that a husband will often use the prerogative of “veto” over the wishes of his wife or family. He may, in fact, very often surrender his own preference for his wife's where no moral issue is at stake. His awareness of his sin and imperfection will guard him from thinking that following Christ gives him the ability of Christ to know what's best in every detail. Nevertheless, in a well-ordered Biblical marriage both husband and wife acknowledge in principle that, if necessary in some disagreement, the husband will accept the burden of making the final choice.
Mature masculinity recognizes that the call to leadership is a call to repentance and humility and risk-taking.
We are all sinners. Masculinity and femininity have been distorted by our sin. Taking up the responsibility to lead must therefore be a careful and humble task. We must admit as men that historically there have been grave abuses. In each of our lives we have ample cause for contrition at our passivity or our domination. Some have neglected their wives and squandered their time in front of the television or putzing around in the garage or going away too often with the guys to hunt or fish or bowl. Others have been too possessive, harsh, domineering, and belittling, giving the impression through act and innuendo that wives are irresponsible or foolish.
We should humble ourselves before God for our failures and for the remaining tendency to shirk or overstep our responsibilities. The call to leadership is not a call to exalt ourselves over any woman. It is not a call to domineer, or belittle or put woman in her place. She is, after all, a fellow-heir of God and destined for a glory that will one day blind the natural eyes of every man (Matthew 13:43). The call to leadership is a call to humble oneself and take the responsibility to be a servant-leader in ways that are appropriate to every differing relationship to women.
It is a call to risk getting egg on our faces; to pray as we have never prayed before; to be constantly in the Word; to be more given to planning, more intentional, more thoughtful, less carried along by the mood of the moment; to be disciplined and ordered in our lives; to be tenderhearted and sensitive; to take the initiative to make sure there is a time and a place to talk to her about what needs to be talked about; and to be ready to lay down our lives the way Christ did if that is necessary.
Loving as Christ Loved
Paul's direct command to husbands is to “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her . . .” (verse 25). This is clearly how the apostle demands that the husband exercise his leadership in everything as the head over his wife. He is to love her “just as” (katho¯s) Christ loved the church. Just as the church, in submitting to Christ, was the model for the wife in submitting to her husband as her head (verses 23, 24), so now Christ, in His love for the Church, is the model for the husband in loving his wife. The character and description of that love are stated in the words “and gave himself up for her” (verse 25). In these few key words are contained the description of what the love of a husband for his wife should be.
First, the loving husband gives of himself. In his leadership role as head, he seeks to
lead by giving of himself to his wife in ways analogous to how Christ gave Himself to His bride. Christ's giving of Himself was personal and sacrificial. This great principle of self-giving sets the tone and points toward the many ways in which this love can be manifested and realized.
Second, Christ's giving of Himself was for the benefit of His bride-He gave Himself
up “for her.” Just so, the husband's self-giving should be for his wife's benefit. In short, we may speak of this love as a giving of oneself for the benefit of the other.
Ephesians 5:22-6:4 and other passages about the family clearly leave open a great many possibilities for the exact form of managerial arrangements. In these matters, a wise leader attempts to work out arrangements that best use and enhance the gifts of each family member. But Ephesians 5:22-6:4 does nevertheless draw some clear boundary lines. Children should submit to their parents, and conversely the parents have responsibility for managing their children. Wives should submit to their husbands, and husbands have managerial responsibility with respect to their wives, as well as for the rest of the household. These managerial responsibilities are fixed by God.
Responsibilities can be delegated to other family members in accordance with their maturity and skills. In particular, they may all engage in various types of management of the subhuman creation. But there is still a leader where the buck stops. The roles of men and women in marriage are at this point irreversible, not interchangeable.
In sum, a wise husband leads his household using the fullest consultation and conversation, and he delegates authority. In all these practices, he is simply imitating Christ's care for the church. Christ involves us in two-way conversation and delegates responsibilities to us. Christ is nevertheless the ultimate authority in all of life; husbands, subject to Christ's authority, have been assigned as heads of their households.
Pastor of the Home
Qualifications for an elder (pastor)
A. Must be above reproach ( Titus 1:6 ; 1 Tim. 3:2 )
B. Husband of one wife ( Titus 1:6 ; 1 Tim. 3:2 ).
C. Household must be in order with children who believe ( Titus 1:6 ; 1 Tim. 3:4 ).
D. Not a new convert ( 1 Tim. 3:6 ).
E. Self controlled and temperate ( Titus 1:7 ; 1 Tim. 3:2 ).
F. Honorable, hospitable, seeking good ( Titus 1:7 ).
G. Have a good reputation ( 1 Tim. 3:7 ).
H. Not addicted to wine ( 1 Tim. 3:3 ).
I. Not greedy ( 1 Tim. 3:3 ).
J. Able to exhort (teach) sound doctrine ( Titus 1:9 ; 1 Tim. 3:2 ).
K. Able to refute false teaching ( Titus 1:9 ).
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