Biblical manhood encompasses many things. For example, we often say a family man’s primary responsibilities come down to three fundamental tasks: lead, provide, protect. However, in our discussions about headship and leadership and all the other biblical implications for manhood, sometimes our sanctification is not discussed. Enter Thomas Watson, the great Puritan divine. Watson (1620-1686) is one of my favorite dead pastor/theologians. His writing and preaching lived and breathed with lively verbs and unforgettable word pictures. Many of his works remain in print, including a wonderful exposition of the Shorter Catechism titled A Body of Divinity .

Another book compellingly called The Godly Man’s Picture Drawn With a Scripture Pencil (Banner of Truth), was first published in 1666 and does precisely what the title suggests: it shows what a godly man (or person, as the truths apply to both men and women) should look like. His comments in the preface on the necessity of godliness for every Christian man are memorable:

The soul being so previous, and salvation so glorious, it is the highest point of prudence to make preparations for another world. It is beyond all dispute that there is an inheritance in light, and it is most strenuously asserted in Holy Scripture that there must be a fitness and suitability for it (Col 1:12)…Policy without piety is profound madness. Godliness is a spiritual queen, and whoever marries her is sure of a large dowry with her. Godliness has the promise of the present life and of that which is to come. ( 1 Tim 4:8)

Today and tomorrow, I want to remind myself and other men of the solemn task to which God has called us in leading our homes and churches. But I also want to remind us, via Watson, of what we must be first. Watson argues, in 24 attributes (in the interest of brevity, I’ll do six today and split the other 18 over the next couple of days), that a godly man is:

1. A man of knowledge. He knows God in Christ and is being transformed into the image of Christ by this knowledge. Possession of such knowledge must make him humble: “True knowledge brings a man out of love with himself. The more he knows, the more he blushes at his own ignorance,” writes Watson.
2. A man moved by faith. His trust in God is a living principle. “He who believes that God is his God, and that all providences work for his good, patiently yields himself to the will of God.”
3. A man fired with love. “A godly man loves God, though he is reduced to straits.”
4. A man like God. “Holiness is a man’s glory…The goodness of a Christian lies in his holiness, as the goodness of air lies in its clarity, the worth of gold in its purity.”
5. A man careful about the worship of God. “A godly man dare not vary from the pattern God has shown him in Scripture.”
6. A man who serves God, not men. Here, Watson uses servant as a synonym for “fear.”“A godly man leaves the service of sin and betakes himself to the service of God.”

[This article originally appeared on Dr. Mohler's blog on November 20, 2009.]

Is The New York Times trying to tell us something? Just eleven days after running a story on gender-bending teenagers on the front page of its "Style" section, the paper is back with yet another front page story in the same section, this time on gender-bending young adults. The articles even cite the same psychologist as authority. What's going on here?

On November 8, the paper ran an article, "Can a Boy Wear a Skirt to School?," that described cross-dressing among teenagers as a growing phenomenon. Reporter Jan Hoffman explained that "a growing number of teenagers have been dressing to articulate -- or to confound -- gender identity and sexual orientation." Hoffman's article focused on the challenge these teens present to public school officials, who must now deal with boys who want to wear makeup and skirts and girls who want to dress like male gang members.

Hoffman quoted Oakland, California psychologist Diane Ehrensaft, who said: "This generation is really challenging the gender norms we grew up with. . . . A lot of youths say they won't be bound by boys having to wear this or girls wearing that. For them, gender is a creative playing field."

Then, in the November 19 edition of the paper, reporter Ruth La Ferla brought a similar story, this time focusing on a slightly older age group and the marketing opportunity their new gender experimentation affords. Her article, "It's All a Blur to Them," is accompanied by a photograph of three rather androgynous young adults and the statement, "Crossing between the men's and women's aisles feels right to young customers today."

And Diane Ehrensaft is back, explaining that this is all a part of the new "gender fluidity." In her words, “younger people no longer accept the standard boxes. They won’t be bound by boys having to wear this or girls wearing that. I think there is a peer culture in which that kind of gender blurring is not only acceptable but cool.” That statement is virtually identical to her statement reported in the November 8 article about teenagers.

Is anyone editing the "Style" section? It appears safe to assume that The New York Times is trying to make a point.

Ruth La Ferla begins her article with a description of Chuong Pham, a 28-year-old engineer in Manhattan who wears "stalk-thin jeans" and borrows his mom's "sexily sheared" sweatshirt. "There is a whole transition of men getting into women's wear," Pham explains. "It used to be that the people who did it were just the edgier ones. Now it's much more common."

Brandon Dailey, a 26-year-old hairstylist in Manhattan has not yet worn a skirt, but he expresses his experimentation by wearing "a long drapey shirt with really tight pants." "My generation is more outside the box than the generation before me," he advises.

Audrey Reynolds, age 25, alerted the world of fashion that a gender revolution is at hand. "Every line should be unisex," she suggested. "A good piece of clothing is a good piece of clothing no matter who was meant to wear it in the first place."

Ruth La Ferla suggests that these three young adults represent a "forward-thinking cohort" of the population who are "revising standard notions of gender-appropriate dressing, tweaking codes, upending conventions, and making hash of ancient norms."  This "artfully calibrated ambiguity" about gender is fast becoming mainstream, she reports.

Evidently, at least some in the fashion industry are paying attention:

So entrenched are the latest forms of gender blending that mainstream purveyors of hip, including Urban Outfitters and American Apparel, are offering clothing and jewelry meant to be worn by either sex. American Apparel has no fewer than 724 unisex items — hoodies, cardigans, blazers and bow ties, among them — on its Web site, simply because, as Marsha Brady, the company’s creative director, put it, “that’s the way people wear clothes.”

Ms. La Ferla observes that some fashion lines "have been quick to interpret that sort of ambiguity." One industry insider told La Ferla that "the more successful designers are the ones that try to bridge the gap between the sexes."

Not all are buying into this as a broadening trend. Harold Koda, costume curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art advised that "you need to be young to do it well," adding: "To carry it off, you need the physique of an adolescent boy. As long as the young are the primary audience, it's not going to be economically sustained."

Psychologist Ehrensaft admits that "androgyny may not play in Peoria," but she also insists that "norms are shifting." She then said this: “Kids, even little kids, are experimenting across gender lines. Boys are wearing My Little Pony T-shirts, just because they like them. Sometimes they like to dress in the girls’ section because the shirts are cooler.”

Well, my guess is that little boys wearing "My Little Pony" T-shirts will indeed not play in Peoria -- especially if their dads ever see it. Yet there is something to these reports. There is a lot of experimentation with gender going on among young adults and teenagers. The paper seems to celebrate these young people as the vanguard of a new cultural future. The New York Times appears to be telling America to get ready. What are we to make of the paper running two stories with this much similarity on the front page of the same section within the span of less than two weeks?

The gender confusion and experimentation almost celebrated in these articles is a symptom of a larger and deeper confusion found throughout the culture. Androgynous young people are trying to get our attention. To them, male and female are fluid categories without objective meaning. They are also crossing more than aisles in clothing stores -- they are intentionally confusing sexual identity and the very concepts of male and female.

Recovering sexual sanity and a proper appreciation for gender as a part of the goodness of God's creation will not come easily. Just take a look at the clothing marketed to teenagers and young adults in trendy stores at your local mall. We have a lot of work to do.

Ray Ortlund had a good post recently on "manly men of God" demonstrating love for one another. He asks the question of how do we create these kind of relationships in our churches. He answers in three parts:

First, “Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10).

Second, “Bear with one another” (Colossians 3:13).

Third, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths but only such as is good for building up” (Ephesians 4:29).

Read the whole thing for his explanation.

In case you missed it, Tim Challies recently finished an excellent series entitled, “Leadership in the Home.” If you didn’t read these posts the first time, take some time to check them out now. Men especially will be served by learning from Challies’ writing on the topic. The five parts are available below.

Part 1 – Leadership in the Home: An Introduction

Part 2 – Leadership in the Home: A Defense

Part 3 – A Godly Man Leads

Part 4 – A Godly Man Protects

Part 5 – A Godly Man Provides

Here's the question (and one we hear quite often) - doesn't the fact that women played a significant role in ministry alongside Paul indicate that his teachings do not mean women should be excluded from ministry?

And here's Piper and Grudem with an answer:

Yes. But the issue is not whether women should be excluded from ministry. They shouldn't be. There are hundreds of ministries open to men and women. We must be more careful in how we pose our questions. Otherwise the truth is obscured from the start. [Read that paragraph again!]

The issue here is whether any of the women serving with Paul in ministry fulfilled roles that would be inconsistent with a limitation of the eldership to men. We believe the answer to that is No.  But we can perhaps illustrate with three significant women in Paul's ministry.

Paul said that Euodia and Syntyche "contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers" (Philippians 4:2-3). There is wonderful honor given to Euodia and Syntyche here for their ministry with Paul. But there are no compelling grounds for affirming that the nature of the ministry was contrary to the limitations that we argue are set forth in 1 Timothy 2:12. One must assume this in order to make a case against these limitations. Paul would surely say that the "deacons" mentioned in Philippians 1:1 along with the "overseers" were fellow workers with him when he was there. But if so, then one can be a "fellow worker" with Paul without being in a position of authority over men. (We are assuming from 1 Timothy 3:2 and 5:17 that what distinguishes an elder from a deacon is that the responsibility for teaching and governance was the elder's and not the deacon's.)

Phoebe is praised as a "servant" or "deacon" of the church at Cenchreea who "has been a great help [or "patroness" ] to many people, including me" (Romans 16:1-2). Some have tried to argue that the Greek word behind "help" really means "leader." This is doubtful, since it is hard to imagine, on any count, what Paul would mean by saying that Phoebe became his leader. He could of course mean that she was an influential patroness who gave sanctuary to him and his band or that she used her community influence for the cause of the gospel and for Paul in particular. She was a very significant person and played a crucial role in the ministry. But to derive anything from this that is contrary to our understanding of 1 Timothy 2:12, one would have to assume authority over men here since it cannot be shown.

We are eager to affirm Priscilla as a fellow worker with Paul in Christ (Romans 16:3)! She and her husband were very influential in the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 16:19) as well as Ephesus. We can think of many women in our churches today who are like Priscilla. Nothing in our understanding of Scripture says that when a husband and wife visit an unbeliever (or a confused believer-or anyone else) the wife must be silent. It is easy for us to imagine the dynamics of such a discussion in which Priscilla contributes to the explanation and illustration of baptism in Jesus' name and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Our understanding of what is fitting for men and women in that kind of setting is not an oversimplified or artificial list of rules for what the woman and man can say and do. It is rather a call for the delicate and sensitive preservation of personal dynamics that honor the headship of Aquila without squelching the wisdom and insight of Priscilla. There is nothing in this text that cannot be explained on this understanding of what happened. We do not claim to know the spirit and balance of how Priscilla and Aquila and Apollos related to each other. We only claim that a feminist reconstruction of the relationship has no more warrant than ours. The right of Priscilla to hold an authoritative teaching office cannot be built on an event about which we know so little. It is only a guess to suggest that the order of their names signifies Priscilla's leadership. Luke may simply have wanted to give greater honor to the woman by putting her name first (1 Peter 3:7), or may have had another reason unknown to us. Saying that Priscilla illustrates the authoritative teaching of women in the New Testament is the kind of precarious and unwarranted inference that is made again and again by evangelical feminists and then called a major Biblical thrust against gender-based role distinctions. But many invalid inferences do not make a major thrust.