~1 Corinthians 16:13
I wish I had a dollar for every time a man asked, “How much do you bench, man?” They say it in reference to my large chest, which isn’t the result heavy of heavy workouts in the weight room, but what of I joke is a birth defect. You see, I inherited an oversized chest from my Italian great-grandfather, which was a problem for my mother when she gave birth to me. Normally a baby’s head is larger than the rest of its body at birth. I’m told that once the head comes out, the rest of the baby easily follows.
Not so with me. To quote my mother every year on December 14 as she recounts my birth story: “Oh Jimmy (my Mom calls me Jimmy), it was like giving birth to twins!” At birth, as she tells it, I was bloody and bruised because of the forceps clamped around my head in order to pull my chest out. When poor Mom saw my bruised and bleeding face she literally started crying, “He’s so ugly. He’s so ugly! My baby is so ugly!”
True story.
But even with my large-chest birth defect, it took many years in the weight room to get strong. Manhood is similar.
Males are born. But men are made. Men are forged by their daily choices compounded over time. The man you shaved with this morning is one poor decision away from reverting to a male.
A man is made strong over time.
The phrase in 1 Corinthians 16:13, “Be strong”, is mentioned over thirty times in the Bible. But a more literal translation for the verb, according to Leon Morris in Tyndale New Testament Commentaries is, “be made strong.”
Do you get it? Are you starting to understand manhood?
Manhood-strength is not something you are born with. It’s not a spiritual gift. It’s not a fruit of the Spirit. It’s a choice. Just as childishness is a choice, so is manhood. Which path do you choose for those who love you and depend on you to be a man?
