Is Masculinity a Fruit of the Spirit?

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Salvation in Christ Alone and the Coming Judgment

People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio. The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our heads.

They will hear His words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped Himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear His words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Whether Masculinity Is a Fruit of the Spirit

All right, Tim, the question for today's episode is, is masculinity a fruit of the Spirit? And that might sound like a little bit of a weird question to some, but it seems the reason for that is it seems in our day and age that it's really popular to discourage men from being masculine and really even mock masculinity in a lot of different ways.

And one of the arguments people use to justify that even coming from Christian circles, is this idea that masculinity is not a fruit of the Spirit and therefore it is not something men should pursue at all.

And they even go as far as to say that masculinity is entirely absent from the New Testament. So they'll reference things like the fact that Jesus willingly died on the cross or the fact that He told Peter to put the sword away.

He rebuked Peter after Peter tried to defend Jesus. They'll point to the fact that husbands are commanded to love their wives instead of, you know, they'll say love instead of lead. You have those kinds of commands.

And so it seems really popular to argue that right now. And so I'm wondering, I want to hear from you, you know, is masculinity a fruit of the Spirit? And if not, then is it important at all?

Well, yes, it's important. I mean, technically, yeah. I mean, if you read through the list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, you're not going to find in there masculinity as a fruit of the Spirit, but neither are you going to find femininity a fruit of the Spirit.

And so neither one of those are listed in that list. But then, you know, as you read through the list, one of the things that's in there is that faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit. So because faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit, then that means that the Spirit is trying to produce in people faithfulness to all that God has said.

And then the question becomes, well, is masculinity in men and femininity in women something that God has essentially called us to? Is that something that the Spirit is producing? So one way that you can think about this is to ask, you know, is that a command for the Christian, like for Christian men to be manly?

And I mean, certainly, I mean, as you read through the Old Testament and the New Testament over and over and over again, you're going to find the phrase, act like men. So 1 Corinthians 16, 13, you know, Paul says, you know, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

So certainly there is this concept of masculinity in the Bible. But then, you know, there also is a sense in which masculinity is something that is, you know, it's something that's a created feature of human beings, if that makes sense.

So masculinity is not something that's unique to Christians, so to speak. Masculinity is just basically just being the kind of creature that God designed you to be. So he's made two types of creatures.

He's made men and he's made women. And masculinity is just like living up to your design. So, I mean, it's not something that's even really supposed to be uniquely Christian. But then as you read, I mean, it's in terms of like, what I mean by that is like the Christian God made the world and the Christian God designed the world in a certain way.

But this is not a concept that is just dependent upon special revelation in order to understand it all. So now, if you don't have special revelation, one of the things that's going to happen is you're going to distort it.

And so we have a lot of distorted views of masculinity in our society, whether or not that's distorted in the way of like machismo kind of uber masculinity on the one side or just effeminacy on the other side.

There's distortions of masculinity, but it is a created feature and it is something the Bible calls us to.

Yeah, yeah. So it seems like, okay, I don't really know anyone who was saying it's a fruit of the Spirit to begin with.

Right.

But it seems like something that you still don't want to ignore. Basically, it sounds like what's being said in an argument like, hey, this isn't a fruit of the Spirit, so we shouldn't pursue it. Basically, the only things you should pursue at all are the things listed in that list as fruit.

Yeah.

I mean, and this is such a stupid argument. Okay. I mean, it's such a stupid argument because like the fruit of the Spirit is not meant to be an exhaustive list of all that is required, like the whole duty of God to man anyways.

Right.

But I mean, when you think about the fruit of the Spirit, like love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness, faithfulness, self-control, when you think about that list, that is a good list of the kind of attitudes that the Spirit is trying to produce in an individual.

Yeah, and there's sort of like an umbrella list.

Yeah, like a list of certain attitudes. But then, I mean, as I said, though, you do have the specific fruit, faithfulness. And faithfulness means the Spirit is trying to produce in Christians faithfulness.

That means like faithfulness to all that God has said.

Okay.

So the entirety of God's revelation to man, certainly the fruit of the Spirit is trying to help a man be a faithful man. And part of a man being a faithful man is to not be a woman.

That's not a fruit of the Spirit, Tim.

Yeah. Dumb.

It doesn't say and manly.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Dumb argument.

Masculinity in the New Testament and the Meaning of Acting Like Men

So what about this idea that the New Testament is entirely absent of masculinity? Is that true?

Yeah.

So, I mean, you know, 1 Corinthians 16, 13 says, Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men. You know, if you search that command, you know, all throughout the Bible, one of the things you're going to find is that, I mean, over and over and over again in the law, men are told to act like, to be strong, courageous, to have courage, to have strength, courage, to not act like women.

Yeah, man's glory is a strength.

Man's glory is a strength. So God's designed men and women to be two different kinds of creatures. And there are, like, when you act contrary to your design, that would be the sin of effeminacy, you know, as we've talked about in different episodes that we've talked through.

So, you know, part of being, acting like a man is to have strength and courage. I mean, those things are tied to masculinity in a pretty fundamental way. You know, there's, you know, as you read through the Old Covenant law, one of the things you're going to find is a man shouldn't wear any garment pertaining to a woman, and a woman shouldn't wear garments pertaining to a man.

And as you continue to read through 1 Corinthians, one of the things you're going to find is that, you know, men are not designed to have long hair, you know. Women are described, designed to have long hair for their glory.

So you can mix up genders in your dress. You can mix up gender in your hairstyles. You can mix up genders in your mannerisms. And so the Bible has a lot to say about these things. And so it's the kind of person that says that masculinity is totally absent in the New Testament.

I would just point them to 1 Corinthians 16, 13. But really what they're saying, like, what's actually happening with these kinds of discussions is you have individuals who basically, the only category for manliness they have is kind of the exaggerated, extorted manliness, like the machismo category.

So in that way you have, like, you know, basically all of, you know, the stereotypical differences between men and women that are sinfully distorted in certain ways. And so they're I mean, basically they're just reacting against, like, you know, that machismo kind of category is what they're doing.

And instead of just you're laughing because I'm using the Mexican term.

No, I just think, like, it's funny. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's what they're reacting against. And then, you know, when people get really caught up in this kind of thing, they just don't what's happened is we don't have any category for, like, manliness and, like, womanliness anymore.

We don't even know the difference between a man and a woman. And this is why the transgender delusion has gone so far is because we can't even distinguish between the genders. Like, basically we just think they're interchangeable parts.

They're designed to do the same kind of thing. And so, I mean, you can watch as many I mean, you can watch every single TV show that you're going to watch or movie that you're going to watch is basically presenting a woman as a man.

And we basically undercut all the gender stereotypes, all the you know, all these generalities related to genders. And, like, we basically we're living in a society right now that really can't tell the difference between a man and a woman and thinks that they're fundamentally the same thing except they look a little bit different.

And so, you know, when you're living in that kind of society, we've lost, like, the you know, we've lost all these concepts. We don't even know what masculinity is or femininity is anymore. We've lost the concept entirely.

And then, you know, you have individuals who come along, and I think they're saying something, like, remarkably insightful by basically just defining manliness as being faithful to the Bible, right? But then the problem is that if manliness is faithful to the Bible, then manliness is indistinguishable from femininity, right?

So if it just means doing like, if manliness just means doing, like, just general Christian obedience, then women should generally obey too. But really what manliness is is, like, it's just adopting, like, the traits and the mannerisms and the roles of a man.

And so if you want to get a good idea of what, like, manliness actually is in the Bible, it's taking up your biblical roles and pursuing your biblical roles and your biblical responsibilities. And, you know, men have different roles than women.

So men are big protectors, providers, leaders. You know, women are designed to, you know, follow a man, like they're to be submissive to their own husbands. And so they're to be known to have a gentle and a quiet spirit.

They're not to be, like, lady boss kind of women. And so they're uniquely designed to, you know, be homemakers, to care for their children, to love their husbands. So we just have different roles here.

And, you know, women are nurturing and compassionate. Men are strong and courageous. Like, we're just mixing up these kind of things. So we live in a society right now that can't tell the difference, and that's a problem.

Christ’s Masculinity in the Crucifixion and the Apostles’ Courage

Yeah, when I read the New Testament and I read about Christ being crucified, I don't know, that sounds pretty manly. Like, you know, knowing what's going to happen to you and then having the courage to do it anyways, right?

And then not even being afraid of, like, what man is going to do to him.

Yeah, I mean, what's happening is you just have individuals who haven't really read the Bible too well, and they really don't understand what is actually happening with the crucifixion narrative in general.

So, I mean, all the, you know, all the other disciples, the men, right? When the guards came, they went running, right? But then Jesus, you know, one of the things he did was he, like, when you read through the crucifixion narrative, he instantaneously identifies himself because he wanted all the focus and all the attention to be on him, right?

Right.

So he, you know, like, husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for him. Like, what you're saying is right. I mean, that was a very masculine, manly thing to do.

Like, he was the only one who didn't go running. He identified himself early on. He made the entire focus of all of it. Peter tried to distract, right? But, I mean, he got the focus right back on him because he was a good shepherd.

He was protecting his sheep in that moment, and he was laying down his life for the sheep. Like, he was playing the man, okay?

Right.

Like, in every conceivable way. He wasn't running. He said, no one takes my life. I voluntarily lay down my life for them. And so I think, you know, you just have a lot of individuals who really have not read these passages as carefully as they should.

Yeah, yeah. And even looking at the apostles, I mean, they're all confrontational. They're all laying down their life constantly. I mean, I know, you know, in the Gospels, they're running a lot. But come Acts, you know, they figure it out, right?

I mean, Jesus is constantly confronting people, you know? And he does so so quickly, you know?

And he does it so much more than I think people today do. Not even close.

Not even close, yeah. And I mean, most women are scared of confrontation in that way, you know? But he spends his whole gospel narratives confronting people, turning over tables, right? Rebuking people, pronouncing woes upon everyone.

So he's a model of strength and courage that we can all look up to in that way. And he is a model of masculinity for sure.

Okay.

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