I saw this truth play out during a church retreat. To sharpen himself, a man needs to rub shoulders with another man. To sharpen a piece of iron, you don’t rub it against gold or silver-you rub it against another piece of iron. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Second, there is a sharpening that a man can only experience when in the presence and fellowship of other men, particularly his peers (Prov 27:17). It’s for this very reason why, though women may generally yearn for relationships (with other women) more than men do (with other men), men need these relationships just as much, if not more. A man ought not to hide his burdens, but rather cast them on other men as Galatians 6:2 instructs. Simply put, there are burdens in a man’s life that his wife can’t bear without breaking. You don’t put heavy objects atop fragile vessels. Rather, he was speaking of 1 Peter 3:7 and what it means for a man to live with his wife as with a weaker vessel. A professor of biblical counseling at my seminary once said regarding married men, “All of her problems are your problems…but not all of your problems are her problems.” He wasn’t advocating having a secret life. (1) Men Must Bear the Burdens of Other Menįirst, there are burdens in a man’s life that can only be carried by other men (Gal 6:2). Men’s fellowship must be prioritized by all men in the church-whatever the age, demographic, or life stage-because men’s fellowship is vital to a man’s spiritual health. As a man, you can’t be spiritually strong while neglecting the fellowship of other men at the same time. Did not Jesus tell Peter in Luke 22:32 to “strengthen your brothers”? Men who are strong in the faith are men who are strengthened in their faith by fellow brothers in the faith.
Those men who neglect it will be stunted in their growth and risk spiritual downfall. My goal in this article is to confront the notion that men’s fellowship is unimportant. Good-and even encouraging-they’ll say, but not important. But they’ll neglect the regular exercise of men’s fellowship because they don’t think it is important. They’ll drive 500 miles to visit their parents. Men will work rather than go to Sunday service, but they’ll spend thousands of dollars on a family vacation, a new guitar, or an upgraded laptop. And men won’t make time for or spend money on things that they deem unimportant. It’s not that they don’t have the time, it’s that they won’t make the time. I am no longer surprised when I hear a man mention that it had been eighteen months since he’s had a lunch meeting with another man from his church. That’s why it no longer surprises me when men’s fellowship events-men’s breakfasts, men’s barbecues, men’s retreats, men’s discipleship, men’s small groups, men’s Bible studies, men’s outreach events, men’s prayer meetings, men’s anything-are the most sparsely attended events of a particular local church. In my nearly fifteen years in pastoral ministry, it is especially true for those men who are husbands and fathers. And, in my experience, men tend to neglect this kind of fellowship with other men. Practical fellowship is the exercise of positional fellowship between believers.
Practical fellowship is the act of sharing life and ministry between Christians for the cause of the gospel (see Acts 2:42-47 4:32-35). All Christians exist in a state of fellowship with one another as followers of Jesus Christ, ministers of His gospel, and workers of His kingdom. In other words, a man from Youngstown, Ohio who has truly professed Christ as his Lord and Savior has been baptized into the body of Christ and now exists in fellowship with the Christian man from Tenali, India who he has never met and of whose existence he is unaware. Positional fellowship is the state of fellowship that all men who are followers of Christ exist in (1 John 1:7). It was wise, because men have a tendency to neglect fellowship with other men.įor clarity’s sake, we need to make a distinction between positional fellowship and practical fellowship. That Sunday afternoon, she didn’t pray that God would provide me a wife, a church, or a diploma. Instead, without my request, she prayed that God would provide me with a friend: a fellow like-minded brother with the same convictions and same pursuits who would run alongside me as a peer in the race of faith. Nearly twenty years later, I better realize the wisdom in her petition.
For a long time, I’ve wondered why, when I was on the brink of leaving for college nearly twenty years ago, the wife of my Bible study leader prayed for me the way she did during our weekly Bible study.
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