As David gets ready to die in 1 Kings 2, the beginning verses as he speaks to Solomon stuck out to me.

2 “I am about to go the way of all the earth,” he said. “So be strong, act like a man, 3 and observe what the Lord your God requires: Walk in obedience to him, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and regulations, as written in the Law of Moses. Do this so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go 4 and that the Lord may keep his promise to me: ‘If your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’"

“So be strong, act like a man” – what does that look like? I think this statement connects with the next one. To be strong and act like a man is to observe what the Lord your God requires which is to walk in obedience to him and keep his decrees. Doing those things takes strength because it opposes the way of the world.

I am not a man, but I am raising a young one, and this is what I desire for him. I want him to be strong, that is, to stand firm in faith and not give in to pressures from this world, but to instead walk in obedience to God. I want him to be strong as in to stand up for those who can’t, to defend and protect the weak.

Our culture puts definitions on what it wants men to be like, and that changes throughout time (for example, I read recently that pink used to be a very masculine color in the past), but those things don’t really matter. How they follow God matters. How they care for others matters.

As you continue reading in 1 Kings 2, you see poor examples of men in Adonijah, in Abiathar, in Joab, in Shimei as they tried to usurp the leader God put in place or followed the wrong people or refused to listen. These aren’t poor examples of men in a cultural sense, they are poor examples of men in the sense that they were not walking in obedience to God. They were not being strong/faithful to what they were told, but instead were led astray, or were trying to lead others astray. If we can raise up men who follow God and care for others, we raise up men who are like Jesus and that is the strength that I hope to see.