On June 28, 2023
By Bill Smith
In Discipleship, Men, Wisdom, Women
1
“The satisfied soul tramples the honeycomb but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”
~Proverbs 27.7
“Toxic” is a word that is overused and often misused in cultural conversations—any discomfort in any relationship, whether casual or intimate, may be characterized as toxic. You said something with which I disagree and hurt my feelings, so I now characterize you and my relationship with you as toxic. Toxic masculinity is all the rage for any male who demonstrates any traits of masculinity at all. If you want to shut down any meaningful, intellectual, and logical debate, label your interlocuter “toxic.” This is as bad as being a “racist” or “abusive,” also overused and misused.
The reaction may be that there is no such thing as a toxic relationship. However, the abuse of a word doesn’t negate its legitimacy. Some relationships are toxic, and Solomon warns his son about toxic companions.
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On June 22, 2023
By Bill Smith
In Discipleship, Men, Theology, Wisdom, Women
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“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer evil.”
~Proverbs 13.20
Though “influencer” has been practically coined in recent years with the rise of social media’s vast number of personalities, the concept is nothing new. We have always had these types in marketing or the latest gurus who gain popularity by promising the good life to those who buy what they are selling, follow their teaching, or, most of the time, both. Influencers, as we now understand them, are celebrities, real or perceived experts, popular social media personalities, and content creators who can separate you from your money and/or change how you think and act. From the Kardashians to Jordan Peterson, influencers affect our lives. They may not affect our lives directly, but they indirectly shape our lives by shaping the culture.
Influencers have always been around. Other people influence our thinking and affections from the time we are born until the time we die. Whether parents, peers, or potentates, our hearts are shaped by our relationships. This is why we must be vigilant in guarding our hearts by guarding our friendships.
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On June 18, 2023
By Uri Brito
In Men
2
The Bible tells us that fathers are to be providers. If he fails to provide, he is worse than an infidel (I Tim. 5:8). Infidels give their sons stones when they ask for bread. The world is replete with false fathers and imitation versions of fathers.
The father famine in our society grows with each passing day. The economy suffers because fathers do not train sons and daughters to be productive stewards of the happy grain offerings. Instead, they leave the house of bread (Bethlehem) to the house of misery (Moab).
There is a need for godly fathers who know their roles as providers in the home; who don’t offer cheap substitutes for real provision or entertainment without love or goods without grace. Fatherhood is deeply trinitarian because it is an overflow of the love of the Father for the Son.
Fatherhood gives true bread and never confuses false loves for the bread of life. Far from a flawless father, the good father is familiar with repentance. He gives bread because Bread saved him. He gives life because the manna from heaven was not stingy in giving of himself, but gave himself body and soul as broken bread to the world.
Fathers, to give your children bread is to give them of yourselves. Nothing else will cure the father famine in our culture. Fatherhood gives because he has received much and to whom much is given much is required.
Happy Father’s Day! Be wise, men! Love your children and those under your fatherly care the everlasting bread so they may never hunger again.
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On June 15, 2023
By Bill Smith
In Culture, Discipleship, Men, Theology, Wisdom, Women
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“A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he quarrels against all wise judgment.”
~Proverbs 18.1
We need friends. Whether same-sex comradery or the intimacy of marriage, we need to know and be known by others.
Friendships at every level have faced challenges in every age of history. Twenty-first century Western culture is no different. Though the challenges take different forms, genuine friendships are threatened by a number of cultural factors. The way we understand friendships is changing rapidly. We are more connected with people and less relational. We are friends with hundreds or thousands but with few or any in particular. Technology changes the way we relate. The telegraph gave us information about people thousands of miles away with whom we had no connection and contributed to desensitizing us. (See Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death.) The blessing of air conditioning holed us up in our homes and made it uncomfortable to visit with neighbors. Television became a source of entertainment and information tempted us not to interact with the people in our homes.
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On May 4, 2023
By Bill Smith
In Culture, Discipleship, Men, Wisdom, Women
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“The glory of young men is their strength, but the majesty of old men is their gray hair.”
~Proverbs 20.29
There are different glories for different bodies. When speaking of the resurrection of our bodies, Paul says that not all flesh is the same. There is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, each with its own glory. Different glories exist within each of those categories. Sun, moon, and stars all have glory, but each has its particular glory, even down to each star differing from other stars (1Cor 15.39-40). Each body has its particular function and, therefore, its own glory within the great tapestry of God’s creation.
Glory is not only particular to different kinds of bodies that will never be the same but is also true of the same body at different stages of life. There is a glory when you are young and a glory when you are old, as Solomon says in Proverbs 20.29. The young man’s glory is his strength. The older man’s glory is in his gray hair (when found in righteousness; Pr 16.31).
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On October 18, 2022
By Jesse Sumpter
In Art, Culture, Film, Men
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Looking for a good movie to show a boy about what it means to be a man? Try these ones out. You might want to check the rating on a couple of these. You should also consider the worldview of each but overall these movies present some key lessons for boys to learn. I say we need more movies like these.
Jumanji (1995)
Not the dumb remakes. This is a fun tale of magic and adventure around a mysterious board game. The adventure is set in the midst of a breakdown between a father and son who get angry at each other. At the end of the adventure the father and son reconcile with each other. The son specifically apologizes to his father. I will note that the son apologizes first. The father also apologizes. But the example of a son apologizing to a father is a rare occurrence in movies. This is a great example for young boys to see.
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On February 17, 2022
By Bill Smith
In Counseling/Piety, Discipleship, Men, Wisdom
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Fighting sexual temptation has never been easy. There have
been times in which societies such as ours helped by having and enforcing laws
discouraging sexual deviancy. There were also general cultural mores that
disparaged sexual immorality so great social shame was the lot of the sexually
deviant. Temptations didn’t disappear, but cultural pressure at least
encouraged restraint.
Studying history, you will see that these societies were few
and far between. Our present Western culture is probably more in line with the
way many cultures have treated sexual relations; that is, there are few
cultural guards that help us with temptation. The lack of cultural sexual
restraint that has ingrained itself over the past century or two combined with
present-day technology has only increased temptations. I don’t think that we
can say, “It is more difficult for us than it ever has been,” but the force of
the battle is growing. None of this, of course, is an excuse for sexual sin. In
fact, it is a call to arm ourselves all the more with the appropriate
discipline to fight an enemy that is growing in strength. We must match our
enemies’ strength with greater strength.
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On February 10, 2022
By Bill Smith
In Men, Wisdom
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One obvious truth about Harlot Folly in Proverbs is that she
is a woman. She is an “evil woman” (Pr 6.24). She is the inverse of Lady Wisdom,
who is also a woman. Harlot Folly is not “all women,” but she is a woman.
Whatever secondary applications we make or whatever metaphors we explore (and
there are many), Solomon is writing to his son, a man, about a certain type of
woman to avoid.
I belabor this point because there are cultural mindsets
that have become practically unquestioned assumptions that being a woman per
se is original righteousness. As Feminism has grown and helped spawn
intersectionality, anything a woman does, even if appearing to be wrong, is not
her fault. She did not sin. She is always innocent. She is an all-powerful yet
impotent moral agent whose actions are controlled by entrenched patriarchalism.
She is not responsible. She is not to blame. #MeToo.
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On February 3, 2022
By Bill Smith
In Culture, Discipleship, Family and Children, Men, Wisdom
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Sexual restraint in our Western culture is not a virtue. To
deny your urges for sexual expression is, at the least, a passé morality of a
puritanical by-gone era or, at most, abusive. Sexual expression is practically
a sacred right, codified by law-making bodies and upheld by the courts under
the constitutional privilege of “right to privacy.” Even so-called
conservatives become libertarian when it comes to questions of sexual morality.
What people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms or how they want to
identify themselves sexually should be up to them, and no one should be able to
say anything negative about them or deny them any privileges that those who
live out “traditional sexual morality” enjoy. This lack of personal and
authoritative discipline seems fine until you are dealing with sexually
transmitted infections, rampant illegitimacy, homosexuals demanding to be “married,”
and Johnny proclaiming himself a female so that he can shower with the girls
whom he recently beat in some athletic competition.
Our sexual lives are not private. They are a part and parcel
to the world-building, dominion project that God gave us as his image from the
beginning. For this reason, they are public; not in the sense of being open to
voyeurs, but rather in the sense of having public ramifications. Our sexual
lives are created to serve our mission as humanity. When unrestrained by that context,
sexual expression becomes bondage to sin leading to death. For this reason, God
has called us to discipline our sexual appetites.
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On August 19, 2021
By Bill Smith
In Culture, Discipleship, Family and Children, Men
1
In the beginning, God gave a mission to the man: he was to
take dominion over the earth. This was his mission, but it was revealed he
could not do it alone. So, God created the woman to be his helper, one who
would come alongside him, who would be oriented to him and his God-given
mission. The mission of the dominion of the world, bringing order and glory to
a disordered and immature world, was beyond the capabilities of two
individuals. God blessed them, giving them the ability to be fruitful and
multiply. As children grew and eventually left their original household,
cleaving to a spouse and creating a new household, a division of labor emerged
that moved the mission forward. Each household, led by the husband who was
helped by his wife, would develop its own mission that would contribute to the
larger mission of the dominion of the world.
The grand mission continues and, therefore, the division of
labor continues. Each household or family is responsible for an aspect of the
mission. Within each household, the man is responsible to determine the mission
of the household. That is the duty of headship. What this means is that must
determine how the family fits in and
works toward the advancement of Christ’s kingdom. You are not responsible
for the entirety of the mission. But you and your family are responsible to
pull part of the load.
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