By Justin Edwards
As I was driving home the other day, I tuned in to the local talk radio where the hostess was discussing a recent article by George Will: The Making of Modern Immaturity . The article opens with:
Current economic hardships have had what is called in constitutional law a "disparate impact": The crisis has not afflicted everyone equally. Although women are a majority of the workforce, perhaps as many as 80 percent of jobs lost were held by men. This injury to men is particularly unfortunate because it may exacerbate, and be exacerbated by, a culture of immaturity among the many young men who are reluctant to grow up.
So why is this happening? Why is it that men are maturing much later in life than they once did, say 50 years ago? Why is there rampant immaturity among men that leads to all kinds of social inadequacies in the family and workforce? And in the words of the radio hostess, it all boils down to one question: Where did all the men go?
The question generated various comments by the callers on the radio program, and I desperately wanted to call in to voice my own opinion, but I couldn't muster up the courage to let my voice be heard over the airwaves (I've managed to do this a few times, but can't seem to express my thoughts clearly on the spot). Thus I decided to put my thoughts to the paper.
In Will's article, he provides staggering statistics of men in the professional workforce, men still living with their parents up through the age of 34, and marrying later in life. Will's states this boy-man crisis is attributed to:
Permissive parenting, Cross says, made children less submissive, and the decline of deference coincided with the rise of consumer and media cultures celebrating the indefinite retention of the tastes and habits of childhood. The opening of careers to talented women has coincided with the attenuation of male role models in popular culture: In 1959, there were 27 Westerns on prime-time television glamorizing male responsibility.
And with that, I think the article nails the problem from a secular perspective. The callers of the radio program were all over the board with where the men went. Among them were their obsession with video games, women lowering their standards, men leaving the home for a number of reasons, fathers being terrible examples, the feminist movements of the last five decades, and children being born out of wedlock. But there was one reason not mentioned by any of the callers, and it is the most important: the famine of a biblical worldview that only comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
That is the problem - God has been removed from the family, from the schools, from the government, and increasingly from society. The solution to all of these issues is the Word of God. The solution to all of these social woes is Jesus Christ. But because man has decided in this era of modernism/post-modernism that human reasoning and moral relativism trump the things of God, society has greatly deteriorated to a needy, unholy, immoral, vain culture of the god of self. And men are no longer men; they are certainly no longer godly men. If only man would return to the moral law of God and His intended purpose for us. But being that we are rapidly approaching the last of the Last Days, society will continue to deteriorate, and man will continue to be less man. Nevertheless, there are those who are listening and willing to respond to the calling.
Christian men, I exhort you to be the men, the godly men, God has appointed you to be. Love your wives as Christ loves the church; discipline your children in a godly manner; and restore your home with Christ as the Head. We may not be able to change this fallen world, but we can change our homes to the glory of God.
Keep your nose in the Word, and stay on your knees. There is no other way to be a man of God.
This is what the Scriptures say:
James 1:21-25 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
Ephesians 6:1-4 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: 3 “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”[a] 4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Matthew 19:6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
1 Corinthians 11:3 But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
1 Timothy 5:8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Ephesians 5:25-28 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.
Colossians 3:18-21 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them.
20 Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.
21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
Deuteronomy 6:5-7 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 29:15 The rod and rebuke give wisdom,
But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.
Hebrews 12:11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
2 Timothy 3:14-17 But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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