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What is Real Masculinity? with Seth Troutt
00:33:19
JT English and Kyle Worley are joined by Seth Troutt to discuss his book, “Authentic Masculinity.”
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- [00:02]
A
This episode of Knowing Faith is brought to you by Crossway, publisher of the ESV Study Bible. Designed to help you understand the Bible in a deeper way, the ESV Study Bible features a wide array of study tools, including extensive study notes, 200 full color maps, 40 full color illustrations, charts, timelines, articles and introductions, making it a valuable resource for serious readers, students and teachers of God's word. Listen, this is me speaking now, not just the ad read. And I have to tell you, the ESV Study Bible was my first study Bible and it remains my favorite study Bible. If you're looking for a study Bible, I would start with the ESV Study Bible. You can pick up a copy of the ESV Study Bible wherever Bibles are sold, or visit Crossway.org ESVStudyBible to learn how to get 30% off. Prayer can often feel mysterious or like a formulaic transaction. But in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus offers something deeper, a framework that reshapes how we think about God, ourselves, and the world around us. At in the Word with Jen Wilkin, you'll explore the Lord's Prayer with fresh eyes and renewed purpose. Through teaching, worship with Sandra McCracken and Reflection, you'll walk away with a deeper theology of prayer and practical tools to transform not just how you pray, but why you pray. Bring a friend, bring your Bible, and join Jen Wilken in the Word.
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B
This is Kyle Worley and I'm joined by one of my co hosts. Not both, but one. JT English what's up, jt?
- [01:36]
C
What's up, Kyle?
- [01:37]
B
Hey, man, how's it going?
- [01:39]
C
Doing great.
- [01:40]
B
Great. Well, in lieu of Jen Wilkin, today we have Seth Trout. Seth is a pastor in Arizona. He is also the author of the recently released book Authentic Masculinity. Authentic Masculinity. Leaving behind the counterfeits for God's design. Seth, thanks for jumping on here with us.
- [02:00]
D
Thanks for having me, gents.
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B
Oh, this is kind of like an oops all bros episode is kind of
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C
what this is right here, the broisode kill.
- [02:11]
B
Yeah, yeah. Our audience is, you know, trends into the female demographic. So many sisters now are being invited into, you know, just a conversation among brothers to talk about authentic masculinity. Seth, wow, what a time to release a book on masculinity, man.
- [02:33]
C
Like, you timed this perfectly.
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B
You really did, man.
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C
For the culture moment.
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A
It really.
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B
Does it feel like, did you.
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A
Were you.
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B
Are you a prophet, Seth? Did you, like, three years ago? You're like, finger in the wind. You could see, like, huh? I think the winds Are shifting, I think. Let me slot this in for spring of 2026. Is that how. Was this a sniper shot?
- [02:56]
D
No, a big part of that was absolute accident in the publisher's wisdom, I guess, because I had the book done, like, a year and a half ago, but they had something. Maybe they're the prophets over there at Moody Publishing, but I don't know. But it was funny, the whole masculinity discussion. It was not something that was a hot button or a passion thing for me. But a local pastor who's got 500 or so college students at their church was like, hey, we're having this Andrew Tate problem among the guys at our church. Could you come do a talk on why Injury Tate sucks? And I was like, sure. I mean, kind of feels like if the shoe fits, why do you need a whole talk on that? It feels so obvious. And then I prepared a model on how I wanted to critique his approach to manhood, and that became an article. And then the publisher hit me up and was like, hey, I think this might be a book. So I kind of feel. It happened to me. I was an agent in the process, but it definitely felt like the Lord's doing. So the timing has been nice.
- [03:56]
B
Well, we've been. We've been covering tricky topics and thorny questions, and I. I guess I did not think that this was a tricky topic and a thorny question for the bulk of my life. And that could just be blessed privilege. I grew up with a dad who was very much in the game and who was around and was faithful and loved the Lord. I know that's not everybody's story. It was mine. I would say that it wasn't until, you know, I started pastoring the church that I planted maybe 10 years ago that I started to have a sense of, like, well, hold on a second. Maybe there is a lack of clarity on something that I've been assuming. So the big question here, Seth, is like, what is real masculinity? Like, what is authentic masculinity? Let's just start there.
- [04:54]
D
Yeah, Well, I think the anxiety around that question is really person to person. Largely the way I started talking about with people is talking to dads who were beginning to be preoccupied or anxious about not repeating the sins of their father. You know, my dad abdicated. He was passive. He didn't tell me about sex. He didn't tell me about money. He didn't tell me about Jesus. He kind of took me to church, best case scenario, or was just kind of loosely involved. And so what I Found is the guys who have the most angst about the masculinity question are the guys who had the worst experience of masculinity in their homes. And so, Kyle, you not having angst about it makes a lot of sense. I similarly feel like I had very low angst about it. I remember in my senior year of high school, a buddy of mine had told me that he had ordered some estrogen pills online and was trying to wrestle through am I a man? What is a man? How do I. And just being personally confused at this feels. So I don't have any burning angst about this. What's going on here. But as I started to look at exactly the Andrew Tate guy, the kind of the chauvinist, woman hating Genghis Khan is cool marriage is a trap for men type people, part of what I realized is that a lot of where the masculinity discussion gets wrong is it begins by trying to set it in opposition to femininity. And you start with this question of how are men and women different? And I think that's the wrong starting place. And I think that's part of the reason why people get all whacked and out of shape on some of this stuff is I think the most important question, and that's chapter one in the book, is how is man different than God? And I think that a lot of what you get wrong in the masculinity discourse is people misunderstanding that question is people not operating in submission to the Creator, people not recognizing their need for grace from God. And it leads to this haughtiness and then a vacillating between haughtiness and deep insecurity. Because whenever you're in a haughty position, you're immediately going to be vulnerable to getting your knees cut off. And God does humble the proud. And so I think a lot of men end up vacillating between kind of peacocking. You know, the male peacock is like the look at me, look at me, look at me, attention seeking male, or like the male black widow which allows himself to be eaten alive by women and has no sense of self and no real sense of their own dignity and purpose. And so I think maybe it's because I was a philosophy major, maybe it's because I just like building models. But I think I kind of thought it was unfair to answer the masculinity question in one sentence because man is not God, so he has to be humble. And that's the foundation. You know, poor in spirit, meek. Man is not an animal. He has to have discipline, man is not a child. He has to have responsibility. And that kind of creates this pyramid right at the top. If man is not woman, so he needs to use his strength to honor or be chivalrous. And I think masculinity as opposed to divinity is good, or masculinity as opposed to femininity is good. But masculinity as opposed to divinity, equally important, probably more important. And I think trying to wrestle through things in a model base rather than like a simple, clean sentence has been more helpful to people as they're trying to make sense of their own manhood. Because if you just do compare and contrast with women, it feels like you're going to end up either creating this hyper distinction or overemphasizing the difference or kind of, you get the progressive thing and erase all the differences and say they're just the same. It's all social construct.
- [08:25]
A
Yeah.
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B
Gosh. I think what you said right out of the gate there, I think would be helpful to our audience and maybe even surprising to them that the point of the book, but also just a healthy conception of masculinity doesn't begin with differentiating masculinity from femininity, but masculinity from God. I think that alone is that that's a valuable thing to just kind of double click on a little bit. It reminds me a little bit of like, what comes to mind for me, jt And I don't know if this was coming to mind for you when Seth is talking about. This is just like the, the elementary consideration of the creator creature distinction that if you get, if you don't get that right, that there is a creator, God and everything else is creature but him. He's the only eternal, uncreated creator, that if you get that off, then everything else in the tower or the pyramid is going to be faulty for sure. That's what I'm thinking about, what you're talking about.
- [09:27]
C
Calvin's first idea in his institutes is there's two kinds of knowledge or two kinds of wisdom, knowledge of God and knowledge of self. So I think it's entirely appropriate to start talking about masculinity as a knowledge that men are not God and women are not God. Therefore, that should result in image bearing, dignity, value, worth. But also the way you phrase it, Seth, humility and a recognition of a creator creature distinction. I'm also interested, Seth. I mean, one of the ways, as Kyle and I were kind of joking to kick off this podcast, if, like, you've hit, I think a real cultural moment, whether it's kind of the Andrew Tate hyper masculinity model or the kind of egalitarian, androgynous cultural moment of there's being no distinctions. I think one of the reasons that maybe what's the right way to say this, boys, men, even families as a whole would be hungry for something like this is this is a story that isn't being told anywhere else. Like, you're not being told this in public school systems today. You're not being told this culturally today. But. But I think women, men, boys, young girls are hungry for a biblical vision of what masculinity is. So I'd be interested to hear you talk for a bit, because you're a pastor. I mean, you're pastoring a sister church. So thankful for Luke and Ironwood and what you guys are doing there. How is the church uniquely situated to have this conversation?
- [10:49]
D
Well, I think most basically it's the fact that the church has the creation fall story that I think most of my book is focused on Genesis 1, 2, and 3. And eventually kind of contrasting especially Jesus with Adam in the way that Jesus is the true and greater Adam, both in how he treats his wife, but also in terms of the way he accepts and lives into the responsibilities that were assigned to him. Like, I think you see in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, you have a wildly balanced account of gender that I think makes sense of our bodies, makes sense of what we've seen in cultures across the globe, historically speaking, that you have this male and female, that together they are to subdue and have dominion, be fruitful and multiply. Okay, great. Obviously, you need a man and a woman to be fruitful and multiply. And together they're subduing and having dominion. They're unfolding the latent goodness of creation. They're working. And so there is like a work ish thing subduing dominion and a home ish thing, fruitful and multiply. And then right in Genesis 2, after they have this kind of shared task, Adam is on his own, assigned to serve and protect or work and keep that kind of priestly function where he's called to be an interventionist who's guarding the garden. And then when the serpent shows up in Genesis 3, the first failure you see is Adam failing in his priestly task. Adam failing to assert himself and protect his wife and withdrawing back into silence. And so it says, Eve is tempted by the serpent. She eats the fruit. And then Adam, who was with her silent, passive, shirking his Genesis 2 responsibilities, also eats and Then when God confronts him, he blames his wife and says, that woman you gave me says, blames the woman, blames God. And then God assigns the results of the curse with disparity, that the woman is absorbing the curse. You know pain shall you bring forth children. Your husband will rule over you. But then Adam is told by the sweat of your face you'll bring forth. And so you have this homeward orientation to the curse that Eve experiences, the fruitful multiply side. And then you have this vocational orientation of the curse that Adam experiences. And so there's shared tasks, but with different emphases playing out even in Genesis 1, 2 and 3. And so you have the equality of the sexes. They're both made in God's image. Adam sees her bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. But you also have these differences that are subtle even in their shared tasks that play out in the very creation story. And I think the function of that and the fruit of that you see play out almost universally across cultures throughout world history. That's generally speaking how it goes is when sin tends to cause more pain to women in the home arena and sin tends to cause men more pain in the work and money arena. And at the same time they're not sealed off from each other's roles. And so I think the balance in the nuance, in the texture of Genesis 1, 2 and 3, I think gives the church a wonderful articulation of reality. But then pointing past itself to Jesus, you have the true and greater Adam, Jesus, who doesn't blame shift responsibility onto his wife, but he's taking responsibility for things that are not his fault that his wife, the church did you have Jesus succeeding in the trial in the garden when tempted instead of withdrawing. And so you have this really hopeful picture of grace and of a better way and this really sober mindedness about the limitations and the pain that uniquely belong to the genders. And so I just think the Bible is telling us the true story of reality. And I think that that landing in homes right now is just such a gift. I'm curious how you guys see the church really being a light in this kind of gender wars discussion.
- [14:43]
C
Well, I'll just jump in real quick, Kyle. I imagine you have maybe even deeper thoughts than I do. I just know that the men that I'm pastoring like this is not the only moment we do this. We have men's Bible studies and men's ministry. But every day on Father's Day when I ask the men to stand, I think in a lot of churches in the past that I've been a part of, there could tend to be that. This is the, like when we do Mother's Day, this is like we're going to honor you. We love you. Couldn't do without the moms and then the dad stand up on Father's Day and it can be shaming. Why aren't you doing more? Pick it up. You know, you need, you got to be tougher, stronger. The tact that I've taken is, is calling them to essentially this vision. I mean, you do such a better job of articulating it, but just guys, you're doing it, you're, you're redeeming masculinity. Your good husbands, your good fathers, your good businessmen. I can see the Holy Spirit working through you all the way from our, you know, young teenagers all the way up to our 90 year old men. And Seth, almost without fail, half of the men just, I mean, they just feel so seen because their masculinity for most of their lives has been something that's been devalued. It's been something that's been shamed or hasn't been called out of them and honored. And so. And I think that's because in the culture moment, it is being devalued and perhaps shamed. But the church is uniquely positioned with a biblical vision of both genders to honor, to encourage, and to tell a better story than our culture is telling. Kyle, what do you think?
- [16:14]
B
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think the other just element that the church is able to provide is the church is able to provide a brotherhood where masculinity can be dignified without it being deified. That, that's a different thing. There are brotherhoods on offer of men and kind of the larger cultural zeitgeist and these kind of communities ebb and flow. But there is such an exaltation of masculinity where it does be it, it, it goes beyond trying to dignify it and it begins to try to deify it. And this is how it often is with these more culturally lightning rod issues. There's typically some sort of creation norm that's there that the Bible does want to dignify. And one group is trying to deify, that group is trying to dismiss or denigrate that thing. That's kind of how it typically works out. That there's a borrowed, there's some borrowed footing. So it might be life or it could be death, or it could be sex or it could be masculinity or it could be femininity. And it's a creaturely good, it's a good gift. And one group is saying this gift is God, and another group is saying this isn't even a gift at all. This gift is, you know, worthless. And the church is able, on the masculinity issue and on all of these issues to be able to provide a community that says this is valuable, but it's not the most significant thing. And I think that allows the Christian community to provide a meaningful crucible, but also a preserver and a cultivator of these kinds of ethical issues. That's my sense is that that brotherhood on offer in the church is unique.
- [18:10]
E
Are you tired of shallow discipleship in your life, the life of your church or small group? God is inviting you into deeper places. Real participation in his story, real understanding of who he is and what he has done, and a more meaningful practice of following in his ways. For the last 10 years, JT, Jen and Kyle have been teaching a program called Deep Discipleship in their local churches, and they have now worked with Lifeway to make this available to everyone everywhere. Whether you're an individual looking to go deeper, a church leader looking for an accessible way to invite your small groups, classes and student ministry, or a homeschool family looking for curriculum for your high school students, go check out this the Deep discipleship program@lifeway.com deepdiscipleship.
- [19:03]
A
Every Christian wants abundance and wholeness, but too often we let culture shape our hearts more than Jesus does. In Habits of Resistance, Bible teacher Elizabeth Woodson reveals seven false gospels that steer us into the wrong story and offer seven powerful gospel practices to resist them them and live fully in God's truth. Through personal stories, biblical teaching, and practical tools, this book equips you to recognize cultural lies, break free from their influence, and step intentionally into God's story. Visit habitsofresistance.com to learn more.
- [19:39]
B
I want to tell you about a
- [19:40]
A
new book for many publishers called Praying in Pain by Glenna Marshall. If you or someone you love lives with chronic pain, you know how invisible suffering can feel. The sleepless nights, the endless appointments, the quiet questions that you carry before God, like how long? And will you hear me, O Lord? In Praying in Pain, Glenna Marshall reminds readers that these are not faithless questions. They are biblical ones. Drawing from the Psalms and Scripture's own language for suffering, she helps Christians bring honest prayers to God even when prayers feel impossible. Whether you're walking through chronic pain yourself or caring for someone, Praying in Pain offers biblical hope. In the midst of Suffering Find Praying in Pain by glenna marshall@moodypublishers.com or wherever books are sold.
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B
It's unique. Seth. This book emerges into a moment when there are certainly communities largely cultivated in kind of the new gnostic caves of the Internet, that are trying in some
- [20:45]
A
very
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B
ham fisted, often wicked and unrighteous, arrogant, hubristic way to celebrate masculinity. You mentioned Andrew Tate, but we could rattle off a list of these people and there are all these little sub niches and sub communities where this is happening. And one of the concerns that somebody might have is like, hey, with all of this toxic masculinity that's out there, should we actually be encouraging anybody towards masculinity at all? Isn't the better choice to just kind of turn down the volume knob? And so if you're talking to our audience and their concerns, I want you to imagine you're talking to somebody who have concerns about toxic masculinity in the world or in the church. Why would you tell them don't. No, no, we shouldn't be turning the volume knob down on talking about this. We should be turning the volume knob up on talking about this. Even if they're concerned about it.
- [21:51]
D
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, the thing that comes to mind is the expulsive power of the greater affection, which I think is obviously chiefly manifested in our affection for Christ and causing our desires for sin to be pushed out. You know, you gotta have the better thing pushing out the lesser thing, right? If you have consumed a bunch of poison, you gotta drink a lot of water to flush that system out. And I think that toxic masculinity as a category is a category error, I think, is what you're communicating when you say that is that there's too much masculinity that's toxic, right? So you can get fentanyl poisoning from a tiny little bit of fentanyl, a toxic dose of fentanyl, but you can also get a toxic dose of water. You drink 2 gallons of water in a certain amount of time, you can die. Like you can have water. So saying toxic masculinity is saying there's excessive masculinity. Part of my view is that masculinity is, as God's designed it, humility, discipline, responsibility and chivalry. And so when you see these kind of chauvinist type, woman hating, man exalting types, I think it's tempting to say, oh, they have too much testosterone, it's too much masculine, they need to tone it down. They need add some femininity to that masculinity. We need to balance out that thing. But I'm going, I think they're actually anemic in their masculinity. They're not hyper in their masculinity. I don't think Genghis Khan was a hyper masculine person. I think he's a person without discipline, a man without walls, as the book of Proverbs talks about. A person without the capacity to see the other. A person without humility, that if Christ is the archetypical man, then all these other versions of masculinity are insufficiently masculine. They're lacking godliness. They're lacking what I think is actual masculinity. And I think part of what I'm trying to do in the book, and this is not a gender wars book, this isn't really much of a. You've heard it said by the feminists. And I say unto you, no, this is way more of a discipleship book for men, especially young men. I visualized a couple people. One was a 19 year old, one was a guy who's 37 and is trying to disciple his 13 year old. And the other one is just kind of like all the other people who care about men. So like a girlfriend who's trying to figure out if her boyfriend sucks, you know, a mom is trying to help porn and her son. But I'm trying to say there's this compelling vision that God has given for men to run after. And I think part of the issues we have with sports gambling, the issues we have with marijuana use, the issues we have with pornography are all like this lack of excitement or adventure that men feel. And so they're thrill seeking in all these phony thrill ways. You know, it's fake wins, fake sex, fake money. And I think that if we paint a compelling vision, like in Ephesians 2:10, that God has prepared great things for you to do, that you should walk in them. What are those great things? I want the book to say, like here are some of these great things that are noble world changing, or maybe not whole world changing, but changing your corner of the world. Because I think that when we turn the volume up on God's design for men, it'll be compelling and actually be one of the means by which they throw off the desires of the flesh and run after God's design for them. Because I think compelling vision is one of the ways that people change. Like, imagine yourself, what you'll be like. And so the hope here is vision. And I think loud vision pushes out these like lesser, baser, more godless visions of masculinity.
- [25:20]
B
Yeah, I really agree with you, particularly on the connection between authentic masculinity and triaging kind of some of the cultural vices, ills, ethical issues of our day. I am really encouraged and have contributed myself to talking through some of the issues you mentioned. Sports, gambling, recreational drug use, over drinking, these kinds of things. And what I think is clear and what I've gotten in response from the articles that I've written on those topics has been a lot of the audience for those vices are uncultivated men with no purpose and no vision. And I think that if we spend all of our time talking at like a symptomatic level, then we'll keep triaging cultural vices until the new heavens and the new earth. But we do have to sink beneath the surface and begin to talk about man. These cultural vices do typically have a trend target and that trend target is uncultivated, unpurposed, undisciplined men. And that's not to say that there aren't exceptions to that rule, it's just to say that they are exceptions. The normative target for pornography is undisciplined, uncultivated men without purpose and vision. And that's the same for recreational drugs, it's the same for recreational drinking, it's the same for recreational sports gambling. It's the same for, for, for so many of these cultural vices. So I'm glad that you're making that connection. I want to press you as we kind of move towards maybe some application here. I got three questions for you and I'm going to limit you to one. Like I'm going to drive you towards one response to each. Now, you can expand on it, but I don't want you to give me three the is. If you were going to tell a man who is listening to this episode, here is one practical way that you can step into or pursue authentic masculinity. What would you tell them? One way, just one thing. And let's imagine that they're knowing our audience. Let's imagine that they're familiar with Bible reading and we're going to assume they're engaged at a local church. So if they're, they're reading their Bible, they've confessed Christ as Lord and they're engaged at a local church, but they want to step more purposefully into cultivating authentic masculinity. What do you tell them?
- [27:47]
D
How old is this guy?
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B
Let's say he's 31.
- [27:51]
D
31. I think we're in a unique moment with digital culture, social media, entertainment culture where the sin of sloth is uniquely gripping younger men and they're leaving tons of meat on the bone for the good things they could contribute to the world and the kingdom of. And so probably the single point I would tell them is work very hard. Which is not a very Jesus oriented answer. But I go, I think young men with great capacity are leaving tons of good work on the table. Vocationally, spiritually, relationally. I just feel like run hard after something because this kind of doom scroll, slothful, meander about, kind of like your lazing yourself into a form of depression because you're not running hard at anything. You're not really shooting at a bullseye. You're just kind of cruise controlling it. I think killing the sin of sloth in every area of your life is a really countercultural way to put off the counterfeits and run to God's design right now.
- [28:52]
C
Yeah, that's good.
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B
That's good. But jt, I thought I was supposed to ruthlessly eliminate. Hurry.
- [28:59]
C
I never said that to you. I told you to ruthlessly eliminate laziness.
- [29:03]
B
Hey, and I needed to hear it, brother. I needed to hear it.
- [29:07]
C
No, I think that I really appreciate that because of course you're making a joke about another good work. There's a lot of people who do need to hear the good word of Sabbath and rest and resting in God and having our work not be our identity. But it also can feel like sometimes those messages can be taken a little bit too far. Often I want to put a book like this into the hands of somebody who might be reading that book and vice versa. So, Seth, I love that answer. Kyle, what's your second question? That was a good first one.
- [29:36]
D
Okay, I'm gonna say one more thing about that. I know you want me to be short, but I think in Genesis 2, the first problem we actually see is that there is no man to work the ground. And so I do think finding your identity in work can be a problem. I also think not finding any of your identity in your productivity is also a problem.
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B
100%.
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C
I want to make a comment about that too. There was a Ben Sat. You guys know who Ben Sass is, I'm sure. Ben's a former United States senator, and he did a. A talk at the Manhattan Institute a few weeks ago where he talked specifically about this, where it's actually good to find some of our identity and work and he talked about last names, you know, Baker Smith, how people actually used to be identified by the things that they did, by the things their grandfather did, and by whose father, who. Their father was like John's son. And so. Yeah, again, but all of these messages can find a ditch in terms of taking them too far. So I appreciate that, Seth.
- [30:30]
B
Yeah, and I agree. You know, it's so interesting because I've been rereading reading Charles Taylor's Ethics of Authenticity. We've talked about Taylor on the show before, Secular age, ethics of authenticity, sources of self, philosopher who's had a very significant, maybe, maybe one of the most significant American philosophers of the last hundred years. But in Ethics of Authenticity he talks about how one of the modern malaises, modern maladies is that there is a loss of freedom. But that loss of freedom, I'm sorry, loss of meaning. That loss of meaning has come by way of a radical individualism that sets segments the individual from any larger order to which they, they are contributing as a part. Jobs are a meaningful way of participating in the larger whole. It's one of the reasons why part of our image bearing status is commissioned is be fruitful and multiply, cultivate and subdue. So I, I am really grateful that there has been a press that we should be grounding our identity in Christ. I have written at length about that and all three of us have preached, taught, published, argued that the fundamental identity for the believer is that they're united with Christ Jesus and they're a child of God in Christ.
- [31:42]
D
Amen.
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B
But part of our creaturely wiring is to be participating in the larger cosmic order, a part of which is work. It is work. Okay, Seth, second question. How can women encourage authentic masculinity? How can a, let's say, how can, let's make this easy. You got a, you got a person who's listening to the show. It's a wife, husband's working a full time job, she's a mom, she got two to three boys and all she's hearing about is, all she's hearing about on social media is man, be on guard for toss toxic masculinity. Don't let these boys end up being toxic men. You know that. She's heard about the danger of toxic masculinity and you're telling her, hold on, let's turn up the volume knob on authentic masculinity. How can she encourage that with her husband and with her boys?
- [32:36]
D
I think with the little boys, you know, there is such a tendency to domesticate little boys prematurely. You Know the over diagnoses of various developmental things just because their bodies are not predisposed to sit still in school. And so I think with little boys allowing for rough and tumble play, that's probably beyond a little bit. But mom's comfort zone is a big part of that. You know, my son is 6. This part of my wife's wiring is, you know, you know, a little bit on the safetier side. But she's fought hard to like let him go and wrestle, let him do that stuff. And I think it's part of the way that she's encouraging masculine in him. I think also I think the word chivalry is really important, right? Strength that honors and I think encouraging young boys to use your strength to honor. You know, if there's, if you see a little girl in the playground and someone's doing this, intervene, you know, show up, you know, make him stop. And so I think encouraging what I would say is like a holy aggression or rightly ordered aggression in both your husband and in your kids is a big part of that. You know, encouraging your husband, yeah, take that hill, go for that promotion, you know, take that extra class, you know, that what, what does rightly ordered aggression look like? Which is another way of talking about chivalry. Because I do think sometimes some of the guys I talk to, it's like their, their wife is kind of like trying to keep them domestic. And I mean that in. She's not encouraging this holy ambition to go run after things and to try new things and experiment with things. And I'm thinking about starting jiu jitsu. Go for it. You know, you're thinking about taking a risk. Go for it. Thinking about doing something hard. Go for it. And so I think, you know, appropriate godly risk taking holy aggression and celebrating some of that in your husband and in your kids is a big. Is a little way that you can do that as opposed to kind of the. I do think that the maternal, you know, when Jesus talks about like a mother hen gathering you together, I think he's able to have a feminine side to his masculinity, which is appropriate. And I think men need that. You know, it's not just like men are supposed to just be out taking the hills, not caring. Because Jesus in this call to elders is to be caring and compassionate. But I think also women trying to encourage their husband to do something that's a little bit intention with their instincts, you know, as he engages in, you know, riskier and more ambitious things, and maybe she's more inclined to nurture and care and keep things closer to home. So I think some of those little ways are ways that wives can encourage husbands and their children to live into little godly, masculine men.
- [35:04]
B
Seth, this is so helpful, man. Honestly, I'm grateful that you took time out of your schedule to come jump on this show. When the book came out, man, I was really excited about the prospect of getting to talk about it with you. And so I would just encourage you. I would imagine everybody who's listening to this has men in their life in some form or fashion. And if you do, and if you want those men to be healthier, then I would encourage you to go check out Seth's book. And if you want maybe like just one immediate step, you're like, okay, I want more on this. Seth has a podcast called Authentic Masculinity where he's doing kind of bite sized presentations of this. And I have found them so helpful to get the link and share it with other men in my community group in my church. And so I would just really encourage you if you're thinking through, like, what's a really simple next step you could do right on your phone without having to spend any money, like, just go over and subscribe to Seth's podcast, Authentic Masculinity and start to share it when an episode clicks with you. If you're a man and you're listening to this, really, I would encourage you go check out Seth's book. It's really good. It's not just the same old, same old thing. He's not just making a tired argument. It's not rehashing anything. It is a really well done, well thought out, well constructed argument for a positive vision for Christianity masculinity. So, Seth, thank you, man. Thanks for your good work.
- [36:24]
D
Yeah, I appreciate you both. Thanks for having me on.
- [36:26]
C
Great for you, Seth.
- [36:28]
B
All right, well, thanks for listening to the podcast today. Don't forget to check out our sponsors through our web page, link in the show notes or online at trainthechurch.com under the Knowing Faith podcast webpage. We hope you enjoyed the discussion. We'll be coming at you next week with another summer release episode. Follow along with us this summer as we continue to explore some tricky questions and some thorny topics. We hope you enjoy the discussion. Grace and Peace.