Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and I want to say a big happy new year to all of you. We are so excited about what God has done, and we're excited, Lord willing, about what he's going to do this year. We are starting off the year with a series on biblical manhood. That's where we're kicking off today. And I've invited a good brother and a dear friend named Travis Allen onto the podcast. He's a man who I'll introduce to you in a little more in-depth way here in just a minute or two. But first, I want to introduce him. Travis, thank you so much for joining me on the For the Gospel podcast and for spearheading this series on manhood.
SPEAKER_00Pleasure to be with you, Costy. Look forward to this conversation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, the first thing I want to do is just give a little bit of background about you. I'll kind of give the professional side and then a little bit of the personal side, if you'll let me. First, you're the pastor of Grace Church in Greeley, Colorado. And uh your background, when we first met, you were the managing director of Grace to You. And on a personal note, I'll never forget getting to know you a little bit and the way that you helped me. A lot of people don't know this. Obviously, I'm grateful for uh John MacArthur and the commentary series and a lot of the resources that Grace2 put out that I utilized to sort of reconstruct a proper belief system after coming out of chaos. Uh, but very few people know that behind the scenes, it wasn't like you know John MacArthur called me and invited me over to lunch and fixed me. It was you actually who uh we were having lunch at the Chinese restaurant and you were uh shooting books over my way and helping a great deal, answer huge questions. You and Jay Flowers, if you remember that. Uh and my wife to this day uh and I both have such a deep love for you and for that ministry. You helped me, you helped our church, you helped so many other people, uh, and not a lot of people. Again, know that I know you don't do it for recognition, but brother, it's kind of fun having you on to talk more about this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, those are sweet times, and uh the the times are just getting sweeter as the Lord's been blessing your ministry. It's been just good to watch uh watch how he's uh working your life through his providence and how he's using you uh in amazing ways for his church, so I and for his glory. So I'm I'm just gratified to see that. It's really cool.
SPEAKER_01Grateful, man, really grateful. Uh another aspect of this that I want to mention is you know, why have you on? Like why should people be listening right now? First of all, you're a man who preaches the word faithfully. I know that, I've watched it and been the benefactor of it. But two, I would consider you a man's man. I mean, your your reputation precedes you. I remember all those years ago. One of the things that uh it was actually Jay who said this in a conversation, he said, you know, Travis is just a man's man and a discipler of men. It's just what he does. And that's something that anybody who knows you understands. The other thing is you're a former Navy SEAL. And I think that comes with a degree of credibility, especially in the Christian world and on this particular topic, because when we're talking about manhood, the worldly version is filled with kind of a rah-rah approach. But the church gets such a bad rap for the the sort of passive overemphasis, and there's a caricature that if you follow Christ, you know, meekness is weakness, and you're sort of this doormat. And I think you represent a phenomenal and biblical balance where uh you're a man's man, but you're also a tempered, godly, faithful, Christ-like man. Uh, you and your wonderful wife, Melinda, you have five kids, you've been living this stuff for decades. And so uh that is something I'm thrilled about because I've got some guys even in my church, I know there's men who listen to our program who are military men, have that background, others who are strong and they're focused men, and they want to know how can I be a strong man but still honor Christ? And so uh, brother, thank you. And uh, can we jump in or do you have anything more to add about your background that I've missed?
SPEAKER_00No, I think you flattered me unduly, so uh let's just move on.
SPEAKER_01All right, fair enough. Okay, here's kind of my thesis for the whole series: Biblical manhood is under assault, and it's not just the uh feminist liberal agenda that seeks to emasculate men in our society today, but I'm gonna add another extreme on the other side, which is an over-realized or an over-emphasized kind of silverback gorilla, beating of the chest, biblical manhood is this zealous, take it by force version. And one more preface, and then I've got my my first question for you. The attractiveness of worldly manhood has increased, and the reason for that is something you're gonna unpack. But let's say this Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, David Goggins. These guys are massively popular because they represent uh a a corrective swing to manhood. I'm gonna take care of my body, I'm gonna lift, I'm gonna make money, I'm gonna be strong, I'm gonna be disciplined, I'm gonna go run a triathlon and all of these things. And so Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, David Goggins represent the modern man in the physicality and the mentality of this new version of revived manhood. Why is the worldly definition of manhood so attractive to men today? And guys in the church are listening to those guys more than they're reading the Bible, even.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, great, great, uh, great opening question. I think, I think that um there are a number of ways to approach an answer on this. I, you know, first of all, the the biblical definition of manhood, you know, if we if we kind of skip to the bottom line, is, and this is what we're gonna be saying, I believe, in any of these episodes, we're gonna be talking about how we need to be looking to Christ. Okay? So anytime that we're gonna advocate for biblical manhood, whether it's in, you know, scroll back a few decades when you know feminism is all the rage and men are put down and made fun of and scorned, you can step up and advocate for a biblical definition of manhood that looks a lot like Christ. And in the culture, that's gonna be ignored and shoved to the margins and never listened to. So that that's that um advocacy for true manhood as following and imitating Jesus Christ, it's not gonna be listened to then. Scroll forward to where we are now, and you've got the that, like you called it, uh a reaction to the feminism with uh kind of a muscled up, angular approach of uh whether it's whether it's physicality or whether it's intellectual, uh, represented in the people you're talking about. Again, when we try to advocate for Jesus Christ being the model, that's not going to get a whole lot of hearing out there either. So, what's going to get a hearing is what is able to make the most noise. And what can make the most noise are people who don't feel any restraint of the fruit of the spirit in how they speak, how they come across. And so you've got a Rogan or a Peterson or anything like that. I mean, you know, there are things that are attractive, certainly, in the way they speak, in the way they talk, and the way they confront. And I appreciate their they're pushing back in some uh some of the issues of of yesteryear, but they're also introducing a whole a whole host of problems that next generation is gonna have to deal with. And they're not gonna have to live with the the fruit of their their work. Uh the next generation is gonna have to live with that. So I think I think the the reason that it's so easy to follow that this um this new muscularized, you know, uh flexing, uh parading of intellect or physicality or whatever it is, uh the reason that can become very attractive to young men who are disaffected, disenfranchised, don't have a voice, they find a leader they can latch on to. And it's a leader who doesn't require much of them. It doesn't require them to not deny themselves, take up the cross, follow Christ. Uh believes them, you know, fairly comfortable. Uh there are some, you know, maybe getting to the gym, that may be a little difficult at first. Uh, or maybe reading a few extra books, that may be a little hard too, and challenging, but they can in their flesh muscle through that, and they'll and they'll be able to get there, they'll be able to catch up in the conversation. As long as they're caught up on the the latest podcast, uh, they're gonna be okay, they're gonna be a part of that conversation. So I just think it doesn't require a whole lot of them. And they're able to leave themselves pretty much their hearts pretty much intact, and they can they can still live on in the flesh, and it never really uh never really demands a radical change inside.
SPEAKER_01Man, so what I'm hearing is you basically tell me uh that the peer pressure of just old-fashioned manhood still works to change the flesh. It's like being on a baseball team or a football team or an athlete or in business. You're looking side to side at what other men are doing, they're driving forward. That pushes you, but after all that, you can reach the top of the mountain, have a great body, have a great career, have lots of money. None of that changes the heart in the end. So we're still going to be what is that, super manly, but just really fleshly, worldly, and have terrible home lives, dysfunctional marriages still. Nothing really changes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I, you know, you you mentioned my special forces background. I know you had a baseball, uh, baseball background, you've been in athletics, and and you know, I've talked to people in different different fields that would be called manly, be called something, something to be attracted to. And I remember a guy who, not even a Christian, who was uh from my special forces background, and and he he made a comment. He said, you know, some of the guys I'm looking around with that we work with, you know, I mean no offense, but some of they're some of the most insecure people I've ever met. And you know, I everybody's trying to fix something. Everybody's trying to overcompensate for something. Everybody's trying to, you know, you're you're looking to your left, looking to your right, you're you're in competition with yourself or with other people, but there's a lot of fear of man driving that. There's a lot of uh, you know, what do people think of me driving that? There's a lot of, I don't want to look weak driving that. It's it has a lot to do with appearance, it has a lot to do with uh, I hate using the term, but you know, psychological issues. It has to do with stuff that uh you haven't really resolved in your in from your childhood, and you're still trying to work that out in your 30s, 40s, 50s. Um, you know, really the the issue is we have a we have an issue with God, the God who created us. We have a sin problem. We are we are alienated from him, estranged from him, and that's why everything is out of sorts. So, you know, all the all the things we're seeing in the culture, um, they're really never gonna touch that core issue, which is a reconciled relationship to God through Jesus Christ. Until that's until that's solved, until the Spirit comes and take and dwells us and drives us to Christ, um, yeah, it's it's just gonna be the pendulum's gonna swing one direction and then another direction and another direction and another direction, and everybody's gonna be shifting with those winds and waves.
SPEAKER_01So helpful. I want to ask you a question while being careful of the the brow beating caricature stuff about men and passivity in the church and every man is weak and kind of the old school, what got real hot in the reformed world for a while was like yelling at all the men and like beating on them, and they keep coming back for it, sort of a glutton for punishment stuff. I want to be careful here, so let me try to ask this in a way that that honors the fact that the Lord's doing a lot of good things in men. Uh I don't want to say why are men so passive in the church, because that would assume all men are. I want to say what is at the underlying root of when men are passive in the local body of Christ? And I'll give you one example. When I was in uh sort of the the mushier version of Christianity, and you were actually, it was after conversion, but you were helping a lot. If you remember kind of in the background, there were a lot of changes. I remember if you would have come to our church at that time and walked in, you would have seen women everywhere serving on the staff. Uh one was a pastor. Like it was very woman-heavy, and the men were sort of like they were hard to get in. Uh flip that to when I showed up to church one time to see you, it's like there's men everywhere. Uh you look to the right or left, there's a suit on every pew, you know, that idea. So there isn't a broad brush here, but when that's happening, when men are more passive, what's the underlying issue there in the body of Christ?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I think um the way you pose the question, why are men so passive in the church? I think that that prepositional phrase there is important because men are not, I mean, there are some passive men, but there are also a lot of a lot of not passive men. If you step outside the church and you watch them in their in their business, or you watch them in their trade, or you watch them in the corporate world, they're not passive at all. That same guy who that same guy who's running a company and and calling the shots or military guy, he comes into the church and he looks passive. So it's just how it seems in the church. And so the question then is why is that happening in the church? I mean, they you go out in the world and it's not that way. I I think um this allow me to oversimplify, but you you um there have been studies of of boys and girls, okay? We're talking like maybe first graders, kindergartners, first graders, second graders, boys and girls, and you know, it's obviously the gender issues are big today. Um, and there's some people who want to make sharp distinctions and and proliferate a number of different, you know, all these new genders, create new genders, and there are other people who just want to who just want to basically say there's no difference between anything, any genders. And there it's just uh a mix of all the flavors. Um but studies don't bear that out. And so when you go to kindergartners, first graders, second graders, and study boys and girls, you see girls who they love to follow the instructions of the teacher. So if the teacher sits them down with a little coloring project, they're gonna dutifully grab the crayons and they're gonna make it pretty and they're gonna color within the lines, and then they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna perform really well because they love to get along. They love to please the teacher, they love the affection of the teacher, the relationship with the teacher that all that creates, they love to do what they're told. That's a generalization, but that's generally true. Generally true of boys is they may take a couple of crayons, a black one and a red one, and just scribble all over the thing, inside the lines, outside the lines, eventually they're gonna become bored with the project, and they're gonna be looking around for ways to screw around, throw something at the buddy, try to get they keep looking out the window because they want to get outside the recess. So, like, is this is this over yet? And why is that? They don't they don't really care about the teacher's approval. They don't they don't care if they don't understand the point of the project, they're not gonna play along the rules. If they don't understand what the rules are, they're not gonna play along. And so, sadly, that where these studies continue to go is is we are we've been we've really been crippling our boys by calling them ADD and ADHD, but all they are is boys. They're just boys being boys. So now fast forward into I think that continues all through all through the educational years, into the college years, or into the the development of uh you know your life skill years, when when men understand why they understand the reasons why, they understand what the what the rules are, when they understand the point of the rules, and they understand what they're gonna gain on the other side, that they've got a goal to pursue, okay, then then they'll invest, then they'll give themselves to things. I've you know, of course, I've my experience more with the military or law enforcement. I've watched, I've watched men, uh, let's say in the law enforcement world, I watched them go through an academy, and some of them extremely out of shape when they arrived. I watched them put out, and they they shed pounds, and by the end of it, they were strong, they were firm, they're out there, they're good agents uh for the you know federal government, did a good job. Why? Why would they put themselves through that? Because they understood what they were after, they understood the rules, they understood the game they had to play, all those things made sense because it's pointing them to uh what they're trying to accomplish. Uh, I think, I think it's you know, you know this, you're a pastor Costi, I've been a pastor for a long time, and leadership's hard in the church. You know, you're dealing with a whole group of volunteers. These people don't have a paycheck for coming up and doing the sound or doing the lights or doing the doing the you know, setting up chairs or tearing things down, setting things up, cleaning things. Um they are this is this is after their their you know 50, 60, 70 hours of work in the week that they're coming into the church. And so it's it's really hard then as leaders in the church, and if anybody's like you and I are freed up from other employment to be able to give ourselves to this full time, we're continually having to make the case. And when we make the case well to men to help them understand what the point is, what is the point of the local church? That's a training center for Christians. This is where we come to get trained and equipped and educated and strengthened and uh give ourselves to one another and give up of ourselves and use our gifts because you understand this: we're a part of a body, we're body parts, and there is no unessential body part. Think about one body part you'd like to do without with or do without. Um, none of them. Not even my not even my smallest digit on my hand or on my toe. Um, I want everything because I need it all. Same thing in the church. We need to help men understand what their role is, what part they play in the body, how to do that part well. Uh, we need to help them understand what the what the regular means of grace is week after week, coming in and hearing the word of God read, preached, sung, prayed. Um, they need to understand how that is strengthening of their soul, not in one sermon, but in a lifetime of sermons that shapes, forms, educates them so that they can educate their families and so they can go out into the working world and perform according to the will of God, because the point out there even is to glorify God and bring glory to Christ and see other people say. So once they start to get what are these lines on the paper? What is the point of the different colors of crayons? Why should I color within the lines? Why should I do this? Why should I do that? I think they start to get it. You know, I think they start to understand. So I think that's why they can seem passive in the church. They're not they're not truly, you know, some men are passive and need to repent of some of that passivity. Uh, some men are just designed that way, and in their in their comportment, they're calmer, more patient, slower appearing, but they're still men. They're just they're just used in a different way, a different role. But um, but certainly, guys, uh, you know, everybody having their role, educated in their role, I think men are going to rise to the challenge. Um but a lot of a lot of men aren't going to good churches, and so that's a part of the problem. So when they go into a bad church, they don't find good leadership, they don't find strong preaching, they don't find sound theology. They're intellectually, mentally unstimulated, bored. Uh they're watching a performance up in front of them. They're they're seeing a lot of women do do you know run the show, and they just kind of recede into the background and say, you know, when's this over? Because I got a football game on, you know, and and uh guys are coming over. And that's that's more important to me than whatever this episode is.
SPEAKER_01Man, you've got all my you've got my synapses firing in like 80,000 different directions. I'm thinking of my own boys. I got two of them. Uh side note, if someone's listening, they're going, what's with Kosti's voice? Uh, my two sons were in the basketball playoffs this last weekend as we're recording this. And, you know, we got on the horn here with Travis, and he's going, Man, what's your eye? What's with your voice? And I told him, and he goes, Oh, I thought it was gonna be something spiritual. Like you preached your guts out, and you were in the Holy of Holies. You know, no, I'm sorry. I was on the sidelines just yelling, come on, my boys. Um, but on that note, you you got me thinking, okay, I've got sons, so do you. So do a lot of men listening to this, and maybe there are some younger men. I know some in our audience are, you know, teenagers in high school all the way to grandfathers. Can you speak for a moment about uh the importance of raising our sons with purpose and direction? Here's why I asked the question. Here's an underlying thing. In the the kind of Bible Church camp world where we all hopefully have read Ted Tripp, Shepherding a Child's Heart, uh, gotten a good understanding of biblical parenting. Do you find that uh we as men and and parents, moms and dads, are what is it that drives us to sort of want to keep the boys like in their place? Like just sit still. And we do we misplace uh the word rebellion? Like, ah, they're just rebellious. I just need to kind of beat them into shape and and break their will and make them submit. And we kind of want good little boys that wear the mini suit like dad and just behave, and maybe we could be giving them more purpose. I don't know. I'm I'm asking as a guy with a son who's nine and five, but you're touching on something that I'm thinking. When I give my boys direction, I've watched them do things that I go, whoa. But if I leave them in a room and just say, sit still and obey, sit under, like when they're younger, you know, they're like they're like raw wallers that tear the couches apart. They don't know what because they're working dogs. Is there something there for men and young men to learn?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, certainly there, certainly there is. But you know, one of the things that uh we see in Paul's letters to Timothy, and we see this in, you know, raising raising sons, we see this in young men. The challenge of young manhood is to keep passions restrained. It's to develop self-control and discipline. Discipline and self-control being two sides of the same coin on how you handle the self. So self-control is keeping yourself from what your passions tell you what you want to do, or your feelings tell you what you want to do, discipline, making yourself do what you don't want to do, you know. So, so self-control and discipline are essential for young, for women too, you know, young men, young men and young women, but young men, that's their that's their challenge, that's their fight. They're out, they're out from underneath their parents' authority and their parents' restraint and oversight, and they get out into the world, and they they they try to um they they try to test some boundaries there. And so that's that's where they need to be brought back to by the by the word of God, by good pastoring. But when we're raising our boys in the home, um they need to learn that too. And they need to learn it from a very young age. I mean, we well, Linda and I started uh training our kids, boys and girls, in the high chair, you know, in the high chair. We're not playing the game, drop the cup. That's not the point of the of sitting down in the high chair. It's uh we're not playing the game of let's pour the oatmeal out and make uh you know a painting on the on the tray. We're not playing the game of uh you know blowing raspberries and food goes everywhere. So we're teaching our kids they're they're getting discipline even in the high chair, they're getting uh, you know, little consequences for their for their bad behavior. And they learned that the high chair, the point of that exercise is to get food into their bellies, and they can enjoy that within the rules and the restraints and the boundaries that that we have there for the for that. We can we can do painting later, that's gonna be a different thing, and it's gonna be have a different format. Uh, we can play drop whatever at another time. So we teach them that there's a time and place for different things. We do that from very young ages. When you get into boys, you know, with their energy. If we're gonna get any of these lessons into them about um discipline, self-control, the handling of the self, the the need to instruct the mind, which is gonna instruct the body and make all that energy useful, kind of like bit and bridle into a strong horse. Uh, you're gonna get the energy uh directed from that horse into plowing a field or running a race or whatever it is. Um, you know, we're gonna help those young boys too, but you know, by teaching them, but first we've got to kind of wear them out a little bit, don't we? We gotta take them out. That's that's what the playground's for. That's sadly, you know, a lot of places recess is going away, uh, and and boys are just made to sit, and no wonder they're gonna wiggle. No wonder they're gonna be called ADD, ADHD, because they just have this pent-up energy. So, man, take them out there, you know, run some push-up drills or some what you know, have them run, uh, have them play games, have them wrestle, have them, you know, do a little uh sparring with each other, a little bit of contact sport, and uh, yeah, I mean we may have a couple broken bones, that's part of life too, and just get them back into the classroom. Once they get some of that energy out, then you know they've expended that and they're willing to they they're they're worn out, they're calmed a little bit, they're willing to listen, and uh that's when you can instruct their mind. So I think we just have to acknowledge God has made boys and girls differently. And let's let's uh let's let's rejoice in those differences and also take up the challenges that those differences, you know, sin gets into those differences and and exasperates issues. So we need to still then instruct and train and form uh those uh those differences and make them useful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so good, so well said. That's a fun rabbit trail. I know we're gonna we have an episode that we're doing uh for the role of men in their home. We're gonna unpack that a ton more and and get more of your wisdom. But on this, can I ask you uh a negative question in a sense? How have men abdicated their role to women in society, cave to feminism? Is it fear? Uh do men run from conflict? Do they just not want to deal with it? Uh, have we not fought the fight enough? Is that weak spiritual leadership? Can you just unpack kind of those questions in that aspect?
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Well, I I think that uh in talking about men in the 2020s, um, you know, we have to go back to, you know, I I think we look back decades, these these recent decades, we've looked back to the manhood of like World War I and World War II and said, man, those were real men. Those guys, those guys fought some hard battles. And certainly there's a lot to commend there. There's a lot of sin there too that that can be painted over uh by our cinema, you know. But um, but still we can look back on those times in World War I, World War II, and see some some really good qualities. But coming out of World War II, uh, we saw the the you know the 50s roll into the 60s. There was a lot of affluence in our country, and then uh kids who grew up in the homes of a veteran, veterans who want not want nothing more but to leave that war behind, come back and just work really, really hard. So they gave themselves to to working hard, they saw themselves as the provider, the protector. But with regard to personal relationships within the home and their teaching role and things like that, their affection, yeah, they're more like swaggering like John Wayne and the silent, quiet type. And they didn't really teach and pass on. They they showed the what of manhood, but not the why. They didn't teach that. And so I and I'm making serious overgeneralization here. I'm painting with a broom, not not not not not, you know, not not this isn't fine point uh uh fine point artistry here at all. But um, but I think I think guys, so so young boys and then young men growing up within that in the 50s and the 60s were you know they were affluent and indulged and and in a sense of entitlement. And so that's where you see the the rebellion movements of the 60s and the 70s come out, where there's a lot of emphasis on the self. And I think there there came a point of there was a cultural attack, you know, you see this in the culture, an attack on fathers in the home. So you see like all in the family and the archie bunker who sits in his recliner and just gripes at everything. He's just a I mean he's a he's a miserable man, but it's a that's a send-up of these fathers. You know, it's uh you have uh Al Bundy and marriage, uh what is it called? Uh Married with Children, Al Bundy, who's another just a deplorable example. But all of that, and they're you know, those are just two stereotypical caricatures of the worst of manhood and trying to make fathers look foolish, and and uh really it's the kids who have who have it pretty well figured out. And and if we're gonna move one direction or another, it's really the the the female of the children, not the male of the children, it's the female of the children who really have it better, you know, most figured out. So I think I think all that all that's going on. You also have through World War II the rise of you know the need for a lot of women to go into the factories and into the you know making bullets and tanks, and they're they're trying to support the war effort. And so they got into the the workplace and figured out, you know, we we kind of like this. It's uh you know, we can we can do it just as well as a man. And so you have the rise of uh uh feminism and work workplace. I think I think technology, the growth in technology has leveled the playing field because uh a woman can pull a trigger just as good as a man can. Um, and so you have just kind of a leveling out uh where male seemingly externally in a in a very superficial judgment, male qualities aren't as needed out there uh anymore because we're not plowing fields and we're not fighting the Huns, you know, we're we're we're we're going into factories and going to into office space. Um you know, there's a whole nother conversation we could talk about about how that oversimplification is just so false. But there was still a rise of women in the workplace and and kind of a uh an egalitarian approach to say men and women are basically the same these days because of technology. So I think I think then that gave way to the rise of modernism um and how technology and transportation growth and uh communications technology and everything, it just created a an environment, I think within the church as well, where it just muted the need for strong theology. Because you could grow a church through a really good, a really good upfront program, which requires technology, a good band, and and a lot of attractional elements. Um theology wasn't as important. Uh really having your doctrinal understanding or positions down, and then and then being careful in how you approach church life. All that was all that was neglected and set aside, I think, in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. You see then in the churches the rise of the mega church movement, and and these guys were very pragmatic, they had corporate leadership principles and things like that that seemed to make a lot of sense and resonate with the people of the world. So all of that means there's a there's a leveling out, there's a women involved just as well as men doing the job. Church growth doesn't really require men to be men, it just requires people to be competent and you know in attractional skills and technology. And I think along the way, you know, well, I just let me throw this in there. I think that um, I don't know if you've read any of David Wells' books, but he had a series of four books: No Place for Truth, God in the Wasteland, losing our virtue, and then above all earthly powers. That series of four, I think, really did a good job. The the um subtitle to No Place for Truth is Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology. And he talks about this whole decline of theological weight and gravity in our time because God and his glory and his weight has fallen too lightly on the church. He's become marginalized. It's not that we need, it's not that the world needed to find, you know, be atheistic and you know um deny God, because basically they just reduced him into a spiritual corner and said, that's your place. Because really the world can take care of everything now. We don't need we don't need God. I mean, if I if I need my daily bread, I don't pray for it. I go to the grocery store and go pick up another loaf. That's how the modern uh environment tends to think. And so men come into that. I think I think a long, you know, another strain is what Carl Truman in his recent critiques, Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, the Follow-up of The Strange New World, he's talking about uh a centuries-long crusade to tear down Christianity. And he mentions philosophers and poets and you know thinkers, none of them are in and of themselves particularly um winning the day with their arguments, but what filters out into the culture and through the university environment and into all the students coming up, it also is changing the way people think. So, going back to your question about men abdicating their role to women, caving into feminism, I just think there's this flood going on in our time that is frankly, it's a judgment upon our country, a judgment upon um uh our taking for granted and without any gratitude toward God of all the gifts that he's given, the protection he's provided for us, for our country, um, the the kindnesses he's shown, the wealth he's given to us, but in our affluence, we've we've rejected God. We've turned our back on him. We love the gift, not the giver. And so God hands us over in a Romans 1 way and delivers us over to our to our indulgences. And I think we're that's what we're seeing right now. So along the way, I think men have slipped into kind of a a rut uh seeing seeing what's going on in the culture. There's somewhere between the anger and resentment toward women, toward feminism, towards what's happened, toward themselves feeling kind of powerless in the world. And then I think on the other in the other side of that rut is just kind of becoming content and self-centered and saying, you know what, I'm just gonna retreat from this fight. I'm gonna do me, I'm gonna do my own thing, and uh and then there are some who become very belligerent and they want to they want to just take it on, and so they follow the Rogans and the Petersons, and and they're like, okay, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say whatever, let it let it fly, and they're not gonna restrain anymore. Anyway.
SPEAKER_01Those are incredibly helpful thoughts. I think you basically just through that summation uh made the clear case of why we're doing this series and why I think we need to faithfully preach the word and reclaim uh biblical manhood. I even hesitate to use that phrase like it like it's not been claimed. I mean, God's made it clear. There's many who are the embodiment of it. There's many faithful who are, but in a sense, I think drawing clearer lines once again uh is so key. Before we wrap up this first episode of the series, we're titling this one Misguided Manhood to sort of phrase frame up the whole conversation. Um what would you say to a man who wants to be a biblical man? He just he doesn't know how, he's listening to all this, probably wishing already we're into episode two, which I'll kind of tell everyone the titles of what's coming. But what would you say to that brother who's listening, going, Man, come on, guy, I I want this. Where do I start?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, uh just to encourage you, you know, you first of all, if you're a man listening to this, um, and and you're saying, well, how do I how do I do this? Just just rest in the fact, first of all, that God made you a man. And the fact that God made you a man means it's in you. It's in you to to do what God requires. Uh, you have these desires because, you know, there's no women listening to what we're saying about biblical manhood and saying, I want to be that. They may look at the men in their life and say, I want him to be that, but for them, they're content being women. They they love being women, they love how God's designed them. And us as men, we too need to just rejoice in the fact that God made us who we are, what we are, we're men, and we need to go back and discover now. Okay, so let's figure out what the lines are, why the lines are there, how we color within the lines, and let's figure out what it is. And and and we're not that's not a big mystery. It's it's all in the word of God. So we can pick up the word of God and say, okay, what if if God made men, let's go back to where he made the men and um and figure out what the pattern is. And we do have a lot that we can unpack from Genesis 1 and 2 on what God made men to be, how he designed them, what their purpose is. And then as we unpack it through scripture, we see you know, we see creation and corruption and redemption and glorification. We kind of see that we as we trace that story through scripture. Uh, man, it fills in a lot of details and always points us to Christ. So it's kind of like that, you know, that Vince Lombardi gentleman. This is a football. You know, you had to do that when the Green Green Bay Packers hadn't won games, and he comes in as their coach, and he's like, okay, let's let's go back to the beginning. Here's a football, okay, and we've got some basic things we're gonna build from the knowledge of what a football is. And so we're gonna go back to the basics with men as well in the church. We're gonna go back to Bible reading and prayer and faithfulness to the regular means of grace in the local church. And you know, we're we're gonna teach men not only what manhood is, but what the purpose of their life is as a human being to glorify God. We're gonna teach them, you know, how how uh central the local church is to being like the engine in their life that drives the entire machine. And that's so they need to go get back to the local church and commitment to the local church because that is the training center that's gonna build them up and teach them how to how to be husbands, fathers, how to be good, uh good in the workplace, and how to be good in the culture and politics and everywhere that God uses men. So gotta teach men then to stop letting decisions be driven by a desire or need or money or a job opportunity or preferences on where they'd like to live in a red state, blue state, coastal state, you know, interior. Uh stop making superficial decisions based on superficial factors. Get down to the engine and make sure you get the right engine driving the entire thing. And that engine is going to be the local church. You got to get them back in the local church so that they choose the, they find the very best church they can find, as you know, as convenient as they can, get them into a good, sound local church with sound theology, good doctrine, you know, strong preaching that's not just doctrinally strong, but it's like confrontive. You know, men need to be confronted, they need to be, they need to be provoked, they need to be pushed. I mean, I need that, you need that, our men need that too. So they'd have to you gotta find the best church you can find, get yourself into it, and then make decisions about jobs and about things like that after that. So find the best church you can and build your life around that church because you'll never regret that.
SPEAKER_01So well said. I have a Vince Lombardi quote to wrap up this episode. He once said, the Green Bay Packers never lost a football game. We just ran out of time. That is that is that is confidence. That's the confidence of a man right there. I never lost a game. Uh we just ran out of time. Put more time on the clock. I'll keep getting after it. And thankfully, um, since we kind of control uh the episodes here for the gospel, I'm gonna stack the deck with you. We're doing five of these. This one, Misguided Manhood. Uh, the next one, the traits of a biblical man. You're gonna unpack what those are. Uh, episode three, I've got the title, What is the role of men in the home? We want to strengthen men for their role there. Uh episode four, I've got How Should Men Protect Their Family. I am so pumped for this one. I live in Arizona where uh everybody owns an AR and we sort of have that culture uh of standing on the driveway during COVID, like with the come get some attitude. So our shepherding was different. Maybe in California, pastors were trying to light a fire under their people. Here in Arizona, we were trying to control the militia of manhood as we're like, we're taking it to them. Everyone just calm down, be like Christ. Uh, but how should men protect their family? Uh if somebody invades your house, if somebody attacks your wife, if like what are we supposed to be doing? Uh, how far do you go even to prepare and and be a wise financial uh planner? All of those things so important for men today. And then finally, what is the role of men in the church? We're gonna finish with that one and talk about how every man can be a man of God in the local church and ought to be. Travis, thank you, my friend. Appreciate you. Awesome. Well, everyone, uh, thanks for listening, thanks for watching. Be sure to subscribe if you're watching this on our YouTube channel. We have the video podcast format. And as always, thanks for supporting. Thanks for praying, thanks for sharing, and thanks for using these resources. We'll be back with another episode next Monday. Keep on living for the gospel.