It takes men to raise men. We all needed the concern and direction of men other than our fathers (even if our fathers were great!).
And so we all need to be concerned and offer direction to men other than our sons. Sometimes this will be incidental: a one-hour conversation with a younger man.
I used to joke about a “blood relative” rule when it came to taking an interest in the lives of children who weren’t mine, and although it was largely driven by fear of incompetence with respect to kid’s ministry, I now think the joke was unchristian and indeed unmanly.
The last verses of the Old Testament look forward to a time when ‘Elijah’ would turn ‘the hearts of the fathers to their children’ (Malachi 4:6).
The God fearing father in Israel was concerned for more than himself and his time. He knew the importance of passing on the ‘decrees’ of God and the story of Israel, so that the nation might ‘always prosper and be kept alive’ (Deuteronomy 6:24). Personally he looked forward to the blessing of seeing his children’s children (Psalm 128).
Let me pose a question: What is a good age to get married?
Now I’m assuming that a good number of us are already married, so to avoid this question being purely hypothetical let me rephrase: What is a good age for your children to get married? Most of us I think will answer something like “mid-twenties”. And if we were to be asked whether we thought it was a good idea to get married at 18 most of us would answer “No”.
Behind these answers I think are two thoughts about maturity; one about its timing, and one about its goodness. Before I am misunderstood, let me clarify:
Ok, the course I have followed so far has gone something like this:
The heart of being a man is readiness (willingness and capacity) to take on responsibility. And this responsibility has a two-fold shape to it: responsibility for task and responsibility for people.
These aspects are of course related:
Taking responsibility for people will involve any number of tasks, and taking responsibility for tasks may involve a whole lot of people. However it remains that our responsibilities will almost inevitably take the shape of:
In my previous post I suggested that being a man is about taking responsibility, and that this responsibility has a two-fold dimension: responsibility for a task; and responsibility for people. Today I want to suggest that taking responsibility in turn has its own two-fold shape, summed up by two great moments in Scripture
