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Masculinity or manliness, is the topic I started to address in my last video. In that video we have discussed the moral duty of a man to be virtuous.

Virtue is the habit of choosing what is good and right, despite our own inclinations. So, a real godly man will try to find out what God wants of him […]

A real man, guides his children in a God-fearing way. He strives to be patient, to be generous, to gain more and more wisdom, and when needed he will sacrifice his own life for others.

So, let’s talk a bit about the man who guides his family in a God-fearing way.

Patriarchy

Many liberals hate this word: Patriarchy. I guess this word triggers quit a bit of controversy among others as well. Why? Well, simply because people, like usual, have a distorted view of what it actually needs to be.

Patriarch comes from the Latin word ‘pater,’ which means father. The Merriam Webster dictionary says this about the word ‘patriarchy.’ⁱ

• Social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line.
• Broadly: control by men of a disproportionately large share of power.

And it is that second explanation people want to scream about. What many seem to forget is, that when we talk about real virtuous men—men of honour, or godly men—then we will find a total different patriarch than when we look at a man whose heart is not aimed towards God. I totally agree that there are many men walking around who feel they need to push their own desires at the expense of the others, even their own family.

But when we read the Bible, we see a totally different picture. God-fearing men should have an attitude which will help the family to thrive, and a family in which the mother thrives is a healthy family.

Proverbs 1:8-9 (ESV)

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.

In a healthy family, children will be able to learn how to live in the world. Proverbs says: “hear your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching.” The father is an instructor and the mother is a teacher. I don’t know about you, but I have found women to be excellent teachers. Combine that with an god-fearing instructor and you have a dream-team!

Family

The family is a social, God given, construct. The Bible teaches in Genesis 2:24 that

A man [shall] leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

This is the ideal situation. A man loves a woman and for her he will leave his parents to become a unity with her. But, I also know what Genesis 3 says after Adam and Eve sinned.

Genesis 3:16

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

What does this mean? The straightforward answer of this verse is that woman and man will have an ongoing struggle. In contrast to the ideal I just mentioned, men and women will find themselves in a constant power struggle. The ESV (English Standard Version 2016) translation makes it more evident: “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” And the NLT (New Living Translation) says: “And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.”

The Hebrew language does not include a verb. In other words, the literal translation is something like this: “toward your husband your desire.” It is not a command or a promise that it will always be like that. No, it is more like a prognosis, something that is probably going to happen and that’s why both the ESV and NLT translated it the way they did.

Basically the conflict between men and women started there and then. The results are clear because we quite often see that married couples fight each other in their attempts to have the upper hand in their marriage. At first, we saw Adam caring with love and dedication for his wife. Now, we often see Adam who tries to rule her. At first, we saw a happy Eve, working alongside her husband Adam. Being a great helper, and equal but not the same. Now, we typically see Eve nagging and complaining in an attempt to control the actions of her husband.

Dominating and Oppressive

We can be clear on God’s intention. He wanted to see both men and women flourish. The statement “he shall rule over you” is not a biblical command for men to dominate women. Men can not act like dictators! However, godly men should understand this all to well!

The New Testament affirms the Lord’s first ideas about marriage. A healthy marriage is between one man and one woman. The New Testament writers promoted a virtuous lifestyle. In other words: Christ-like qualities are highly stressed. We know what sin has brought us. Nothing other than misery. But! As followers of Christ we are called to correct this by living our lives in dependency on the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 5:22-24 teaches us that a man’s wife should willingly submit to her husband. In other words, she should resist the urge to gain control over him.

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Husbands have to love their wives unconditionally and sacrificially. This is nothing like being a dominant oppressive bully! No, the husband needs to be just like our Lord Jesus Christ, who loves the Church (verses 25-30).

Ephesians 5:25-29

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.

Don’t forget that the verses we have just read are preceded by vers 21:

[…] submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

Representative of the Family

I also would like to talk a bit about being the representative. Did you notice that marriage is being portrait as the image of the relation between Christ and the Church? Here comes the question. What is the biggest sign that a church belongs to Jesus? Right! The works and person of Jesus Christ is central in all of the teaching within a healthy church. Jesus is the ultimate representative of the Church. Look at Jesus and His life, and it should be clear what church is all about.

Obviously, we, the followers of Christ, make many mistakes, and so do the churches around the world. But, when we look at the life of Jesus, we expect to see these actions back in everyday church life. We expect to see charity, worship, and prayer. We should also expect to see Bible-based teaching and healthy, loving leadership. Jesus gave that example.

Likewise, men are being called to be like Christ and be the example in the family. Of course, the mother has these responsibilities as well, but it is the man who has the duty to give all for his family. It would be a shame if people looked at me and see the opposite of that what I teach among my children. What use is it to work as a preacher, evangelist or missionary and find your household being lost? What use is it when you work as a metalworker, baker, cook, or lawyer and not showing your colleagues how to live a life for Christ? Or the other way around, talking about Christ at work and then when they see your family in ruins?

But also, a godly man should be brave enough to stick out his neck for his family. How often I protected my kids against angry people by apologising on their behalf. No, people do not like that. They want to see the child wetting himself, crawling and begging for mercy. I have seen it more than ones. We, like Christ, need to sacrifice our own pride to protect our family, even if that means people think less of us.

Spiritual Growth

What did Christ promise us before He ascended to heaven? Right, the Holy Spirit! Jesus helped us to grow closer to God through His example and teachings, and He continuously does that through His Spirit. Likewise, we, as fathers, are called to help our family to grow closer to God every day.

It is nice and fun and all that to see your children go to youth club. But remember that you should be the number one go-to for your child when they have questions. To many parents, and fathers in particular, trust teachers and youth-leaders to train their children towards adulthood.

When my wife and I were youth-leaders, we took the teenagers with us to evangelise in the streets. It was just part of our longing to see the teenagers engage more in sharing the Gospel. Years later, one them, by now a father himself, came to me with an interesting complaint. His daughter was attending that youth-club now. His ailment was that the new youth-leaders didn’t go into the streets any more. His daughter didn’t get the change to learn how to evangelise like he did. Well, he had it coming! I asked him when it was the last time that his daughter was with him while he talked about Jesus. When was the last time he himself showed her how to start a conversation about the Gospel?

First he tried to explain it away by saying that he “just isn’t such a great evangelist.” “You see,” he said, “it doesn’t come easy for me.” Okay, that is fascinating! So, he basically decided that others had to give the example but not he. Assuming that the youth-leaders are there to teach this kind of stuff.

Do you remember Ephesians 6:4

[…] ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

I came across these two powerful quotes:

Children are great imitators. So give them something great to imitate.
—Anonymous

If we don’t teach our children to follow Christ, the world will teach them not to.
—Anonymous

Good Fathers, Healthy Society

Allow me to be so bold to say that a society can only be as strong as the families that reside in it. Shamefully, many societies go down the drain because they haven’t promoted the need of strong nuclear families. Instead, many liberals have attacked this concept of a family with one father and mother and their children. Nothing wrong with a single parent family right? Well, it seems to be well documented that the crime-rate among adolescents jumps up when they grew up in a single parent family.

Our societies are in need of strong and god-fearing fathers. Not bullies or power-hungry testosterone bombs. No, fathers who are prepared to go the extra mile for their wives and children. Fathers who are not afraid to lead and to serve. Fathers who want to be like Jesus and are willing to sacrifice everything in order to bring the best out of their wives and children.

Toxic

Patriarchy is not toxic. The patriarch depends on Christ. He will bring out the best in wife and children. The real toxic ideas in our society are those from liberals who want to eradicate the influence of good fathers. They fight against the traditional idea of the nuclear family. In their view families can be whatever you feel they need to be. Two mothers or two fathers. A mother who isn’t female from birth but says he identifies as one. A father who is a biological female but doesn’t feel she is a mother. People who are called fathers with a uterus or mothers with a penis. How crazy do you want it? It is all possible with those liberals.

Liberalism wants your child to be ‘free’ to identify as whatever gender they want. If the child is a biological boy but decides that he might be happier when he becomes a girl, he can go into that process which is called—with a euphoric word—transition. Yes, brilliant idea! Let’s put him on hormone blockers and when that isn’t enough we will not hesitate to cut of his private parts. That is toxic!

Let’s be serious here! How many of us went through this period in which we wondered whether we were born in the right body? How many of us have been at that moment that you actually felt more attracted to that friend who happened to be of your own sex? A good father will help you and talk with you when these moments come. A Christ loving father will have worked inexhaustibly on gaining the trust of his family. This trust is needed when questions arise. Does the child feel comfortable enough to discuss these questions with his or her parents, or does the child rather lending his ear to others?

Stability

The god-fearing patriarch is the opposite of poison! He cannot be missed. That means that he needs to study God’s word and establish a healthy situation within the family, the company, or society as a whole, in which these poisonous ideas of the fundamentalistic liberalists die a quick death!

It is not the patriarchy which causes our society to collapse! It is collapsing because of people who deem themselves as more knowledgeable and wise than the Creator of heaven and earth.

What is Your Opinion?

Okay, tell me what you think about the whole discussion around masculinity. In specific, what do you think about the things I said concerning the patriarchy? Do you agree?

Now, there might be some among you who think I didn’t promote this topic equality enough. Why am I constantly talking about men and less about women? Can’t women lead? Can a woman not work outside the house? And maybe even more questions like this. My answer is pretty simple. This video was not about women! I dedicated this topic to men. Those who follow me might know how I think about the classical ideas when it comes to that what is typically referred to as female stuff and male things. So, again… Nope! I wasn’t talking about women. If you still think I might look down a bit on women, especially those who are running the household, I would like to invite you to look up this video on my website. There I will post a great letter from a full-time housewife in which she describes her job description… And you know what? That description only scratches the surface, and it shows how much we, men, should treasure our wives!

Follow & Support

As always, do check out the description of this video. There you’ll find a link to my Odysee channel. You can also check out my video channels on GabTV, and Bitchute, and my other social media. Also, you’ll find a link there to both the Dutch and English transcripts of this video.

Thank you very much for watching my videos, your prayers, and support! You can look in the description of this video or on my website to find out how you can help me.

God bless you, thank you for watching, and Lord willing we’ll see each other in my next video!

Endnotes

i Merriam-Webster, patriarchy, [internet] <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patriarchy> 2023, accessed 15-04-2023.

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