Masculinity - What Is the Source of Our Strength?

"Then Saul clothed David with his armor. He put a helmet of bronze on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail, and David strapped his sword over his armor. And he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. The David said to Saul, 'I cannot go with these for I have not tested them.' So David put them off." 1 Samuel 17:38 - 39

When I was a kid, my dad was my image of manhood. Tall and strong, thick wrists, veteran of the Great War, a provider, and a good friend, he was to me as a child, nothing short of a hero. Dad would never have put his own armor on me to go fight a man's battle. I know for a fact he would have pushed me aside and said, "Here, let a man do this." Saul, a warrior king, is sending in a boy to do a man's job. In almost a cowardly and guilty move, he suits up David in his own armor. Imagine your own baseball or football team, desperate to win, sending in a 14-year-old boy in the uniform of the greatest player of the team in order to defeat the much-feared opponent. The stands would erupt in laughter, the other side jeering and taunting, as the kid drags a jersey that fits well past his hands to take the mound or the field.  

We use this familiar passage used before as the first in a series of devotions on "masculinity." True masculinity.  What does it look like?  What is its source? How does a truly masculine man behave, think, act, teach, lead, follow and do a host of other things? In truth, what shapes us like Saul attempted to shape David before the battle?

Masculinity is a phrase that gets bantied about all the time. In some circles, masculinity is a bad word, made worse by descriptors or adjectives like "toxic" or "archaic." Masculinity, as a counter, from other circles, is a good word because what's wrong with the world is men have been emasculated and stripped of manhood and had feminine qualities placed on them as expectations. Both kinds of thinking are a reaction to a perception or an experience. It is almost exclusively a western culture conversation and phenomenon.

What is our source of our source of information that frames our ideas on masculinity?  David was clearly masculine in the passage where he encounters Goliath. He feared nothing, but he respected the task. He sought permission to go and do what the men around him would not do, confront Goliath. He didn't enter the contest defiantly or arrogantly.  David attributes the source of his strength to God when he says, "The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." (v37) Saul, the king and lead warrior of Israel, says almost to his relief, "Go, and the Lord be with you!" When it came to Saul, who was clearly no longer in favor with God, David was reverent, when he may have rightfully said, "King, you stood and did nothing. Let a boy go and do a man's job."

David is very Christ-like in this passage. Christ, too, will take on sin, Satan and death (a much more significant "Goliath"). We will seek insight into the idea of masculinity as we go to scripture, Like David, we seek God's will in who we are as men, what that means, and how that impacts our behavior. We pray for insight from the Spirit into scripture to discern God's will as men of God.