"Treat Christian men like Christian men; expect them to live on Christian principles; and they will strive to walk worthily of their Christian profession." - B.B. Warfield
Christians should be treated like Christians. It should be assumed that they want to do what God has commanded and avoid what God has forbidden. It should also be assumed that Christians are a category of person. One does not cease to be human because they become a new creation. A Christian is reborn, but they are a reborn person. And people fall short. So Christians should be assumed to be struggling with the fleshly desires of their old man and the Spiritual desires of their new birth. Christians by the grace of God and the presence of His Spirit, want to do what God says, but part of them still resists.
Men should be treated like men. It should be assumed that they want to be respected. Men want other people's respect by design, but the desire to be respectable is not always a given. Men want to be honored among men, but they don't always desire to be honorable. In other words, men do not mind being flattered, until they do. At some point, the heart of man cannot be satisfied with empty applause. At some point, a man will want to have earned the credentials he proudly displays.
We need to treat Christian men like Christian men. They should be given high and lofty standards and required to aim for them. Jesus did not come saying, "Be adequate as your Father is adequate," He said, "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." That is the aim of a Christian man, nothing short of divine perfection.
This is not pursued in order to obtain salvation, but in order to prove salvation. This manly effort makes one's calling and election sure and allows the man, in his failures, to rest his head in confidence that he is headed to a place where failure will finally be defeated because it's defeat was declared by Jesus on the Cross when He shouted, "It is finished!"
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