[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome in to Think Deeper podcast, presented by Focus Press. I'm Jack Wilkie, joined by Will Harab and Joe Wilkie for another week. One of the things that we've gotten a lot of good reviews on, one of the things I guess maybe we're known for or some of our more popular episodes have been on men and women and kind of the dynamic and the relationship between the two. There's been things on masculinity and femininity.
One of the things, though, that we have not really covered, and I don't, I don't know that I've ever really seen this covered. Maybe you guys have a little bit. Bits and pieces here and there. But what we want to talk about this week is the sins and temptations that are unique or stronger toward one or the other.
Men are wired a certain way, therefore they, they tend to sin a certain way. Women are wired a different way, they tend to sin a different way. And, and that doesn't mean there's not overlap. We'll talk about some of those things. But this is an interesting angle. We've had kind of in our back pocket for a while, and I'm excited to get into it. You guys have any other opening thoughts before we really dive in?
[00:01:11] Speaker C: I'm excited about this as well. We mentioned this a while back, and initially it's like, man, it might overlap with some of the things that we're doing. And then as we flesh it out more and we'll send some things over and you send some things over. It's like, okay, I think there's a lot to get into here where it's not going to be a retread of just some of the other stuff that we've discussed of, you know, traditional roles and things like that. It's, it's really.
Yeah. We want to use this as a way to help Christians. And initially we're going to get out of the way. People might look at us as sexist. They might look at us as, wow, can you really say that? Yeah, I think as we were talking off air before, I think this is one of those that biologically we're wired in specific ways. It's no shocker that lust is going to be on the list for men. Doesn't mean women can't struggle with it. We'll throw that out. The caveat of, well, other people can we. We get that by and large, lust is going to be more of an issue for men. But we also know that God wired us visually. We're way more wired visually. Than women are. So, yeah, we might be more prone to. It doesn't make God a. You know, he's not the one that caused us to lust or anything like that. But the way we are wired is different. And that's one of the issues with egalitarianism is, oh, we're all the same. Like, we're not. We're objectively not the problem with transgenderism. We are objectively different. We struggle in different areas. And that's what we wanted to look at, is just using this as an opportunity to really dig into the specific areas that maybe we struggle with as Christians that.
That go unnoticed or go undiscussed or we kind of do the blanket. Well, everybody struggles, quote, unquote. Like, well, yeah, but there's more that. There's more to get into.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: That's what I was going to say. Just briefly, as far as introduction goes, it's always kind of frustrated me the way that obviously we know society, their goal is to kind of, you know, blend everything and kind of blur the lines between men and women, obviously, literally, when it comes to transgenderism, but also just, you know, kind of the distinctions, the. The differences, the way that God designed us, they don't really emphasize those much anymore. But what frustrated. What has frustrated me recently is the way the church does that as well from the pulpits. Joe, similarly, like you just brought up, there'll be kind of blanket statements given like, well, we all struggle with this, we all struggle with that. Or it's like churches try. And preachers try very hard not to know. Focus specifically on the distinctions between men and women and specifically what they struggle with. And I remember, you know, talking about, you know, modesty is always a hot topic, and dealing with folks who would be very quick to say, well, I think men's modesty is just as important as women's modesty. And I remember thinking, really, you think it's just as important? Like, obviously, if either gender is immodest, it is still just as sinful. But you're actually telling me that one of those you think is more or is equal, of equal importance? I just, again, I'm kind of the guy that. That defers to common sense all the time. Let's use our common sense here. Like, there are things that are a little bit more bigger, more of a big deal for men than women and vice versa. And so that's what we really want to do with this episode, is acknowledge those things and not just kind of give the. The. The basic, again, overarching. Well, everybody struggles with this, no, we are biologically different. And there are things that we struggle with differently. And so, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. We got some really good questions and things lined up as well. This should start some good discussion.
[00:04:15] Speaker C: Well, you already started on this and I want to throw this out. It's just first question here for you guys.
Maybe we can save this for later. I don't know. Why do you think pulpits are so averse to diving in this way, individually speaking to, hey, women, you may struggle with this more. Hey, men, you may struggle with this more.
Why do you think that is something that you don't see very much from the pulpit in our preaching? Because we're talking about it. I don't think we're wrong on this. I don't see a whole lot of preachers that are willing to do this. I'm not saying it never happens. But why do you think that is hot?
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Take time. I think 50% take with Jack. Yeah. I'm stealing your thunder here, Joe. Come on, man of the time. We will acknowledge it, but I know.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Exactly where you're going with this.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Specific to women.
And it's the thing we've talked about of the Father's Day sermon, the Mother's Day sermon, just totally different things. And you know, well, will you brought up modesty. And people immediately not just jump to, men need to be modest too. But hey, men shouldn't look like man. We will just drop the hammer on that. It's like, amen, you're absolutely right. But there are two sides of the coin here, and both of them need to be taught. And we will again, nobody has any qualms about just really going hard on the. The men's side of the equation. And we know, you know, the lust and the pornography and the lording it over and things like that. Some of these things we're going to get to, everyone knows those things are wrong.
But A, when there's effeminate men, there's a, there's a lot less recognition of that. But B, the things that women can bring to the table, the way a woman can wreck a home or there we've talked about in our marriage episodes, there's counsel that some people will legitimately give that if something's wrong with the marriage, it's the husband's fault at the start. Like at the bottom line.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Like, that's the premise that they start with. Yeah.
[00:05:56] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: And like, what if she just chose to do wrong? Like, what if. What if she, you know, you're taking all agency away from her. And this goes to the critical theory thing we talk about so much and all that, but I, I think we're very comfortable calling out one half of this. That's just my read on it.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: No, I also shared that take and I wasn't sure how much I was going to delve into that, obviously. Yeah, I agree. I think there is a. An aversion that we have to calling out female behaviors as opposed to male behaviors. The one thing I will say, though, is I do think there is an aversion also to calling out male behaviors to some extent. And what I mean by that is I think church leadership overall, in the church, we have a high or we have a high intolerance for specificity. We like to keep everything generic. We like to keep everything vague. As always, there are exceptions. There are preachers, there are church leaders who, you know, have no problem applying the Bible in a very specific way about, hey, this is how this applies to you specifically. But man, for the most part, whether it's men or women, we like to keep it vague. Let's keep it generic. The fear of offending people, I think drives a lot of that.
The kind of let's keep a lot of people happy, I think drives a lot of that. And so my answer, I agree with Jack 100%. My answer would also just in addition be like, we don't like specifics. We like to keep everything as kind of ambiguous as possible. Like, does it apply to you? Does it not? I don't know. Who's to say, like, that's not the way Jesus taught under any circumstances. For, you know, Jesus was very direct and specific with the way. And Paul, of course, especially with the things that he was saying. And I think we need a little bit more of that. So that'd be my answer, Joe, is just kind of an aversion to specificity in general just for fear of offending people and kind of trying to keep the peace on. For the most part.
[00:07:35] Speaker C: I'd agree with both of you.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: I think that's valid.
Every, like, men's study thing I've looked at, you could probably basically boil it down to step up. Every women's study I've seen, other than, like, purely textual studies, you could boil it down to. You are enough like that. That's the kind of good summary that's out there and that just goes along with this of like, men and women need both of those things said to both of them, and we just end up with that.
[00:07:59] Speaker C: So. And the worst thing is, as I already used the word you get called sexist, misogynistic, whatever it is. When you point these things out, it's like, no, I just want, want a fair shake here. I want both of us to be able to grow as, as Christians and to step up into our roles. And when we call women stuff, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, hold on a second. So I would agree with that. The other thing that I was going to add is we talk about the center deep end. We tailor a lot of sermons to visitors, you know, to kind of the lower echelon, the, the lower members type of thing. The, the fringe members. We just want to invite them into relationship with Jesus type of thing. You're starting to see this a lot more, especially community churches, but some churches of Christ are going there.
And so if they do talk about sin, it's going to be the hellfire and brimstone, but it's going to be kind of generic will, as you're talking about.
And a lot of times if they don't talk about sin, it's catering to the visitor, it's catering to the lowest common denominator. Um, rather than, or you know, the broad ranging sins. They'll mention things like lust or whatever, they'll mention things like anger, which, yeah, everybody struggles with. But okay, let's get nitty gritty on it. And again, that's what we want to do here today. But the other thing I was going to say is there's an egalitarian approach to some of these things. Like the more that you tell men and women, oh, we're all one in Christ, we are one in Christ. But that doesn't mean that we don't struggle in these areas. I think we blurred, we blur gender lines too much in the church.
Men are called to specific things, women are called to specific things. And the most that we'll really get into that is women are not allowed to teach and preach. And so in my opinion, I think we need male spaces where we can call one another up and we need spaces where females can call each other out, but they're not going to most likely, you know, they're going to be kind of more along the lines of what you're talking about, Jack, of you are enough. Which means the preaching needs to be on point, the preaching needs to be willing to dive into those things, to delve into the nitty gritty. There's. And we just don't for fear of offending people. Yes, there's an egalitarianism and I think.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: We'Re we're also saying egalitarian. I think more, more than anything with this, it's gnosticism of denying physical difference.
[00:09:53] Speaker C: Yeah, maybe that's what I'm getting at. Yeah, maybe more that.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: And so, you know, and that that kind of gets at our list here. But I mean, part of that is tied us to what the older women are called to is, hey, it is kind of correction and helping younger women get on the straight and narrow. And we need more of that and where it happens. It's a beautiful thing.
Yeah, I mean, they need a you are enough and God loves you kind of thing. As I said, everybody does. Men and women. And then men and women both need a hey, watch out for this pitfall that you're pretty likely to fall into because of your wiring. So I think that gets us into our lists as we talk about our wiring. And I think there's one that scripturally, but just also like socially, one for each side that is going to come to mind first, and that would be men lust and women gossip.
The scriptures bring up gossip against women especially Paul goes back to that, well, quite a few times in the letters to Timothy and Titus.
1st Timothy 3:11. Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips. 1st Timothy 5:13, Talking about wives and widows, said they go around from house to house, not merely idle, but gossips and busybodies. And then in Titus 2, verse 3, again, the older women teach the younger or the older women themselves are not to be malicious gossips.
Which is interesting. The word there is diabolos or diabolos, like diabolical, like Satan, diablo. And it's just the slanderer, the accuser. They're going around just talking about people and that's a sin that everybody can do. Everybody can lust, everybody can gossip. Men are way more likely to lust. Women are way more likely to gossip or struggle with those things.
[00:11:31] Speaker C: When you think about.
Sorry, go forward.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Will, I was just gonna say, because I've got. I've got a question I'll ask. So I'll let you talk and then I'll ask my question around this point here. But yeah, it is interesting to me that these are the two that kind of first come to mind. Obviously for, for most people, men lust and women gossip. And I do find it, find it interesting that the Bible does specifically mention gossip so many times as it pertains to women. And you know, there's the question of why is that such a temptation for them as opposed to men?
And I think there's a. I Don't know, kind of like a self importance aspect of it. Like if you're able, if you're talking to someone about someone else, kind of makes you feel a little bit better, makes you feel like, okay, well, you know, they're not talking about me, let's talk about somebody else. Kind of deflect the attention onto somebody else.
There's, there's a kind of. I think that's why you see women enjoy the reality TV shows a whole lot more. Like, you know, the, you know, shows where that's kind of the whole story, the whole theme of the show is who's dating who. And it's just basically one big show about gossip is essentially it. And those are typically engineered more towards women. And I don't know, I just find that fascinating. And so then you have men on the other side, which these two sins aren't necessarily parallel to each other, but with men, lust and how, how often this is going to be a temptation for, for men. And you know, I, I would agree with those who say that lust leading potentially to pornography is probably going to be a man's biggest temptation, almost certainly throughout his life, going to be the biggest temptation that he struggles with. And my question that I'll go ahead and ask and then Joe, I'll let you give your, your kind of introductory thoughts and then if you want to go and answer the question is because social media came to mind for me for a lot, for both of these, when both of these obviously hit our list. And that is social media can feed both of these temptations in a severely negative way.
Uh, obviously men just due to, there's a lot of lust invoking content on social media. And it doesn't have to just be Instagram, it doesn't have to just be TikTok. Facebook's got it. I mean, X can have it like obviously there, you know, to varying degrees, I suppose, but there's a lot of lust invoking content on social media. And then for women, as far as the gossip goes, there is, there can be a tendency, whether it be with women's groups or whether it be with just kind of who you follow and the content that you are, you know, digesting as a woman kind of that, that mentality, especially to, you know, the, the term. Yes, lighting of like women just getting on there and praising each other, telling each other how good they are, you know, kind of bashing other people. And so I think my question was like, essentially, who is social media worse for? This is one of those questions. Like obviously both of Those are a problem. If women are, are getting very heavily into the gossip train, the gaslighting train through social media and men are doing or looking at things they shouldn't. That both of those are bad, but who is it worse for? Like is this an element or is this a question of one being worse than the other? I think in a lot of people's minds they do probably think that lust is worse than gossip and so it's probably worse for men than women. I think that's what most people's gut answer would say. But I'm curious what what you guys would would say to that. So Joe, I guess I'll hand it to you for that, that question. As we kind of look at the dichotomy of these two.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: I think just briefly, you specific to the social media or just the Internet in general?
[00:14:52] Speaker C: I was about to break it up. I think Internet Internet is worse for men, social media is worse for women. That's, that's kind of my.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Yeah, interesting.
[00:14:59] Speaker C: That's my thought on it. And the reason why is it goes to my answer to this.
I think the reason gossip is an issue and the reason less is an issue is because it's actually functioning the very similar, similar ways for men and women both. I work with lust enough to know there's a relational element and they want to know that they're enough. There's almost always an attachment issue when there's like high levels of addiction and lust and things like that. But when you think about lust and you're lusting after a woman, I want that woman to notice me. Like nine times out of ten it's, I want that woman to notice me and I want to see if I can get her to like me. That's really what lust is all about is whoa, she's smoking hot. You know, I want her. And so yeah, you, you want that, but you want the relationship with her. You want her to notice you. You want her to build your self esteem. We don't lust after really ugly women. Why not?
Because I'm sorry to say, but like why not? Because the guy wants to prove himself to the hot woman.
Think about gossip from a woman's perspective. It's. She's a relational being. She wants to know where she stands with other people.
While she's gossiping about other people putting somebody down, she feels like she's better herself. So it comes from low sense of self and it comes from a desire for a relationship and, and we take it out in inappropriate ways. I think both of those are Kind of the. They stand in stark contrast in terms of one being particularly feminine, one being particularly masculine. But I think both are kind of coming from their same insecurities of am I enough in this relationship.
In my opinion, I think that's kind of where they come from. We go back to social media.
So social media is a just a breeding ground for am I enough? Am I enough? Am I enough? Is my life enough? Is my, you know, do I go on enough?
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Let me post all this stuff and get all this affirmation. Yeah, exactly.
[00:16:41] Speaker C: Is my diet good enough? Do I look good enough in the me? Or like am I enough? Is really what it comes down to. That is a particularly difficult struggle for women.
The Internet at large. Men are going to try to find certain things. I mean that's just hunter gatherer as we talk about.
Yeah, I think Internet really feeds that where you can go find all sorts of information, a lot of which is really bad. And you can find a lot of negative content lust wise obviously pornography and such. So that would be my answer to that.
But yeah, I think social media is really, really bad for women because the comparison game, we're going to get into this a little bit more on one of the other ones. But like NB comparison things like that is ramped up to level 10.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Can I add something to that briefly, Jack? And then it's all you. This, this is not going to be a popular take at all. But it's, it's one that I have. It's. Think deeper. So I'm going to share it. And that is, you guys know those posts that people make about whether like certain, certain issues that they might struggle with or certain things that maybe their family is dealing with and those, those will get posted and it very much reads like I really just want to get a bunch of people to comment and tell me that, you know, you go, I'm proud of you, keep at it, I'll pray for you. Like I don't mean to be cynical but that 100% seems like that is what is being that that is the purpose of those posts is to get this out there for the purpose of kind of that affirmation as you're talking about. Joe, who is it that usually posts those things?
That is usually women, this stereotype. Sure there's men that can post that stuff as well. But kind of the I just want everybody to know that I'm struggling with this or it's national whatever awareness month and just so you guys know I've got a sibling or like whatever it is.
Again, it sounds very cynical and probably very harsh, but I do think that it feeds that mentality of I want people to affirm me. I want people to say that, you know, it's okay that, that, you know, I'm proud of you or that you're, you're enough. Exactly as you're saying, Joe. And I am, I love my wife and I've told my wife like, you know, not, not that I monitor social media but like, hey, I would prefer you not post stuff like that. It feels very attention seeking. Just like posting a picture, you know, of yourself in your bathing suit seems, you know, can be very attention seeking. I would agree. So just to kind of add on to that, that's a lot more of a subtle one to me. But are those types of posts where it's like, hey, everybody comment and tell me that I'm enough. That's a really great point.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: Yeah. The other thing I would add before we move on from this is so much sin is Satan taking your natural God given tendencies for something good and turning them against you. And for men, the desire for sex leads to, you need to be nurturing to your wife. You need to go out and make something of yourself so you are desirable. As you're saying, Joe, you want to get a woman who loves you and notices you and all that. Well, that requires you doing certain things. And so that drive pushes you a long way. And it's like, well actually there's an off ramp to that of you can just stare at a woman or you can just go online and find them. And there you didn't have to work, you didn't have to do any of those things. Gossip is woman's natural instinct to nurture and care about people. And it's a twisted, oh, I care about people. So I'm going to go talk to them about, you know, talk about them with somebody else. But I'm not actually helping them. It's a, the same thing that porn can do for the male brain of like you're scratching an itch in, in like a shortcut fake way saying similar over here. And so I think that's again, Satan's really interesting natural desires.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: That's a perfect breakdown. You think about women that get into like the Kardashians or when the guys do. It's a feminine trait. You look at them as very feminine.
You get into Kardashians, you get into People magazine or whatever it may be. Like, why do you care? People get all these women get into the. Yeah. Or they get into the royals over in. In England. Why do you care? You shouldn't care about this. But it's like, we care. They care about relationships, right? They. They care about people in their lives and things like that. And I think you're right, Jack. That's. That's spot on. That's a really good thing when it is quelled and when it's really, like, within your group. You care about your kids, you care about your husband, you care about your family and your church family.
That's fantastic.
This is run amok. This is, you know, we're willing to gossip about people and taking that natural tendency. So, yeah, I know. I'm just going off on it, but, man, that's a great point.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Why don't we worship on the Sabbath? Why did God become man? Why did God choose baptism? What are some effective ways to set up Bible studies? If you find these topics interesting at all, then you'll want to get the latest issue of the Quarterly. You'll find articles on these and many more topics like, does God answer prayer? And hey, when did that congregation get there? Digital subscriptions to the quarterly are completely free, and print subscriptions cost less than a family trip to McDonald's. Just go to cobbpublishing.com quarterly. That's cobbcobbpublishing.com quarterly. Find out why the Quarterly is called by many the best magazine in the brotherhood.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: I'm gonna go ahead now. Unless you guys have anything else on those two. I was gonna go ahead and move us into the second one, kind of the second of both here. So we had lust and gossip on either side for the first one.
Second one. What we have is pride, and that is for both.
What's interesting about this is, you know, it's my contention that both men and women very much can struggle with pride. Joe, I think you have a stat you're going to read here in just a second that you brought to the table. So I'll let you read it. But I think men and women's pride manifests itself in different ways. Obviously, a lot of people think pride, and they think men, like, kind of the arrogance, cocky. Like, I'm gonna, you know, show off how. How rich I am. I'm gonna show off how great my job is. I'm gonna show off how muscular I am. Like, whatever it is. Like, pride is. Is very much, can be just a, you know, uncontrolled ambition, kind of being a bull in a china shop, not really caring about other people. Just everything's about me and kind of the way that the way that I want to show off. And again, just cockiness and arrogance is kind of the way that I'd put that.
That's not so much a struggle for women, at least the. The. The cockiness, arrogance. It is for some, but not. Not so much for them, but it's more. So there's a vanity associated with it. There's a. The way that I put it, when I put my list together, is I feel like selfishness is something every human struggles with. I think it can tend to lean more towards women in or as far like that's how pride manifests itself in women is I want to get my way. I want to kind of manipulate things so that I can get my way. And so there's a selfishness side of it that I think that's pride thinking that you are more important than somebody else thinking that. And you see this too. Like, guy friendships as teenagers go a whole lot better than girl friendships as teenagers. Why is that? Like, that's just. That's kind of a trope that girls tend to be a little bit more.
What's the word? Caddy. They tend to not get along as well, whereas guys typically can. I do think it is kind of a.
There's a pride element to women very much needing to kind of get their way in a lot of instances, not seeing other people's perspectives quite as well. And so, yeah. What thoughts you got? I don't know who wants to go first here, but, like, I do think it's interesting that we can. We can put just pride as the word, as the sin that both can struggle with, but they just manifest in such different ways.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Everybody wants to be loved, but you also just. You want to be seen in certain ways. And, you know, for women, that's. You mentioned earlier, you know, them posting their pictures, swimsuit or whatever, you know, on Instagram or things like that. You want to be told you're pretty. You want to be told, you know, you want people to look at you and go, wow. Well, for guys, it's, as you said, it might be physical vanity, but it might be, man, he's just the best at what he does. He's the, you know, he's, you know, the smartest guy in the room. He's the funniest guy. He's the, you know, whatever else and looked at in that way. And again, as with the last thing, good instinct to a degree, you know, like male ambition.
I think there's a lot of, like, male teaching in the church that, you know, looks at ambition as just bad. Oh Jesus. He's meek and lowly. Like he was meek and lowly. But he also rides on a horse, you know, his sword coming out of his mouth, robe dipped in blood. King of kings, Lord of lords. There's a lot of ambition and conquest and that kind of thing in that. But it's without the pride and it's without the arrogance. And he can be meek and lowly. He's got that side to him. And so with a guy it's like when it's time to go and put the work in, use that in the right way. Don't use it to run over people, don't use it to. Nobody can tell me what to do. That's one of those things. I and, and hopefully I don't stereotype any listeners here in the south, but especially when I lived in Texas, you know, there's kind of that, that male pride thing and it's a lot of dudes that drive lifted, there's always a Dodge Ram and drive them 95 miles an hour and they're 2ft away and man, they've got the Punisher sticker on their thing and they're like oh man's man's like you're not actually okay, this is all fake masculinity and, and you're going to get somebody killed. Honestly, you're, you're, you're dangerous to yourself and other people. But you can't tell them that, you know, like, oh, you're just a weak man. You don't get it. That kind of thing, like that's not healthy. And in the same sense, you know, for women it's a different kind of destructive where they're not going to run you over and kill you, but their, their pride can really damage themselves, damage their relationships, things like that. It's again, Satan really turns natural desires against us.
[00:25:54] Speaker C: Yeah. The set that you were referencing earlier Will was just from a 2009 study from I think Friar Bussa, something like that. Roberto Busa 95 year old Jesuit scholar and he found that the most common sin for a man was obviously lust. The most common sin for a woman was pride. I was shocked by that. That was not the first one I had on my list for women because I figured maybe gossip, something along those lines. And this had pride as the first one.
And when you were, as we were talking off air about it when you were kind of going through like yeah, I could see that. I think there's a level of comparison to other people. Once again they're relational comparison to other people and wanting to feel once again, am I enough? Kind of worthy. And we project those things. I think pride actually comes from. And I know I'm going to sound like a broken record going back to self esteem. Pride does come from low sense of self. I'm projecting. Look, if I know that I'm good, I don't have to be prideful about nothing. I don't have to tell you anything.
If I'm, if I'm good, if I'm not, then I have to project that to you and pretend that I'm something that I'm not. So you look at a guy who can never be wrong, who can never. Well, that's a really insecure person. Because it's like if I'm wrong, then I'm worthless. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Your sense of self is so low that you're having to, to basically fake it till you make it. And everybody's seeing holes right through you going, hey, that's not okay.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: Or they are great at one thing and that becomes like their whole idea, their identity. Like yeah, Tiger woods, like, man, that guy has some serious psychological problems, you know, to his upbringing and things like that. But because he is the greatest golfer ever or right there, you know, I'm not going to start that debate. But you know, like the, but that he could lean on that and just cover up, you know, paper over all the other cracks and like that.
That's just all he's going to lead with every time. And so, you know, it's, it's, there's some pride to cover for other insecurities. So you end up in the same place like you're talking about.
[00:27:43] Speaker C: But to the sense of the women or to the pride of the women. Yeah, I think it's also some insecurities coming through where Will you talked about that particular word, selfishness.
It does lend toward that. It tends, it lends toward us looking inward and trying to once again project, trying to make ourselves feel better about others or about where we stand with others. And so this pride kind of comes through and man, pride is, it is insanely destructive because what it does is it removes us from everybody else and it removes us from objective reasoning and realizing, okay, I'm great in some things and not great in other things. And there's some things I need to work on and yeah, some people are going to be better than me and sometimes I'm wrong. And you know, those type of like self aware statements, throw those out the window. I've got to project something that deep Down. I know I'm not both men and women doing it. It just, I think, comes across in two different ways.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't have a lot to add. I mean, I think there's.
I, I think that for pride, for both men and women, the reason why it's such a, a problem and such a temptation is because you are putting yourself in between you and God. Like you're. And for all temptations, you could say, like you're, you're taking your eyes off of God and it's more about you. But for pride specifically, it is about elevating yourself and so bringing yourself closer to being on the same level with God. And I think that that is. Lies at the heart of why pride. I mean, that's why obviously Satan fell is pride. That's. Think about the, the various men in the Bible that the struggle with pride, I mean, it's, it's something that once again there is going to be temptation to, to elevate yourself, keep everybody else, you know, far below you and kind of. It's the Tower of Babel. Right? Let's build this tower up to heaven so that we can, you know, we can reach the heaven. They wanted to be closer to God and not in a holiness way, in a we want to be equals with God type of thing. And so I think that's why, I mean, brought it up before, but C.S. lewis believed that pride was man's greatest vice. Like it was the biggest. He's like that pride was the root of so many other sins. And you could even argue a lot of these ones that we have on our list. Like pride is at the root of a lot of these. And I think it's just because we're you, you. We kind of subconsciously are trying to bring ourselves closer to God's level. And again, not, not from a holiness perspective. From a. I want to be equal with God. So yeah, I think it's interesting the way it manifests, but who wants to get us into the third one?
[00:29:58] Speaker C: Well, yeah, like you said, I mean, it is the original sin. I'm going to be like God. And then they repeat it in Babel, like goes back to Eve. It's repeated at Babel and then throughout. And it's the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, boastful pride of life.
It is the original, the OG sin of I want to be like God. As a matter of fact, I'm going to be God.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: The first sin.
[00:30:17] Speaker C: Yes, the first sin original in terms of. No, we're not Calvinists here.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: But with the contention what we're going to get into next for women stems, I think, from some of the pride, the contentiousness that a woman can have. And it's very interesting that in Proverbs it comes up 21 9, 21, 19, 25, 24, 27, 15, just over and over. Contentious woman's a constant dripping on a day of steady rain and a contentious woman are alike. Better to live in a corner of a roof than a house shared with a contentious woman. And he's just talking about this woman who wants to fight about everything. And this can come out in marriage, but it can come out in other ways. They can do it in the church.
And it's where that pride spills over to where, like, I'm going to usurp in the Eve sense. I'm going to. I know what's right. Get out of my way. I'm woman, hear me roar. I mean, you see this with the feminists and just kind of that you see what the Proverbs writer is talking about of like how ugly it is, how, you know, they're. They're trying to fight, but as a woman, they don't fight really fair. You know, it's.
I don't know. So the. That's number three for women is the contentiousness for men. The flip side of that is cowardice.
Somebody jump in on that side of it.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So cowardice being.
It's interesting that in Revelation 21:8 is always the verse everybody goes to for liars. And where do liars go?
Cowardly is the. There's a lot of behaviors there that are mentioned, and cowardly is the first one. That the cowardly will not inherit the kingdom of God and be thrown at lake of fire and all that.
And the reason. I'll start with men here and the coward. Cowardice side, and then, you know, move to the. The women's side in a second. But the reason I think for men that cowardice can be such a problem is because you think about how much responsibility weighs on a man's shoulders, even in our society, which is.
Even in our society, which is. Which is very much, again, trying to blur those lines, trying to, To.
To really promote feminism and put women on the same level as men. You think about how much responsibility weighs on a man's shoulders when it comes to. For the most part, they are still going to be the primary breadwinner.
They are going to be responsible for making sure their family can pay their mortgage.
A lot of men are staring student debt or staring you a Lot of debt in the face. A lot of men are looking at the economy, they're more big picture minded. So they're kind of stressing about the big picture in the church. You've got kind of that, that mental knowledge of I've got to get my family to heaven.
And for all of that, what can be the easiest thing for men to do? Just kind of back away and say, all right, you know what? It's just, this is a lot. I'd rather just kind of do the bare minimum, pass the buck, abdicate. Do the bare minimum is kind of like they're not going to necessarily quit their job. They're not going to just sit on the couch for the rest of their life, but they're going to scoop by doing the bare minimum that they can do. They're not going to lead their family spiritually, not going to be doing any home devotionals, not really going to serve the church that much, not going to invest in other relationships, not going to really do anything that requires that additional level of effort.
Once again, just bare minimum. What is that? That's cowardice. That's what that is. That is 100% cowardice to say, I'm not going to, to use a golly M in podcast terms, strive for greatness in all areas of my life, in my marriage and my parenting, in my church, work, in my career. You know what, that's just. Man, that's a lot. There's a lot of responsibility. And I will say there is a lot of responsibility to that. Like, it is, trust me, it is a serious weight on a man's shoulders to think about how much the family depends on you, how much the church depends on you, how much, you know, you depend on yourself to make sure that you can kind of mentally stay moving in the. Moving in the right direction. And yeah, it's a weight. But to back down from that and to say, you know what, Wife, you handle raising the kids, spiritually, you handle the devotionals. Let's just take the easy route. Sure. Daughter, wear whatever you want outside the house. Like, that's cowardice is what that is. And I think that's an enormous struggle for men. And so, yeah, I rambled there. So I'll let some. Joe, I guess it's your turn. I'll let you jump in on that. What thoughts would you have to add to that? And then for the women's side, on.
[00:34:26] Speaker C: Contentiousness, I think you handled the cowardice. Well, I don't have a ton more to add in terms of, yeah, it is Scary to be a guy, but that's also part of manhood. I will say that mentioned it plenty. Again, another thing you guys are probably sick of, which is I think we need to do a much better job of having rites of passage, helping men realize you are now a man. And here's what's required of you. Here's what that looks like going forward. We got a bunch of basically adolescents still out there protecting, pretending to be men. And this goes to Jack's point about the big trucks and, you know, football. Everything's about football and everything's about like, you know what, there's a time to grow up. And I'm fine with those things. I'm fine with people owning big trucks, I suppose I'm fine with football. I'm fine with all of that. But there is a time and place to recognize I'm a man now. And that means real responsibility. That means it's time for me to step up and stop being a kid. And cowardice is just that. And then when you live in a ultra feminist culture, well, it's the girl boss. She's the one that's going to step in and get it done. And the guy is all too eager to just let that happen. Goes back to Adam in the garden, who's just ready to do that. We'll get into a little bit more on the next one, but I think there's cowardice there. But to the female side of this with a contentiousness defiance. It is very interesting how much Proverbs does steer clear of that. You know, tell them steer clear of that. There's a lot of young women of the Gen Z generation and of the millennial generation. You see this even in a. We go off on the boomers a lot. You see a lot of boomer women where this is the case where they are very contentious. The eldership is run by one woman. We all know those things where there's just the guy there want to go home and have to tell. Right. Doesn't want to have to deal with a contentious woman who she wants her way. You're seeing that a lot with these young marriages. I know multiple young marriages, probably 30 and under, 25 and under, that are falling apart because the woman is contentious. She just is very defiant. She's not going to submit, I mean, submissions like a four letter word, of course.
But there's just this defiant nature to her that the world is telling her, you go girl, you go, do you girl boss, boom, boom, boom, all these things.
And she listens to that and Then you go to the church, and instead of the church calling this out from the pulpit like we're talking about, the church enables it. And the church says, well, yeah, you should go get that college degree. And don't worry about those things, you know, don't worry about having wife and kids or husband and kids until way later. You know, those type of things. We are hamstringing these young women and we're telling them that the world revolves around them. And all the parents that think it's cute to have the. The glitter of Girl Boss on the shirt at 4 years old. It's not cute. It's not cute. What are you doing to your daughter? What you're doing is telling her the world revolves around you. She gets into a marriage, she's highly contentious. Her husband has every right to be incredibly upset at the fact that she is a contentious jerk. And then he ends up either being a wimp and he's cowardly, or he ends up being an overbearing jerk trying to get control of things. And neither are really what you want in a marriage. I'm not saying it all falls on her, but a large portion falls on defiance and contentiousness. Clearly, I get hot and bothered, you know, hot under the collar for this one. Like, man, this, this. It frustrates me to see. I work with this a lot. I see a lot of young women that are, you know, a lot of young guys going to me. And they're not perfect men, no doubt. But we have an epidemic right now of young contentious females that need to step in line. And that starts with the fathers calling them out at a young age and the elders actually stepping up and saying something from the pulpit, the preachers and elders.
[00:37:43] Speaker B: This is one of those things where I mean it to that mindset. This probably sounds like crazy talk. It's like, why does the Bible say it so many times? All those proverbs I read in 1st Peter 3 where it talks about gentle and quiet spirit. Why does it say that she needs to kind of cultivate a gentle and quiet spirit? Because she's not going to want to. Like, that is against the fleshly desire to go the other direction. And so if we're going to get this right, you've got to understand this side of it. And for men, realizing the easiest thing in the world is for you to sit back and go, yeah, she'll handle that one. And that just doesn't work out. I mean, you learn this stuff from Adam and Eve.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Maybe not even she'll handle that one. But Somebody else will handle that. Yeah, that's what really gets me about this, is that's somebody. Somebody else's job. Because you'll see that, too. Like when you know there's something that needs to be done and everybody's looking around like, all right, who's going to do it? It's certainly not going to be me. Somebody else is going to be able to handle this. And you know, that to me is just another manifestation of this cowardice. Jack, you're exactly right. A lot of times when it comes to the spiritual leadership or whatever, it's, I'll let wife handle it. But man, for men, this can be anything. Just. Yeah, that's somebody else's problem. It's not mine. And that's just a terrible trait for a man to have.
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[00:39:33] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I think that gets us in the number four if you're good with it.
[00:39:36] Speaker B: Yeah, finish the Cowardice of Men.
It can feel like you're. You can couch it as you're not being a coward. And we don't need to talk about servant leadership again or things like that, but the pathway has been paved to say that your cowardice is the most noble godly thing you can do. You have to realize that's just not true. There is a time and a place to take a stand. So I wanted to finish with that. You're right, though. Let's get to the fourth one, which is slothfulness for women and laziness for men, which can take the form of cowardice of not stepping up and, you know, to. It kind of rolls off of what Will was saying there. Well, somebody else will do it in the church, in the home, in the workplace, or whatever else.
And you kind of see this with young guys. This is something you're trying to call them to in the godly young men podcast of like all the incentives in the world are there for you to sit home, go get a, you know, basic job, not try to move up, come home, play your video games or, you know, watch your YouTube or whatever it may and just assume everything will fall into place and hope you marry a woman who's upwardly mobile, who will put up with you and then she's going to be carrying you salary wise and things like that. Like all these dynamics are so off right now on the male side of it. And so there's that male laziness. For women there can be a laziness, a slothfulness of whether it's their work in the home, whether it's just different forms that it can take of just not applying themselves day in and day out. And so I.
Where do you guys take that A little bit more specific on, I guess the women's side of. I talked a little bit more to the men's side of it, but to the women's side of the slothfulness.
[00:41:13] Speaker C: Well, Paul talks about the busybodies. Right. Gossip kind of being on the, on the heels of the busybodies, you don't have enough to do. And where do we see this most women being on social media 247 they're on social media, you know, they're. And a lot of this, hey, you can help your husbands, you can help your family by.
And budgeting apps and, and you know, couponing and things like that.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: Recipes, stuff like that, right?
[00:41:35] Speaker C: Recipes you're finding. But Pinterest recipes turns into Pinterest three hours later, you know where you are. You got the perfect life set up on Pinterest, which also leads to this envy. And I wish that I had those things and the perfect house. Farmhouse. Wow.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: With your own life.
[00:41:51] Speaker C: Exactly. You know, and that's what Pinterest is about. And so then you get on Instagram and yeah, you're sharing a few things back and forth and it's great because I'm keeping up with my friends. And then five hours later, like, yeah, these things take place for women where if they're not filling their minds with things, it's very easy to, to do that. I will say in today's culture where you have the girl boss who is working and then coming home, that's. I don't think slothfulness is much of a problem for them because, well, they're doing two sides. That's where the once again, the girl boss, Defiance comes in is, hey, I'm working the job, bringing in the money, and I'm cleaning the house and I'm taking care of the kids and getting them to school, whatever it may be.
So they start to resent their husbands, and that's a real problem. This is going to be more specifically to the stay at home moms, to the homeschool moms, things like that. I think you can. And we have a lot of those listeners. I think it's very easy for women to slide into the slothfulness of even not. Not taking care of their kids, not schooling their kids. There's a lot of unschoolers or people that just kind of like, all right, kids, go do it. They don't actually school their kids. And so they're just bouncing around. They don't really know what they do with their day. And I think that's where you see it the most with women, specifically in the church. And then, you know, to the man side, as you spoke on it, I had added that idea of the abdication. Laziness. I think it is laziness when you get home from a long day and your family wants to see you, your kids want to see you, you know, whatever it is, it's like, well, no, I'm good, you know, type of thing. And nobody actually says it that way, but you just find that you're playing your video games or you're playing your, you know, you're reading your articles, whatever it is, and then next thing you know, like, you're never really taking time for family worship. You're never taking time for anything else. And they may work, tail off at work.
What are you doing for the family? What are you doing spiritually? How are you raising your. Your family? How are you leading your wife? Are you praying with her? I think that to me is just. It boils down to laziness. It's kind of mindlessness. You're not thinking about it. It's not top of mind. It's, hey, I do good enough. I do good enough. At the end of the day, that's prideful laziness to say I do good enough. It is what it is. I'm never really going to grow. I'm never really going to learn. My wife, you know, she's a spiritual one. It's laziness. Why would you let her make a.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: Lot of, like, I bring the money home, she handles the kids, handles the house, handles all the other stuff, you know, and so I'm gonna Sit down and watch the game or whatever. Like, there is division of labor, but there's also, like, the work doesn't stop. I mean, like, it's not.
You provide the money and then everything else is taken care of for you. Like, it's the same thing can happen for church involvement for guys. You know, like, I worked hard all week. You know, like, I can't make that Saturday function at church. Come on, man. Like that.
Yeah, I get the poll. But sometimes it's time to step up and get to work.
[00:44:22] Speaker C: And what it is, Will, because I want to bring you in on this. Sorry, not to steal all thoughts, but no, you're good. What it is, is guys will gravitate toward what they appreciate, what they like and. And what they're good at. And so their job, it's like, man, I'll work 13 hours a day at their job. They're not good on the relational front, so they don't dealt, you know, don't spend time with their wife and kids. They're not really good on the spiritual front, so they kind of gravitate away from those things. They're not really good on the church helping front. So, yeah, if you need, like the AC unit, change church, great. I'm your guide because that validates them and that does what they're used to. But what I'm talking about, the laziness is not just.
Maybe it's just a lack of growth is really what it comes down to. The lack of growth in areas where you're not strong. And Jack, you spoke to that on the last one. Like, sometimes we're strong in certain areas. We need to look around and go, you know what? I'm not great on the relational front. I need to read a few books. I need to listen to a few podcasts. How do I become a better dad husband? Xyz.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: Well, what is there to say now that you guys took all that? No, I'm just kidding.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: For this one. Lazy, mainly.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. I guess I really need to step it up here.
Maybe somebody should preach a sermon on how many to step it up.
So what comes to mind for this? And then I'm gonna go ahead and roll us in with our time that we're at. I'll go and roll us in number five. But what comes to mind for me, Joe, you said there's a need for. Need for growth.
There's a need for discipline for both of these things. When you have basically full control. I'll start with the women. When you have basically full control over Your schedule, and you're not really bound to anything necessarily.
It's pretty easy to just let the time waste away. You, you brought up homeschooling, like very much with homeschooling, you know, as somebody who was homeschooled, if you are not diligent or disciplined with the free time that you have that you're not bound to a desk, you're not bound to a 7am to 3pm school day, you're not bound to teachers, a class time.
You do have to be pretty disciplined to make sure that stuff gets done. Similarly, if you brought up, say, you know, housewives, stay at home wives or stay at home moms, yes, there's responsibilities, there's tasks, there's holy goodness. I know there's a whole lot that needs to be done. You're not necessarily bound to a specific time. Right. The kid, you know, the kids can always eat, eat it maybe an hour later. The laundry can always get done the next day. There's always like, you know, where's your job?
[00:46:29] Speaker B: You.
[00:46:30] Speaker A: You have to be there at a certain time. It's very, very strict. And so for the women's side, that's where the discipline has to come in to say, yeah, I, I've, I've got, you know, full control over my schedule and yes, I have responsibilities, but man, social media scrolling or Netflix watching or, or whatever it might be sounds a whole lot more fun. I'm just gonna go in and, and tend towards that. And then, same thing for the men when they get home from their jobs and they have full control over the next five hours of, of their night, or they have full control over their weekends or whatever it is the discipline to say. Because one thing we haven't brought up with this laziness and abdication thing. How many men are drastically overweight? Why is that? It's because they're too lazy to say, you know what? Even after I work my 40 hours, or in some men's case, my 45 hours or their 50 hours, I still need to make time for exercise. And yeah, watching TV and, you know, just kind of doing lazy stuff sounds a whole lot more, you know, is a whole lot more enjoyable and is a whole lot easier to do. Takes discipline to say, I still need to get some exercise. I still need to make sure that I am, you know, disciplining, you know, discipline with myself and exercising my body and really exercising that self. Discipline. The same thing applies spiritually. And so I'm kind of beating a dead horse here. But I think discipline is where Both of these things, if you don't have it for men and women, can go awry. And so that was the point I wanted to make there. I'll go ahead and move.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: One last thing on this shortly is you might hear all this. Me, like, man, I work really hard. I am exhausted at the end of the day. I don't have any more room for that.
That's probably true for a lot of people. The lazy person is also going to say that. Okay, like that they're going to take that excuse. They're going to say, man, I've got too much going on. And so you've got to take stock every now and then and go, you know, what's not getting done and could it.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: You ever talk to, you know, people and they're like, how their. How's your. How's your week been? Or how's it been? Oh, man, we've been busy. You know, I've never heard anybody say, oh, man, I just have nothing going on. I'm just not busy. I just don't have anything to do. No, everybody thinks they're busy. Everybody thinks that, yeah. That they're not lazy and that they're working hard. That's a great point.
[00:48:22] Speaker B: Well, and you also can just grow into the work that you do. I mean, there's been times where I look back and I'm. I'm like, how was I getting all that done? Because you just do, like, you step up, you know, and so that just wanted to add that point as well, of it. Just take stock. Even if you think it's. You might be right. You might be. But, you know, don't. Don't dismiss it out of hand. All right. Fifth on each side for men, it's greed of kind of wanting more, keeping up with the Joneses. Money is a status symbol kind of thing for men. And again, a good desire. You want to provide for your family. You want to. You know, Proverbs again, talks about the hand of the diligent, makes wealth and things like that. Like, we.
We've talked before and we don't need to go into it about this villainization of money in Christianity. Greed is bad. The love of money is bad. We know those things from the scriptures. On the other hand, desiring to have enough and even live comfortably so that you're not having to eat the cheapest food, wear the cheapest stuff, all that stuff all the time.
Yeah, that's okay. But the greed side of it for men, of looking around and going, oh, that, you know, my buddy got A new car, I, I need a new car. That kind of thing. For women, discontentment and discontentment that can lead to grumbling and you know, not happy with your life and that for so many times it starts off with the looking around and well, man, look at so and so. She's so happy. Or I've seen it with the, the homeschool stay at home moms, man, they don't have to stay home and put up with whining kids all day. They get to go out there and, and just do it all up and you know, kind of, I'm oppressed in this situation. So they'll just leave their husband and kids and things like that. Or women, maybe women who have to work and look at the woman, you know, that's staying at home and be like, man, discontentment can really set in in those, those ways. And so it's two sides of the same coin. For men it's more like, you know, I want more and the, I gotta have the next thing. And for women it might be what I have isn't good enough and I want what, I don't know. Those aren't all that different, I guess.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, because, you know, men typically occupy the higher kind of corporate positions. Men again are also, they tend to want to flaunt their wealth a little bit more.
It's, it's an insecurity, self esteem thing of like, I want everybody to know how much money I make, buy the nice cars, buy the nice house, you know, and not that any of that in and of itself is wrong, but if you're doing it for that reason. And so that's why I think greed specifically for men can, can be a pretty big temptation.
It also there, there is a not speaking as somebody who is not like I'm a, you know, hundred zillionaire or anything, but like there's something addicting about like oh wow, I making more money now. Oh wow, I can afford more things. Oh wow, I can pay for this. And like again, I'm by no means somebody who can just, you know, buy whatever I want or anything like that. But I think for men, when, when they get into that, you see this with athletes, right?
They make millions and tens of, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in some instances. How many of them just kind of blow through it because there's an addicting nature to spending all this money and flaunting your wealth in this way. And a lot of them end up bankrupt. A lot of them end up, you know, having to continue to Work in other fields just because they spend all their money. And it's a great thing. There's something addicting about spending all that money. And then. Yeah, I think it's interesting on the flip side with women, the discontentment and the, the grumbling side of things, this is where to bring it back around to social media. Jack, as you did kind of the, the comparison game that gets played. This is where TikTok and Facebook reels and Instagram reels or whatever it is can be very damaging, I feel like, because, listen, nobody's posting a reel of their filthy, messy house. Nobody's posting a reel of their fixer upper kind of dog, ugly house that, you know, a starter home. No, it's all. It's always the most perfect homes. It's always the beautiful yards in the backyards and the, the just as we've railed on before, perfect life, right? And so that's where you get into the comparison game and that's where you get into women being a little bit more discontent. Kind of the grumbling of, why don't I have that? And again, goes without saying, this can apply to both. Like, guys can do that exact same thing, get on social media and say, man, I'd really like to have that. I've done that. Like, I look at a house. Like, man, that sure would be nice to have that house. And. But I do think, because again, just the way that social media works and the way that it has lended itself more towards women doing that, this is an area for both sides to kind of check themselves on. Materialism plays a huge role in both of these. It kind of goes without saying. Joe, any thoughts on number five?
[00:52:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I see two separate sides to women's grumbling, which is there's the general grumbling, grumbling grumbling out the day. I think that's a call for somebody to pay attention to them, please, just pay attention to me type of thing. And if they just said, hey, I'm really struggling here, you know, can I have. Instead it's kind of the passive aggressive like, well, you know, you just do this, you do that, man, just speak your mind. This is where I'm at. This is what it. But a lot of times they don't feel safe enough to speak their mind. Whatever. There's all the supposedly excuses and reasons why that doesn't work. But on the other hand, I think that drives grumbling. A lot of the time is they just want somebody to take their problem seriously to the other side or to the. To the second side of grumbling, I suppose. I think they can grumble about where they are. And you have to remember that a woman's greatest need is security. A lot of times they find security and stuff that they have. They find security in the house, they find security and money.
So it's easy to be a little bit discontent and to feel like, wow, we don't have enough type of thing. And so there's a grumbling that goes along with just wanting security in that. For a guy, though, when you get into greed, it's not driven by, I don't think the security near as much. We're not masculine drive doesn't really care too much about that. We're willing to take risks, things like that. But it is to your guys's point of that unchecked ambition.
How far can I go? And then we end up living up to our means. And will, you know this better than anybody with Dave Ramsey where he talks about that and he works with people, it's like they're in massive debt and they make $250,000 a year and the rest of us are going, what? How's that possible? You just live up to your means. That's just what you do.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: And make more, you spend more then you need.
[00:54:12] Speaker C: Right, you need more and more and more. And so it just ends up being a materialism thing. There's a status element to that of making a lot as you guys talked about. So, yeah, I think both are. They're two different drives on this one, in my opinion. Some of these drives are similar. I think these are two different ones, but no doubt they can manifest, yeah, pretty. Pretty negatively in a marriage. So we had a sixth one. And I think we should save this for the deep end. Looking at the time here, because we want to get to our think fast here.
I'm sure that this is the one that everybody's kind of like. You have not talked about anger yet. You haven't talked about frustration, things like that. We have some things that we want to say specifically on that front of unchecked aggression from men. We think aggression is good. We have a few takes on that. Godly on men. We've talked about that a little bit. But we have a few things we want to say specifically on the aggression front that might be helpful. But we're going to save that for the deep end. So if you're not a member of our Patreon or Focus plus, then go to focuspress.org backslash+ and join us we love to get the discussion on that. We'd love to hear your thoughts. And we are going to be discussing that in the deep end, which will drop on Friday. But fellas, other thoughts before we get to the Think Fest. Any other closing comments are just kind of wrapped it up there. But anything else you might get to.
Okay, let's go ahead and jump into the. The Think Fast here, which we threw around a few different ideas. There's. There's a couple things going on in the news, but one thing that was off my radar, Jack, until you mentioned it and then I looked it up and, man, I don't know how I missed this. There was a report from a guy that was on his podcast, a, an evangelist. I think he's a apologetics guy that went on the Joe Rogan podcast and he recently was on another podcast and mentioned how Joe Rogan has been consider consistently going to church recently. He is, he is constantly or, or consistently or, you know, I can't remember the word he used, but irregularly showing up to church and seems to be.
[00:56:01] Speaker B: Pursuing be some people who don't know. So explain to the folks at home who Joe Rogan is. I assume everyone knows, but there are some people who are off, off the radar on stuff.
[00:56:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:56:11] Speaker C: Crawl from under your rocket.
[00:56:12] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:56:13] Speaker C: No, Joe Rogan's the biggest podcast in the world. I think he has like 13 million listeners a week on average. The, yeah, $800 million deal with Spotify. He's a pretty big deal, huge in the manosphere. But yeah, the biggest podcast that Joe Rogan experience.
[00:56:26] Speaker A: He's had Donald Trump on Musk. He's had all kinds of people on. Yeah, oh, yeah.
[00:56:30] Speaker C: I mean, he's, he's a big deal if, if you have any interest, he's probably got a podcast on it, interviewing the expert in the field, whatever it is.
And so to hear that he's going to church is very interesting because if you know anything about Joe Rogan, he's been a very, very big skeptic.
I think he may have been. I can't remember if he was an atheist. I think more agnostic. Like he just didn't, you know, didn't care all that much. Not saying that there wasn't something out there. He's a big believer in aliens, things like that. He's pretty far out there on some of those religious stakes. And so to hear he's going to church, fellas, I'll just ask you, what are your thoughts on that? That's an interesting development. Do you think this is a Kanye west situation where this really has no staying power, he's just kind of checking it out? Or do you think he may be on the road to potential Christianity?
[00:57:15] Speaker A: What's interesting about a guy like Rogan, speaking as somebody who has not listened to a ton of this podcast. I've listened to a few of them. You know, he obviously is very, he's a very prominent figure in society. I would say if you were to rank the most top, you know, top 20 most, call it influential Americans, like he's got to be in that top 20. You would think just with how, you know, prominent he is, his, his voice and his platform, it's always been pretty clear to me that he, he is a very open minded guy.
You know, with the people that he's had on the stuff he's been willing to entertain, the concepts he's been willing to, to just kind of throw out there. I, I do think a lot of that can lead to dangerous places. But what stuck out to me is Joe, you referenced. This article from the Christianpost.com says Rogan has long used his platform to explore life's big questions, recently expressed skepticism about the Big Bang theory and said he finds the resurrection of Jesus Christ more realistic than the belief that universe created, created, created itself out of nothing.
I find that fascinating and I find that fascinating from the sense of.
Joe, you and I just released a godly young men podcast episode about, essentially we didn't call it this, but why evolution is stupid. It's pretty much the, the, the theme of the episode. And that should have been the name. Yeah, it should have been the name.
It did not sit very well with a lot of people on YouTube. The atheists on YouTube found it and they've blown it up since. It's our most commented on video by far.
But one of the things that we tried to express in that video is just how ridiculous and just how much it violates common sense to believe in evolution and to believe in the Big Bang theory. And it's fascinating to me to see guys like Joe Rogan kind of come to that same conclusion. Like, hang on just a second, you're telling me the smart thing to do is to believe that everything that we see, the complexity, DNA, the universe, everything you learn about in science, and you're telling me all of that came from an explosion out of nothing? Yeah. Say that out loud and see you sounds like the stupid one here. Like it's, it's just fascinating to me that Joe Rogan is starting to come to that conclusion that going to, you know, the going to church thing is fascinating to me. For that reason.
Yeah, that's kind of my surface level thoughts. I think it's the last thing I'll say is I do find it interesting that the open minded people who are willing to basically say. Because one thing Joe Rogan has done, sorry, just briefly for a while now, is really push back on leftist ideas, really push back on, you know, with the COVID stuff and kind of the trust the experts thing. He very much was, was wanted to kind of see for himself and did not just blindly accept what the left and the media was telling him. I find it not to keep using the word fascinating that somebody like that is now trending towards Christianity. It's almost like you have to take the blinders off, you have to take the earmuffs off of everybody who says, you know, of listening to everybody who says, you know, masks work and take the vaccine, all those things. Like he was always opposed to that or he eventually became opposed to that and now he's drifting that direction. I don't know. I find that fascinating. What thoughts would you add to that, Jack?
[01:00:15] Speaker B: The thing for me that's interesting is I think it has been very positive for people like that to see that Christianity does not mean you have to turn your brain off, but it also doesn't mean you have to not be a man.
And this is again, he's a man's man. He calls the UFC MMA fights. You know, he's into that kind of stuff and you know, very much into fitness and eating healthy and things like that. And for the longest time, what you saw from Christianity is a complete, what we talked about in this episode, a disavowal of any masculinity and that he's seeing that there's a Christianity that will stand up to evil. He's seeing the evil that's out there in the world and he's seeing, hey, there's something out there that can stand up to it, I think is a positive thing and that's something we need to push something that, to take it a little bit of a different angle. And I'll probably write on this on my site next week that is a little frustrating is there's almost no chance he's going to end up in the churches of Christ. That's just not usually how this works. Now every convert, you know, every soul that's baptized, whoever they are, whether it's the most famous person in the world or it's just somebody from the middle of Nowhere. All equally valuable, all of them. We rejoice over them coming to Christ. But on something like this, where somebody is finding their way through apologists, through people who are putting stuff out there, through, you know, the. The podcast world and things like that, we're just not on that map. And I really wish we were. I really wish it had been, you know, one of our apologists that. That got to go to talk to him. I wish, you know, the. The people that were reaching him and the. The kind of Christianity he was coming across was stuff that we were putting out there.
We don't think that's worthwhile. We don't see any value in having the biggest podcaster in the world on our side.
[01:01:55] Speaker A: And you're talking the church as a whole, not us three.
[01:01:57] Speaker B: Yeah, right. The churches of Christ. And, you know, and somebody would say, well, again, we don't need famous people to spread the gospel. No. But, you know, doesn't hurt. You know, like that. That would be a really cool thing to hear on the biggest podcast in the world. Jesus is Lord. And. And so I think.
And I think that leads to a lot of other people we think of so individually, like, man, if we can.
If we can convert one of those 13 million podcast listeners, like, well, what if you convert the guy that talks to all of them every week? You might end up converting lots of the 13 million, you know, things like that. So that's a different angle on it. I'm excited anytime I see somebody who is a thinker, who influences other people who are thinking and trying to find their way through this world, and he's working his way maybe toward Christ. I think that's. That's excellent. That is really good news. I hope he keeps going. I hope he grounds himself in the scriptures.
You know, it's not my job to sit here and determine how real it is or any of that stuff. I just. I hope it ends up in a good place for him.
[01:02:53] Speaker C: Yeah, that's where I stand on as well. That's a very interesting take.
And I look at it as if you knock, the door will be open. If you seek, you'll find right to me, the person that truly has a heart or truly has an open mind and a heart for this will come to Christianity because it is absolute truth. When you're searching for truth and you really want to know what stands up, Christianity stands up. Nothing else stands up the way that Christianity does. And I want that to be kind of a. A boost for Christians to realize, man, we are standing on absolute truth. Nobody else gets to claim that but us. And I think that's a, that's an exciting thing that you have a guy who questions everything and has all sorts of people on. And maybe he's coming around to realizing, yeah, Christianity is truth. And whether he realizes it or not doesn't make it so. I mean, he's. But hopefully he continues to seek. And yeah, I think that's a very exciting prospect potentially. But on the other hand, Jack, you're right. We in the church need to be thinking bigger. I think we need to set our sights bigger than what we currently have it. We are very individualistic in our. Well, we have our small little church and that's fine. And yeah, we'll go out and convert a few people. Like, man, let's think bigger. Let's think about being like starting cultural movements. We did at one point. We don't anymore.
Imagine what the church could be if we really thought about cultural movements. And I'm sorry, don't talk to me about, well, the gospel tent meetings. Great, that happened in the south, you know, and that, that stopped a long time ago. And what are we doing now? This is a what have you done for me lately world. We can't just keep going back to the 50s and talking about how great it was back then. What are we going to do today to have influence and to continue to work toward, toward the global spread of the church. Right.
So that's a great point.
[01:04:30] Speaker B: All right.
Yeah. Well, we're going to wrap right there.
Again, this is your weekly Think Fast. And so we're going to cut part off right here.
As for the podcast that will be coming out on Monday, so keep an eye out for that or if you're hearing this at the end of the podcast, it's kind of funny how that works. You might be catching in both places. But thanks for everybody tuning in. We do have a little bit more to get to in the deep end. Joe mentioned that earlier, so focuspress.org/ to go find out a little bit more about that. And with that, we will talk to you guys on the next one.
[01:05:04] Speaker A: Sam.
