The Psalmist uses three metaphors to describe God in the opening verse. He is a refuge–a safe place to hide in times of trouble. He is strength–he can do all things, as the people of Israel had just witnessed with the victory of Judah over the Moabites and Amorites as recounted in 2 Chronicles 20. But he is also an ever-present help whenever trouble comes. Unlike the Canaanite deities, YHWH may be “found” in times of trial. He is with us, not far away. He is active, not indifferent. He is the fortress for his people, keeping us safe no matter what the circumstances may be. Although we always need him, he is “found” (“with us”) when we need him most. Because the LORD of Hosts is all of these things, in verses 2-3 the Psalmist affirms, “therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.”

Luther’s Interest in Psalm 46
Most people cannot recite Psalm 46 from memory. But many are so familiar with the words to Martin Luther’s famous hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” that they can sing it without looking at the hymnal. “Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott” is actually Luther’s paraphrase of Psalm 46. This Psalm has several very familiar lines, has been cited by American presidents (most recently by Barak Obama), and portions of it appear in well-known Jewish prayers. Found in Book Two of the Psalter and attributed to the Sons of Korah, it is classified as a “Psalm of Zion.” It contains loud echoes from Psalm 2, where that divine protection promised to the king, is extended to include his capital city (Jerusalem). Charles Spurgeon aptly speaks of the 46th Psalm as “the song of faith in troubled times.”[1] Martin Luther thought this Psalm of such comfort, he put it to verse.
It is important to reflect upon Psalm 46, because we sing this particular Psalm as often as any other–often in the form of Luther’s famous paraphrase. Before we take up the text of the Psalm–where we will find much deep and rich biblical theology–I think it appropriate to consider Luther’s use of this Psalm, then debunk one of the persistent myths surrounding the version of the Psalm which appears in the KJV, and then look at the context in which the Psalm was originally composed. Then, we will look at the text of the Psalm while making various points of application as we go.
As for Luther and “A Mighty Fortress,” although there are many theories about when it was written and for what occasion, Luther’s hymn first appears in a 1531 hymnal which would indicate that Luther wrote it several years earlier, likely in 1527-29. This was ten years or so after his 95 theses were circulated throughout Europe, igniting the theological fire which became the Protestant Reformation. The black plague was especially virulent throughout much of Europe in the winter of 1527, nearly killing Luther’s son. Luther was also a physical wreck during this time (from exhaustion). He began spending much time reading and reflecting upon Psalm 46, especially its promise that God is the bulwark (fortress) who never fails. From Luther’s reflection on that word of comfort, the famous hymn was born.
According to one writer, “many times during this dark and tumultuous period, when terribly discouraged, [Luther] would turn to his co-laborer, Philipp Melanchthon, and say, ‘Come, Philipp, let us sing the forty-sixth Psalm.’”[2] Luther said of this particular Psalm, “we sing this psalm to the praise of God, because He is with us and powerfully and miraculously preserves and defends His church and His word against all fanatical spirits, against the gates of hell, against the implacable hatred of the devil, and against all the assaults of the world, the flesh, and sin.”[3] Because our fathers in the faith were sustained throughout their trials by their knowledge and love of the Psalter, we would be foolish to ignore their wise counsel, and the faithful example they have set before us.
A Persistent Rumor
One persistent rumor which needs to be debunked is that William Shakespeare helped prepare the translation of this Psalm which appears in the King James Version of the Bible. As the spurious theory goes, the 46th word of the Psalm is “shake,” while the 46th word from the end of the Psalm is “spear.” Furthermore, the bard was forty-six years old in 1611 when the translation of the KJV was completed. Unfortunately, the only way this will work is if you do not count the word “selah” which appears in three places in the Psalm. Selah is an indication to the musicians that this is a place to pause. No doubt, there are some interesting coincidences here. But then, it is a shame that people are so preoccupied with interesting coincidences, because, apparently, coincidences are far more intriguing than making an effort to understand how this particular Psalm speaks of Jesus Christ.
The Songs of Zion
As for the background to the Psalm itself, this Psalm (along with a number others) is usually classified as a “Song of Zion.” The Zion Songs are identified as such because these Psalms proclaim the excellencies of Zion (the mountain upon which Jerusalem and the temple are located), which is the apple of YHWH’s eye. In these Psalms YHWH is depicted as the great warrior-king who protects his own as he advances his kingdom. These Psalms are also polemical–they are a response to Canaanite polytheism. In contrast, the Songs of Zion proclaim that YHWH alone is God, and it is he who made the mountains where the Canaanites foolishly believed their “gods” dwelt.
But the Zion motif is not just limited to the physical mountain upon which the city of Jerusalem happens to sit. Zion is the very symbol of God’s kingdom on earth, a kingdom which has a visible expression in the city of Jerusalem and in its temple. Yet the people of Israel also know that YHWH’s kingdom extends beyond Zion to the ends of the earth. In the Zion Songs, it is YHWH who protects the earthly Zion, and its people, and its ruler. It is YHWH who provides for his people–especially during their trials. It is YHWH who blesses them, when (in faith), they obey his covenant. And it is YHWH who will bring down the covenant curses upon Israel when they disobey him. The citizens of spiritual Zion trust in YHWH’s promise. They delight in his presence. They seek to honor him through living lives of gratitude–loving him and neighbor. And they believe that YHWH will see them through the worst of times and trials, which is why they both praise him and call upon his name in these songs.[4]
It is in this sense then that Zion is the center of Israelite life, and why the earthly mount Zion and city of Jerusalem, points beyond the city and the temple to the new Jerusalem and the heavenly city. At this point in redemptive history, Zion is the holy mount where YHWH chooses to be present with his people. He delights when his people acknowledge him as the true and living God. All of this points ahead to the coming of Jesus Christ who is the true temple, and the true Israel, and in whom and through whom the kingdom of God is realized in the new covenant era.
As the author of Hebrews tells Christian worshipers in Hebrews 12:22-24,

“but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”

When we assemble for worship, we do so as citizens of the heavenly Zion, the city of the living God, whose inhabitants have been made perfect by the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. We too sing the “Songs of Zion,” but we sing them in reference to God’s kingdom and to the covenant mediator, Jesus.
The Historical Background to the Psalm’s Composition
The historical situation behind the composition of this Psalm is likely the events recounted in 2 Chronicles 20, when YHWH defeats the tribe of Judah’s enemies while the people uncharacteristically pray and wait for YHWH to act on their behalf–which he does.[5] According to verses 4 and following of 2 Chronicles 20,

“and Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord. And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said, ‘O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying, ‘If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you—for your name is in this house—and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’”

In verse 22, the Chronicler tells us that YHWH brought about Judah’s successful ambush of their enemies and as a consequence,

“Judah came to the watchtower of the wilderness, they looked toward the horde, and behold, there were dead bodies lying on the ground; none had escaped. When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take their spoil, they found among them, in great numbers, goods, clothing, and precious things, which they took for themselves until they could carry no more. They were three days in taking the spoil, it was so much.”

Having witnessed YHWH thoroughly defeat their vastly superior enemy and protect his city, the Sons of Korah composed this song of triumphal victory. They directed the choirmaster to use the 46th Psalm on a special occasion–most likely during times of crisis.[6]
The Structure of the Psalm
The 46th Psalm is divided into three stanzas, each marked off by “selah” (pause). The first stanza (vv. 1-3) reminds us of God’s power over nature, while the second stanza (vv. 4-7) describes YHWH’s power in defending his holy city from all attackers.
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Churchgoing exposes men to messages telling them the family was created by God—it is not some evolutionary accident. Church tells men that they are accountable before God for how they treat their family….The bottom line is that Christians have a practical answer to resolving the war between men and women—one that has stood up to empirical testing. We should be bold about bringing it into the public square as a solution to the charge of toxic masculinity. 

It’s no secret that the public rhetoric against men has grown increasingly harsh and bitter. Even some men have taken to maligning their own sex: “Women Have a Right to Hate Men,” wrote blogger Anthony James Williams. “Talking about ‘healthy masculinity’ is like talking about ‘healthy cancer,’” said John Stoltenberg, author of Refusing to Be a Man. “Testosterone is the problem….Women should be in charge of everything,” tweeted the bestselling science fiction writer Hugh Howey. Testosterone is “a toxin that you have to slowly work out of your system,” said James Cameron, director of the movie Avatar.
The negative rhetoric is causing younger men to feel especially defensive and defeated. In the Wall Street Journal, Erica Komisar writes, “In my practice as a psychotherapist, I’ve seen an increase of depression in young men who feel emasculated in a society that is hostile to masculinity.” A survey of male teens and young adults found that a full 50 percent agree with the statement, “Feminism has gone too far and makes it harder for men to succeed.”
How can Christians create a balanced view that stands against the outright male-bashing that is so common, yet also holds men responsible to a higher standard? To answer that question, we need to dig into the history of the idea that masculinity is toxic. It turns out that its roots go back much further than you might think. We will be able to counter it effectively only if we ask where it came from and how it developed.
Man of the House
Through most of human history, most people lived on family farms or in peasant villages—including the colonial era here in America. Productive work was done in the home or its outbuildings. As a result, work was not a matter of the father’s job; it was the family industry. A household was a semi-independent economic unit, often including members of the extended family, apprentices, servants, hired hands, and (mostly in the South) slaves. Often the living quarters were in one part of the house, with offices, workshops, or stores in another part of the same house.
The fact that economically productive work was performed in the home meant that both parents could be involved in rearing children. Women were responsible for a wide range of productive activities, from spinning wool to canning food to making candles. In addition, writes sociologist Alice Rossi, for a colonial woman, marriage “meant to become a co-worker beside a husband . . . learning new skills in butchering, silversmith work, printing, or upholstering—whatever special skills the husband’s work required.”
For men, being a father was not a separate activity that you came home to after clocking out at work. With a few exceptions (like soldiers and sailors), fathers were a visible presence in the home, day in and day out. They introduced their children to the world of work, training them to work alongside them. Historians who have researched the literature on parenting—such as sermons and child-rearing manuals—have found that they were not addressed to mothers, as most are today. Instead, they were typically addressed to fathers.
Today we talk about housewives, but in the colonial era, heads of household were sometimes called housefathers. Historian John Gillis writes, “Not only artisans and farmers but also business and professional men conducted much of their work in the house, assisted by their wives and children.” Surprising as it sounds, Gillis says, men
were as comfortable in the kitchen as women, for they had responsibility for provisioning and managing the house. Cookbooks and domestic conduct books were directed primarily to them [men] and they were as devoted to décor as they were to hospitality.
In their day-to-day life, colonial fathers may have been closer to the Reformation than to us today. Martin Luther once said, “When a father washes diapers and performs some other mean task for his child, and someone ridicules him as an effeminate fool,” he should remember that “God with all his angels and creatures is smiling.”
Common Good Authority
All this did not diminish the concept of a father’s authority in the home. Yet the colonists held a very definite meaning of authority. They were influenced by classical republicanism, a political theory modeled on the classical thinkers of ancient Greece and Rome. They regarded social institutions as organic structures ordered toward a common good. In this theory, the person in authority was the one who had responsibility for the common good.
What does the term common good mean? A social institution—whether a marriage, family, church, school, or state—was regarded as an organic unity, something beyond the individuals involved. You can sense what that means when you hear people say, “There’s me, and there’s you, and there’s our relationship.” Sometimes people say, “We need to work on our relationship.” They sense that there is a third entity beyond the individuals. What is good for the relationship itself is the common good.
Now, this creates a problem. Everyone naturally pursues his own individual good—I look out for what’s best for me; you look out for what’s best for you. But who looks out for the common good?
That’s what authority was for. A position of authority was an “office,” and the person in that office was called to sacrifice his own individual interests and ambitions for the interests of the whole—to pursue the common good. Thus, in early America, a man was expected to fulfill himself not so much through personal success as through serving what was called the “publick good.” Virtue itself, writes UCLA historian Ruth Bloch, was defined as the willingness “to sacrifice individual interests for the common good.”
A New Script
How did Americans lose this concept of masculine virtue? The change began as far back as the industrial revolution. Its main impact was to take work out of the home. That may seem like a simple change—in the physical location of work—but it had enormous social consequences.
Men had little choice but to follow their work out of households and fields into factories and offices. Husband and wife no longer worked side by side. Historian Pat Hudson says, “The decline of family and domestic industry shattered the interdependent relationship between husband and wife.”
It also became difficult for fathers to continue anything like their traditional paternal role. They simply no longer spent enough time with their children to educate them or enforce regular discipline or train them in adult skills and trades. Again, the evidence for this is in the child-rearing manuals of the day. The most striking feature in the mid-nineteenth century is the disappearance of references to fathers. For the first time, we find sermons, pamphlets, and books on child-rearing addressed exclusively to mothers.
The world of industrial capitalism itself also fostered a new definition of masculinity. For the first time, men were not spending most of the day with their wives and children—people they loved and had a moral bond with. Instead, they were working as individuals in competition with other men.
The social script for men began to change. To survive in the new commercialized workplace, it seemed necessary for men to become more ambitious and self-assertive, to look out for number one. People began to protest that men were growing self-interested, ego-driven, and acquisitive. The rhetoric around masculinity began to focus on traits that people both then and now regard in a negative light.
Mushroom Men
In political theory, there was a corresponding shift from the household as the basic unit of society to the individual. Recall that classical republicanism rested on the idea of organic communities—that there was a common good for marriage, family, church, or state.
That organic view gave way to modern liberalism, which took its model from physics. The apex of the scientific revolution was Newtonian physics, which pictured the material world as so many atoms bumping around in the void, driven by natural forces. The same metaphor was applied to the social world.
Social philosophers constructed what they actually called a “social physics.” Civil society was pictured as a collection of human atoms—independent, disconnected individuals—who come together only out of self-interest. Political theory was no longer animated by a moral vision of the common good.
This was called social contract theory. For example, Thomas Hobbes proposed that society was nothing but an aggregate of individuals not bound by any moral obligations. In his words, we should “look at men as if they had just emerged from the earth like mushrooms and grown up without any obligation to each other.”
How did this political philosophy affect Americans’ view of masculinity? If there was no common good, then a man’s duty could no longer be defined as responsibility for protecting the common good. Men were set free to pursue self-interest.
The Naked Public Square
During the same time period, the public realm was being secularized, which further undercut the ideal of the common good. In Be a Man! historian Peter Stearns explains: “Exposed to a competitive, acquisitive economic world and, often, to a secular education, many men lost an active religious sense.”
And as men lost that “active religious sense,” they began to say that morality had no place in the realm of politics, business, and industry—that the public sphere should be secular and value-free. What did that mean for values? You were supposed to leave them behind in the private sphere. You were not to bring your private values into the public world.
The upshot is that men were no longer expected to practice self-sacrifice for the common good. They were expected to practice self-assertion for their own advancement. The male character was redefined as coarse, pragmatic, and morally insensitive. Western culture began expecting less of men—lowering the bar on what it means to be a man.
The Doctrine of Separate Spheres
Of course, people still desperately wanted to maintain values—things like kindness, affection, altruism, self-sacrifice, piety, and religious devotion. And if there was no place for them in the public sphere, where would they be cultivated?
In the private sphere. And who would be responsible for cultivating them? Women. Women were called on to cultivate the values that had been stripped from the value-free public arena. They were to maintain the home as a private haven where men could be renewed, reformed, and refined.
In the nineteenth century, a sharp dichotomy was drawn between the public and private realms. This was called the doctrine of separate spheres. And it functioned as the main coping mechanism to protect the values that were being endangered as society was secularized. As one nineteenth-century advice book put it, “The world corrupts, home should refine.” A social psychologist at MIT, Kenneth Keniston, summarizes in these words:
The family became a special protected place, the repository of tender, pure, and generous feelings (embodied in the mother) and a bulwark and bastion against the raw, competitive, aggressive, and selfish world of commerce (embodied by the father).
This was a dramatic reversal. In colonial days, husbands and fathers had been admonished to be the moral and spiritual leaders of the household. But now men were being told that they were naturally crude and brutish—and that they needed to learn virtue from their wives.
And a surprisingly large number of men accepted that message. During the Civil War, the young Ulysses S. Grant wrote to his sweetheart Julia, “If I feel tempted to anything I now think is not right, I ask myself, ‘If Julia saw me, would I do so?’ And thus it is, absent or present, I am more or less governed by what I think is your will.”
On the other side of the Mason-Dixon line, the Confederate general William Pender wrote to his wife, “I have almost come to feel that you are a part of my religion. Whenever I find my mind wandering upon bad and sinful thoughts, I try to think of my good and pure wife and they leave me at once^You are truly my good Angel.”
Demoralized Men
This is the origin of the double standard—the idea that women naturally have a greater moral sensitivity. On one hand, this served to empower women. There had never been a time before in all of history when women were considered morally superior to men. This was something completely new.
From the time of the ancient Greeks, people thought knowing right from wrong was a rational insight, that men were more rational, and that, therefore, men were more virtuous than women. The word virtue comes from the Latin root vir, which means man, and the term originally had connotations of manly strength and honor.
But as the public sphere was secularized, for the first time in history, women were said to be morally superior to men (especially in regard to things like sex and alcohol). They were called upon to be the moral guardians of society.
Yet there was an underlying dynamic in all this that was very troubling. In essence, America was releasing men from the responsibility to be virtuous. For the first time in history, moral and spiritual leadership were no longer viewed as masculine attributes.
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Written by T. M. Suffield |
Saturday, July 13, 2024
We should be expecting our faith to touch and change every aspect of our lives. We should expect the Bible to provide wisdom for every decision we’re making, even if this is often more about developing wise lives and minds so that we can make godly decisions. Which means that our Christian formation should touch all of life. 

I’ve claimed the UK church is in a discipleship crisis, taking in our lives, our communities, and our minds. What does the first one of those look like?
When you stick ‘-ship’ on the end of something you end up systematising a phenomenon and developing a ‘science’ (in the sense of a body of knowledge). We see this in ‘leadership’ for example. A similar thing has happened with ‘discipleship.’
Is it good and right that some people talk about how we learn to follow Jesus? Yes. That’s what I’m doing after all, I’m sketching the contours of ‘discipleship.’ But, it isn’t a ‘thing’ we do as though we added it onto the rest of our life. It is life.
To use a less familiar term to help us think about these things together, I tend to call discipleship ‘Christian formation.’ The point is to be formed towards Jesus. The means is the question at hand.
Most of us picture discipleship in a very particular way. In a more cerebral conservative evangelical world that might look like the acquisition of knowledge about the Bible. In my charismatic evangelical world(s) it’s less likely to, even in the more conservative corners. Typically, it tends to involve exploring your heart and emotions and finding idols to rebuke and crush.
Both are good and godly, both are not the whole story. In both settings the most likely context people imagine for discipleship is one-on-one, probably in a coffee shop.
These sorts of conversations are great, they’re key to friendship as well as to receiving wisdom and direction. Though we should remember that male friendship tends to be side-by-side rather than face-to-face. It’s good to read the Bible with a friend, it’s good to talk about your heart. They are not the sum of discipleship. They aren’t really discipleship at all, they’re conversations about discipleship most of the time (this is less true if you just read the Bible together). Following Jesus is what you do the rest of the time.
Our crisis of discipleship is not helped by us thinking that following Jesus is a Christian activity that we add to a life of activities. Formation is just becoming more like Jesus as you live your life. Which is both simpler and much more all-encompassing. The faith touches everything and you can do everything Christianly.
Sometimes this sort of suggestion is mocked by accepting that you can do certain high culture jobs, especially academic ones, in explicitly Christian ways, but how can you sweep the road Christianly? A road is swept, or it isn’t.
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