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Editor’s Note: We live in an era of confusion and hurt when it comes to the question of what it means to be a real man. Should we see manhood as a fluid social construct? Should we define it according to societal ideals such as power and machismo? Should we see traditional masculinity as toxic? Does the Bible give guys guidance on these questions beyond just being nice and going to church regularly? In this 2-part series, Mike Ackerman, professor of New Testament and church planting at Ozark Christian College, delves into what the Bible teaches about manhood, showing its answers to be both nuanced and deeply helpful. These articles are adapted from a sermon Mike preached on the topic at Ozark Christian College.

When God created humankind to be his image bearers, he decided to create them male and female. In his wisdom, he felt that the best way to represent himself in the world was for there to be two genders. If God says that what he made is good, then we should celebrate what he made as good. In Genesis 1:31 after he made everything, he looked at it and said “very good,” and so it’s good for us to do this. In this particular sermon, I’ve been asked to talk about biblical manhood.

Let’s just acknowledge this is a difficult topic. This is challenging for a variety of reasons.

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Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter are seasons that we walk through, both literally and figuratively. The most evident seasons are winter and summer. The summer season of life is easy and feels refreshing. The winter season can be a time that may include family drama, hard work, and other life challenges. Add in the snow, ice, and gloomy days that can bring the winter blues. The seasons can be hard to get through with everything in life, and it can be hard to remember to put the hope we have in Jesus Christ to the forefront of our minds.

Author G. K. Chesterton said that “Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate.” Jesus isn’t just with us on the good days, he is with us through the bad days and darkest valleys, too (Psalm 23:4). We are never alone in any season.

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Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/household-gods-on-our-tendency-to-worship-family/ 

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Have you noticed that parents have been acting a bit crazy?

Child-focused anxiety plagues every region, every social group, and affects both sides of the political aisle. It’s all a bit much.

There is a temptation to create lives where we don’t just love our children; we worship them. We arrange our lives around their calendars; we pack social media timelines with their accomplishments; we cancel plans because of their bottles, bedtimes, pickups, and playdates.

Nobody will argue with us. Few would have the audacity to call us out for loving our kids too much. But that doesn’t mean we are right. In fact, if our purpose in life is centered around our kids, we might be missing God’s true purpose for us.

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Theology has consequences.

What we believe about Jesus will always show up in how we live. Our theology shapes our anxiety, our purpose, our priorities, our relationships, and our mission. That is why studying Scripture is never just an intellectual exercise. After we study a passage and understand what it meant to the original audience, we ask a simple question: So what? Because theology has consequences.

Years ago, Build-A-Bear was a big deal. You could customize everything about the bear—its fur color, voice, clothes, softness, accessories, even the heart inside it. You built the version you wanted.

Left on our own, that is exactly what we do with Jesus.

As authors Kyle Idleman and Mark Moore put it, we create a “Build-A-Jesus.”[1] We customize him into someone who looks like us, thinks like us, votes like us, approves of what we approve of, and never says anything uncomfortable. We put the voice box in him so he only speaks the words we want to hear that make us feel good.

And then we wonder why we feel spiritually weak, anxious, purposeless, and exhausted.

Good theology has good consequences. Bad theology has bad consequences.

The reason we so easily drift toward a false Jesus is because of sin. Ever since Eden, humanity drifts toward remaking God in its own image (maybe that’s why it’s at the top of the Ten Commandments). That is why we desperately need Scripture. The Bible—and especially Paul’s letter to the Colossians—exposes the Jesus we want and confronts us with the Jesus we need.

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Jesus Christ is one of the most talked-about—and argued over—figures in all of religious history. Both Christianity and Islam respect Him, but they tell very different stories about who He is and why He matters. When you put Hebrews 3:1–7 next to what the Quran says about Jesus (Isa), the differences don’t feel small—they feel sharp and unavoidable. These aren’t just two perspectives that slightly overlap. They’re moving in completely different directions. To really understand the tension, you have to look at how Hebrews describes Jesus, how Islam understands Him, and why Christians can’t accept that Islamic picture.

In Hebrews 3:1–7, the writer tells believers to focus their attention on Jesus, calling Him both an apostle and a high priest. That already sets Him apart, because it shows He was sent by God and also stands between God and people as a mediator. Then the passage compares Him to Moses, which would have grabbed the attention of any Jewish audience. Moses was deeply respected, but the author makes it clear that Jesus is greater. He uses the image of a house—Moses is part of the house, but Jesus is the one who built it. And if God is the one behind everything, that puts Jesus in a very unique position. By the end, the point is unmistakable: Moses is a servant, but Jesus is the Son.

That distinction is much bigger than a minor theological detail. It changes the entire way Jesus is understood. A servant can be faithful, honored, and entrusted with important responsibilities, but a servant still operates under another person’s authority. A son—especially an heir—occupies a completely different position. It’s the difference between someone who works within the household and someone who ultimately possesses it as his inheritance.

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If you ever find yourself in Rome, wander about a half mile northeast from the Colosseum along the Via De Fori Imperiali, and you will find yourself about a stone’s throw from the Mammertine Prison. One of Rome’s most infamous dungeons, it was originally carved into the bedrock 700 years before Christ as a subterranean water cistern. It’s a cold, damp, circular room just over 20 feet in diameter and no more than 6-7 feet from floor to ceiling.

Prisoners were lowered in by ropes through a hole in the ceiling and left there to shiver through the cold Roman winters. Some Christian traditions suggest that both Peter and Paul were eventually held here awaiting their executions. It is unlikely that Peter was in Mammertine when he wrote his first epistle, but he was in Rome, and he would have been well aware of the horror stories of those who had dared to stand against the Roman imperial machine.

Against this backdrop, Peter writes his letter, knowing that every word could become evidence against him in Rome’s quest to stamp out the new “Christian” movement. We should not take Peter’s words lightly,

“Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened. But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:14b-15a, NIV)

If you ever find yourself in Rome, wander about a half mile northeast from the Colosseum along the Via De Fori Imperiali, and you will find yourself about a stone’s throw from the Mammertine Prison. One of Rome’s most infamous dungeons, it was originally carved into the bedrock 700 years before Christ as a subterranean water cistern. It’s a cold, damp, circular room just over 20 feet in diameter and no more than 6-7 feet from floor to ceiling.

Prisoners were lowered in by ropes through a hole in the ceiling and left there to shiver through the cold Roman winters. Some Christian traditions suggest that both Peter and Paul were eventually held here awaiting their executions. It is unlikely that Peter was in Mammertine when he wrote his first epistle, but he was in Rome, and he would have been well aware of the horror stories of those who had dared to stand against the Roman imperial machine.

Against this backdrop, Peter writes his letter, knowing that every word could become evidence against him in Rome’s quest to stamp out the new “Christian” movement. We should not take Peter’s words lightly,

“Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened. But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:14b-15a, NIV)

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The best way to frame up our discussion of God’s sovereignty is to ask this question: Are there things that happen in the world that are contrary to the will of God?

Most of us would instinctively say yes. Jesus’ model prayer, what we call the Lord’s Prayer, seems to indicate that there are. Otherwise why would he teach us to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10b)?

But Calvinism answers the question of whether anything happens contrary to God’s will with an emphatic no. Everything that happens in the world is ordained by God and part of his sovereign will. Here’s the way the Westminster Confession puts it: “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”[1]

In answer to question 7, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, says, “The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.” Notice that all things are ordained by God and are therefore according to his will. Everything that happens is what he planned and decided would happen. A. W. Pink explains that God “has determined in Himself from all eternity everything which will be.”[2]

So, everything that happens in the world is according to God’s will, and there is nothing therefore that is not according to his will. This perspective is essential to how Calvinism understands God’s sovereignty. According to Calvinism, anything less than this would mean God is not sovereign.

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“Hey, we’re supporting a missionary. How can we help? What are ways that we could support you?”

I love that over the 18 years I’ve been living cross-culturally, so many people have wanted to support us and have asked how they could help. Anyone who has been on the mission field for any amount of time knows there are things people do that are really helpful—and some things that are not so helpful. Let me just give you three ways to support a missionary that I promise will be helpful no matter what.

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In a span of thirty-five years that Congress spent six trillion taxpayer dollars in a failed attempt to upgrade American economic life, an astonishing decline occurred in our social life. In the time U.S. population increased by 41 percent, violent crime leaped by 560 percent and welfare spending by 630 percent. While spending on education increased 225 percent, SAT scores dropped 76 points. And a generation of sex education, designed to prevent unwanted pregnancies, staggers in disgrace under a 419 percent increase in out-of-wedlock births![1]

An unsettling anxiety besieges our future. For the record, Americans have often felt gloomy about the future. By 1736, settlers in Dedham, Massachusetts had hit the wall. What would become of them, the settlers worried? Kenneth Lockridge, in The First Hundred Years of a New England Town, noted that a limited amount of land in the town’s grant, communities breaking away from the original grant, and improvident farming methods were three of several more reasons for the negative feelings.

John Quincy Adams also expressed doubt about America’s future in 1839, a mere fifty years after Washington’s inauguration. In 1901, his grandson Henry Adams gave America 50 years to live. Then, in 1914, he noted that “no one anywhere expects a future.” In 1963, with Camelot awhirl with the superficialities of the Kennedy years, 59 percent of Americans said they were “dissatisfied with the honesty and standards of behavior of our people.” That was before JFK’s amorous sexual appetite became widely known.

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We say we want people to follow Jesus. But are our lives actually making them want Him?

“You can guide a horse to a well, but you can’t force it to drink. However, you can add salt to its oats.”

That line sits in my grandpa’s journal, and I keep coming back to one question:

How salty is my life?

Sometimes you don’t realize the weight of something until after the fact. I wrote the article “Get ‘Em in the River” before leading our current seniors on a mission trip back to Puerto Rico. But it was on that trip that I actually saw what happens when people step into the river.

Before going into a tourist area to pray with people, we gathered in the van. We took time to be still and ask God for a name, an image—anything that might help us know whom He wanted us to approach. What came to my mind was Hebrews 11:6 (NLT):

“And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.”

Not exactly inspiring…more like convicting. I knew it was a gentle rebuke. God was about to expose my lack of faith in His power at work in these students.

We say we want people to follow Jesus. But are our lives actually making them want Him?

“You can guide a horse to a well, but you can’t force it to drink. However, you can add salt to its oats.”

That line sits in my grandpa’s journal, and I keep coming back to one question:

How salty is my life?

Sometimes you don’t realize the weight of something until after the fact. I wrote the article “Get ‘Em in the River” before leading our current seniors on a mission trip back to Puerto Rico. But it was on that trip that I actually saw what happens when people step into the river.

Before going into a tourist area to pray with people, we gathered in the van. We took time to be still and ask God for a name, an image—anything that might help us know whom He wanted us to approach. What came to my mind was Hebrews 11:6 (NLT):

“And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.”

Not exactly inspiring…more like convicting. I knew it was a gentle rebuke. God was about to expose my lack of faith in His power at work in these students.

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