The Proverbs 31... Man?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome back into the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. Will Harab here, joined by Joe and Jack Wilke. Excited to give you guys another episode this week where we are kind of taking the opposite side of the coin from last week. If you did not get a chance to listen, we covered the proverbs 31 woman tried to take it from maybe a different perspective, different breakdown than maybe what's normally presented. We were talking kind of beforehand about how the Proverbs 31 Woman, there's really only a few verses that really get highlighted, you know, about her working hard or whatever. And they're typically used to kind of defend women working outside the home. So we addressed that and why that's not the best interpretation of that. I'd encourage you again, if you haven't listened, to go back and listen. But we're looking at the other side of the coin today, and that is what about the men? What about the man's role? What about the husband? What about the father? What are some things, Proverbs 31 why it's so such an excellent section of scripture to look at from the perspective of women is because there are so many different elements of what it takes to be a godly woman. You do see the hard work. You see the fact that her husband trusts in her, her children and her husband praise her. You see how diligent she is. You see the resourcefulness that she has. Like there's so many, you see. And so we want to look at what about for guys, what about for the men, what about for husbands, what about for fathers? The reason why this is such a passion point for us on this podcast is because we firmly believe if you look around, not just our society, at some of the just off the wall things that are going on, but around the church, and you see the statistical slide in losing young people, you see the weak elderships, you see the, you know, lack of really sound congregations. We do believe a lot, if not most of that can be attributed to poor family structure, poor leadership in the home from the husbands, failure to truly adhere to their roles for the wives. So that's why we talk about this so much, because if we get these things right, husband in his role, wife in her role, children in their role, man, a lot of that stuff is really going to be, from our perspective, straightened out. You're going to have, again, just more solid families, more solid churches, children are going to stay faithful, more solid disciples. And so that's why it's important. It goes without saying. And I'm going To hand it to Jack next, there is Not a Proverbs 32 list of qualifications for men, really in the sense of like an exact inverse section of the Proverbs 31 woman that there is for men. And so we've got several places we're going to go to. We've got several just kind of topics and questions we're going to address here. But I'll hand it over. Jack, I'll start with you for any introductory thoughts. You have to kind of this other side of the coin of the Proverbs [00:02:53] Speaker C: 31 woman discussion, it is interesting that the Bible masculinity is very similar to the problem we have with the Proverbs 31:Woman. People kind of take their modern viewpoint and just cram it into the Bible. Well, clearly that's what it was. And so Jesus was essentially a soft, wimpy guy, like, well, hang on a second. He was a mama's boy, a nice guy kind of thing. No, he wasn't. And really masculinity throughout the Bible. And if a guy actually was outwardly masculine, well, that was a bad thing. And so in the same sense of the Proverbs 31 woman like, no, no, we've got to drop our cultural conception of these things and get back to kind of creation order, which is a really important way to do it. And then the Bible builds on that, on nature and how the Bible makes your nature better, but it doesn't completely make it something different. So the Proverbs 30:1 woman acknowledges that, as we talked about last week with the roles and the husband, the wife, everything going on there. Well, the same thing with the man. You're still very much a man. You're not a human male, you're a man. And there's a Godly biblical way to be, one that doesn't require us to basically take out all of the wiring God gave us. [00:04:09] Speaker A: Yeah. From an introductory standpoint, I'm excited for this one just because there's a lot we, you know, we did not pull our punches. We didn't pull back on or hold back on last week's episode about Proverbs 31. We feel the same way about men. We get that a lot of guys are misogynists or whatever, and do you even like women and your poor wives? And we get comments like that, like, we're just as hard on the guys. There's so many things that I think we could be stepping into. But what we're used to in the culture is be really hard on the guys, which unfortunately I think has led toward guys disengaging from church because everything is their problem and the women are perfect and we hold them up and it's, you know, we praise them and that's great. And the guys get none of that. I think that's off. And so we'll be just as hard on both of them to say, no, there's things we could be doing better. And to not Jack to your point, to allow the culture in. Here's my question for you guys. Will you kind of talk about this? Like the Proverbs 31 gives us a list to some degree, it kind of idealizes or gives us an ideal of a woman, of a homemaker, of a woman that is clearly in charge of her domain. Why don't we have a biblical list for men? That's just a nice clean 20 verse breakdown. Because we're going to get into it. There are certain passages we can go to. Of course, the elders qualifications Timothy 2 Will you had brought in, which I think is a great one. So there are passages we can go to, there are principles we can extrapolate, but there is not a clean like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom the same way there is with Proverbs 31. Why do you think that is? [00:05:39] Speaker B: It's interesting. Yeah, like you said, Joe, I do think we get a pretty clear picture later on in the New Testament. But Old Testament specific, there is no. Yeah, 20 verse breakdown. Here's what it looks like. My answer is partially that pretty much all of Proverbs I feel like is slanted in that direction. Obviously proverbs absolutely applies to women as well. But you look at so many of the sections where it's like, my son do this, my son do that, my son hear the instruction. And it talks about hard work and avoiding the adulterous woman and keeping your marriage pure. And like it's kind of written to men, like there's a slant towards men there. And so that would be kind of the first thing that comes to mind for me. I know we kind of threw this question out right before we turned the mics on for recording. And so I haven't had a ton of time to just marinate on that question. I think it's a great question. I do think the majority of proverbs could serve as that. And there's a lot, again, there's a lot in there about working hard and acknowledging God as your father, submitting to him. And so that would kind of be the first thing that comes to mind is yeah, no, there's not a one chapter or 12 verses, clean cut. But we also do kind of get a whole book where, I mean, those are the things that I want to teach my son. I want to teach my daughter as well. But again, Proverbs 5 about avoiding the. Once again, the seductress, the harlot woman, essentially, that's slanted towards men. So that's kind of the first thing that comes to mind. Jack, what thoughts do you have to that question? [00:07:08] Speaker C: I agree with that. That really is the bend of Proverbs. And my son be this kind of guy. And at the end, hey, look for this. And it's King Lemuel that writes the last chapter to his son. And the first part is about being a king and the ways of kings. And then also, hey, go find you a really good wife, because it's important. But there's another way you can look at Proverbs. If you look in the first chapter, you have wisdom personified as a woman. And you're supposed to pursue her and you're supposed to listen to her and go her direction that she's crying out in the streets. And who's gonna listen to her? Who's gonna give her attention? And then, as Will said, you've also got the wicked woman. Like, she's calling you this way, and the wise woman's calling you this way. And go the way of this woman. That's how the book starts. And then the book ends with, hey, here's an excellent wife that you want to try to find. And in both senses, it's go find this young man, focus on the right woman, and go find her, whether as a wife or as wisdom in general. And so, yeah, Proverbs bends itself toward all of the things that a man needs to do. And one of those is find you a good woman, find a woman who is going to be a help, find a woman who gets it, and what a blessing she is. And so I agree with that. And we can get into a little bit more of some of the things Proverbs goes toward. But yeah, it's not, as Will said, not strictly a masculine book, but you do have to view it through the eyes of a guy teaching his son, this is the good life. [00:08:26] Speaker B: Joe, what thoughts would you add to that? [00:08:27] Speaker A: I think that's a great point. I just think there's. It's so all encompassing. You know, there's. There's a. And I'm not saying that you can relegate a woman's role just to that. I mean, there women do a lot, obviously, but as far as it goes with being a help meet and why God created them, that's a really good breakdown. Whereas for the man, I was just sending a Twitter post to your guys' way where a guy wrote an article with 75 his map of masculinity and it's like 75 different things that he needs to be focused on, needs to be working on. And it's a lot, you know, and it's tough to get that all in one place. And so I think it's. [00:09:03] Speaker B: You're. [00:09:04] Speaker A: You're intended to look at the overall picture. I think you guys are right that Proverbs really lays a lot of that out. But you're tending to look at the overall picture of things and you know, to really make. To build out what a man should look like. Because men also need to adapt. They need to look different in different places, that there's times where Jesus is flipping tables and there's times where he's calling the children unto him. And so there's a level of adaptation and there is to women as well, but I don't think to the same degree as there is with men. So I don't know. It's an interesting. [00:09:34] Speaker B: I'm sorry, Joe, I was just going to say sorry to cut you off. You also see so many more examples, and specifically, since we're talking about the Old Testament of kind of biblical examples of masculinity, either good or for good or for bad. You know, you see really positive ones with Abraham, really positive ones with Joshua comes to mind. Obviously. Joseph, just a stellar guy, stellar example of masculinity. But you also see the negative side of things as well. David has his share of rough moments, Samson has his share of rough moments. And so, you know, we kind of, in addition to proverbs, get those narrative, the narrative side of the Bible that kind of shows us, you know, again, what biblical versions of masculinity is. Those examples are few and far between for women. And so that's where that Proverbs 31 section comes in handy as well. So sorry to cut you off, but I wanted to kind of add that about you. You see all those examples of men in the Old Testament that you can draw from either positive or negative. [00:10:29] Speaker A: Well, we're talking about Proverbs and I do think that that's such a great breakdown. But there's multiple principles that are worthy of looking at in Proverbs. Jack, you actually put together this list of just throwing some things down, what all is covered in Proverbs as it pertains to masculinity as it's leading toward this ideal woman in Proverbs 31? I'm not saying that's the culmination of the book or any of those things, but I do think that, yeah, starting with wisdom as a woman and ending with, you know, this. This wise woman at the end in Proverbs 31, there's. There's a level of that that, you know, it makes sense that there's kind of bookends, but it is written to men with the idea or idealized version of life in mind for a man, like, avoid these certain things and pursue these things and be wise and receive wise counsel. So, fellas, as we jump into it, what would you say is maybe the first element of masculinity that we see in the book of Proverbs? We're going to get to, once again, elder qualifications, things like that. But Proverbs is a great place to start. I think this is the. Yeah, because there's so many really good principles of masculinity. What would you guys say is the first. [00:11:32] Speaker C: I'm gonna go back to the start where I was talking about pursuing wisdom, and I didn't have this on the list. Even teachability, that takes humility. That takes a willingness to say, you know what? I've got some things I can learn. People might know things I don't know. For men, this is the classic trope of men don't like to stop and ask for directions. Men don't like to look at the instructions when they're building the IKEA thing or whatever. I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing. Sometimes that hubris can carry you a little ways. Other times, it's going to get you in trouble. And I've run into this. I've had guys in church say, nobody's going to tell me what to do. God is. And if God tells you that through somebody preaching the word, you better be ready to sit and listen. And I think for a lot of men, that's looked at as weakness. Like, I need to know I needed. That's stupidity, honestly. But it's very. I mean, it's right at the front of Proverbs. It starts off, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That's acknowledging I'm not God and I can be taught something. [00:12:34] Speaker B: And it's, you know, my son, don't forget my law. Like, he's not giving him suggestions. He's not giving him, hey, you know, your life might turn out okay if you do these things, it's like, no, this is basically, you know, Proverbs 3. One is where my. Where I've got my Bible open to my son. Do not forget my law. Let your heart keep my commands. Like, these are things that once again, are viewed as absolutely imperative to being a godly man, being a godly masculinity. Jack, I think your point is very good about teachability in the sense that I think there's a insecurity that can kind of surface when it's like, for the simple, you know, the asking for directions, looking at the instructions thing, you know, that's kind of a. Maybe more on the minor scale, I think, you know, maybe reveals some insecurity of like, oh, I don't fully know what I'm doing and I need some help and all those things from a biblical perspective to apply it more to the major scale. It is kind of one of those things that guys don't like to admit. Yeah, I don't fully know how to be the best husband. I don't fully know how to be the best dad. I don't have all the answers. I don't like. That is kind of a naturally inherently man thing to want to just kind of figure it out all on their own. But I guess I'll zero in on that word insecurity. Like, you have to have the security within yourself to realize, hey, this, there's maybe there's a man in the church that has got 30, 40 years more of experience than me, has raised faithful kids. I would love to find. I'd love to find out what he has to say. I'd love to sit at his feet for an hour or two. And there's, you know, that word coachability. They say that the best athletes of all time are the ones that were coachable. And these are. And talk about talented. Like, these guys are the cream of the crop from a talent level, and yet they're coachable. They didn't come in and basically say, you know what, I've got this, I'm good to go. No, there was a coachability there. And so the teachability, I love that point. But guys have to get past the insecurity of, you know, maybe something gets revealed that either they didn't know or, you know, they need to improve upon. If you have that insecurity in place, you're not going to be very teachable. [00:14:36] Speaker A: First 22 says, make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding. For if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for Understanding. If you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. So as you talk about wisdom. [00:14:51] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:14:52] Speaker A: And so when it starts there, I think it's really important for the humility to be present. I think it's really important for a self awareness to be present of knowing your own limitations, knowing where you're not good. As a man. You see this in the home where guys are afraid to go up against their limitations. They know they're not as spiritual as they should be. They know that they're not. That they're deficient in child rearing. They know they're deficient in certain things. Even around the, you know, maybe working around the house and being good with their hands, whatever it may be. And instead of going, man, I really could use to learn a few things, it becomes the chip on their shoulder and they almost rage against that and push away from those things like, oh, I don't really need that like you do. So this is the teachability, this is inclining your heart toward wisdom and understanding. And I think that's key. But on the other half of this, it's easy for a man to be constantly learning. And I've noticed this in myself where we're just talking about it off air of my Twitter or X bookmarks, man, I got some of the coolest things. And so you go and bookmark, oh, that's so good, that's so good. And you learn and you learn and you learn and you try to acquire wisdom. Never doing, yeah, get off your end and go do it. And that's the second thing I'd say that in Proverbs is just hard work. Hard work is befitting of a man. It is a huge characteristic for a man where you're not just the dreamer, you're not just the learner, the guy that's always taking instruction. At some point it's your turn to turn around and put it to work, hard work. And consider the ant, right as he talks about. And the way that the ant is always working. There's so many things against the sloth, as is mentioned. I think that's the only book of the Bible that mentions slothfulness, I think. And so, you know, just that phrasing I think is always funny to think about a sloth and slow moving and things like that. So yeah, it's important to be open to wisdom and understanding, to learning things. But at some point you just got to get to work and Hard work is a key piece of being a man. [00:16:41] Speaker B: Just to add a few. I mean, we could have picked from, I don't know, 300 different verses in Proverbs about hard work. And a couple that I've got down. Proverbs 12:11. He who tills his land will be satisfied with bread. But he who follows frivolity is devoid of understanding. Same chapter, verse 27. The lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting, but diligence is man's precious possession. And then 14, verse 23. In all labor there is profit, but idle chatter leads only to poverty. I've got two kind of points I want to go off on for. For these just again, kind of a couple that I wrote down before handing it back to Jack. I think it is so critically important to teach your boys at a very, very young age that, hey, work, what we do. Work is not something that. Oh, man, you know, it's just something that, man, we're gonna have to do the fun stuff after we work. So let's get through the work real fast. We can do all the fun stuff. No, work is part of being a man. Teach Jackson this, you know, at a young age, you know, dada, why do you have to go to work? Because that's what men do. That's what we do. And he, my grand. My grandfather, his grandfather, Rachel's dad is retired and, you know, has talked to Jackson about, you know, he, you know, he gets stoned because he's retired. And Jackson asked me, well, dad, why don't you just retire like, like pappy, like. Well, son, I would if I could, but I can't. But the hard work teaching them from a young age is so critical. Again, four or five years old, are they doing chores around the house? Are they making their bed? Are they keeping their room clean? That's something, you know, again, for a four and five year old, making sure he knows, hey, your life is not all about fun. It is about, you know, there is work that must be done. One of the coolest things that I get to see every single week at Chick Fil A, and I know Chick Fil A is kind of. Kind of a magnet for young people like this, but man, our demographic of employees is primarily made up of between 15 and 18 year olds. And they are some of the hardest workers, you know, that you. It's so cool to see young people who have clearly been like. And you can spot it too. You can spot the ones who clearly have been taught from a young age, hey, working hard is what we do. We work hard, we give a full effort like those, those people really, really stick out. And it's so important. Again, start at an early age. Don't start when they're 14. Like, all right, now let's talk about hard work. No, they need to start when it's younger. The second point. [00:18:56] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:18:57] Speaker B: And then, Jack, it's all yours. Proverbs does also does not hold back about, hey, wealth and profit and good riches and good things that come from hard work are not evil. That's not really the point of this podcast. But you know, in the verse that I read about, you know, hard work leading to in all labor there's profit. We need to make sure that we teach our boys as well, hey, hard work, hard work is what matters. But yeah, there should be profit from that. You should, you know, seek to, you know, make sure that your family is provided for. And essentially, like the good rewards and the good privileges that come from working hard are not bad. That is also very evident in Proverbs. So those are kind of the two things I wanted to bring up there about the starting young and then the profit that comes from it. [00:19:43] Speaker C: Hey, folks, once again, I want to tell you about a book from our friends over at Cobb Publishing. After the water dries, you've been baptized, your sins washed away. And now you may wonder what next. In the brand new book, after the Water Dries, Joshua Houston shows you how to get a jump start to your Christian growth. This little book is designed to help you in your new walk with Jesus. It will help you understand what happened when you were baptized. It will help you keep from becoming a spiritual zombie. It will help you wear the right spiritual clothing, walk the right path and have the confidence in your salvation. If you've ever wanted something to give to new converts to help them, this is the book for you. If you felt like you're in a rut as a Christian, after the Water Dries will give you great encouragement to remember what you received from Jesus and spur you to get back to living for him. Get after the water [email protected] yeah, it's not just work for worksig, but being useful is an important thing for being a man. And women are always going to be useful. The idea that, yeah, you need to be needed. The idea that you're the guy who can do X, Y or Z, that's really cool that your work precedes you. Your work goes along with your name. And that's something that I think comes along with the ideas here in Proverbs. And that's not obviously the Proverbs 31 woman, as we talked about, work was a big part of her life. But for the man, it takes on a different angle of having a little bit of expertise and taking pride in the fact that, yeah, I'm the guy who can do this, that or the other thing. And it's really cool when you see somebody develop, you know, make it a craft. And so it's not just, yeah, I have to work because I'm a man, but like, I want to be good at something. I want to provide value for people and that kind of thing. And so that is a big part of this here in Proverbs is be the kind of guy that gets stuff done. Be the kind of guy who is known for the quality of the work that you do. And that's a very, a very Christian approach to it is good. Where, I mean, that's something you kind of see around the world. Quality of work isn't exactly valued as much, but also the honesty, the integrity of man. This guy is really gonna get the job done. You think about, like, what the Amish are known for. Why do people go buy Amish furniture? Because they work hard and they make a quality product. Well, that's great. I mean, that's the kind of work we're talking about for men here in Proverbs. So that's a big part of it. The other side of that coin, you brought up sloth. There's a lot of different ways you can go with self discipline. There are a million things you can be conquered by as a man. And it might be laziness. It might be just doing the bare minimum. It could be hobbies, it could be outright sins like drunkenness and, or porn, or the sexual sins, that kind of thing. All of them bad. It could be food, it could be not being active, things like that. And some of those we're strong on, obviously, some of those everybody will condemn. Other ones we joke about, we give it a pass. We give the laziness a pass. We give the lack of discipline with your health a pass. And we joke about, yeah, you know, here I just randomly found myself in the McDonald's drive thru again and you know, like, oh, what are you gonna do? And I see memes about this kind of thing and, and the jokes and why, why are we like that? And I think this is a problem. I mean, all right, here's where you get in trouble. Any Christian conference you go to, take a look around the room and tell me if this is a Problem? [00:23:11] Speaker A: Yeah, you're not wrong. [00:23:13] Speaker B: Definitely is. [00:23:14] Speaker A: And I think it goes to the point of receiving wisdom. We will joke about and humorize anything where we feel uncomfortable and insecure. And the problem is the self discipline with the food. People go, oh, well, it's family traits. Well, I've tried being at a calorie deficit. Doesn't come off well. And people start making excuses for why it is. At the end of the day, like, let's just own it. I know I carry too much weight. I'm very aware of that. That's why I hit the gym. That's why I'm working on these things. Own it. No, I'm not where I want to be health wise. And I'm working on those things. And instead of just owning it and saying, man, I'm not where I want to be. And you're right, this is a problem instead, Jack, to your point, we trivialize it or joke about it. We sweep it under the rug. We don't want to talk about it. It's taboo. We don't want to talk about these things. Self discipline for a man, as you said, there's a lot of different tendrils you can get into. Lust discussion that is a huge one of bouncing our eyes of, you know, learning that lust is not it. And maybe we come back around to lust because there's more to get into other than just a quick statement. But to stay on topic with what you're talking about, this is a real problem among men where I think about the guys that at 40, 50 years old can no longer run around with their kids, their grandkids, because the self discipline wasn't there. They are overweight, their knees are bad, it's horrible on your body. And instead of working hard on that, they just accept it as it is what it is. Like what I see in the Proverbs is a man who's not accepting the status quo going, well, what are you going to do? It's like, no, what you're going to do is you're going to have the self discipline to work on these things. You don't have to be perfect. I often say it's direction, not perfection. Do you have the direction of, I'm trying to get better, I'm trying to work through things. That's the self discipline that we're talking about that I think is so lacking in the church right now. [00:25:00] Speaker B: Well, I want to expand upon kind of what Jack said about, you know, kind of look around the Christian conferences, the amount of men in the church who Just exhibit a strong lack of self discipline. It's embarrassing, it's humiliating. You as a man really have one, you know, not one job. You as a man, one of the main objectives that you need to structure your days, weeks, months around is self discipline. We're going to save the lust discussion because that obviously comes into it and Proverbs obviously spends a lot of time on that. So that goes without saying. From a, you know, pornography, you know, just, you know, staring, you know, taking that second, third glance at an immodestly dressed woman, watching TV shows and movies that you shouldn't, you know, that kind of thing we'll save for a second. But self discipline really magnifies itself in the little things. What time do you wake up in the morning? What do your mornings look like? What is your exercise routine? Are you able to say no to the desserts? Do you have about 50, 60 extra pounds of weight? You say, well, that stuff doesn't matter. I'm here to tell you it absolutely does. Because if you're not self disciplined in those areas of your life, whether you're 25 years old or 45 or 65 years old as a man, if you're not self disciplined in those areas, what makes you think you're just going to snap your fingers and all of a sudden be an extremely self disciplined from a spiritual standpoint, man, for a 25 year old, I'm not man, I'm going to end up in the fast food, drive thru man exercise. Let me make, you know, let me turn into a punchline instead of actually doing it. But man, I tell you what, I'm going to study my Bible every morning. I'm going to have a great prayer life. That doesn't happen if you're not self disciplined in the smaller, maybe call them less important areas of your life. You're going to sleep in, you're going to play hours of video games, you're going to eat like garbage. But man, you're just going to be a strong, disciplined Christian. No, you're not. That just is not the way it works. And so that's why it's so important. And again, for anybody that's like, is this man? Does the eating thing really, really matter? Yeah, it does. The reason and the other thing too. From an authority standpoint. Talk about pulpits for a second. If you've got somebody up in the pulpit or if you're trying to be a Christian man who hey, I want to exude influence, I want to share the gospel with people. I want to disciple not just my own children, but again, other people. How less seriously, how much less seriously you think people take you when you, when they can take one look at you and go, yeah, okay, you don't have a lot of self discipline in your life. And I'm not trying to just zero in on the food thing. My point is it is a microcosm if you can't again, if you make exercise a punchline and you, you know, don't take care of your health and you absolutely just again sleeping in whatever it is that is going to manifest itself in your spiritual life. And so that's where in working hard as well. Like who says, you know, you're not going to be disciplined when it comes to what you eat and you exercise, but man, you're going to be super disciplined with your work and your work ethic? Probably not. These things spill over. And so sorry for the rant there, but that's where I think it's such an important as we're talking about self discipline here. First Corinthians 9 comes to mind again from the spiritual standpoint, verse 24. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize, Run in such a way that you may obtain it. Everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things or exercises self control in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus not with uncertainty, thus I fight not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body, bring it into subjection, lest when I preach to others, I myself should become disqualified. Obviously that's a spiritual context that Paul is talking about there about running the spiritual race. But guess what? It requires self discipline from an avoiding lust standpoint, from a making sure that you are nourishing yourself and your family spiritually. The entire point I'm making is if you can't exercise a small amount of self discipline and saying no to the dessert, getting up, you know, before, you know, 8:30 in the morning, getting an exercise or getting a workout in, or studying your Bible in the morning, like it's just not going to happen. So I went on for a while there, guys, what thoughts would you have to add to that? [00:28:58] Speaker C: Well, in First Corinthians 6:12, Paul says, I will not be mastered by anything. This is a thing that is easily, it's easy to be mastered by it. And I speak as somebody who's been on both sides of this fence. You don't understand the difference. You Kind of don't think there are differences, that it's just, you know, that's just something people say a for your self respect, you know, like when you're giving your best to yourself, to your family. Because one of the other things that is this was one of my biggest motivations. People who don't take care of their own health have kids who struggle with that their whole lives too. I mean, you see it, people say, oh, it runs in the family. Like, well, not in the sense that you think it does. In the sense of your bad habits trickle down the pattern in the household. Yeah, what you are eating, what the snacks you keep around, that's what your kids are going to eat and it's going to be a problem for them. And why would you want to pass that on to them? That's not. We always talk about the man as the tone setter, the leader of the house. Is that what you're passing on to your kids? You're going to give them this struggle that you couldn't overcome yourself. That's not good. And so even if you're not doing it for yourself, do it for your kids. The self respect you have, like it or not, this is the reality. The respect you get from others, people treat you differently, people look at you differently. And whether consciously or subconsciously it is a thing. I posted recently, there was a study that was done and the conclusion, the headline of the study was testosterone administration reduces lying in men. This has been shown for a few different studies. It changes the way you communicate, it changes your belief sets that when you are more physiologically manly, masculine, it changes who you are as a person and it really tracks it because when it comes to difficult truths, when it comes to those kinds of things, when it's talking about lying, there's fight or flight. Fight is I'm gonna say what's said and I'm just gonna stand here and defend it or I'm gonna run away. If you can't fight or fly, you have to negotiate. If you can't run away from it, like you've got to come to terms with it and just make sure that you're accepted. You live fearfully, essentially is the idea, because you don't have the backbone, the spine to put behind the things you say you believe. Why am I bringing this up with regard to this? Because those numbers drop the more overweight and obese you grow. The higher the estrogen grows in men, the more it messes with other parts of your physical makeup. And man, I got a lot of Heat for writing an article on this a while back saying, look, you can't do your job for a preacher. You can't do your job as effectively. And that's not to say that every overweight man is a pushover that can't stand for anything. That's not what I'm saying. It just makes it easier. And it's more likely that you're gonna struggle to do that if you don't believe in yourself, if you don't kind of have that grounding internally. Things that you're not. These are not conscious things. This is your subconscious coming out in these ways. And so there are just so many angles you can take to this side of the discussion. [00:31:57] Speaker A: Yeah, the. I know that sounds harsh. We want to zoom out for a second. You know, to your point, Will, as you were saying, how does this have anything to do with masculinity? Well, we have to understand what. [00:32:11] Speaker B: Just real fast. I don't think it's harsh. I really don't. I think this is common sense. I think we. Our society has conditioned us to. To think that it's harsh. [00:32:19] Speaker A: Think that it's harsh. [00:32:20] Speaker C: But one other thing here, everybody, all the preachers, they're doing it again. They're going on the tour, bashing alcohol. None of them ever even attempted to take a sip. Get some. Get some courage and take this one on. Okay, Right. [00:32:32] Speaker B: Exactly. Talking about fasting and all those things. Yeah, Jack, It's a great point. Sorry, Joe, not to cut in front of you. I think society has conditioned us to think, man, that's really harsh. Like, no, I think it. I think it should be something that is preached loudly and proudly for men. Hey, I don't know. Not just act like men, but look like men. Like that. That should be something that we're not ashamed to say. Go ahead. [00:32:52] Speaker A: Sorry. And I think that's. It is. When we're talking idealized version, we can easily go right to Proverbs 31, and boom, boom, boom, boom. We're talking about an idealized version of man. Do you have Hercules in mind, or do you have, you know, Homer Simpson in mind? Of course we want to be buffeting our bodies and not buffeting, as everybody jokes about. Right. Like, we genuinely want to be buffeting our bodies. We want to be working on having a healthy body. That wasn't a problem back in the Bible. In the same way. Yeah, gluttony was a problem and such, but like the morbidly obese. We have a problem in America, and we can blame it on preservatives we can blame it on all sorts of stuff. At the end of the day, we don't walk, we don't get sunlight, we're too busy on our screens. Like, we don't prioritize outside time. We don't prioritize health. And there's something very. Men need to be in the dirt. We talked about it before. This goes all the way back to Adam in the garden. Men need to be in the dirt. We need to be outside. We need to be working on our bodies. Walking. They're actually now they're doing studies from a mental health standpoint. And walking is bilateral stimulation. So that's why you do your best thinking while you're walking. Bilateral stimulation in the brain has a big part of thinking correctly and trying to work around problems. Steve Jobs would always take people on walks around the Apple campus, which is why it's so beautiful, because he said that his best thinking basically was done while walking. We need to be active people. Men need to be men of activity. And I think it's really difficult to go from sitting on the couch and sitting on your rear end for most of the day into. And look, I get it, that's my job. That's a lot of our jobs. But to go from that into being ultraactive, we got to work against our natural inclination, which is just to sit still. And so, yes, it's part of being a man. Yes. Working on yourself and having the self discipline to say no to certain things. And the way you know this is whether you're doing this well, if your kids live the exact same way you did, are you proud of that? Are you okay with that? To your point, Jack, if the kids will follow along and if you look at your lifestyle and go, man, I really hope my kids don't make those, then why are you doing it? We want to be people that do as I. Not just do as I say, you know, or do as I say, not as I do. We want to be people. It's like, do as I do. I'm going to show you what that looks like in my pursuit toward health. Healthiness is masculine. Healthiness is a really good thing. The Vikings and every masculine stereotype and trope that you can think of does not look like the. I'm sorry, but the Church of Christ preacher who's £400 to pulpit, it just doesn't look like that. And it is difficult and it does drop your ability to go out and for people to take you quite as seriously. Again, we can get up and we could Talk about having self control on alcohol or having self control on porn or whatever. And if you have a preacher and this happens all the time, who's looking at porn, who's cheating on his wife and you know, we come to find that out, it's like everything you've preached is garbage. Now. Is it garbage? No, the message itself may not be, but I'm certainly looking at it differently based off of the way he lived his life. Well, when we are heavier and we're walking up there and we're preaching these things, yes, it makes a difference. So I know we've gone on on this point a lot, but the self control has to be a part of a masculine lifestyle that we are not. To your point, Jack, as Paul said, we're not mastered by anything. [00:35:51] Speaker B: Last thought I have. And Jack, are you again, is the Bible talks a lot about what are your fruits? You know, essentially what is the evidence of, you know, what are the results of the things that you do. Talking about, you know, fruits from a, you know, fruit of walking in the spirit, the fruit of, you know, working hard, whatever it is, the way you carry yourself, your habits, whether or not you're, you're lazy or show self discipline, like it or not, that is a piece of fruit. That is a piece of evidence as to what kind of man are you. And so once again, just to bring it all back around to what Proverbs teaches again, Galatians 5, second Peter 1. I mean, self control is listed all throughout the New Testament. First Corinthians 9. All throughout the New Testament. From a, hey, this is what we as Christians are supposed to be and do. And so I just, I find it so frustrating that we'll talk about self control from a spiritual perspective, but act like what we eat, what we do with our days, what we do with our mornings and nights, just has nothing to do. Like that is just not at all correlated to how disciplined and self controlled we are from a spiritual perspective. [00:36:55] Speaker A: It's very gnostic. It's very nasty. [00:36:58] Speaker C: I had to throw up. I mean, Babylon B. Took it on. Drinking is a sin, says morbidly obese pastor. And that, that was my point a minute ago. We're real good at taking the stands that are not really going to be controversial. Yeah, well, and it's not stepping on any toes. Well, this one it is, but it's, it's part of it. I mean like this, this is something that should be discussed. Something that, that we're just way too casual about. And just going back to how this all fits in with being a man. All of these verses in proverbs, all the ideas and we talked about last week of the woman and her work and all that. This is the most socially acceptable way for a man to not have self discipline. Well, it shouldn't be. Hey, folks, you've probably heard us talk about Focus plus and the Deep End. If you're wondering what that is. Focus plus is our subscription service available through Patreon. Every week, members get all kinds of Christian content for your walk, including daily devotionals, sermon of the week, and our understudied teaching series, which Joe and I lead through obscure and less covered books of the Bible like Leviticus and Revelation. We also have the Deep End, of course, which is our bonus segment exclusively for Think Deeper listeners, where you can submit your comments on an episode and we will respond and have a bit of a Q and A each and every week. That drops every Friday. So if you're interested and want to know more, check that out. Go to patreon.com and search focus or go to focuspress.org/. [00:38:26] Speaker A: Let me, let me say this real fast and Jack, maybe I'll tee you back up for this. [00:38:31] Speaker B: Oh, boy. [00:38:32] Speaker A: Yeah, this is not real popular because I imagine there's probably a lot of listeners that are partaking of these. Speak to GLP1s for a second because to me, well, boy, I'm getting skinny. Like, are we? I don't know. I have a really difficult time of I'm not going to get off the couch, but I'm going to take a shot to lose the weight. I have a tough time with it because I think the self discipline that it takes, it's not just changing the weight. You're changing your mindset. I'm in control of this. I can do things to help better myself, to be healthier. And so to me, this concept of I'm getting skinnier but where the self discipline isn't necessarily a part, I don't know, rubs me the wrong way. Where do you stand on that, Jack? I know you've done research on those things. I know you've talked about this before, but where do GLP1s come into the discussion on weight loss and things like that as it pertains to self discipline? [00:39:20] Speaker C: Yeah, it was kind of funny, you know, I mentioned being on both sides of the equation. I lost my weight right around right about before the, just a little bit before that became popular when I was like, hey, hey, hey. No, I did it the real way. Like this is kind of stolen valor over here on the one hand I can see like getting people started where it. If you're way up there maybe it's helpful but it is a shortcut and shortcuts there are trade offs. And I pulled up a stat said it was from Medscape says patients who stop taking the medications typically experience rapid weight regain generally adding about 0.88 pounds per month within the which you know that's not that rapid but it says within the first year of discontinuing therapy individuals tend to regain about 60% of the weight they lost. [00:40:04] Speaker B: Ultimately most people use the self discipline problem. [00:40:07] Speaker C: Yup. Ultimately most people return to or plateau just below their pre treatment weight within 1.5 to 2 years. They've been around long enough. We're coming up on about five years now. Now the newer ones are saying are better. Retatu tri retta. I can't even pronounce it. Ratatouille, whatever that one is. You know they're saying it's better, it's more effective, all that to exactly what you guys are saying. You can't out medicate bad habits. Like that's what has to change. And now there is a lot of people regain weight when they, they lose a lot of weight even if the habits don't change that much because you down regulate your metabolism. That's something that has to be something that I've learned a lot about of making sure you don't just immediately it all goes right back on. You have to be careful with that because of the way your body responds to losing weight for that long and all that. But on the other hand. Well, because that's one of the things they say about it. Well you can just basically eat what you want. You just don't want that much of it. It's taking your desire away. And what they're finding is it's taking your desire away across the board. And so the idea of being a man and achieving and all kinds of just your drive in life, they're saying it's down regulating that for people in a number of different ways. That is something you need to think twice about before bringing into your life of if okay, you got thin but it's really taken away your drive, your motivation, your I don't know, your get up and go in life again, there's no free lunch, there's only trade offs. There's always some cost you're gonna pay. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. All of those phrases are true for a reason. And I think this is one as well. And so I know they, they're calling them miracle drugs and it's doing this, all these great things. Well, anytime you lose that much weight, it's gonna make all of your markers look better. There's a, there's, there are better ways to do it, even if it is more difficult. So I'm not a fan of them. I know a lot of people have had success on it, but that's just my two cents on it. [00:42:09] Speaker A: To me, it's kind of like vaping. Like, well, there's no long term effects. How could you know? It just came on the market. You know, like vaping has been around within my lifetime. So the 30, 40, 50 year studies aren't there because it's new. Well, same thing with this. We don't know long term effects on that. I understand breaking insulin resistance. They wanted me to put on it to lose a tad bit of weight. They always throw that out there and it's like, look, if you could microdose and be done. But all of these studies come up, all of these things and it just, I look at it like. And what I told him is I need to do everything across the board. Get my diet healthy, get my, you know, my exercising sleep is what I do everything. Sleep and stress levels and everything. And if then everything is. I'm at a calorie deficit, I'm doing everything I can and I still can't. Okay, maybe you look to do it to get over the insulin resistance, whatever it is. That's different. The point we're making here is, in my opinion, you. I have not done everything that I can to lose that. Therefore, don't cheat. Don't, don't go out there and just do that. Like, you need to be working hard as a man to do everything you can to take control of your own health and define that. And most of the people on GLP1s, I'm going to say, are not doing everything they could. We talked to a guy recently, he was talking about fasting. Oh, I just couldn't get the fasting down. It's like, well, so we just took GLP1. Yeah, I was doing a lot of stuff. You know, I was getting training. It just wasn't working. And then it's like. But fasting would have really helped with insulin resistance because it does. And he didn't want to do it. And so he just got on the drug. That's what we're talking about. You got to pull out all the stops as a man and do everything. It Takes the same thing. Fellas, we're going to pivot to lust real fast. The same thing. [00:43:39] Speaker C: Hang on, just one more thing on that. I found one other study. It says former. Let's see those. Quitting Ozempic, wegovy and other drugs regained weight four times faster than those using just diet and exercise. [00:43:51] Speaker B: Sheesh, that's crazy. [00:43:53] Speaker A: I mean, you got to take that into consideration. And it goes to the shortcuts. We see this in lust. We see this with porn. That I think I deal with this all the time. So it's difficult to say this is just a self discipline issue because a lot of times it can be trauma based or whatever else. On the other hand, what I'll say is there's a lot of guys that want the quick fix. They'll come into therapy and they just want, you know, just tell me one thing to do and it's like, this is not a quick fix. It's the same thing as eating healthy and getting health. [00:44:17] Speaker C: Right? [00:44:18] Speaker A: It takes a be killing it or it'll be killing you type of thing. And I think the same thing with weight. You know, you have to have a killer instinct as a man to say, I'm getting this out of my life. I will do whatever it takes. I will humble myself. I'll tell anybody about it. I will put any blocker on there. I will come clean to my wife. I will do all of that. That's masculinity. That's a man that's like, well, I can't show weakness. And this is wrong. That doesn't make you a man. That just makes you scared. Big difference on that front. If you are pursuing sobriety, you're pursuing getting away from lust, bouncing your eyes, having a really good and living in integrity. Basically having a spirit of integrity when it comes to women, when it comes to how you carry yourself, being open toward things, that's masculinity. Being a man of integrity that they know. Look, that guy, I could leave him alone with my wife and I know he's going to be perfectly fine. He's not going to be doing anything. I can put him in a challenging situation and he's going to get out of that situation very much like Joseph. He's going to be bouncing his eyes. That's who you want to be. And how many guys are sneaking glances? How many guys are doing things behind the scenes that they shouldn't? That comes down to self control. If you're truly addicted, yeah, there's problems and come call me. But you know so much of this comes down to they just don't want it bad enough, in my opinion. [00:45:32] Speaker B: I was just gonna kind of take it away from the porn conversation for just a second because I think that's. That's fairly obvious showcasing the lack of self control there. I think there's a lot of guys who might not be addicted to pornography who really do not exhibit self discipline in this lust area of avoiding it. You know, second Timothy is a place that I had on the outline here. I don't think we're going to have time necessarily to go fully into it. But the first thing that he says there in verse 22 is to flee youthful lusts. Now, there's obviously other connotations that that could be talking about as well of, you know, drunkenness or, you know, partying or, you know, whatever it is. But it certainly applies to this idea of pursuing after things that look good, pursuing after the kind of mental pleasure that comes along with lust. And that's where, once again, the self discipline starts. I think for young men, young guys. We weren't allowed to go to really public swimming pools at all growing up. If we went to the beach, it was in an off time. It certainly wasn't during summer break, and it was not during spring break or fall break. We were going at kind of off times. Because part of what I think where the self discipline comes in and this idea of fleeing youthful lust is, man, don't put yourself in those situations where, you know, lust is going to be very prevalent and ready and you're going to be very accessible, essentially. And that's where, you know, you have to make conscious decisions about what are you going to watch, what are you going to, you know, consume from an entertainment perspective. You have to make very conscious decisions about, you know, we weren't obviously allowed to, you know, go to pool parties or anything like that either. These are decisions that you have to. Because what can happen, Joe, and I'm sure you could speak to this even stronger with the people that you've dealt with in therapy. It always, I would imagine, most of the time it does start in the quote unquote, innocent or more harmless things, friends in bathing suits or whatever. And you do turn yourself into somebody who just lingers a little bit. You look a little bit longer, you take the third and fourth and fifth glance and, you know, maybe you're not looking at porn sites on social media, but the Instagram models and people like that. And so you kind of become desensitized to the idea that, no, you're lusting every time you do that, obviously, then it can. It can go even worse into, you know, looking at, you know, looking at pornography or whatever it is. But, man, I think from my perspective, it absolutely starts with, what are you doing to flee those youthful us? Apart from the porn sites, apart from going to pornhub, what are you doing to flee youthful us? To avoid and to bounce your eyes as you spoke to. To man, if social media's gonna be a problem to get off social media, just as the food thing is kind of a microcosm, this is a microcosm as well, of like, what kind of guy are you specifically, if you're married? Are you the type of guy who only, you know, who only has eyes for his wife? Not that he can't ever recognize, oh, that's an attractive person. But then, no, I'm not going to gaze. I'm not going to again take the third, fourth, and fifth glance. I'm not going to enjoy the view, so to speak. That's where absolutely this discipline comes in, even before you get to the pouring conversation. [00:48:35] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. There's not a lot I have to add on there because you guys said a lot of good stuff, but it is a really big one. And a really. I wouldn't say it's an accepted one like what we talked about previously, but it's one that goes under the radar. You'll hear people say, don't talk about it at church. No, it's. It's something that needs to be addressed as well. One of the other ones you brought us to, the second Timothy passage that I want to talk about, I think is very important where he uses the word. Pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace with those who call on the Lord from pure heart. Refuse ignorant and foolish speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome. And then in verse 25, with gentleness, correcting, there's kind of a package there. Peace, not being quarrelsome, gentleness. These kind of things have to go together. This is one I have to work on. I can be a little bit prickly on arguing with people sometimes. And it's one that I don't know. Well, this is one of those where it's very easy to justify, like, well, you know, Jesus called people vipers. And, you know, Elijah made fun of them. Like, there is a time and a place for sarcasm. There is a time and a place for strong condemnations of things. There's a time and a place for really kind of, you know, being combative you know, with Timothy even there's, he's told basically shut some people up, like get in these guys faces and stop them. There's a time and a place for that. But on the other hand, that should not be your default setting. And so justifying, you know, I'm being a jerk, but hey, I'm speaking like Paul, speaking like Jesus. No, they weren't jerks. They were strong and they, they said some things that some people would look at and go, man, he was being a jerk. That doesn't mean he was. You've got to be very balanced on that. But it's very easy to just justify any spouting off at the lip with yeah, this is, this is perfectly fine. [00:50:33] Speaker B: It's almost like what is your disposition? Is your disposition more towards chip on your shoulder, looking to pick a fight, quarrelsome, you know, whatever word, or is your disposition, you know, man, to the best of my ability, I want to make things, you know, I want to smooth things over. I want to be at peace with everybody. You know, I've heard that kind of the, the dichotomy of are you a lubricator or are you an agitator? Are you somebody who, you know, walks into the room and man, you kind of ruffle people's feathers because you're abrasive or you talk, you know, maybe in a tone that you shouldn't, or you, you pick at people or you a lubricator, somebody who comes in and you know, tries to smooth and not, you know, not to pump Joe's tires too much. Joe is one of the best I've ever seen at being a lubricator. And it doesn't matter who it is, he's going to talk to him and he's going to, you know, be excited about what they're excited about, you know, be, you know, at, to the best visibility, at peace with them. And you know, that's something in my line of work in leadership, in business, being around a lot of young people, being around a lot of leaders and you know, you have to be somebody who to the best of your ability is going to try to smooth things over and not be quarrelsome. And to Jack's point, I mean, Even in verse 25 he talks about standing up to those who need to be stood up to. It's not like this guy is, you know, just kind of mousy and really kind of avoids conflict and oh, you know, whatever anybody wants to do is fine. No, you know, correcting those are an opposition it talks about Obviously, we go to other places. It's. What is the way that you carry yourself? Once again, what is your disposition? Are you somebody who's just kind of looking around, looking for a fight, or are you somebody who says, hey, you know, this is what I believe. This is what, you know, this is. I think, you know what the Bible teaches. This is the way I'm going to correct you in that. It's a disposition thing to me. Not to keep using that word, but, Joe, what are your thoughts on this? I think this one is super, super important. [00:52:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, it is. I like the disposition point. I think you're spot on on how you walk in. I appreciate the compliment as well on how you walk into a room and what that does. I go back to the Ferrari verse Prius illustration I use a lot. This is important when you have a man who can dominate, a man who can be abrasive, a man who can do those things. The other thing we just got done talking about is men who can't. They're not going to. And so they pride themselves on. See, I'm not abrasive at all. It's like you. You couldn't if you tried. You know, the. The fight is not in you. And what men need is that. That ability to, yeah, I'll stand up, and I can fight if necessary, but it's under control. We can still be gentle. And so you want the Ferrari that goes the speed limit rather than the Prius who can barely even get up to the speed limit. No offense to Prius owners, but that can barely get up to the speed limit, but is priding himself on go the speed limit. It's like, yeah, because your car goes about 65 total. You know, you want the Ferrari that can blow everybody's doors off. And yet he decides to go the speed limit because that's what's right. So for men, it's important for us to be the Ferrari as much as we can. Jordan Peterson talks about dangerous men, men that can take risks, men that, you know, are not unstable. They're very stable. But it's also like, whoa, they got a lot of horsepower under there. And that's where this comes into play, is we want the horsepower under control. Where a man is gentle, we go back to the Proverbs. We could have gone to Proverbs for lust quite a bit, obviously, and avoiding the adulterer or the. Basically the prostitutes, the harlot and such, you know, that's all throughout Proverbs, and this one's all throughout Proverbs. You got Proverbs 15, 1. What is it? A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. I think there's a harshness that's like that you will only get back what you're putting into it. And if you put in harshness, pugnaciousness, as you know, is talked about in the elders qualification, there's a level of abrasiveness that. That's all you're going to get back from people in order to be a good leader, good husband, good father. Don't. As it talks about in Ephesians 6. Right. Like, don't provoke your children to wrath. That can be a thing from an abrasive man who can't control himself. So that's not masculine. You're just a jerk. At some point, masculinity is having the ability to do that and saying, that's not appropriate. I'm going to channel it in a good way. So it's having control of your emotions. [00:54:26] Speaker C: Yeah. You think about, like, Saul. I mean, that was a guy just totally out of control, you know, like trying to kill David and all that. [00:54:32] Speaker B: Just right. [00:54:32] Speaker C: You know, the jealous that his own shortcomings were coming back to him and he couldn't stand it, and so he was just taking it out on everybody. And. But to your point about, like, having it in the tank but not always using it, do you know how much masculine strength it takes to go in and turn tables and build a whip and chase people out? Like, that is not something a lot of guys could do. But it also takes a lot of strength to not do that every time somebody makes you mad, not do that every time there's a disagreement, not do it. You know, Nicodemus came questioning him, and Jesus very much was direct with him, like, buddy, you should know this stuff. But on the other hand, he wasn't sarcastic. He wasn't, you know, and. Yeah, and you just see the spectrum of Jesus's engagement. And he was willing to take a stand and say, no, actually, this. But he also kind of read the room like, when is it time to call people a brood of vipers? When is it time to, you know, call the lady a dog and then back off and be like, all right, fair point lady. You know, like, there's. Yeah. And so having that spectrum of gentleness and knowing when to say the right word and you bring up proverbs and like a harsh word turns up or turns away or stirs up anger. So many of the proverbs about that are, it's giving the Idea of a minefield, navigating the minefield. Like you can set people off. You can blow this thing up. So go into it thinking, I'm not going to do that. Like I've got to. I need to not rise to that anger. I need to cool the temperature of the room. And all of this comes back to the idea of the man of the tone setter. Are you loose? Are people loose around you? Can you have a good time? Can you. To Will's point about Joe, you know, being that. That social lubrication kind of thing, the. The just letting people relax, like that's a quality in itself. And if you're just Mr. Intensity, that doesn't happen. [00:56:20] Speaker B: Well, the other piece of scripture I wanted to bring in was at the end. We kind of overlooked this one at the end of First Timothy 3, this first section about elders. Qualifications, verse 7. Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside. That's not. That's very rarely going to be the person who, you know, picks, picks fights or, you know, stirs up things that don't really need to be stirred up or makes mountains out of molehills. [00:56:43] Speaker C: Anger guy. [00:56:44] Speaker B: Yeah, the anger guy. The quick, the short fuse, the quick temper. The. Once again, just, you know, which grounds to stand on and when to maybe kind of yield ground and say, okay, well, let's kind of talk about this. The good testimony in those who are outside is going to be the person who does not give in to their anger all the time or keeps a strong, strong kind of. The reins are kept very strong on himself. He knows when to stand up and what to stand up for. And yeah, it's just somebody who. Not quarrelsome, I think, is the key. What is a quarrelsome person? It's somebody who's looking for an argument. It's somebody who is, you know, takes everything that somebody says that might be a disagreement as a personal offense. Like, well, how dare you? Like that is not going to be somebody who has a good testimony among those who are outside. So this, once again, an underrated one. We don't really think about this one. We think lust. We think hard work. This is a very important one for godly masculinity is the ability to keep a lid on it and make sure that you are somebody who. [00:57:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:57:43] Speaker B: Brings people together as opposed to being quarrelsome. [00:57:47] Speaker A: Well, let me say this as well to the point about outsiders seeing him a certain way. I use the word integrity. There's a level of integrity that comes along with being a man where what you see is what you get. Because how many times I remember Danny Petrillo, or Dr. Danny Petrillo, I suppose. But back in Bear Valley, teaching about how when he was a preacher, he would go. They had time where they're going to install elders, and he'd go to their places of work and ask questions. How does. You know, how does this guy act? It's easy to show up on Sunday and put up a front of like, wow, this guy's the most spiritual guy of all time. He's incredible. Come to find out, the guy's home screaming at his wife all the time. The kids are terrified of him. So. Oh, the kids are faithful. They come to church, it's like, yeah, because they're going to be beaten if they don't. But what a nice guy, right? That there's a level of integrity that as a man, what you see is what you get. When he shows up at church, he's kind, he's humble, you know, but he's also. He's firm, he's who he needs to be when he shows up at work, he's kind, he's humble, he's firm, he's who he needs to be. Same thing at home. So that is an underrated one as well. Where you have guys that shift, they're almost like chameleons. They shift wherever they are. So at church, they're Mr. Spiritual and Raising their hand in class and, you know, having a great. Just this. Everybody has a great outlook of them. And then at home, the guy's a disaster and his marriage is falling apart. That's not okay. That's not okay. A man is somebody who has integrity across the board and is really working to better the lives of those around him as much as possible. Because that's who's put in our charge. Our wife and our kids. And as elders, that's who's put in your charge. And that's why it's so important from an elder qualification point of view, to get your family right and to have a positive view toward outsiders, because it's assuming you have integrity, and that's going to show up in the church. And you see the elderships that are full of men that might be, or they have several men that probably should not be elders. The church reflects it. You see that. So there's a reason those qualifications are in there from an eldership point of view. And Proverbs has a ton to say on integrity as well. [00:59:44] Speaker C: Yeah. And I mean, you can't. The whole Bible, you need to take it in. You look at Jesus as the paragon of masculinity, of course. But these are really good starting places are reading through the proverbs, reading these words from a father to his son to say, here's how you live a wise life. And then going to Timothy and Titus and saying, all right, this is what Paul needed Timothy to be as a leader in the church, as a teacher. Here's what was required of elders is required of elders. And you might not be a preacher, you might not be an elder right now, but I had a discussion a little bit about this on Facebook with some folks the other day. I think every man should look at the qualifications of elders and be like, yeah, that's something. I want to get to as many of those as I can. And whether you become an elder or not, that's something. Even as a teenager put this list out in front of the guys and say, hey, this is stuff to live up to. This is what a man of God should look like and the ideal. And so going back to where we started, no, there's not a Proverbs 32 where with a list of. For what man should be the elder qualifications and what Timothy is told to do, you know, first Timothy 4:12 is another one of setting the example. Those kinds of things make for a pretty good parallel. And so I think that's a really good place to go with that. So as we wrap just a quick hit here, Jesus aside, who is your favorite masculine example in the Bible and why? [01:01:05] Speaker B: For me, it's easy. It's Joseph, the self discipline. He shows it with Potiphar's wife. He shows it, you know, in the management, the leadership of his role in Egypt. He even shows it. Yeah, the competence, the way he even interacts with his brothers when they come back, you know, not lashing out at them. He tests them. He does kind of, you know, basically he wants to see how have they actually changed or are they still like, they were a lot of examples. But yeah, Joseph is my answer for sure. [01:01:36] Speaker A: The wisdom in testing his brothers, you know, without lashing out. But also not wimping out either. Right. Man takes some. Take some guts to do that. Joseph was going to be one that I had on my list. We've been studying through Jack. I know yours. I think where you're going to go that we've been studying through Ezra, Nehemiah. Nehemiah is an absolute Chad, as they say, just a great one. But I'm going to go with David. And the reason why is David has the highs and the lows. We see David with the dancing and the tambourines, you know, type of thing. I don't know, maybe that's some Miriam. But with the dancing and he's coming in and he's singing and there's times where he's crying out to God. We see his heart and so the emotional side, there's emotion, but nobody would ever go, oh, wow, what a. You know what, Just a sack of emotion type thing like, that's all. No, this is a guy who killed giants. This is a man. And it wasn't just Goliath like him. And his mighty men went and slew a lot of giants. David was a man's man. So he could go to war. He was a man of bloodshed, which is why he had to build a temple. But he could go to war. But he could also write a beautiful psalm and play music and he could also come back and just have a great time and dancing and joyful. He could have a contrite spirit before the Lord. He obviously has his own struggles and his issues, but he has the heart to repent and to receive instruction. So as a man, I know I talked about David being overrated like a few times ago, but I think he is one of the best versions of a man who has the highs and lows, the sins, overcomes them, has a heart of, you know, heart like God, man after God's own heart. So while being just a. Again, a great warrior. [01:03:07] Speaker C: Yeah, you gave it away. This is why I put the question in is. I've been on Nehemiah. My goodness, just. He had a purpose. He led the people to the purpose. Distraction, discouragement came. He did not get knocked off his course. He worked hard. He was the first guy in, last guy out, as the old saying goes. And so he set the example. He wasn't just boss and people around and making them do the work for him. He was personally righteous and required other people to be personally righteous. Called them up to the standard. These are the kind of qualities as a man that we should be pursuing, that we should. You should be the kind of man who can accomplish something. And if most of us are never going to accomplish something as big as he did, but that you can accomplish things by leading and inspiring other people and setting the example for them to get them to follow you and get things done. And, and I think those are really. Yeah, vision is, is. And. And constancy with your vision. So so many good examples. If you got another one to throw on, as we mentioned, Jesus. But make the case for somebody else if you've got one in the comments. Anything, any final thoughts as we get out of here? All right. We went over a lot of stuff here. A lot of different directions for where a man can go, things that you would add, things. What's that? [01:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah, final thoughts, things that you'd add. But there's a lot more we could add. As a matter of fact, there's about 180 plus episodes that could be added to this. And so go check out the Godly a minute. Yeah, yeah, go check it out. [01:04:30] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:04:30] Speaker A: We go into all sorts and we got a lot more coming and it's all on these things because masculinity, there's so much to it. So sorry, I was on there for [01:04:37] Speaker C: an episode for health and you know, taking care of yourself, you know. [01:04:40] Speaker A: So for that, stay tuned for next Tuesday. [01:04:43] Speaker C: That's right, I'm coming back. Yeah, so. So check out Godly Young man as well. That's all we got for this time. As always, join us on the deep end on Focus Plus, Patreon, FocusPress.org/ and drop a comment in YouTube, Facebook, wherever you're seeing us and we will talk to you guys on the next one. [01:05:13] Speaker B: You. [01:05:18] Speaker C: Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress.org donate thanks again for listening.