Danny's Men's Studies

"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." Matthew 4:19

So, Jesus Christ the Son of God went to the local pier and picked some men to become His disciples. And He made clear of what they need to do (follow Him) and the purpose: to save men [at first I typed "other men" but I changed my mind since even His disciples needed saving]. Not only was He commanding [a true leader], He also knew who He Himself was [someone worthy of imitating] and the goal: saving men. And not just any old "preaching" as we tend to view "evangelism" but Jesus uses the metaphor to fish: to require manly effort to grab and draw in other [like minded?] men.

Let's do a thought experiment:

- Think of a pastor [or reverend or minister or priest] you respect highly.
- Place him [or her, if you insist] as he is normally dressed at a working, busy fishing dock.
- As the fishermen are busy running around the dock unloading their catch, imagine your pastor pointing to a pair of brothers and say "Come, follow me."

The fact is, most pastors today would be ignored if not laughed at. Men of action [unlike people like me who have day jobs in front of a computer] know if a person is respectable or not, and a typical pastor just won't cut it at a busy fishing dock.

Since Jesus Christ was a carpenter for a good 17+ years when He called His disciples, I'll bet He had very muscular build that any fisherman would notice and respect. As the perfect Son of God, I won't be surprised if He did extra work in those 17+ years, not to be more in shape but to help out more people around Him [which resulted in more muscles and possibly more money for His mother's retirement].

The other thing to note is that He called such rough, strong men to reach out to other rough, strong men of the world [not just the Jews]. He didn't turn them into intellectual weaklings. He took them and made them into spiritual [Spirit-filled] strong men.

Which is why I'm so sad to see how the churches have become sissy ones, today. Until men [and their sons] start having tailgating breakfast tacos [or pancakes or whatever else people eat for breakfast outside of Texas] in the church parking lot at least 2 hours before worship service starts, I don't think the churches today understand the problem of sissy churches.... Or men camp out in church parking lot the night before and share their favorite videos of the past sermons [on the truck bed's big screen TV or projector running against the church wall]. And miss out on their Sat/Sun sports TV.

That is, if attending church is more consuming than sports, I think then I can say that the church really gets it...

Update 7/26: A friend pointed out that church does not have to exclude or replace sports and I agree that's true. I always think of Sunday sports competing with Sunday worship but sports can be Christianized, too (grin).

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