America's Crisis: The Death of Masculinity (Part 3)

There is a Divine order for the relations of the sexes. That order is indicated in Biblical passages such as: I Cor. 11:3, 7b, 8, 11, 12 - "But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God"; ...since [the man] is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man; Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord. For as the woman was from the man, even so the man also is through the woman, but all things are from God." The prosperity of society demands that this order be respected and followed. Today, the roles of male and female are in a state of confusion and chaos. The consequences are seen in the unraveling of social peace and stability.

What must happen to correct this disaster? The essential answer is that men and women alike must come to terms with God's design and embrace that design with faithful obedience. If this is to occur, radical changes must transpire in at least two places.

l. Husbands and wives must establish, in a functioning way, the Biblically prescribed dynamics for marriage. The husband must be the loving, self-giving, principled leader of the home. The wife must be the submissive, self-sacrificing helper who loves her husband and children and whose life is devoted to the management of the home in compliance with her husband's righteous directives (Eph. 5:22-31; Titus 2:3,4). Children must learn their own respective places from seeing true manliness leading the family in love and true femininity joyfully laboring for the good of husband and family. Husbands must stop coping out and shifting their responsibilities to their wives. Wives must repudiate feminism's lie that the woman's dignity is found in occupying whatever role men have traditionally occupied. The woman's true dignity is in occupying that place which God, in infinite wisdom and love, has assigned to her.

2. Churches must return to the regulative rule of Scripture over their polity and their public life. God's Word is explicit beyond dispute: church leadership must be masculine. Females must be active and supportive; yet, also submissive and out of the public eye (1 Tim. 3:1-13; Titus 1:6-9; 1 Tim. 2:8-14; 1 Cor. 14:34-35). Sadly, professing churches of Christ have led society in confusing male and female roles. Men have capitulated their assigned positions of authority and women have demanded those positions for themselves. The only integrity for any church is in ordering its doctrine and practice in strict conformity to the Biblically revealed mind of God, to whom alone the church belongs. Otherwise, the church is nothing more than a human organization. The salvation of masculinity must begin in churches. Ministers must be real men who courageously insist that the headship of Christ be reverenced in the church on every matter to which He has spoken in the Scriptures. Male church members must support that insistence. Female church members must study to emulate the piety of Sarah and other godly women like her (1 Peter 3:1-6).

When we honestly evaluate the states of homes and churches, we are forced to recognize how far we have fallen and how improbable it is that our society will recover true masculinity and the stability it affords. Nothing short of a mighty infusion of God's power causing Christians and non-Christians alike to bow before His Word will produce the changes required. Let the people of God plead for His gracious intervention while standing firm for the principles of His Word.