Brothers, how do we obey the command to “be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13)? How do we who are men act like men?
“Act like men” is one word in Greek (andrizomai) — what does it mean? Perhaps it stands as a billboard for the masculine commands surrounding it in the verse.
To act like men means that you watch. You survey threats toward your family, your church, and your soul. You scan for wolves, demons, your own and others’ damnable sins. You watch, like a soldier, like a man.
To act like a man means that you stand firm in the faith. To be a man is not to possess great wealth but to be possessed by a great God, to make your allegiances known and be ready to suffer consequences rather than compromise — even if you stand alone.
To act like a man means to be strong — not that you can bench three hundred pounds but that you do not faint in the day of adversity. The doctor calls with unexpected results; your own son turns from the Lord; your wife of decades is taken home in a moment. Walls close in. Satan tells you to curse God and die, to quit, to stay down. Instead, you roll over to your knees and cry, “The Lord has given and taken away — blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
To act like a man is to do all that you do in love (1 Corinthians 16:14). When you watch, you do not watch as a mercenary but as a father, a husband, a pastor. When you stand firm in the faith, it’s no mere duty but love for Christ. You refuse the darkness not because you’re “better than that,” but because your Jesus is better than that.
Old Testament Roots
These surrounding commands bolster, but do not exhaust, what it means to act like a man. Though appearing only here in the New Testament, andrizomai has roots in the Greek Old Testament, through which it becomes a wardrobe into Narnia. There we find more than precepts and sentences; we get pictures and stories.
“Act like a man” has a rich biblical history, and perhaps the most prominent story is that of Joshua. In Joshua’s story, we observe that to “act like a man” is not merely to be courageous but to act from a holy bravery.
Many godless men have been courageous in war. Accounts of D-Day report that so many bullets were flying they created wind. Photos show heroic soldiers sitting in boats, waiting to enter that tornado. But when Christians “act like men,” we want to act like men of God. Joshua will help.
Sevenfold Command
We enter Joshua’s story as he and the Israelites wait on the border of the promised land. The forty years of marching have ended; graves of the faithless generation litter the wilderness.
God commands this race of former slaves to risk life and limb based on his promise. By human standards, this is to be a series of suicide missions. Outnumbered, outskilled, out-positioned, they were told to conquer foes fiercer, more numerous, and better fortified. Hordes of strong men swarm behind high walls, and Israel is told to attack.
And not just to attack stronger armies but to aggress under strange and otherwise foolish conditions. At their first conquest, Jericho, God halts the provision of their forty-year supply of miracle bread, tells them to cross the Jordan during flood season, and commands them to expose their full army to enemy eyes in broad daylight for seven straight days — and that not long after an army-wide circumcision. And then comes the strategy of crumbling double-walled fortification with mere sound.
These men must risk brutal death on what seems foolish tactics. They will need to act like men. In the Greek Old Testament, the charge appears seven times in Deuteronomy 31 and Joshua 1 — from Moses to the people (Deuteronomy 31:6), from Moses to Joshua (Deuteronomy 31:7), from God to Joshua (Deuteronomy 31:23; Joshua 1:6, 7, 9), and from the people to Joshua (Joshua 1:18).
So, what can we learn about acting like men from these repeated calls on the edge of the promised land?
1. To act like men is to obey through adversity.
Already we observe the context for acting like men is not abundance, peacetime, or comfort but rather hardship, conflict, and danger. Mature men act with wisdom when hearts pound, palms sweat, cancer spreads. The brightest backdrop for masculine deeds is when enemies oppose, trials await, and sacrifice is required.
On the edge of the promised land, we see that to act like a man is to behave daringly, heroically, moving forward — even when your flesh, the world, and its common sense tells you to retreat. Why? Because God commands it.
We are not interested in courage for courage’s sake; we want courage for Christ’s sake. Our acting like men is first our obedience to God: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and act like a man” (Joshua 1:9). To act like a man is to know that we are but men who must answer to our Creator. It is he who made us men — designed our nature more aggressive, our bodies stronger, our dispositions firmer — and we ought to yield our manhood to him, not to ourselves, idols, or Satan. We act like men in obedience to God’s command to man up.
2. To act like men is to act on God’s promises.
God’s promises do not negate our action — they embolden our action. Israel will have the land he has promised — but they still must fight. We read that God will have a people for himself, so we share the gospel. We read that God is beautifying his church, so we pull brothers aside and ask about sin. As a result, to act like men is to expect success in your labors — not because you are great, but because God has promised.
On the border of the promised land, God does not just command his men to blindly risk; he discloses the sure results of their faithfulness. Go forward, be strong, act like men — why? Because your God “will destroy these nations before you” and “will give them over to you” (Deuteronomy 31:3–6).
God speaks the same to stir Joshua:
No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. . . . Be strong and act like a man, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. (Joshua 1:5–6)
And Joshua passes on this lesson in dramatic fashion, placing the feet of Israel’s leaders on the necks of five conquered enemy kings, saying,
Do not be afraid or dismayed; be strong and act like men. For thus the Lord will do to all your enemies against whom you fight. (Joshua 10:25)
Israel’s hope was not good vibes; they did not speak their destiny into existence or wish upon a star. God gave them promises — not of ease or comfort or even that each soldier would survive, but of ultimate victory. Do we not have more glorious promises in our account? “To the one who conquers,” Jesus says, “I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7).
3. To act like men is to act with God.
Worldlings and men of the flesh think to act like a man is to act without help, to be a self-made man. In contrast, Moses directs Israel,
Be strong and act like a man. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:6)
And again and again and again to Joshua: “I will be with you. . . . Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. . . . Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Deuteronomy 31:23; Joshua 1:5, 9).
What distinguishes the Christian man acting like a man? The Christian man who acts like a man expects his God to act in his acting. In other words, our strength is not in our strength. “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10). David’s manly song is to wait on the Lord: “Wait for the Lord; act like men, and let your heart become strong; wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27:14, LXX, my translation).
On the borders of the next world, we wait upon God, and while we do, we attempt great things for him because he is with us. Spurgeon put it memorably this way:
Launch out into the deep. Do not always keep on fishing for shrimps along the shore. Attempt great things for God. Attempt something which as yet you cannot do. Any fool can do what he can do; it is only the believer who does what he cannot do. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Fall back upon omnipotence, and then go forward in the strength of it.
Any fool can do what he alone can do. Only the man of God might do what only God can do.
4. To act like men is to act with other men for the good of God’s people.
The command to act like a man is given to Joshua individually, Israel’s leaders specifically, and the entire community broadly. In 1 Corinthians 16:13, Paul addresses the whole church to act like men. Their faith-filled manful action is to be done together as a corporate body with many diverse members. We will all either aid each other unto glory or help destroy each other by unbelief.
Courage and cowardice are both contagious. Men need to see other men acting like men. Other men need to see us acting like men. This is wonderfully illustrated with Joab and his brother Abishai. When their army is attacked from the front and the rear. Joab splits his troops, puts Abishai in charge of the other half, and calls back to him,
If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will help you. Act like a man, and let us use our strength for our people and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him. (1 Chronicles 19:12–13)
We are to “act like men and use our strength for our people and for the cities of our God,” letting the Lord do what seems good to him. And we call out to one another, “If this trial or temptation be too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if that trial is too strong for you, then I will help you.”
5. To act like men is to follow our greater Joshua.
Israel was not a headless body; God’s people followed his appointed leader — Joshua. And Christian men follow a glorious head as well. It is fitting that Jesus and Joshua share the same name in Scripture (Yeshua in Hebrew). Joshua was a shadow of the better Joshua to come.
Brothers, we live upon the border of eternity. A restless evil threatens our families, our churches, our communities. Enemies fierce and fortified block the way — we are outflanked, outnumbered, outmanned, and even outspecied: “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
But a Leader stands among us, goes with us and before us, one who is strong and has quitted himself most excellently throughout his sojourn on earth. Our Joshua did not enter the promised land; he descended from it. He didn’t simply play the man; he became a man. He didn’t need courage to slay his enemies but patience to keep from destroying his foes prematurely. Our Joshua didn’t have an Abishai to guard his back. When he faced down death, no one came to his rescue. He acted upon God’s promises — but those promises guaranteed God’s wrath and his death.
But then he rose.
We do not just follow the crucified Christ but one resurrected. “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24). One does not arrive at chapter 16 of 1 Corinthians without first passing chapter 15, the great chapter of our King’s resurrection — and ours. Jesus is risen, he is risen indeed! And in him, we will rise too. Is there any army so formidable as one unafraid of death? Who better to play the man than immortal men?
Men, by faith, feel the necks of sin and death and sorrow under your feet, and hear your Lord saying, “Do not be afraid or dismayed; be strong and act like men. For thus the Lord will do to all your enemies against whom you fight” (Joshua 10:25). See him ride upon a white horse, a sword in his mouth, fire in his eyes. Upon his thigh is written, “King of kings and Lord of lords.” Scars upon his hands mark him as the man of war. Surely we can play the man with such a Christ with us. To act like men is to act like him, with him, until we see him face to face.
