Episode Transcript
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All right.
Tell me if you've heard thisbefore.
A real man is a good husband andfather.
If you're a guy who has grown uparound the church or any kind of
religious environment here inthe west, then probably you've
heard that definition prettyregularly, especially if you've
been taught anything about whatthe church tends to call
biblical masculinity.
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For the most part, what churchesmean when they use that phrase
is being a good husband and agood dad.
Now I wanna say those things arenot bad things to be, but I
don't think that's really whatbiblical masculinity is all
about.
Today we're unpacking a muchbigger vision of biblical
masculinity.
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One that begins with becoming aman, not just playing a role.
My name is Don, and you're hereat the Manhood Tribes Channel.
We love to talk at the ManhoodTribes Channel about all things
manhood, faith, life, and howall of those things tend to work
together.
And so I want to try to give yousome clear ideas about all of
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that.
And this in particular is atopic that really resonates with
me because.
I grew up in the church and I'vebeen around this discussion of
biblical masculinity for a longtime.
In fact, it wasn't just all thatlong ago, just a couple months
ago where I was in a church andI heard the pastor say, you need
to be a good husband and a gooddad.
That's pretty much what being abiblical man is all about.
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And I just had to kind of pauseright there in my tracks and go,
I don't think that's accurate.
Why is that?
Why, why wouldn't that beaccurate?
Well, let's, let's start withthe basics.
Number one, not every guy is ahusband or a dad, and does that
mean that they can't be abiblical man because they don't
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have those roles in their lives?
Obviously not.
Uh, let's talk about the factthat Jesus, the ultimate
biblical man was not a husbandor a father.
Okay?
So we're, we're immediately offon the wrong foot if we're
trying to say that that's theessence of what biblical
masculinity is really all about.
I think the reason that churchestend to go that direction is
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because there are some prettyclear instructions in the Bible
about how husbands and fathersshould live and should treat
their wives and their children.
Now, look, those things arereally important.
We should pay attention to thosethings if we are husbands and
fathers because that's how weshould be doing those things.
But that's not all it is tobeing a biblical man.
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We also are living in an agethat where some things are kind
of unique right now in our age,uh, it's not uncommon for men to
actually be wondering what doesit mean to be a man?
And that's a fairly.
Actually in the course of humanhistory, that's a fairly
uncommon question.
It's, it's fairly unusual forcultures to not have a good idea
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of what it means to be a man.
For the most part, throughouthuman history, the pathway to
becoming a man in many cultureswas very clear cut and dry.
It was.
Pretty simple andstraightforward.
There was some kind ofinitiation process that all
young boys went through on theirpathway towards becoming men.
Our culture doesn't have thatand hasn't had it for a long
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time, and now we are living withthe consequence and the fallout
of that, which is that men inour world today.
Don't really know if they'remen.
They're not sure how theyarrived at manhood or what made
them a man.
So the, the church is still kindof operating in this framework
of, yeah, our men know what itmeans to be a man.
We just have to kind of teachthem like some godly ways of
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doing manly things.
But that's not really where mostmen are at.
Most men are at a place where.
They don't know what it means tobe a man.
So the church is kind of puttingthe cart before the horse.
They're starting theconversation in the wrong place,
and they're leaving out a wholebunch of men who actually don't
fit into that conversation atall.
So this is why we need to talkabout biblical masculinity and
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really different terms than theway that the church typically
does it.
Now to be clear, I am notthrowing out the church's I
church's ideas of what it meansto be a good husband and a good
father.
Those things are important.
They just aren't the wholepicture.
And we need a much biggerpicture of biblical masculinity
today in order to be able tohelp men where they actually
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are.
'cause not all of them are atthe place of trying to figure
out how to be a good dad or agood husband.
Okay.
I think I've made that pointclear.
So let's talk about what, whatdoes it mean then?
What?
What does biblical masculinityactually look like and how do we
get to a better vision of whatbeing a godly man really is all
about?
I.
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I think we need to start in theplace that I've been starting
most of the time as we have gonethrough many of our series here
on the Manhood Tribes Channel.
We need to start with the fivemarks of manhood because this is
really just a clear idea of whatit means to be a man.
Now, if you look through theBible, you're not going to find
the five marks of manhood listedanywhere as a prescription of
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what it means to be a man.
And again, that's because inmost cultures and including, uh,
the cultures that we findthroughout the biblical
narrative, it wasn't all thathard to figure out what it meant
to be a man.
Their cultures pretty much hadit.
As a given, it was sort ofassumed or taken for granted
that this is what men do, thisis how men act, this is the
pathway towards becoming a man.
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And all of those things werejust.
Part of the culture.
You didn't have to talk aboutthem or lay them out as much
because the path was clear formen all along.
It's not that way in our day, sowe've gotta lay some groundwork.
You will, however, find the fivemarks of manhood.
When you look throughoutscripture at the way that good
godly men lived, you'll findthem demonstrating these things
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well.
And in fact, you'll even findexamples of ungodly men who were
living out these same five marksof manhood.
It made them manly, just didn'tnecessarily make them good.
They were living out the marksof manhood, but they weren't
necessarily living them out inways that honored God, and so it
made them kind of like bad men,even though it didn't
necessarily take away from thefact that they were men.
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Okay.
These things are reallyimportant because this is how we
help men understand what itmeans to be a man.
Now if you haven't followedalong at all, I'll just say
briefly that the five marks ofmanhood are strength, courage,
skill, honor, and allegiance.
If you want some more ideasabout those, you can go check
out the earliest videos here onthe channel that will go into
detail about that.
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Or you can look back at episode48 where I talk about the five
marks of manhood and how Jesusdemonstrated those things in
particular.
That'll give you some good ideasof what it means to be a
biblical man in the way thatJesus really kind of modeled it.
But the point is every manshould possess those five traits
and should be demonstrating themas a way to show that they are
men.
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That's what manhood is reallyall about, is those five marks.
Now, how do we do those fivemarks is really the key to what
it means to be a biblical man.
Because a biblical man really isnothing more than a man who is
trying to live his life the waythat Jesus would've lived if
Jesus were living that man'slife.
Okay.
That's a little convoluted theway that I just said it, but the
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point is, you're not just tryingto be a, you know, first century
Jewish rabbi.
You're trying to live your life.
If Jesus were living your lifeand your place, how would he
live it?
That's probably the bestquestion to ask If you want to
get an understanding of whatbeing a biblical man really
looks like if Jesus were tryingto live your life.
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How would he live it?
Jesus is the ultimate biblicalman, and so we need to really
kind of wrap our minds aroundwho he is and the way that he
lived so that we can art, startto understand what Biblical
manhood is all about.
Now I think we can tie it backto these five marks of manhood,
and in particular where we'regoing to get some clarity about
what it looks like to be abiblical man is in the last two
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marks of manhood, honor andAllegiance.
Honor you may remember, isreally about.
Peer relationships, kind of thelike horizontal axis of
relationships.
Whereas allegiance is aboutthose authority figures in our
lives, the vertical axis ofrelationships.
And so these two things reallykind of form the way that we
think about how we function andrelate to not only the people in
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our lives, but all of the bigdecisions in our lives as well.
All of the things aresurrounding our purpose, uh, how
we spend our time, how we spendour money, uh, really kind of
any way that we orient our life.
All of that comes out of honorand allegiance.
So those are the ways that wewant to try to look to Jesus to
be able to say, how did he dothose things so that we can do
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those things Similarly.
And as men, I think these twothings are really crucial.
Let's start with allegiance.
If we're going to be a biblicalman, we've got to have our
allegiance, and especially ourultimate allegiance in the right
place.
It was very clear that Jesus'ultimate allegiance was to God
the father.
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He followed the father in.
All things.
And in fact, he said itrepeatedly talking about the
fact that he only did what hesaw the father doing and that he
would go away for periods oftime just to listen for the
father's voice to be able toknow what he needed to do.
That is the kind of allegiancethat we as biblical men are
looking for.
We have got to have arelationship with God to where
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we are dialed into listening tohim.
The most important part of beinga biblical man is that you have
a.
Ongoing, interactiverelationship with the God of the
Bible.
A biblical man means you arerelating to the God of the
Bible, and if you don't havethat kind of ongoing
relationship with him, thenthat's the first thing that you
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need to begin to cultivate.
It's not your relationship withyour wife or your relationship
with your kids, it's yourrelationship with God.
You have to have that in placeif you're going to be a biblical
man.
Because a biblical man followsGod.
That's really what it's allabout.
To be able to do that, you'regonna need to be able to spend
regular time listening to thevoice of God.
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You demonstrate your allegianceby regularly asking him how does
he think you should be living?
What should you be doing?
Who should you be interactingwith?
Those are the kinds of questionsthat you take to God to
demonstrate, I want my lifeordered around the things that
you care about.
My allegiance is to you.
I want to follow you in allthings, so I'm taking the time
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to ask you about all of that andhow I should be living my life.
That's what allegiance lookslike, and we see that modeled in
Jesus' life all the time.
Now.
The second thing there is themark of manhood called honor.
And again, honor is about ourpeer relationships.
It's about our friends, andespecially about the tribe of
men that we have around us.
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Jesus had his disciples and weneed a group of men around us as
well, and that those group.
That group of men, what they aregoing to do for us is to really
challenge us and to push us tobecoming more like Jesus.
This is the kind of thing thatwe want to honor when we choose
to follow Jesus, that helpsdictate for us what we should
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honor in our lives, right?
I've said before that honor isreally a morally neutral trait.
You can honor anything you wantas long as you have a group of
men who agree that those are thethings that should be honored.
So the point here is that.
By choosing Jesus as yourultimate allegiance, what he is
then saying about honor is youneed to pick men to be around
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you who are going to honor anduphold what it looks like to
live like Jesus.
Because if you have those menaround you, then they are going
to push you and challenge you tobecome more like him, and that's
what biblical honor really lookslike, is having men around you
who are honoring you forfollowing Jesus.
Okay.
Are you starting to see that thepicture of biblical masculinity
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is really different than maybewhat you've been told?
Now, if you are living in a, inthe context of a tribe with men
who are upholding what Jesuswould say is right and good,
then that is going to push youto the way that you treat your
wife and the way that you treatyour kids and doing right by
them in a whole host of waysthat is going to lead to those
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kinds of things.
That just isn't where we start.
We have to start with ourallegiance to Jesus and the
honor that we are cultivating inthe group of men that we choose
to live our lives around.
All right.
These things are most important,and by developing those things,
you can develop yourself intobeing an incredible biblical
man, and you will start to seethose kinds of right
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relationships begin to reallyflourish in your life.
Whether you have a wife and kidsor not, all of your
relationships will start to lookbetter because you have men
around you who are honoringfollowing Jesus, and Jesus is
going to shape the way that yourelate to everyone.
Not just your wife and kids, butmaybe especially them.
And all of those things shouldimprove over time as you learn
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to become more like Jesus andlive the way that he did as a
biblical man, I.
Okay.
I hope that this has beenhelpful for you and maybe has
reoriented you a little bit towhat it actually means to be a
biblical man and to pursuebiblical masculinity.
If you like this kind of contentcontent, I would love for you to
like this video and to subscribeto the channel.
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And if you are looking for.
Other biblical men that you canget around to help you in being
able to pursue these kinds ofthings.
I would love for you to checkout the Manhood Tribes
community.
This is a place where you canget better at being a man.
You can get better at followingJesus, and you can connect with
other like-minded men who aretrying to do the same.
So just go to manhoodtribes.com/community and check
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out for the next opportunity tobe able to join our community
when the doors are open.
All right.
Now, I would love for you toengage in the comments below by
just leaving a comment about,have you ever felt like that you
didn't belong as a man in achurch?
Why was that?
Talk about that.
What was the vision ofmasculinity that was being
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painted in the church that youwere a part of, that you just
felt like, man, you didn't quitefit, or maybe that wasn't all
that appealing to you.
Leave that in the comments, andI would love to engage with you
around those comments.
I look forward to doing that andto seeing you again here on the
Manhood Tribes Channel.
Soon we'll talk again.