The Lord has blessed our family with three young boys – Hudson, Owen, and Haddon. I hope by God’s grace to mold each one of them into fearless men of God.

My favorite passage on parenting is Psalm 127:3-4, “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!”  In commenting on this verse, one of the most practical Puritan theologians George Swinnock said, “Children are compared to ‘arrows.’ Now, we know that sticks are not by nature arrows; they do not grow so, but they are made so; by nature they are knotty and rugged, but by art they are made smooth and handsome. So children by nature are rugged and [troublesome], but by [training] are refined and reformed, made pliable to the divine will and pleasure.”

One of the first orders of business in training boys – these “arrows” Solomon mentions –  is to get a right understanding of biblical masculinity. Doug Wilson’s Future Men: Raising Boys to Fight Giants is unusually helpful in this area. He writes, “Before rearing a son to be ‘masculine,’ it is equally important to have some notion of what that is.”

The Bible reveals five clear aspects of masculinity: men are created to exercise dominion over the earth; they are fitted to be husbandman, tilling the earth; they are equipped to be saviors, delivering from evil; they are expected to grow up into wisdom, becoming sages; and they are designed to reflect the image and glory of God.

Wilson defines each aspect and then meditates on its application to raising boys that storm the gates of hell. I think his work in this area has shaped my parenting paradigm more than any other. Maybe it can do the same for you.

5 DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF BIBLICAL MASCULINITY

1. Biblical men are “lords.” Man was created to exercise dominion in the earth. In Genesis 1:26 God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” We are told to disciple the nations and bring them to true submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. In boys, we might call this the “tree fort” impetus. Boys want to conquer and subdue, and if the terrain before them is the back yard, then that is what they want to conquer and subdue. The point of discipline with boys is to channel and direct their energy into an obedient response to the cultural mandate. Boys therefore should be training to become men who exercise dominion, they should be learning to be lords in the earth, they should learn to be adventurous and visionary.
2. Biblical men are “husbandmen.” Man was created, not only to discover and conquer new worlds, but also to make those worlds flourish. After man was created, God placed him in the garden to tend and protect it, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”Man does not just build bridges and space stations. He must also then and oversee the organic things which he plants there – gardens, families, towns. Great lessons can be acquired by small boys in a small garden. A rich farmer was once rebuked for having his sons work in the field when they didn’t have to. His reply was apropos to this discussion. He wasn’t raising corn, he explained, he was raising boys. Boys therefore should be learning to be patient, careful, and hard-working.
3. Biblical men are “saviors.” Men also have a deep desire to deliver or save. The great example of a savior is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ. His deliverance is promised in Genesis 3:5, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Men who follow Jesus Christ, the dragon-slayer, must themselves become lesser dragon-slayers. And this is why it is absolutely essential for boys to play with wooden swords and plastic guns. Boys have a deep need to have something to defend, something to represent in battle. And to beat the spears into pruning hooks prematurely, before the war is over, will leave you fighting the dragon with a pruning hook. Boys must learn they are growing up to fight in a great war, and they must consequently learn, as boys, to be strong, sacrificial, courageous, and good.
4. Biblical men are “sages.” The sage is a man who is great in wisdom, and wisdom in Scripture is personified as a great lady. Sons are exhorted constantly to listen to her. We must therefore teach our boys the masculinity of study, of learning, of books, of intellectual discussion. Too often we let boys drift into a situation where they pit one aspect of masculinity against another. When this happens, for example, a boy who naturally loves the outdoors can too readily dismiss software programming as effeminate, or even worse, come to look down on poetry. Intellectual discipline, or, as Peter put it, girding up the loins of the mind, is an important part of growing to manhood.  Boys must therefore learn to be teachable, studious, and thoughtful.
5. Biblical men are “glory-bearers.” The last aspect of masculinity is seen in the fact that men are the glory of God. Paul puts this matter very plainly in 1 Corinthians 11:7, “A man . . . . is the image and glory of God.” Boys must be instructed on how to grow up into glory and how to fulfill their responsibility to be representative, responsible, and holy.

Know what biblical manhood is, for that is where boyhood should be aimed.