By Ian Paul, Psephizo. (Image: Wikimedia Creative Commons)
There has been a growing movement claiming that Christianity calls for a certain kind of masculinity, protesting against a perceived feminisation of the faith. Is there any grounds for this? What kind of language do we find in the New Testament?
This article explores the issues around Paul’s language ‘act like men’ in 1 Cor 16.13; digs into its Old Testament origins; relates it to Paul’s other language about discipline and struggle; and teases out the pastoral implications for all of us.
Towards the end of his second letter to the Corinthians, which we have in our New Testament as 1 Corinthians, as Paul wraps up his travel plans and greetings, he gives a short string of commands:
Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love. (1 Cor 16:13–14, NIV)
The words in Paul’s Greek read: grēgoreite, stēkete en tē pistei, andrizesthe, krataiousthe; panta hymōn en agapē ginesthō (γρηγορεῖτε, στήκετε ἐν τῇ πίστει, ἀνδρίζεσθε, κραταιοῦσθε· πάντα ὑμῶν ἐν ἀγάπῃ γινέσθω). (It is worth noting in passing the connections here with the teaching of Jesus. The verb gregoreo is his consistent command in the light of our anticipation of his return at an unknown hour in Matt 24.42, 25.13 and elsewhere, and krateo describes the way Jesus holds the seven starts in Rev 2.1).
The word the NIV translates ‘be courageous’ is the Greek verb andrizomai (ἀνδρίζομαι), here in the plural imperative andrizesthe (ἀνδρίζεσθε). It comes from the word for a man (anēr, andros; ἀνήρ, ἀνδρός), and so older translations rendered it quite literally. The AV has ‘quit you like men’, and the ESV still has ‘act like men’. It is the only time the word occurs in the New Testament—a hapax legomenon, something said only once.
(An earlier verse also used highly gendered language in a similar way—’In understanding be men’, 1 Cor 14.20, KJV—which was then used as the title of a well-known book about Christian doctrine. However, the Greek here is not gendered at all; the term is teleios meaning ‘complete’ or ‘mature’.)
It is not hard to see why the translation matters here. Read in one way, Paul is calling the church to a particular kind of masculinity, and the verse regularly turns up in that context in some circles. Read in another, the gendered root is incidental and the NIV’s ‘be courageous’ captures the sense. How do we decide?
The best way in, dear reader, is to ask where Paul learned the word. The answer lies in the Greek Old Testament he read and preached from, rather than in the gymnasium or the moral philosophers of Greek and Roman culture. Once we look there, the verse opens up in some quite striking ways, both for how we read Paul and for what it means to follow Jesus faithfully now.