Boys to Men is more than simply the name of a recently popular singing group. It also accurately describes the pathway God desires all males to travel.
Male maturity requires courage
Watching recent events unfold in the Middle East reminds us of the courage required to fight evil like men, not like boys. Yes, God is good. However, there is still evil in this world and if we do not fight it with courage like men, we will fail. The eighteenth-century philosopher, Edmund Burke, in his “Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents” wrote, “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
What it means to “quit ye like men”
The Apostle Paul instructs: “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit ye like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity” (I Corinthians 16:13-14; King James Version). At an earlier age, “quit ye like men” was a popular phrase in English-speaking countries. Today, quit means “to stop” or “to give up,” but it also can mean”to conduct oneself in a specified way.” Andrizomai is the Greek word translated as “quit ye like men,” used just this one time in the Bible. It is an imperative, a word of command, and means “be men,” “play the man,” “live like men,” or “act like men.” Scholars believe the word can refer to stage plays where female actors wore male masks and male clothing to “play the role of the man.”
The Bible translator James Moffatt renders “quit ye like men,” as “play the man”; the Revised Standard Version, “be courageous”; and in The Amplified Bible, “act like men.” The popular Phillips paraphrase translates the verse: “Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, live like men, be strong! Let everything that you do be done in love.”[1]
Many men’s ministries have adopted I Corinthians 16:13-14 as the theme verse for their ministry. But some men’s ministries see the passage as contrasting men vs. women, as if women are not also called upon to live a courageous Christian life. But the apostle Paul here is not contrasting men and women, but rather mature men and immature men … grown men vs young boys. Paul is not saying, “Don’t be a female … be a male!” Rather, he is saying, “Stop being immature … grow up in Christ … don’t act like a young boy, act like a man!”
The journey to manhood is a perilous one
Unfortunately, many men fail to progress from boyhood to manhood. The journey is a perilous one. Age alone fails to make a boy a man. A 40-year-old male may be living as an immature boy. Shirking responsibilities, avoiding conflicts, or continually chasing pleasure and leisure are symptoms of a failure to mature. My mentor Howard Hendricks used to say, “Teaching school for 40 years does NOT mean you have 40 years of experience as a teacher. You may have taught the same lessons in the same way each year for 40 years which means you have one year of experience, which you’ve repeated 40 times!”
Joshua used this same biblical concept of male maturity four times in Josh. 1:6-7, 9, 18: “Be strong and of good courage … Only be strong and very courageous … Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage … be strong and of good courage.” In the Septuagint, the original Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, andrizomai is used to translate this concept of “be … of good courage.”
In these days of rising crime rates and threats of terrorism, Christian men need to live with maturity and courage. We need to ask ourselves, “In what area of my life do I need to grow up, stop acting like a boy, and live as a mature Christian man?”
[1] https://www.bibletools.org/
© Dr. Paul Pettit
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
Dr. Paul Pettit is Director of Career Services; Adjunct Professor in Pastoral Ministries, Media Arts and Worship, and Educational Ministries and Leadership at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Resources for Dads
A five-time dad, Dr. Paul Pettit has become a spokesman for the responsible fatherhood movement. Dr. Pettit has founded Dynamic Dads which offers key resources to help Dads succeed in their unique role of fathering. His website provides curriculum for either existing small groups, or for forming a new Dynamic Dads group at your church.
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