As I've thought about today's post over the past few hours I feel like I need to clarify something. I am not looking for a fight, and I will not teach my sons, or any boys I have the opportunity to help guide into manhood, to do so. Masculine strength is not about beating people up. It isn't about picking a fight to prove a point or to get revenge. Masculine strength is about being able to stand up to someone when they are in the wrong.
I have no desire to fight anyone. But if the situation arose where I had to defend myself or someone else, I have the physical ability to do that. I have the ability to stand up when something is wrong or when someone is being mistreated. But I do not go around punching people to get my way, or bullying my way through life.
The reason society fears masculine strength is because most of what it sees is that strength used incorrectly. It sees that strength abused by boys who are looking for pleasure or vengeance. Boys who haven't been guided and taught have strength they don't know how to properly handle or correctly use.
John mentioned Jesus statement about turning the other cheek, and said, "You cannot turn a cheek you do not have." Many people take this teaching of Jesus to mean that Christian's must be passive and walked over, but that isn't at all what He is saying. Most people are right handed, and in order to strike someone on the right cheek with your dominate hand it must be a back handed slap. In the first century, and even today, this was a demeaning action. That is how a master strikes a slave.
When Jesus tells the first century Jews to turn the other cheek what is implied is that once you are struck and humiliated, you turn the other cheek to the one who struck you, forcing them to hit you like a man. A right handed hit to the left cheek is a punch, and that is how you hit a man. To turn the other cheek is to take it like a man. It isn't allowing yourself to be walked all over, it is forcing your opponent to treat you as an equal. In order to turn the other cheek, you have to be able to take the punch. That is what masculine strength does.
Masculine strength doesn't go around looking for a fight to pick, that is what boys who are trying to prove to themselves that they are tough do, and they only pick fights with people they are sure they can win. That is why a bully will back down when you stand up to them. Masculine strength is able to stand up.
As I've thought about this my mind keeps going to a quote from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Right after the dwarves escape from the trolls and find their hoard of treasure, Gandalf hands a small sword to Bilbo. He is hesitant to take it, and tries to give it back saying that he has never used a sword before to which Gandalf says, "And I hope you never have to. And if you do remember this: true courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one."
Masculine strength is about standing up against evil and oppression. It doesn't go looking for a fight, but if a fight comes it is ready and able to protect the defenseless.
To God alone be the Glory!
Strength and Honor
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