“Watch, stand firm in the faith, be brave, be strong.” — 1 Corinthians 16:13
One night recently, as I sat in front of my computer and caught up on emails, I was struck by the number and intensity of the threats we face: swine flu and untested vaccine, so-called internment camps set up for those who defy the authorities, government ransoms and handouts, stealthy socialism, and the annulment of our various freedoms one by one. There are so many problems on the spiritual side, such as continual personal and doctrinal disagreements, fragmentation of church groups, and prayer requests of all kinds. Seeing it all, I wanted to get into a bathtub and put a mattress over my head!
God says through the apostle Paul:
No temptation has been presented that is too hard for flesh and blood to bear. But God can be trusted not to let him suffer any temptation beyond his ability to resist. He will see to it that every temptation has its way out, so that you will be able to bear it. (I Corinthians 10:13; J. B. Phillips translation)
God always supplies. He is faithful. God, at all times, will play his part, but what about us? What is our part, however small? We cannot control what the government can or cannot do. We cannot control who stays and who leaves in our church groups. Outside of ourselves, we actually control very little, so what is our responsibility here?
Later in his epistle, Paul instructs us: “Watch, stand firm in the faith, be men, be strong. Let all things be done in charity” ( I Corinthians 16:13-14 ; King James Version). Generations ago, “quit you like men” was a phrase frequently heard in English-speaking countries. To modern ears, quitting means “stopping” or “quitting”, but it can also mean “behaving in a specific way”.
The phrase that the King James Version translates as “let yourself be like men”, James Moffatt translates as “play man”; the Revised Standard Version, “be brave”; and The Amplified Bible, “act like men.” Phillips, however, separates verses 13-14 into a paragraph of their own, giving it a subheading that reads, “A little sermon in a nutshell!” He translates the verse as follows: “Be alert, stand firm in the faith, live like men, be strong! May everything you do be done with love.
The Greek word translated “take out like men” is andrizomai, which is used only this once in the Bible. It is an imperative, a command word, and it literally means “be men.”
Be strong
Now women and teens reading this should not give up at this point because Paul is giving instructions here to Christians in general, not just men, as we see in I Corinthians 1:1-2:
Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother. To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all those who in any place invoke the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, our Lord and theirs.
Are you talking only to men here? I do not think so.
At the end of I Corinthians 16, Paul is closing his rather long letter and giving his final exhortation. Right after this “little sermon in a nutshell,” he mentions Aquila and Priscilla in verse 19. This husband-and-wife team is mentioned six times in Paul’s letters, always fondly and always together. They are as one. Thus, right after Pablo tells us to “be men”, he writes warmly about his good friend Priscilla de el.
Lastly, Paul teaches in Galatians 3:28 that there is neither male nor female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus. So if men are to “get in touch with their feminine side,” as we are so often told in today’s feminized society, then the ladies of the church must pay attention, along with men, to how being a man it is necessary for our Christian life!
As many know, the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and later translated into other languages. The Greek translation, called the Septuagint, is one of the oldest, with the oldest parts dating from around 300 BC. The Greek word andrizomai, used only once in the Greek New Testament, appears 25 times in the Septuagint. A few verses from the book of Joshua will show how andrizomai was translated from Hebrew to Greek and then back to English, giving us a better understanding of what Paul is saying in I Corinthians 16:13:
Be strong and in good spirits. . . . Just be strong and very brave. . . . Haven’t I sent you? Be strong and in good spirits. . . Be strong and brave.” (Joshua 1:6-7, 9, 18)
Here, andrizomai is translated as “to be… of good cheer.” A literal interpretation of andrizomai would be, as we saw earlier, “be a man”, “live like a man”, “act like a man” or simply “be a man”; and that is what Paul is saying: Be men. He is writing to a church that lives in the same era as him, speaks the same Greek language, and has the same cultural influences, and could hope that his audience would know what he meant. They certainly did.
But we are almost two millennia away from those days, so the Septuagint is useful. Paul is telling us to have courage. When Paul says, “Be like men,” it is the same as telling us to be brave. Commentator Albert Barnes says in his Notes that Paul means that a man is not “cowardly, or timid, or alarmed by enemies, but bold and courageous.” This applies to all Christians, regardless of age or gender. The idea is summed up in the word “value”.
Spartans and Soldier Dogs
Remember that Paul is giving us a command here, an imperative, but he actually goes further. In I Corinthians 16:13, there are four imperatives in this verse, which in itself are only six words in the original Greek: 1) watch, 2) stand firm in the faith, 3) be (courageous) men, and 4) be strong.
The word watch means “keep awake, watch, watch.” For us, that means keeping an eye on the world around us and, more importantly, paying attention to our spiritual condition. To remain firm in the faith means “to be stationary (anchored), to persevere, to be convinced of our beliefs”. As we have seen, to be men is to “be brave”, but not so much in the physical sense as in the convictions of our spiritual life. Finally, being strong implies “growing in vigor, becoming strong, increasing in faith”.
We can see these four imperatives in military terms, and Paul uses those terms quite often in his epistles. Living in the days of Roman rule, he commonly saw Roman legions on his travels. His audience, who also lived within the Empire, were quite familiar with the soldiers and their duties.
We can imagine a sentinel on duty, attentive, peering out into the night, listening intently for any strange noise. He has to fight the dream so that the enemy does not sneak up on him and kill him, opening up the camp to attack. We can see how this applies to the Christian life.
The other imperatives—to stand firm in the faith, to be strong, and to live as men—are also better understood as military imagery. Many are familiar with the story of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. C., when King Leonidas of Sparta and his 300 Spartans, together with 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans and perhaps a few hundred others, fought to the death against the army of a million men. Persian emperor Xerxes. King Leonidas and his men knew they would die; they knew the odds were overwhelmingly against them. But they felt compelled to try to stop the enemy and save their country.
Indeed, this sums up these four imperatives!
As amazing as that example is, we should boil it down to a more personal level: to an army of one. Outnumbered as they were, the Spartans and their allies still had other warriors fighting with them on either side, at least to the end. What if we were absolutely alone?
The Cheyenne Indians of the 19th century, who lived on the Great Plains of the United States, had six warrior societies. Perhaps the largest of these was known as the Soldier Dogs. The English journalist Henry Stanley, seeing them, described the Dog Soldiers as the “Spartans of the plains”. Each wore a sash around the waist, called a dog rope, with a pin at the end. This pin was a pointed stake, usually attached to the end of a rope, which could be driven into the ground to tether a horse, which could then graze but not move away.
In the case of the Soldier Dogs,
the pin stuck in the ground as a sign of determination in combat. When a Dog Soldier was staked to the ground to cover the retreat of his companions, he was required to remain there even if the consequence was death. Dog Man could only pull the pin out of the ground if his companions got to safety or another Dog Soldier relieved him of his duty. (Richard S. Grimes, “Cheyenne Dog Soldiers,” http://www.manataka.org/page164.html ).
This is an excellent example of vigilance, firmness, as well as being strong and brave. Try to imagine yourself being a Dog Soldier. The tribe is under attack by a powerful enemy and the battle has turned against them. Everyone must flee to preserve their lives and the lives of their loved ones, but the enemy presses on the fight, eager to wipe out all men, women and children. So, despite standing alone against hundreds, perhaps thousands, we turn to face the adversary, uncoil our dog rope and drive our pin into the ground, prepared at least to delay the enemy so others can escape. The hope is to slow down the enemy for as long as possible, if only for a moment or two.
Realistically, what chance do we have? Maybe it would be better to pull the pin or untie the dog’s leash and turn around and run. But we can’t, because we are Soldier Dogs and we had promised to give our lives, if necessary, when we were received into the warrior society. We are convinced of our beliefs.
strong and loving
Sounds familiar? Aren’t we in a similar fight, but spiritual? Are we not facing an adversary who wants to destroy us? Have we not committed to giving our lives, if necessary? Matthew Poole, who published his commentary in 1685, has a good point when he speaks of “leaving like men”:
. . . you are like soldiers who fight against the world, the flesh and the devil; do not behave like children, whom the slightest opposition will terrify and strike down; but as men, with courage and strength…