Contents

• The Confusion Of Our Age
• Back To The Beginning
• Marriage As God’s Institution
• Headship Under Christ
• Living Under God’s Authority
• The Prophetic Responsibility
• The Priestly Responsibility
• The Kingly Responsibility
• Character That Can Withstand Examination
• The Call To Protect
• The Call To Provide
• Faithfulness In Work
• Sexual Purity
• Taking Responsibility
• Raising Children In The Lord
• Biblical Manhood Beyond Marriage
• Our Hope In Christ
• The True Measure Of A Man

What does it mean to be a man? That question should have a straightforward answer, yet it has become increasingly difficult to answer in our culture. We live in a time when masculinity is defined in many different ways. Some associate manhood with physical strength, financial success, independence, sexual experience, or social status. Others have become suspicious and oppose masculinity altogether. As Christians, we do not have to build our understanding of manhood from the opinions of our culture. God has already spoken.

If we want to understand what a man is supposed to be, we should go back to the beginning. Before sin entered the world, before marriage was distorted by selfishness, and before work became difficult and frustrating, God established His design for man. Genesis gives us that foundation. God created man in His image. He gave him work to do. He gave him a command to obey. He gave him a woman as his wife. He established the family. He gave the man responsibility within that household. Biblical manhood begins with these things. A man is called to live under God’s authority, to faithfully carry the responsibilities God gives him, to work diligently, to lead his household, and to love those entrusted to his care. For the Christian husband and father, these responsibilities are especially significant.

God instituted marriage. He established the husband as the head of his wife. He entrusted fathers with the care and instruction of their children. Scripture therefore gives us a picture of a man who provides, protects, teaches, leads, disciplines, serves, and sacrifices for his family. These responsibilities can be described through the familiar categories of prophet, priest, king, protector, and provider. The Bible does not formally give husbands those five titles. They are useful categories I’ve compiled for bringing together the different responsibilities Scripture gives to husbands and fathers.

Marriage begins with God. Genesis 2:18 says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” God created Eve and brought her to Adam. Adam received her as the woman God had given him, and Scripture then establishes the pattern for marriage: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Marriage was God’s idea and institution from the beginning. It is not merely a social arrangement. It is a covenant established by God between a man and a woman. This matters when we consider biblical manhood because God did not create Adam as an isolated individual who could define his responsibilities however he pleased. God gave Adam work, commands, and eventually a wife. Adam was placed within a structure of responsibility. The same is true for Christian men today. When a man takes a wife, he receives a tremendous responsibility before God. His wife is not simply someone with whom he shares a home. She is his covenant wife. His children, if God gives them, are entrusted to his care. That responsibility should shape the way he understands leadership.

Paul writes, “For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church” (Ephesians 5:23). The husband is the head of his wife. That statement is clear, but it must be understood in the context of the passage. Paul does not present headship as an opportunity for selfishness, nor some dictatorship. He immediately directs husbands toward the example of Christ: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,” (Ephesians 5:25). The husband is given authority, and with that authority comes responsibility. He is accountable to God for the way he leads. That should make a godly man humble.

Before Adam was given Eve, God gave him a command. Genesis 2:16-17 records God’s command concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam was therefore living under the authority of his Creator. This is where biblical leadership begins. A man who refuses to obey God has no biblical foundation for claiming authority over his family. His first responsibility is toward the Lord. A husband cannot lead his household according to God’s Word if he does not know God’s Word. He cannot teach his children to love Scripture if Scripture has little place in his own life. This means a man needs to cultivate his relationship with God. He should read the Scriptures, pray, attend and participate faithfully in the local church, listen carefully to biblical preaching, study Christian doctrine, and learn to recognize sin and understand how Scripture addresses the decisions he faces. None of this requires a man to become a professional theologian. It does however require him to take God seriously. A husband is responsible for leading a household he did not create and does not ultimately own. His family belongs to God. His authority is therefore delegated authority. Christ is the true King. A husband serves under Him.

The Bible does not establish husbands as prophets in the formal Old Testament office. There is, however, a prophetic responsibility that belongs in the home. A husband and father should be a man who brings God’s Word to his family. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 commands God’s people to teach His words diligently to their children and to speak of them throughout ordinary life. The home is one of the primary places where this should happen. A father should open the Bible with his family, answer his children’s questions, and teach them what Scripture says about God, sin, salvation, marriage, work, money, holiness, and eternity. He should help them understand the difference between truth and error. This does not mean every family needs a complicated devotional schedule. It means the Word of God should have a real place in the life of the home. A father can teach his children while sitting at the dinner table, explain Scripture when a child asks why something is wrong, talk about God’s providence when the family experiences hardship, and use ordinary moments to point his children toward biblical wisdom. Most importantly, he should know the Word himself. Children quickly discover whether their father’s faith is genuine. They see what he does when he is angry, hear how he speaks about other people, notice whether he prays and keeps his promises, and learn what he considers important. The father’s life becomes part of the lesson. That is why teaching the family begins with allowing God’s Word to shape the man who leads it.

A Christian husband is not a priest who stands between his family and God. Christ alone is our Mediator, and every believer comes to God through Him. Yet the priestly language can help us describe the husband’s responsibility to lead his household in worship and repentance. A godly husband should pray for his wife and children, encourage his family toward corporate worship, and cultivate an atmosphere in which prayer and Scripture are normal parts of family life. He should also understand the importance of repentance. One of the most powerful things a father can do is admit when he has sinned. When a man loses his temper and asks his child for forgiveness, he is teaching something important about Christianity. When a husband recognizes that he has spoken harshly to his wife and humbly asks her forgiveness, he is demonstrating the reality of repentance. A Christian father does not need to convince his children that he is perfect. He needs to show them where sinners go when they fail. We go to Christ. A father who regularly confesses his sins and looks to Christ for forgiveness gives his children a living picture of the gospel.

Scripture also gives husbands genuine authority within the household. The husband is the head of his wife, and fathers have authority and responsibility toward their children. That authority should be exercised in a manner that reflects Christ. Jesus is the King of His people, yet He willingly humbled Himself for them. He served His disciples, showed compassion to the weak, endured suffering, and ultimately gave His life for His church. That is the kind of leadership a Christian husband should pursue. A man’s authority should make him more willing to carry burdens. He should take responsibility for decisions that need to be made, provide direction when his family needs it, and be willing to make difficult choices when necessary. His wife should not have to carry every responsibility simply because he refuses to make decisions. At the same time, biblical headship does not mean that a husband ignores his wife’s wisdom. A wise man listens to his wife, values her counsel, and considers her perspective carefully. Adam was given Eve as a helper corresponding to him. She was not an afterthought or an inferior human being. She was God’s gracious provision for him. The husband leads his wife while recognizing that she is an image-bearer of God and his fellow heir of grace. His authority should therefore be exercised with humility, patience, wisdom, and love.

There is another passage that deserves serious attention when we consider biblical manhood. In Titus 1, Paul gives Titus instructions concerning the appointment of elders in the churches of Crete. Paul writes that an elder must be “above reproach,” “the husband of one wife,” and have faithful (or trustworthy) children who are not accused of reckless living or rebellion. He must not be arrogant, quick-tempered, addicted to wine, violent, or greedy for dishonest gain. Instead, he must be hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, righteous, devout, self-controlled, and firmly committed to the trustworthy word. These qualifications are specifically given for elders. Every Christian man is not called to serve as an elder, and we should not blur that distinction. Yet we should also recognize something important about the list. The qualities Paul requires of a man who would shepherd the church are qualities that Scripture consistently commends in Christian character. An elder must be above reproach because Christians are called to live above reproach. An elder must be self-controlled because Christians are called to exercise self-control. An elder must be hospitable because believers are called to show hospitality. An elder must love what is good because Christians are called to pursue what is good. An elder must be respectable, faithful, upright, disciplined, and devoted to God’s Word because these qualities belong to Christian maturity. The elder qualifications therefore give Christian men a valuable picture of the kind of character they should desire. A man should aspire to be the kind of man described in Titus 1, even if God never calls him to the office of elder.

Paul begins with the requirement that an elder be above reproach. This does not mean sinless. If it did, no elder could ever exist. It means a man’s life should not be characterized by serious, ongoing patterns of hypocrisy and unrepentant sin that bring legitimate accusation against his Christian profession. Every Christian man should want his life to withstand examination. His wife should know who he really is. His children should know who he really is. His fellow church members should know who he really is. His coworkers should see a man whose word can be trusted. There will be failures. There will be sins that require confession and repentance. The question is whether a man responds to sin with repentance or hides behind excuses.

Paul then speaks of an elder being the “husband of one wife.” The exact expression has been discussed extensively by Christians, but the central emphasis is clear enough for our purposes: Paul is looking for a man who is faithful and trustworthy in his marriage. That is something every married Christian man should desire. Marriage requires exclusive devotion. A husband should guard his covenant with his wife, reject adultery, flee pornography, and be careful about relationships that could compromise his marriage. He should speak about his wife with honor and protect the privacy and dignity of his marriage. Faithfulness is built through thousands of ordinary decisions.

Paul also connects an elder’s character with his household. He asks whether a man’s children are living in a way that demonstrates order and proper discipline. This reinforces something we have already seen throughout Scripture. A man’s character becomes visible at home. It is possible to impress people at church while failing miserably in private. God is not impressed by a public reputation that conceals private hypocrisy. A man’s home is one of the places where his leadership is tested. Does he keep his word? Does he discipline his children? Does he show patience? Does he treat his wife with honor? Does he take responsibility? Does he lead his family toward Christ? These questions matter.

In Titus we see also what a godly man must put away. He must not be arrogant. He must not be quick-tempered. These are especially important qualities for men to consider because strength and authority can easily become tools for selfishness. A man who cannot receive correction will eventually become difficult to lead. A man who explodes whenever he is frustrated will make his household fearful. A man who believes he is always right will eventually stop listening. Humility is therefore essential to biblical manhood. A husband should be willing to hear hard things from his wife. A father should be willing to listen when his children express legitimate concerns. A Christian man should be willing to receive correction from fellow believers. Godly authority is strengthened by humility.

Paul describes the mature man as sensible, righteous, devout, and self-controlled. Those qualities touch nearly every part of life. A man needs self-control with his words, his anger, money, food and drink, entertainment, technology, sexual desire, and his time. Self-control is not something that appears when a man reaches a certain age. It is developed through a life of walking with Christ and putting sinful desires to death. Paul’s instruction to Titus is therefore valuable for every Christian man who desires maturity. We should want to become men who are sensible, righteous, devout, and self-controlled.

The final qualification in Titus 1 is especially important. Paul says that an elder must be “He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught,” A man cannot lead his family faithfully if he has no firm foundation for truth. Ideas change. Cultures change. Popular opinions change. God’s Word remains. A biblical man should therefore become increasingly grounded in Scripture. He should know what he believes and why he believes it, be able to recognize false teaching, be willing to correct error with patience, teach his children to think biblically, and build his household upon the truth of God’s Word. Again, the office of elder belongs to qualified men whom God calls to shepherd His church. Yet the character Paul describes should give every Christian man something to pursue. If these are the qualities required of men entrusted with the spiritual care of the church, surely Christian men should desire to see those same qualities developing in their own lives. Biblical manhood is not simply about what a man does. It is also about who he is becoming.

Protection is another responsibility that belongs naturally within biblical manhood. A husband should care about the safety of his wife and children. That includes physical safety, but it also includes spiritual and moral protection. A father should pay attention to the influences entering his home. He should know what his children are watching and listening to, who is influencing them, and the ideas they are learning from school, friends, entertainment, and the internet. This does not mean a Christian family must hide from the world. It means fathers should recognize that children need guidance. The same principle applies to marriage. A husband should protect his marriage by guarding its faithfulness. He should not cultivate relationships that threaten his covenant with his wife, take sexual temptation seriously, be wise about his use of technology, and understand that pornography, flirtation, secrecy, and emotional affairs can cause tremendous damage to a marriage. Protection requires awareness. It also requires courage. There are times when a husband needs to have a difficult conversation, establish a boundary, confront a problem, or make an unpopular decision because it is necessary for the good of his family. That responsibility cannot simply be ignored.

Scripture speaks plainly about a man’s responsibility to provide for his household. Paul writes, “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” (1 Timothy 5:8). That is a serious statement. Providing for a family is not merely an economic issue. It is an expression of responsibility. Genesis 2:15 tells us that God placed Adam in the garden “to cultivate it and keep it.” Work existed before sin. The Fall did not create work. It brought frustration, hardship, and toil into work. A man should therefore have a willingness to work diligently and use his abilities for the good of his household. Circumstances will differ from family to family. There may be seasons of unemployment, sickness, financial hardship, or other situations that require a family to make difficult decisions. The biblical principle is not that every household must have an identical financial arrangement. The principle is responsibility. A husband should take seriously the material needs of his family. He should work when he is able, manage money wisely, avoid unnecessary financial recklessness, plan for the future, and make sacrifices when his family needs something more important than his own comfort. Provision also reaches beyond money. A father provides instruction, stability, encouragement, time, correction, affection, and a sense of security through his faithful presence. A paycheck is important, but a father cannot delegate his entire responsibility to his paycheck. His family needs him.

Genesis 2:15 gives us an important foundation for understanding work. Adam was given meaningful labor before the Fall. Work is therefore part of God’s good design for humanity. Proverbs repeatedly warns against laziness, while the New Testament calls Christians to work diligently. Paul writes, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,” (Colossians 3:23). A Christian man’s work should be offered to God. That changes the way he approaches even ordinary employment. He should strive to be dependable, do honest work, keep his commitments, arrive prepared, use his abilities well, and not make laziness a lifestyle. For a husband and father, this responsibility has an added weight because his choices affect other people. A man who refuses to work when he is capable of working is not merely making a personal decision. His wife and children may bear the consequences. Faithfulness often looks ordinary: going to work, paying the bills, maintaining the house, taking care of repairs, getting up when a child needs help, and doing the things that need to be done even when nobody praises you. God sees those things.

A man’s responsibility toward his family includes sexual faithfulness. God designed sexual intimacy for marriage. Hebrews 13:4 says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” Sexual purity requires more than avoiding adultery. A man must learn to govern his eyes, thoughts, imagination, and desires. Job said, ““I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). That kind of seriousness is needed today. Pornography has made sexual temptation accessible almost everywhere. A man can carry an entire world of temptation in his pocket. Christian men therefore need wisdom and self-control. A husband should understand that sexual sin does not remain private. It affects the trust and intimacy of a marriage. It can wound a wife deeply and distort the way a man views women. The answer is not despair. The answer is repentance, accountability, wisdom, and dependence upon Christ. A man who takes holiness seriously should be willing to remove things that repeatedly lead him toward sin. He should not make peace with what Christ calls him to put to death.

Perhaps one of the clearest themes running through Genesis is responsibility. God gave Adam something to do, a command, a wife, and a responsibility toward the garden. When sin entered the world, Adam failed to act faithfully. Genesis 3 records the tragedy. The serpent deceived Eve. Eve ate the fruit and gave some to Adam, and he ate. Then God came looking for Adam. “But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”” (Genesis 3:9). Adam’s response included blame. He pointed toward the woman. The sinful tendency to shift responsibility has been with us ever since. A godly man learns to do the opposite. When he sins, he confesses it. When he fails, he acknowledges it. When he makes a foolish decision, he accepts the consequences. When his family needs him, he does not disappear. He does not blame his wife for every problem in the household, his children for his own lack of discipline, or his employer for every financial problem. He takes responsibility for what God has entrusted to him. That does not mean a man carries responsibility for everything that happens around him. It means he refuses to use circumstances as an excuse for neglecting the responsibilities that actually belong to him.

If God gives a man children, those children are entrusted to him. Paul writes, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4). A father therefore has an important role in the spiritual formation of his children. He should teach them God’s Word, discipline them consistently and lovingly, correct sinful behavior, encourage what is good, listen to their questions, spend time with them, and know their strengths, weaknesses, fears, interests, and struggles. Children need more than rules. They need fathers who know them and love them. They also need fathers who are willing to discipline them. Biblical discipline is not uncontrolled anger. It is the deliberate training of a child toward wisdom and righteousness. A father who refuses to correct his children because discipline is inconvenient is not serving them well. At the same time, a father who disciplines in uncontrolled anger is also failing to represent God’s character properly. Discipline requires patience and self-control. The goal is not simply to make children behave. The goal is to train them toward wisdom.

Biblical manhood cannot be reduced to marriage. Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 7 that singleness can be a genuine gift and can provide unique opportunities for serving the Lord. A single man can live a deeply faithful Christian life. He should still work diligently, pursue holiness, serve the church, honor his parents, cultivate wisdom, learn responsibility, and treat women with purity and respect. If God eventually gives him a wife, he should enter marriage prepared to embrace the responsibilities that come with it. Marriage does not create character. It reveals it. A man should therefore pursue godliness wherever God has placed him.

There is a danger in discussing biblical manhood. We can turn it into another self-improvement project. A man can read an article like this and walk away with a list of things he needs to accomplish: work harder, read the Bible more, lead better, provide more, protect better, pray more, be a better husband. Those are worthwhile goals, but Christian manhood cannot ultimately be reduced to a list of achievements. We need Christ. Jesus Christ is the perfect man. He perfectly obeyed His Father, lived under God’s authority, resisted temptation, worked faithfully, spoke truth, loved His people, served those around Him, demonstrated courage, endured suffering, and willingly gave His life for His bride. That is the man Christians are called to follow. Our hope does not rest in our ability to perform perfectly as husbands or fathers. Every Christian husband will fail. Every Christian father will fail. Every Christian man will sin. That is why our confidence must rest in Christ. Our righteousness comes from Him. Our forgiveness comes through Him. Our sanctification is His work in us. The gospel does not remove our responsibility. It gives us the foundation from which we can pursue faithfulness. We obey because we belong to Christ. We repent because we know His mercy. We pursue holiness because the Holy Spirit is conforming us to the image of Christ.

A biblical man is a man who takes God seriously. He knows that his life belongs to his Creator. He seeks to understand God’s Word and live according to it. He works diligently, accepts responsibility, pursues sexual purity, honors his parents, serves the church, keeps his word, provides for his household, protects his family, loves his wife sacrificially, teaches his children, disciplines them with wisdom and patience, and leads his household toward Christ. He recognizes that his authority is accountable to God, and when he fails, he repents. When God gives a man a wife, he should understand that he has been entrusted with a covenant relationship that requires faithful leadership. He should seek to bring God’s Word into his home, lead his family toward worship, prayer, and repentance while remembering that Christ alone is their Mediator, and exercise authority with humility and sacrificial love. He should protect his wife and children from all types of danger and guide them toward wisdom, provide for their needs, and faithfully carry the responsibilities God has given him. He should also aspire to the character Paul describes in Titus 1: integrity that can withstand examination, self-control, love for what is good, hospitality, humility, devotion to God’s Word, faithfulness in marriage, wise governance of his household, patience, and freedom from greed and dishonest gain. These qualities are required of elders because those entrusted with shepherding Christ’s church must meet a high standard of Christian character. Yet the qualities themselves describe the kind of maturity every Christian man should desire, especially those who have been placed in the role of the household shepherd. A man may never hold the office of elder. He should still want to be above reproach, self-controlled, faithful, devoted to what is good, grounded in God’s Word, and marked by genuine Christian character in his household.

All of these responsibilities ultimately point beyond the man himself. They point to Christ. A husband is not the savior of his family. A father is not the lord of his children’s souls. A man is not the ultimate authority in his household. Christ is. The husband’s calling is to faithfully lead his family under the lordship of Christ. That should change the way a man thinks about authority, work, marriage, fatherhood, and sacrifice. The question is not simply whether a man appears masculine. The better question is whether he is faithfully carrying the responsibilities God has entrusted to him.

The world has plenty of opinions about what men should be. The Christian man needs something better than another cultural definition of masculinity. He needs the Word of God. God has given men responsibilities that require courage, humility, discipline, sacrifice, and perseverance. Those responsibilities are not always glamorous. Biblical manhood often looks like going to work when you would rather stay home, sitting down with your children and patiently answering another difficult question, apologizing to your wife, refusing a temptation nobody else knows about, making a difficult financial decision, protecting your family from something they do not yet recognize as dangerous, opening your Bible when you do not feel like reading it, or getting on your knees and asking God to help you become the man your family needs you to be. Faithfulness is often found in ordinary things. God has not called men to impress the world. He has called us to obey Him, to love our wives, to raise our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, to work, provide, protect, serve, and lead, and to pursue the character described in His Word. Above all, He has called us to follow Christ.

None of us will fulfill these responsibilities perfectly. That should drive us toward Christ rather than away from Him. He is the righteous Man we are not, the faithful Son, the perfect Husband to His bride the Church, the Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, the King who came to serve, and the Savior who forgives sinful men and changes them by His grace. So we pursue biblical manhood with humility, take responsibility seriously, lead our families faithfully, love our wives sacrificially, teach our children God’s Word, protect what God has entrusted to us, provide faithfully, pursue the character Scripture commends, repent when we fail, and keep our eyes fixed on Christ. The goal is not simply to become better men. The goal is to become faithful men who glorify God with the lives He has given us.

Soli Deo Gloria.