Redefining Manhood: How to Be a Godly Man in a Confused World with Jim Ramos

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Get Jim's book, Dialed In, HERE.

What does it really mean to be a godly man in today's world?
How can men take practical steps to lead their families and communities with integrity?
Where can I find actionable advice and mentorship to grow in faith, leadership, and purpose as a man?

Welcome to the MOI Podcast! In this powerful episode, host Ryan Zook sits down with Jim Ramos of Men in the Arena to dive deep into the core attributes of biblical manhood, leadership, and how men can finish strong in every area of life. Discover Jim’s insights from his latest book “Dialed In,” learn why mentorship is critical in a confused culture, and hear practical ways to build integrity, discipline, and spiritual strength—no matter your past.

Whether you want to be a better husband, father, leader, or simply desire authentic community with other men, you’ll find real, actionable wisdom here to help you become your best version in Christ. Get inspired to take up the challenge, build accountability, and shape a legacy that transforms your family…and the world.

#MensLeadership #ChristianMen #BiblicalManhood #FaithAndFamily #MentorshipMatters #PurposeDrivenLife #MenOfIron

Transcript

Joby Martin [00:00:00]:
This is what a man is. He protects integrity, he fights apathy, he pursues God passionately. It's like that mountain behind you. He pursues God passionately as a summit. The descent is he leads courageously and the trails in as he finishes strong. And that's what we do. We just tell a very confused world what it means to be a man.

Ryan Zook [00:00:25]:
Hey, welcome back to the Men of Iron podcast. Today we have a special guest, Jim Ramos, with Men in the Arena. We're thrilled that he's here with us today. Just excited to jump in to a conversation here with Jim. He's got a new book out dialed in. We want to encourage you guys to go check out the book. We think it'll be helpful for you in your spiritual journey to know God and know your purpose. I'm excited to jump into this conversation. So if you need anything from us, you can click the links in the description like always. If you need a mentor, we would love to hook you up with a mentor. So if that would be helpful to you, click the link, the bio. If you want to see Jim's book, we'll have a link to that in our description as well. And if you just want to reach out to us, you're struggling with something, need some help, you want to talk to somebody, that link is in the description as well. So click that and check us out. With all that out of the way, Jim, welcome to the podcast, man.

Joby Martin [00:01:15]:
Hey, Ryan, thanks. I appreciate you having me. I'm humbled and honored to be able to share the message.

Ryan Zook [00:01:20]:
Yeah, for sure, man. So why don't you tell us just a little bit about who Jim Ramos is and what, what, what got us to the book and we'll go from there.

Joby Martin [00:01:29]:
Yeah, I mean, I guess the first thing is I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, married to my beautiful bride for 33 years. We are two low maintenance people in a high maintenance marriage. And we actually wrote a book about that that's coming out in April called guardrails 10 boundaries to for an unbreakable marriage. I've got three great sons. They're. I was just talking about them the other day. I said, man, it's really cool. I love my boys, but I actually like them, you know, and they're 31, 29 and 27 and just neat guys, successful, just really, really enjoy them. I've got two, two grandchildren and life is good. I, I love the outdoors. I, I've been really, as I'm getting a little older, I'm loving to fly fishing a little Bit. Okay. Several hunts lined up right now. I've already got one axis deer under the belt and got some things coming up here. Love to hunt, love to butcher, love to eat, love to do it all. So. And I love the thing I enjoy doing every day is I love to have a cup of coffee and man, get out to Oregon. I'll take you out for a cup of coffee. Just love my coffee out here in Oregon. It's so rainy and cloudy. We live, we just love our coffee out here.

Ryan Zook [00:02:35]:
All right, what's your, what's your favorite hunt to date?

Joby Martin [00:02:40]:
Yeah, favorite. Oh man. Oh, well, this one might be my most memorable because I shot that guy in 2020. That's the biggest mule deer I've killed to date. And I shot him on public land in 100 degree weather. I was alone and I boned this buck out and I packed him to a location. I on x'd him. It's just a tremendous story. It's in, it's in one of my books somewhere. But this is called Old Broken Top because I hit him in the eyeball and shattered, collapsed his horns and blew off his main beam. This, this here is totally fabricated. And I walked all the way down, got to my buddy with a quad, about 5 mile walk, 100 degree weather, got up the hill, the side by side broke down. We had to walk all the way back down the hill. It was about a 14 mile hiking day. I'm crusty with blood everywhere. And then the buck is this biggest buck of my life and he ruined and, and I. But, but I had a tax friend that put them together. Okay. And it's a wonderful illustration to me that God takes our broken pieces, he takes our tragedies and turns them into trophies. Like God loves to take our broken pieces and put them back together according to Romans 8, 28. So that hunt as far as recent memory was really a very memorable hunt for me. I've been on a lot of great hunts. It's just really, they're all unique and different, but that one had a real special place in my heart. And I've got the animal here as an illustration that God loves to put our broken pieces back together.

Ryan Zook [00:04:12]:
That's awesome. I gotta know, are you mostly a rifle guy? Do you do any archery? What are you doing out there?

Joby Martin [00:04:18]:
You know, that's really funny that you asked me that. I would call myself an archery opportunist. I'm moving away from archery a little bit. You know, out here archery is spot and stock. It's not, you know, and so I've killed two bull elk. Both are pope and young bulls. I've killed one, two, two, two turkeys, probably five or six axis deer and a whitetail bucks. I've killed like nine, you know, bigger than a turkey animal. Yeah. But I would still say I'm just. I would prefer the rifle. All right. Being honest.

Ryan Zook [00:04:50]:
All right.

Joby Martin [00:04:51]:
The forward of my book is written by Adam Weatherby, the president of Weatherby. So I better say I prefer. Right.

Ryan Zook [00:04:57]:
You have to say that. That's, that's part of the book deal.

Joby Martin [00:05:03]:
I am a big fan of weather. I've been shooting this Weatherby for. I shot a Weatherby Mark 5 for 20 years from 2000 to 2024. And I just switched over to a Weatherby 307.7millimeter PRC carbon fiber. Because as you get older, you know, we don't climb into the tree stand like you guys out there. We gotta actually walk for our animals. And so, you know, so you gotta.

Ryan Zook [00:05:24]:
Think, I have no shame in it, man. I'll sit in the tree all day. If you want to hike your boots off, that's fine.

Joby Martin [00:05:30]:
Hey, brother, I'm telling you what, I'm gonna move to Pennsylvania because I'm. Those tree stands are looking pretty darn appealing right now anyway, so. So I went over, switched over to a carbon fiber rifle in Oregon. We can suppress our gun. So it's suppressed.

Ryan Zook [00:05:42]:
Okay.

Joby Martin [00:05:43]:
So I'm pushing a 3,000 foot per second, 175 grain bullet. It's kicking like a.223 or a 5.56.

Ryan Zook [00:05:49]:
Get out.

Joby Martin [00:05:50]:
It's pretty fun.

Ryan Zook [00:05:51]:
All right.

Joby Martin [00:05:51]:
Pretty fun. Pretty fun. Yeah.

Ryan Zook [00:05:52]:
All right, so tell me a little bit about men in the arena. What are you doing over there?

Joby Martin [00:05:57]:
Yeah. So our vision is to build a growing army of men who are becoming their best version in Christ and changing their world. We believe that when a man gets it, everyone wins. So our whole focus goes from, you know, transitioning males into men because, you know, you know, male and a man are different. Like when people talk about toxic masculinity, that phrase is oxymoronic because when you look up the word masculinity in the dictionary, it says the way and quality of a man. So that is not, that is not this boyish childish behavior we see over here. So we want to take, you know, you're born a. You're, you know, male by birth, you're a man by choice, you're a male by form. You know, that is, you have all the male parts, but you're a man. By function, you are a male genetically and you're a man habitually. So what we want to do is, and I think our sweet spot is we come in and we just bombard social media, bombard the podcasting world, bombard, you know, the literary world. We just bombard people with this voice of this is what a man is. He protects integrity, he fights apathy, he pursues God passionately. It's like that mountain behind you. He pursues God passionately as a summit. The descent is he leads courageously and the trails in as he finishes strong. And that's what we do. We just tell a very confused world what it means to be a man.

Ryan Zook [00:07:20]:
What are you seeing out there right now? Culture wise? It feels like to me that we might be turning a corner where all of a sudden we're not afraid to invest in men anymore. It's okay to say, hey, you know what? We're all about raising up godly men. It seems like we were a little bit nervous about that for a while. Are you guys seeing that too?

Joby Martin [00:07:39]:
Yeah. Even out here in Oregon, out here in Portland, probably the most embarrassing city in the country, we're seeing that. What's going on? It's really cool. So I'm a chaplain of a university football team and it's really fun. For the first time in the school's history, we're doing a barbecue this Sunday and a baptism before the season for the football team. And I've got some of their stars lined up and the guys are going to baptize each other. Statistically, we know that in Britain, in England, they're having a revival with Gen Z males. We also know that in America, for the first time in recorded American history, there are more young men attending church than women. So there is a movement of God, a revival. I think that in 2020, 2021, Satan came in in the spirit realm in this full frontal assault. God sat back and watched it and went, okay, watch what I'm gonna do. And so now, man, I'm a 18 year old kid, I can choose whether I want to be a boy or a girl. I don't need my parents consent. And I realize that all these things I've been told by my teachers and by the media and by Hollywood, they all are fabricated and lies. And whenever a person decides they've been lied to and seeks the truth, they're going to follow. John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth and life. They're going to come to Jesus. And I really believe I have great hope for our world. Right now, I believe that there's a movement of God that is going to change culture, and I want to be a part of it, man. And you do, too.

Ryan Zook [00:09:03]:
Yeah. I'll tell you what, man. So we. We exist to change the culture one man at a time. What Men of Iron is doing is we have. We have a mountain journey just like you do. We're trying to get guys, like, just to have free resources. Hey, how can we help you? Get them into groups, working with each other. But ultimately, we want to see every guy with a mentor in their lives teaching them to be a godly man. Like, right. It's one thing to be a man. Every man is a man. But to be a godly man is really what we're called to be. So we don't want to just exist in this apathy where it's like, yeah, whatever, I have this role to play. We want you to actually represent God in every aspect of your life. And one of the crazy encouraging things we're seeing is churches are getting more engaged in that mission. Businesses are getting more engaged in that mission. It seems like across the board, culturally, people are saying, hey, it seems like investing in men is the way to come at the problems that we're seeing in culture, because every problem in culture is downstream from a man somewhere. So there's a guy in our orbit that always says, guys are idiots, and guys screw everything up. And what we want to do is make guys who aren't idiots that know God, that know their purpose, that know how to stand on the truth. And so that's what we're doing, and we're starting to see a difference just in what's out there. It sounds like you're seeing the same thing.

Joby Martin [00:10:18]:
Yeah, we believe that males are the problem and men are the solution.

Ryan Zook [00:10:22]:
Yeah, man.

Joby Martin [00:10:23]:
And that mentor thing is really important. It's more important than ever because we have a generation growing up. Now, think about this. You can argue the numbers, but 50% of couples who get married get divorced. It's a little bit lower now, but let's do 50%. And 40% of all children born today are born out of wedlock. You take the 40% number and realize that 60% of kids are born with a dad, 40% or not. So that leaves 60%. And if you think 60% of those kids aren't gonna live with their dad till they're age 18, you're down to 30%. So that means 70% of the young men growing up today are growing up without a man in the home till 18 now that you could. That's, there's, I'm wiggling, there's a little margin there, but guys are so confused in Oregon. You know, you walk in, there's no boys and girls restrooms out here. It's like just unisex, just pick your, you know, and so I think there's a lot of confusion. And so these young men or males wanting to become men need to have older men in their lives to help them. It's. This is the greatest time in history, American history, to be a 70, 80 year old man and have a ministry because these younger guys are starving for it. If, if you're an 80 year old man who's lived the life right, if you're a jackweed. No, you know, they want, they want somebody who's done it, done it right in the midst of, of his failures.

Ryan Zook [00:11:45]:
Well, it's, it's being transparent about things that you've done well. Transparent about things you haven't done well. God is leading and shaping our stories. He has good things for us. So if, if we lead with that transparency, there is, there's a whole generation of hungry guys out there that want to know what it means to be a godly man because they want to be part of a, of something that's bigger than themselves. And the most rewarding possible thing that you can be a part of is building God's kingdom and moving that ball forward. I think one of the most interesting things when I think about what God's been doing in our lives and even before that, is the mission of the gospel is literally just Jesus invests in this handful of guys and hands them the kingdom. Hey, take this mission, invest in somebody else. And you can track that one generation after the next generation, after the next of faithful men who have entrusted the gospel with the next generation. And that's the mission we're continuing to live out today. So I'm encouraged by what we're seeing. I think, you know, if you guys are listening, like there is nothing more meaningful you can do than invest in another man to help them to know what it means to follow Jesus really and truthfully, to make a difference in this culture today. This is not a passive thing, it's an active thing. And everybody needs to get involved in some way.

Joby Martin [00:13:00]:
Yeah. And what I tell the younger guys, I said, listen, if you don't ask an older guy to help you, that's your pride, that's your problem. Shame on you. But if you do find an older guy that you respect and you ask that guy to take you to lunch, take you to breakfast, whatever. That guy has to pay. It's the old guy rule. So if you ask an older guy, he's gonna pay. Even if you ask him, what do you got to lose?

Ryan Zook [00:13:24]:
Hey, get a free breakfast out of it.

Joby Martin [00:13:27]:
Have, like, 20 guys mentoring you. That's a lot of free meals, especially.

Ryan Zook [00:13:31]:
If you're in college. That's a great way to make it through.

Joby Martin [00:13:33]:
Oh, man. I'm telling you, it's a dream come true.

Ryan Zook [00:13:37]:
Oh, man. All right, so let's jump into the book. I want to know a little bit about, like, what got you to the place where you wanted to write this, and what's a guy going to take from this?

Joby Martin [00:13:47]:
Yeah, so this book is a cool book. This book is a. You know, this is the 16th book I've written. And this book I read, a book that was written in 1974 by one of my heroes, Gene Getz. It's called the Measure of a Man. Sold millions of copies. And then in 1996, a man who I don't know, named Ray Pritchard, wrote a book called man of Honor. And both of those guys did the same thing. They took the Pastoral epistles of First Timothy, chapter three, and Titus chapter one, and they. They took the qualities described where Paul described to Titus on Crete and Timothy in Ephesus, what they should look for in a spiritual leader. Okay? Which. Now, let me say this. Which should be the goal of every Christian man. Every Christian man should be biblically qualified to lead. He should be a guy that the pastor can say, that guy is biblically qualified. Now, there are other factors that go into spiritual leadership, but this. That's the goal of every man. So Pritchard lists 24 items, gets listed 20. I like Getz's list better because it's cleaner. 20 versus 24. It's less chapters. And, like, one of the couple of things that Pritchard listed, I would say, were more fringes. For example, Paul told Titus, now, Titus had planted this church. God is moving greatly. People are getting saved. It's a very young church spiritually. Very, very young spiritually. Ephesus was established. It was a mega church in Ephesus. Paul said, hey, man, these guys need to be mature believers. But he excluded that to Titus because he just. Titus is like, man, I just need to get some guys to the Pulse over here. You know? So it was a little bit different, right? So I went with the 20 qualities. And the thing. These guys are heroes and champions, but the one thing reading their books and the one thing reading the pastoral epistles that always confused me was depending on your Bible translation. So I'm a New American Standard guy. New American Standard. The word says prudent over here. But if I'm an NIV guy, that same Greek word is translated sober. But over here, this word that's temperate or self controlled is also sober. So it was very confusing for me. So what I did is I thought, I'm going to write a book that is more on the scholarly side. It's a very simple book. I'm a storyteller. I transliterated the original Greek words and phrases into one masculine positive word that stood distinct from. From all other 19. And so that's what we did. And each chapter is only about 2,500 words long, which is a very, very short chapter. And I love. I'm a storyteller. And then the elk on the COVID our publisher went out of Colorado, which has more elk in that state than any state in the country. When they first showed me this cover, they had five cover designs. And they had this one on here, but it was a red stag. And the guy kept talking about the elk. And I said, well, I like this cover better, but I don't like, that's not an elk. That's a stag. What?

Ryan Zook [00:16:49]:
What?

Joby Martin [00:16:50]:
You live in Colorado. And then my marketing guy hated the COVID But the funny part is, is my. I know my audience and my audience are small town America, and these guys love the book. We actually, we were hoping to make the top 150 on USA Today's bestseller list. We hit number 22. Okay, but better news than 22 is that 23. The one that was 23. My son saw that and said, dad, if you'd have lost the 23, you're no longer our dad. I'm like, what's 23? I went and looked. 23 is a book called you're my little Pumpkin Pie.

Ryan Zook [00:17:26]:
So you're just above the pumpkin pie book, man. You're good to go.

Joby Martin [00:17:30]:
But the evangelical Christian publishing list came out the next month, and we were 15 on that list. And I didn't beat Joyce Meyer, so that's kind of a bummer.

Ryan Zook [00:17:38]:
Come on.

Joby Martin [00:17:40]:
She positive thought her way through, man.

Ryan Zook [00:17:42]:
All right, all right.

Joby Martin [00:17:44]:
But she beat me by one. But my kids don't even know who she is, so I was good.

Ryan Zook [00:17:49]:
So we got you between Joyce Meyer and pumpkin pie. What better. What better recommendation do you need?

Joby Martin [00:17:55]:
Honestly, I'm okay. I'm okay with that.

Ryan Zook [00:17:58]:
Okay, so you have, you have a couple Each chapter is based on those qualities. So walk me through just some of those qualities that are called out in those letters and maybe how we can encourage guys to look that way.

Joby Martin [00:18:11]:
Yeah. So basically, guys aren't book readers. So I write books for guys that don't read books. So my job is to engage guys. So I speak the way I write. So the way when you read my book, you'll be like, oh, I'm talking to Ramos.

Ryan Zook [00:18:23]:
Yep.

Joby Martin [00:18:24]:
And the way I broke it down is the first chapter and the last chapter is only 20 chapters in the book. First chapter and last chapter are the two most important chapters. Okay. They bookend all other chapters. Let me explain. And then a couple chapters are paired together. The first chapter is the. The blameless man. So both Paul and both Paul in his letter to Titus and his letter to Timothy, both times he lists the man, the leader must be above reproach. That word, above reproach is the Greek word antipolipnos. And that. That word literally means to leave nothing to lay hold of. And so in the book, I tell a story of my brother shoestring, tackling this big running back in football and saving a touchdown. And, and the. The. The challenge is for men to look at their life and to see if they have any loose shoestring that if Satan could lay a hold of, that would bring shame and embarrassment to their family and the name of Jesus and the body of Christ. Now, that being said, the one thing, the one miss in the book, the one thing that's not in the book that I should have put in the book is that this book does not care about your past. It doesn't look at your past. It doesn't. It doesn't ask you to explain your wounds from your past or get a counselor. This book says, hey, let's talk about from now forward. So what happens is a lot of guys read this book and they go, man, Jim, I can't. You don't know my past. And I said, well, I don't care about your past. I mean, the Romans 8:28 says that God works all things to good. You know, in Isaiah 14, I think it is, God says, I don't. I remember your sins no more. So, I mean, God, you're forgiven, bro. So let's just focus on here, on out. So, so the blameless man is the goal. That's the goal. That's the bookend. That is the overarching theme over the other 19. So that is the goal. Because here's the deal. You can have. You can be Vigilant, you can be a, you can be a great leader, you can be a great teacher, you can be all these things listed within the other 19 chapters of this book. But if you lack integrity, if you are not blameless, if you're not above approach, you're not in ministry, you're just not in ministry anymore. And so then the last chapter, and you'll appreciate this, the last chapter is called the Discipline Man. And the subtitle, all the subtitles are catchy, right? The subtitle is Make Decisions against Yourself. So this book ends the other 19 because you can be blameless. But if you have the inability to control your thoughts, to control your mind, to take everything thought captive, to discipline your life, you're not blameless anymore. So if you know you, you and that. So the Greek word that Paul uses there is multivariously translated. But the Greek word is the word sofron. And it's a word that commentators don't like. It's very hard to translate but, but it's really funny because they say they're much. I think some of these commentators are city people because they go, the word's not translatable. It's not translatable. But the literal sofron is a compound Greek word made up of two words. And the two words are safe. Mine. Well, any redneck knows what that means. Tell me, like I put my guns in a safe and I lock them up. Hey, I mean, right? I mean to me that's the easiest word to translate ever. I'm gonna put a thought in my brain and lock it down. I'm gonna lock it down. I'm gonna get a grip. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna temper control that throttle. But they take that thought captive. I'm gonna put it in a safe and lock it in there and I'm gonna make decisions against myself. Once I get out of here today, I'm gonna go get on a peloton in my garage and it's about 90 degree weather right now and I'm gonna pant and suck air for 15 for 30 minutes. Getting yelled at by some 28 year old kid from New York or wherever she's from, you, you know, England or whatever. And I don't like doing it, but I do it because I have to do it right. I'm making a decision against the couch and against the nap and against scrolling and against watching a movie. And I'm going to do something that hurts me today. But it's better if you're going to.

Ryan Zook [00:22:28]:
Be a growing man. You have to make decisions like that if you're going to be growing and progressing in your faith, really, in any aspect of your life. But if you want to become more and more like Jesus, I think it's a requirement that you got to do some things that you're not naturally inclined to do, and you're asking other people to hold you accountable, and you're taking people along on that journey with you to push you and move you into a life that looks more and more like Jesus, that honors him more well.

Joby Martin [00:22:55]:
And I think for me personally, I'm a big guy. I just went to the. My natural path. I've got a doctor and a natural path. My natural path. I did this whole test and he said, the goal of people excellent health is a 100. And he goes, you're a 102. And I'm a big dude. And so I've got, I've got. I'm in great shape, but I've had to work very, very hard for it. And I. I struggle in the church because we seem to ignore the sin of gluttony and obesity. And it's even gotten so bad now. They go, oh, you're fat, shaming me. Well, you're just fat and you're out of shape and you're a glutton. And I want to help you, I want to love you, I want to have compassion. But we can't ignore that sin. It's the one sin we all see, you know, and so for me, my discipline, good or bad, you know, I'm. I'll be 60 years old in December. And we had a camp, 400 guys, this camp we put together, and we did a polar plunge. I took my shirt off and the guy's like, you have a six pack. And I'm like, I know. How funny is that? You know, it's like, I don't know my kids. Like, dad, you're jacked. And that's just hard work and diet. I'm not, I'm not sick. Packed out right now because summer's been rough to me. But. But, you know, I mean. But that's the goal, right? It's. We want to. We want to make this decisions against ourselves so that we can honor God with our life.

Ryan Zook [00:24:03]:
You know, it's kind of a lost thing. I'm glad you're bringing this up. I've not talked to many people that are willing to jump into this topic, but the early church had a huge problem with gluttony because they connected it directly to a lack of self discipline. And so there was actually this idea in the first, second, third century that you can't have a Christian leader who's influencing people, who's clearly not healthy, who's out of shape, who is a glutton. Because if they are not responsible with their choices and their health, how could they possibly be responsible in their choices with their spirit? And the other thing that was very common in the early church is that they did not separate body and spirit. So it's the same thing. There's not a physical world that you pay attention to and a spiritual world you pay attention to. There's one world and it's you. And so I'm thrilled you're diving into this because it's something we encourage guys to improve in their faith, family, friends, fitness and finances. And always when we talk about fitness, it's like.

Joby Martin [00:25:04]:
Okay, guys, so I mean, I'm a big guy. I've always struggled my weight, so I've got a tough. I mean, you know, I'm in great shape, but I'm a big guy. I'm not a natural skinny guy. Sure. So for me, I'm pretty brutal with people. I'm like, hey, if I'm going to work hard, everybody's going to have to work hard.

Ryan Zook [00:25:19]:
Yeah, man.

Joby Martin [00:25:20]:
So it's really interesting you talked about the Bible back then. I agree. There was no separation between body, soul, spirit. It was one thing, it was holistic. That was a Greek, a Hellenistic mentality. And it's really interesting, the gospel, I'm sorry, the first, first John, he spends the entire book, and I think in the Gospel of John, he really is arguing to a guy named Cerinthus, who's a leading Gnostic. G N O S T I C. Gnosticism meant body is good, flesh, our flesh is bad, spirit is good. So that theologically they were all jacked up about who Jesus was. They. But the thing, the two schools of thought with Gnosticism were this. You either discipline your body to the nth degree and because you, you hated your body because flesh is evil. So you want to discipline your body, beat your body. I mean, they would resonate with Paul's, with Paul's passage, you know, I beat my body and make it my slave. Where the other side of the coin would say, wait, no, we like the American standard version that says, I buffet my body and make it my. You know, so the other side is extreme gluttony. Right. You got these two sides. I'm I'm extremely disciplined and I'm going to hurt my body because my flesh is bad, or I'm just going to let my body go because my flesh is bad. And, and Paul is, or John is arguing against both of these heretical thoughts. Right. And so for us as Christians, we have to come in with a different balance that says, hey, First Corinthians 6 tells me and John 12, 14 tell me I have the Holy Spirit in me. I am a temple of the Holy Spirit. And if I am a temple of the Holy Spirit, I don't want to have some, you know, drive through McDonald's, A&W, Burger King, Carl's Jr. You guys call it Hardee's out there. I want, I don't have some fast food train wreck joint and my Holy Spirit to live. I want to create a place where he can dwell. And here's the other thing, Ryan. I'm called to steward my body. And so I have seven health phrases that I live by. You want to hear them? They're kind of funny.

Ryan Zook [00:27:21]:
Tell me.

Joby Martin [00:27:21]:
You see me moving around, right? Because sitting is the new smoking. Sitting is new smoking. Sun is life service oriented. Eating is a loss. So don't eat out. Eating out, Sleep is underrated. Sabbath is a form of cultural resistance. Suffering is an emotion. So work out regularly. And sugar is poison. So I live, I try to live by those things. And at night I evaluate my day, win or loss based on those things. Because I realize for me it's a struggle. It's a struggle. And that's the beautiful thing about being a follower of Jesus is before I followed Jesus, I did not struggle with sin, I celebrated it. But now I struggle with sin to find victory and wait, wait. And eating is one of those things.

Ryan Zook [00:28:15]:
So what else, what else is in there? You talked about the bookend pieces. What do you got in the, in the middle there?

Joby Martin [00:28:21]:
Yeah. And so there are a couple things that are paired together. I'll tell you the big, that, for example, people talk about eating and drinking, right? Yeah. So there's a passage where Paul says, do not be addicted to wine. So that's, that's that, that's the Greek word peroinos. It means literally besides wine. But the spirit of Paul's letter had nothing to do with wine and everything to do with eating and drinking and putting things in our bodies in moderation. Okay, now check this out. We've been bagging on the fat guys, right? So, so we, so the reason why this is so important is because that word poronos is paired all the time in Scripture and both to Titus and Timothy. It's paired with the Greek word nephalios, which is translated the King James Version, which I like. I like their translation better as vigilance. So when I fail to live my life in moderation of what I ingest into my body, eating, drinking, smoking, chewing tobacco, vaping, whatever it may be, if I'm not living in moderation, I lose my vigilance, and I'm called to protect and oversee and build a wall around my loved ones. So if I'm sitting there on Thanksgiving in a meat turkey coma, or if I've got the meat sweats, or if I'm drunk after work, I lose vigilance because I've lost moderation. So these two work together. So that was a real fun thing for me. And the thing I would say, Ryan, that is the biggest. When a guy writes a book, there's usually a point in the book where God deeply impacts the man and God surprises the man with something he wasn't ready for. So it's the phrase, you know, God preaches to the preacher before the preacher preaches to people. So when I was going through, I've always been really confused about pastors telling men they're the spiritual leaders, because nobody ever really teaches on it. Definitive. Like, here is the definitive place where God says, you're a spiritual leader. Now, I realize that Ephesians 1 and Colossians 3 and 1st Timothy or 1st Peter 3, the household codes. I realize that the man is the leader. I'm not going to argue that. But I've never heard definitive preaching on the subject that when I would walk away going, oh, here's why I'm a spiritual leader. Now, I get it, you know, Adam is the head. I understand those things. But when I was going through here, I realized something. That's so cool, man. This is so cool. This is the best part of the podcast. Paul spent more time on describing the spiritual leader in the pastoral epistles than all 19 combined. And he tells Timothy and Titus, he kind of, kind of interweaves them together. He says that a man must manage his household well, because if a man does not, I think this is first Timothy 3, 4 and 4 through 6, and Titus 1, verse 6, something like that. If a man cannot manage his household well, how can he manage the household of God? And it hit me twice. He uses the word manage. And I thought, he doesn't use the word leader. He uses the word managed. And I thought, okay, that word is significant. What does that Word mean in the Greek, and the Greek word is proestomai P R O I S T E M I proestemai. And as I dove into the word, God gave me a. And I'm not. I wouldn't. I don't attend like charismatic or Pentecostal churches. I'm all, hey, that's good to go, man. I'm good with those things. But I'm in just kind of a normal church like most people attend, you know, like a middle of the road church, Christian church. But God gave me a picture, like an epiphany moment. And in this moment, this word proestomite means to preside over, protect and provide. And God gave me a picture of a physical house. And so a man is to preside over. He's a covering for his bride. He is a covering for his kids when they go to public school. He is a covering for when his wife walks down the street. And he's walking on the street side and she's on the inside, he's covering her. That wedding ring on her finger says, I've got somebody who's protecting me. I have a covering he protects around. He builds a wall around his household. He's like Gandalf standing at the. Standing at Mordor on the cost of the bridge of Casa Doom, saying, you shall not pass. He's saying, Netflix, you shall not pass. You know, pornography. You shall not pass. Friends with bad lifestyles. You shall not pass. He regulates what can and cannot come into the home along with his wife. But he's ultimately responsible. Like, I have found the husband, wife relationship. My wife, I think most wives are. Their superpower is identifying a problem. Like they're. That's their superpower. Our superpower is fixing the problem. So you have a man and woman together. She's going, hey, we need a. We have a breach in the wall. He goes, I'm going out with a mortar and the trowel. You know what I mean? And so he builds a wall around his household. And then the most important thing is this. We live in America. God bless America. And we live in the place. We want our white picket fence, our 2.5 kids, and our Labrador retriever or whatever. You know what? You want our guns and our whatever. So a lot of times men get in this mentality, hey, I've provided for my family. I've given them everything they need. No, bro, you haven't. Listen, bro, your kids, in the long run, could give a rip whether you were rich or poor. What they need you to do is Provide for their heart. You know, and in every house, there are individual rooms, and those individual rooms represent hearts of the people in your household. I have grandchildren in my home now. In my household now. They don't live with me. I've got daughters in love now that are in my household. And it's my job to provide for their heart. Because at the end of the day, they're not going to get counseling or see a counselor or have anxiety attacks because of what I've gave them. They're going to have all these things because of what I didn't give them intangibly. So a man builds a wall over his family, he builds a wall around, and he builds a wall within each heart. And so in my book, guardrails, I have a whole chapter on this called it's just basically, I mean, the Trump people probably will love it. It's just called build a Wall. And so, I mean, I don't know what the rest will think, but I just love the. It's catchy. Build a wall. Our job as leaders. Leaders are wall builders. When God calls a man to lead, he calls him to build a wall. So that was a big deal for me when I saw that. I'm like, I'm a wall builder.

Ryan Zook [00:34:54]:
Tell me how you, how, how do you actually do that in your own family? What's that look like for Jim?

Joby Martin [00:35:00]:
So, okay, so I'll get two, two caveats before I answer question. Okay, the first one is I'm, I'm a professional Christian, so I get paid to be a Christian. So if I tell you what I do, it's not fair to the general ban. So I'm just gonna give you that caveat. Yeah. The second thing I'll tell you is I'm an empty nester, so my kids are gone. Okay, so I'll tell you the main thing I did that I'm the most proud of. How about that?

Ryan Zook [00:35:26]:
Tell me.

Joby Martin [00:35:26]:
Well, I'll tell you two things. We prayed for our kids before they went to bed every night. And I prayed the same prayer for those kids. I'm gonna start crying. And I prayed over them today, and I prayed over my grandchildren today. And it's such a beautiful thing because my kids are praying it over their kids today. And it's this, God, I pray that you would protect them from sin and sickness and disease, illness and injury all the days of their lives. And that's what I pray for my kids. So we prayed for them. Every night we prayed the same prayer. You know, we just did it. And then I love to cook, man. I am a. I love to cook. I'm barbecuing for a university football team. I'm the chaplain of 130 guys. I love. I've got a barbecue pit I carry, I travel with. It's not a smoker like you Pennsylvania guys. This is open flame, direct flame to meat, baby. Anyway, Santa Maria style barbecue. You can Google it. Okay. Growing up, I knew I needed to serve my wife right. She was doing full time mom stuff. She had three boys, two years apart. It was insanity in our house. I worked 60, 70 hours a week as a pastor. So every morning, every morning, like I'm telling you, bro. Okay, five mornings, at least a week. Saturday, Sunday was easier. I cooked, I made her her coffee. She likes Americana with heavy cream, froth half and half on top. A little bit of a high maintenance drink, but that's okay. So Americano. And then I make breakfast for the kids every day. They, every day they were in school and it was always some kind of meat, some kind of egg. And if I did pancakes, I did protein powder in the pancakes, always had protein. We'd come to the table and I would, I journal my Bible study stuff, which I do today, and I would, I would share what's in that journal and we would just kind of pray for the day and go. It was a 15 minute window where we ate together every day before they went to school. And I feel like I hit that one out of the park because we did that systematically. And so what I tell guys, man, you know, don't do what I did. I'm a professional pastor. I did that as a, I didn't do that because I was a pastor. I did that because I'm a follower of Jesus. But guys have different schedules, a lot of things. There's a lot of variables there. But I would say, you know, if I'm looking at this word proys to my and managing your household well, I would say get a hold of your bride, go on a date and inspect the walls. Pull a Nehemiah, inspect the walls. Let her show you where there are breaches. She'll show you where there are. They're great at that. That's her superpower. She'll show you. And I'm not a dishonoring thing. That's an honoring thing. We need them to do that. So she shows you the breach in the walls, then you just start fixing them. And she may say, you know, we, we don't go to church. Well, that's a no brainer, bro. Or she May say, I wish we prayed as a family more. Well, hey, listen, praying as a family is as easy as saying grace before a meal. And you cannot believe how many Christian men don't do that. So just do something simple and then once you get that going, then just do one more thing, easy, one at a time.

Ryan Zook [00:38:26]:
Just stack those habits, man, one after the other.

Joby Martin [00:38:28]:
Oh, James Cleary, there you go, man.

Ryan Zook [00:38:31]:
Come on.

Joby Martin [00:38:33]:
Yep, James Cleary. I love that book habit stacking. Atomic habits. Uh huh. Yeah. But very similar to that, right? Yeah. So that's. I would just say so that's the. Those are two things I did. And I'll tell you what else I did really well, I showed up. If I was not at an event, those kids were shocked. And well, and I tell you another thing I did. I told my kid, I tell my people I love them every time I'm with them to this day. I love you. And I've got manly kids, man. I love you, dad. Love you, son. Love you, dad. Love you. My daughters in law. Love you. Love you, Jim. Love you. Because you never know in your life that I love you is your last. I love you. So those are some things that we implemented. And my wife is phenomenal. Without her, I mean, who knows what I mean? I was a barbarian when she married me. So now I worry about matching my socks to my shirts.

Ryan Zook [00:39:25]:
Oh, come on, come on, man.

Joby Martin [00:39:28]:
I don't even match. I don't even have different camo now. I have to match the whole thing now. Like what happened to me.

Ryan Zook [00:39:35]:
Oh, man.

Joby Martin [00:39:37]:
So that's my. That's the couple of things I could share with you. Yeah.

Ryan Zook [00:39:41]:
What do you think? I mean, honing in on the pastoral epistles like you are, and particularly with Titus and Timothy, obviously, like Paul's speaking to those guys on, hey, this is how I'm expecting you to lead. And I think ultimately so that you can hand this off and teach others to know how to lead. What do you think the state of leadership in our Christian circles today? Like, is it healthy? Is it weak in some areas? Like, what do we need from those letters?

Joby Martin [00:40:11]:
Well, you said I thank Paul. And I would say, I would probably reword that to. I know Paul, because second Timothy 2:2. In second Timothy 2:2, Paul comes back to Timothy and says, Timothy, hey bro. Hey man. Hey, my spiritual son. Hey. These things I've entrusted to you in the presence of witnesses, these things entrust the other men also, faithful men also. So we don't have to guess. We know that's the goal. The goal is to pass it on. Okay, I think, I think, I think some of these giant churches are really weak in this area. The megachurches, there's some big ones out where you're living. Big, big churches, they revolve around one personality. And typically Bill Hybels did years ago, before he fell, he did a survey called Reveal. And at the time, they were the biggest church in America. And they discovered that the megachurch model does not disciple people. It gets people in the door. It gets them saved. We need that. We need them in the door. We need people saved. But Jesus never said, go therefore and make decisions. He said, go, therefore and make disciples. And so the big churches need to be less afraid of stirring the boat, rocking the boat, and dive deeper into small groups, not small groups of revival around the rock star pastor sermon. Small groups operate as communities of faith that are autonomous. That's what needs to happen there. And then the bigger churches, the small and. But the funny part, bro, is the smaller churches, I learned, also don't care that much about small groups. Oh, our little church. Yeah, but listen, your church of 100, you're still you. You can't reach people. Jesus had 12, and he was only. He missed. He had 12 guys and he. He still had one screw up. So, I mean, 12 is probably the max. So the smaller churches can't use their smallness as an excuse. I just think we need to. And I'll share from my own failure. So my wife's a flight attendant. And so with my speaking calendar, my book writing tours, I'm gone a lot. She's gone a lot. So for 10 years, we. No, that's not true. Seven years. We did not have a community group. And I realized we were. Our lives were not rich and full. We were not as rich, as full as the Bible says we should be. So we started our own community group about a year ago. Man, I'll tell you what, our life has gotten so rich and deep and full. It's just so wonderful. We have to have. And I'm not saying have your bros over for beers and football. Yeah, go Steelers. I'm not saying that. I'm saying have people over in the name of Jesus to fellowship. Like, if you're going to have the bros over, take some time around the fire pit and go, hey, how are you guys doing? Give me a praise and a prayer. You know, give me a high and a low, you know, give me a good and a bad. Let's talk about it. You know, we need to be purposeful.

Ryan Zook [00:43:08]:
About community yeah, we, we tell guys all the time. Like you. You can have a group of guys. They're probably just acquaintances. Like if, if you want to hang out, you want to put on a deer drive, you want to get a bunch of guys together, watch a game, that's not a bad thing. But they're probably not the spiritual godly friends that you need. The guys who are going to hold you accountable, the guys who are going to call you out, the guys that are going to show up and help you with your family, help you with whatever issues you dealing with. You're not made to do life alone. God didn't make you to be a lone wolf out there doing your own thing. You need men around you, but they need to be the ones that are going to challenge you. That doesn't mean you cut people out. It doesn't mean you stop watching football. But make sure you have three or four strong guys that know authentically who you are. You talk about these big church leaders, you can see that many of them end up coming up out of the circle of whatever network of support they used to have. They're surrounded by people that are just serving them and supporting them. They don't actually know anybody. And I think it's very dangerous for them. One, because they're missing out on authentic community. But two, because you're out there in the open like you're so susceptible to whatever Satan's going to throw at you and the next thing you know, you're going to fall. And that affects your whole organization. It affects so many people around you, all because you got out alone. It's a terrible thing.

Joby Martin [00:44:30]:
Well, here's the deal, Ryan, man, we have a lot of lions out here in Oregon. And lions do the way they kill. It's really interesting. They look for strays and weak animals, young the young and dumb, the weekend and, you know, wounded and the isolated and man. You just described men. I mean, our default setting is to isolate women. Again, women are so wonderful. Their default is to relationship. Our default is to the garage in the man cave and away from people. And so what we have to do is we have to do what is counter cultural for our nature. And we need to go and we need to find community of bros. It can be two guys, three guys that we meet with on a regular basis in the name of Jesus that have our back. And I think that is what Paul, I mean, Paul had Timothy, Timothy had Paul, Paul had Titus, Titus had Paul, Paul had Barnabas. You had these up and down relationships. And what Paul is Saying to men today is, isolation is going to lead you down a dark path. And you need to find a guy younger than you or that you can encourage and bring along. And you need to find a guy older than you that can bring you along. Like, I've got a couple older dudes. Patrick Morley, he's. He sold millions and millions of copies of books. Man in the Beer. He and I. He and I meet every week. In fact, we meet every Wednesday. So we meet next every other Wednesday. And he basically mentors me. We have no agenda. I just ask him questions. And I need that guy. You know what I mean? So we just need those guys.

Ryan Zook [00:46:03]:
You're speaking my language, man. Everybody needs a mentor. Everybody needs a mentor. Somebody else. You gotta have that guy that's helping you. And it's not. It's not something you have to be afraid of. It's not something that's too hard to do.

Joby Martin [00:46:14]:
Like.

Ryan Zook [00:46:14]:
Like. Like you just said, you don't even have an agenda. You just get together, you're asking questions. It's not some giant program you gotta be a part of. You just need another man that has your back that's pushing you further, that's helping you out, because that's how we're designed. And you just spelled out perfectly with Barnabas investing in Paul. Paul's investing in Timothy, he's investing in Titus. Those guys went on. You can look at it generation after generation. They invested in the next guy who invested in the next guy. It's one of the ways that we faithfully carry the mission that God has given to us to outlive ourselves. What better thing could you do with your life?

Joby Martin [00:46:46]:
Yeah, and that's what. That's what dialed in does. It just really takes guys and says, guys, let's do a 360 view. What I love about this book, it takes a 360 view of manhood the way God describes manhood. This is what God says. And then we can go, okay, I'm weak here. I'm strong here. I'm weak here. I'm strong here. And we can kind of put the pieces together. And so. And I think if a guy's going, man, I'm isolated. I don't have community. Well, I mean, you know, find people. Find. Find your people that you can call your people.

Ryan Zook [00:47:18]:
I appreciate you being on here, Jim. That's a great conversation.

Joby Martin [00:47:21]:
It's always an honor, man. Thanks for inviting me. I sure appreciate it.

Ryan Zook [00:47:24]:
Really enjoyed it. Is there anything else you want to leave with our audience before we sign off?

Joby Martin [00:47:27]:
I Guess if they want to get connected more with me, they can just go, don't search my name. I try to just look for men in the arena. We're out there. Our podcast has done very, very well, I think. Anyway, it's done very, very well. And so they can get involved in that. Just we have a Facebook community with about 23, 000 dudes in it. If they want community that's digital, which is never as good as flesh. Yeah, mono on mono. But yeah, just they want to get involved with our message. If our message resonated, they can check out men in the arena. We're all over the place.

Ryan Zook [00:47:56]:
So fantastic, man. Appreciate your time. Thanks for being on the pod.

Joby Martin [00:47:59]:
Thanks, Brian. Have a great day, brother.

Ryan Zook [00:48:01]:
Yeah, you too, man. Hey, thanks for listening to the Men of Iron podcast. Hope you enjoyed this episode with Jim Ramos again. If you want to get connected with him, there'll be links in the description. As always, guys, we want you to have a mentor. Somebody who is investing in your life and helping you move further to know God and know your purpose. If you think you would benefit from a mentor, please click the link in our description. We'll be happy to help you out. We'll be back again next week with another episode. We'll see you then.

Joby Martin [00:48:27]:
Thanks for listening to the Men of Iron podcast. Be sure to, like, subscribe and share at Men of Iron. We exist to change a culture one man at a time, and we'd love to have you partner with us. So go to menaviron.org to see how you can get involved or donate@menaviron.org donate.