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Ezer’s Handbook #9: Mentor and Encourage Biblical Manhood

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Identity, Parenting & Education, Vocation, tagged boys should be boys, complementary sexes, created order, defenders of life, family, fathers, grandfathers, heroes, Meg Meeker, patriarchy, sex education in the Church on April 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Here’s the final page from Ezer’s Handbook!

Mentor and Encourage Biblical Manhood

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Genesis 2:15-17). Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him (Genesis 2:18). Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness . . . urge the younger men to be self-controlled (Titus 2:2, 6).

Honor God’s created order by being a helper. There is no shame in being a helper. In John 24:16, Jesus called the Holy Spirit a “Helper” (Greek: parakletos, “comforter” or someone who appears on another’s behalf—“advocate”). In what ways does a Christian woman help or hinder a man in a dating relationship? In the workplace? In what ways does a Christian wife help or hinder her husband? In what ways does a Christian mother help or hinder the father of her children? In what ways does a Christian mother help or hinder her son?

Mentor sons. A woman is needed to mentor her sons, grandsons and all of the boys God brings into her life. She doesn’t do this like a father. Mom and dads are not interchangeable roles. She is needed to model biblical womanhood, he is needed to model biblical manhood, and both are needed to show the complementary design of marriage for the good of family. A mom models femininity, virtue, modesty in dress and behavior, and respect for her husband. She is not quarrelsome. “Strength and dignity are her clothing . . . she opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness . . . she fears the Lord” (Proverbs 31:25-30). A son needs to see that his mom is not deceived by the world. Recommended resources include Boys Should Be Boys (7 Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons) by Meg Meeker, M.D.; Bringing Up Boys by Dr. James Dobson; Raising Boys By Design by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD and Michael Gurian; and Raising Real Men by Hal and Melanie Young. Encourage dads to do a study of Proverbs 4-7 with their sons. The Lutheran Study Bible (ESV) with commentary provides plenty for discussion. If a dad isn’t present, study these chapters from Proverbs with your son. Help him avoid the “temptress”. Oh! That reminds me. Another resource (how could I forget?) is The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity. The book is available on Amazon by mid-May. More than expose the humanistic origin of sex education, it focuses on identity and provides suggestions for parents who want to train children in biblical manhood and womanhood.

Encourage fathers to be heroes and defenders of their daughters. There is much evidence to suggest that girls will wait longer to be sexually active if they have a dad who provides appropriate attention. What does it mean when a father gives his daughter’s hand in marriage? What does it mean when he lifts his daughter’s veil on her wedding day? Recommended reading includes Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Meg Meeker, M.D., and Unprotected by Miriam Grossman, M.D., and my two-part article Dad: A Girl’s First Hero (visit Titus 2 for Life – click on “writings”).

Resist the world’s disdain for patriarchy. Patriarchy is God’s plan to bring order into a sinful and often chaotic world. Men are held responsible for loving their wives and passing on the Truth of Jesus Christ to their children. Martin Luther wrote the Small Catechism, not for pastors to teach, but for fathers to teach their children in the home. Encourage the men of your congregation to use Men, Women and Relationships: Building a Culture of Life Across the Generations, a Bible study I wrote for college-age and older men and women (LFL901BS – CPH) Topics of particular interest to men are “Modern Man”, “The Abuse of Sex”, “Husbands and Wives”, “Heroes in a Culture of Life”, “Bearers and Defenders of Life”, and “Building a Culture of Life”. Each lesson includes a leader’s guide.

Raise the standard for men. The way a woman chooses to dress, speak and act can either raise—or lower—a man’s standard of behavior. Suggest that your women’s group read Christian Modesty and the Undressing of America by Jeff Pollard or check out the books Wendy Shalit has written on modesty. A ten lesson Bible study entitled Dressing for Life: Secrets of the Great Cover-up is available in a reproducible PDF format (LFLDFL) from CPH. I wrote the study to help moms and daughters resist immodest dress not just for their own sake but for the sake of boys and men. The study explains why God said fig leaves weren’t enough, why embarrassment is natural, and why a bride presents herself to her groom in a white wedding dress.

Encourage, respect and appreciate men. Purchase the Bible study Called to Remember (LFL302BS) from CPH. After a number of Titus 2 Retreats, I was asked to respectfully encourage men in their vocation of biblical manhood. This study is but one of many resources for pastors, men’s fellowship, your husband or son, or other male members in your family. The study calls men to accountability while also showing appreciation for their faithfulness. (See also The Men’s Network.) My grandfathers, father, and husband are humbled by their failures, but it is because of their faithfulness that I am more confident, secure and protected as a woman. Feminism speaks ill of men; but there are many women like myself who hold godly men in high esteem. The Book of Man (Readings on the Path to Manhood) by William J. Bennett is a collection of writings by men on work, war, citizenship, women and children, prayer and reflection. Encourage fathers and sons to watch the movie Patriot, The League of Grateful Sons, or Kirk Cameron’s Monumental. Study men like General Thomas Jackson. Jackson’s mother gave him away when he was seven, but he became a man of unbending faith and a Civil War hero respected by students at West Point and those he led into battle.

Visit Titus 2 for Life. Go to the “4 men” page and click on the links to articles that encourage and support biblical manhood. Thank God for humble, praying, and faithfully involved fathers, grandfathers, husbands, sons, pastors and friends.

This concludes a series of nine posts on mentoring. It is my prayer that older women not shy away from mentoring younger women in biblical womanhood so that, together, we might encourage biblical manhood.

Ezer’s Handbook is a resource developed by
Linda Bartlett and presented at Titus 2 Retreats

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Men and Women, Worship and Life

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Vocation, tagged baptism, boyhood, boys and girls, Christianity, church attendance, complementary sexes, divine worship, feminism, gender differences, godly manhood, liturgy, raising boys by design, spiritual warfare on January 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Often, after leading a Titus 2 Retreat, I am asked if I will say a few encouraging words to the husbands and male members of the sponsoring congregation or group. This is important to me. As an ezer, a helper by creation and nature, it is natural for me to want to help and encourage the very men who are so different from me. It has been said that male and female are the two eyes of the universe. I believe both are needed for a proper perspective.

Before I encourage the men to be the good stewards and defenders of life that God calls them to be, I apologize to them for the folly of women. The feminist movement baptizes in the name of humanistic narcissism. It pits women against men and places children in harm’s way. But Christianity baptizes in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It clothes even an infant girl in the righteous robe of Christ, washes away sin, begins to work a good conscience, and makes her an heir of The Promise. Daughters of God in Christ do not have to demean or compete with men in order to be persons of influence.

Radical feminism has done great harm, in particular, to boys. Insisting that “equal means being the same” has left girls more vulnerable and boys deprived of godly manhood. To deny that boys learn, process and respond differently than girls weakens society and hurts us all. It shows in the modern classroom. Almost twice as many boys as girls struggle with completing regular schoolwork and behaving in the way school systems want them to behave. Boys are almost twice as likely to repeat kindergarten as girls and more than twice as likely to be suspended. The majority of school dropouts are boys. (1) In my lifetime, I have witnessed powerful advocacy for girls but little desire to understand or respect what boys need to thrive.

Most disappointing to me is the Christian community. Barna surveys found that a higher proportion of adolescent boys and men are leaving or not participating in church life compared to girls and women. Sunday school, day school and catechism classes seem to have forgotten (or dismissed) that boys and girls learn and grow differently. In his book Why Men Hate Going to Church, David Murrow documents that boys and men don’t really think the church has anything to offer them. I have observed that the more contemporary worship services have become, the more men seem to drift away. Why? If God’s divine service to us is diminished by attention to our praise of Him, time in God’s House may become insignificant by men who are wired very differently from women. Women may be “moved” by praise songs and emotional presentations, but are men?

Not long ago, following Vacation Bible School, I overheard one of the teachers say that the boys came to life when singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”. Their lips moved during the rhyming and repetitive praise songs, but their voices raised and their feet marched when singing about spiritual warfare, gallantry and defense of all things noble and good.

In Raising Boys By Design, authors Gregory L. Jantz, PhD and Michael Gurian write,

For faith to be relevant, boys and men need to see it as a part of their action-oriented heroic quest — a wholehearted, sold-out-to-Jesus continual submission of the will to one greater than self. Boys seek a valiant spiritual quest, fraught with challenge and filled with purpose, sacrifice, achievement, and honor. Males want to connect with a God who is experiential, to have a personal encounter with Jesus that is so compelling they will grab hold of faith and hang on tight as their lives go forward. Through such faith they will find their true identity, not just as a man but as a Christian man. (2)

Jantz and Gurian speak about a faith that must be muscular. As the mother of sons, this resonates with me. I wanted my sons to respect and defend women, but not become one of us. Just as I am uplifted by the support and wisdom of other women, so men are strengthened by their healthy band of brothers in work, study, play or service. From boyhood, men need to engage in problem solving, decision-making and wrestling with the tough issues of life on behalf of the women and children they are called by God to defend. If you remember, Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord (Genesis 32). Jacob’s hip was put out of joint during the encounter. Martin Luther said that through faith, in the struggle of the cross, one learns to recognize and experience God rightly. A man learns, through times of difficulty as well as times of blessings, that God’s Word is living and active; it can be trusted in all circumstances.

God calls boys to guard the purity of girls. He calls men to defend the lives of women and children. It is likely, in this sinful world, that boys and men will be bruised when they do battle for the lives of others and to the glory of God. It is for this reason, I believe, that men (like women) need the Divine Service. The literal catechesis in the Divine Service, week after week, prepares a young man not to be passive, but to be engaged in the real world. It allows him to confess his sins, receive absolution and remember the cleansing work of his baptism. It speaks the timeless Word of God in Christ. It renews him with the strength and wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

The Divine Service is not the boy or man doing something for God, but God doing something for boy and man so that they, in turn, may do something good for girls and women.

As for me, I will continue to resist the foolishness of some women. I have no reason to desire the place of a man or covet the responsibilities he has been given. I do, however, have my own role to play. It is my belief that I can best help men defend the sanctity of life, protect women and children and, ultimately serve God by loving their neighbor as themselves when I encourage my husband, sons, grandsons and brothers to put on their armor. To grip the Sword of the Spirit. To stay alert. To gather with all the saints and persevere.

War rages. It is not against flesh and blood but powers and principalities. It is a spiritual war for our very souls. I, for one, need the courage and commitment of men who are prepared for such battle. Men who do more than praise God, but receive from Him training in righteousness… zeal for good works… and the power of self-control. Divinely served by a mighty God and with marching orders in hand, a man is equipped to bring order out of the chaos of sin.

(1) Gregory L. Jantz, PhD, and Michael Gurian, Raising Boys By Design (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2013), 12-13.
(2) Jantz and Gurian, Raising Boys By Design, 195.

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War Against Boys Hurts Girls, Too

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Relationships, tagged boys, complementary sexes, creation, cultural influence, femininity, feminism, feminization of boys, hope, masculinity, parents, war on boys on March 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Christina Hoff Sommers is the author of The War Against Boys. The Ph.D. scholar cites one example after another of how America’s academic, political, and cultural “elite” have maligned and tried to re-define masculinity.

Speaking on behalf of those cultural “elites,” Gloria Steinem said, “We need to raise boys like we raise girls.” Bear in mind that such convoluted thinking followed the so-called “girlhood project” of the 70s: Raise girls like boys. Giving birth to a daughter instead of a son was, for some parents, somewhat of an embarrassment.

On campus and off, workshops, seminars, and projects exist with a sole focus of “transforming” boys. A “boy’s masculinity” is seen by cultural “elites” as a “problem.” Despising patriarchy, off-track feminists work feverishly to construct a new version of manhood.

Sommers asks, “How well do [these people] understand and like boys? Who has authorized their mission?”

David Kupelian is the author of How Evil Works. He asks, “Why would our culture so denigrate masculinity? And why — this is the flip side of the same question — are we becoming so increasingly feminized as a society?” He continues, “Today’s high level of gender confusion and role reversal, manifested most obviously in the dramatic upswing — and near celebration — of homosexuality, is one of the great cultural mysteries of our time. The bending and sometimes breaking of traditional gender roles permeates our society in obvious and subtle ways.”

Sexual confusion abounds — in clothing, college dorms, and the workplace. There is sexual confusion when girls “try out” lesbianism or bisexuality because it’s “chic.” There is sexual confusion when girls wrestle boys and women are put on the front lines of war.

George Gilder is the author of Men and Marriage. He writes, “To the sexual liberal, gender is a cage. Behind cruel bars of custom and tradition, men and women for centuries have looked lovingly across forbidden spaces at one another and yearned to be free of sexual roles.” Hmm. Reminds me of a beautiful garden where a woman was tempted to reach for something that was not good for her to have.

I’m grateful that my grandmother took one look at my newly born dad and knew, without a doubt, that she would raise him to be a boy. More than that, she would allow him to be a boy. When our sons were born, I didn’t argue with God or tell Him He’d made a mistake. Nor did I force them to become more soft and sensitive. There’s no denying that I had to walk a fine line. They needed to be aware of how girls think and like to be treated, but also be allowed to drive go-carts at high speeds, climb windmills, blaze a Yellowstone trail, and prefer science fiction to chick flicks and discussions of logic rather than emotion.

I’ll admit there have been (and continue to be) lots of times when I wish my husband better understood me as a woman. I wish he could “read my mind.” But, he’s not a woman. Therefore, we do think, love, perceive, react, and communicate differently. I’m glad my husband isn’t confused about his gender. When the enemy is at the door, I will be eternally grateful when he steps in front of me to face evil. That’s what my brother did one night when a deranged man was breaking in. My brother did not send my sister-in-law to the door. He engaged the enemy. He protected the household. He knew what his role was and he played it well.

I wonder. Would Daniel Boone have aggressively tamed the wilderness if his mother had raised him to be “in touch with his feminine side”? Would husbands and fathers have sacrificed their lives on a ship named Titanic if that culture would have despised chivalry? And what if young men stayed home and tens upon thousands of young women of child-bearing age stormed the beaches of Normandy, Omaha, and Iwo Jima?

There is nothing wrong with boys. Just because a boy fidgets doesn’t mean he needs some sort of drug. There is nothing wrong with boys who want to roughhouse or jump in a muddy stream, but balk at the suggestion of shopping. Instead of disfiguring distorting, or denying boyishness or girlishness, why don’t we stand in awe of the uniquely different male and female anatomy? Appreciate the boundaries of male and female gender and grow a healthier, safer society because of them? Celebrate the male and female eyes of the human race and be better for it?

A war against boys hurts girls, too. Eventually, it weakens society. Messing with creation is nasty business with hopeless consequences.

So, that’s why I called the parents of Joel Northrup to say “thank you.” Joel took a stand as a gentleman and refused to dishonor or confuse a girl on a public wrestling mat. He is not ashamed to be a boy, to be a male person. He is not ashamed to practice his faith which tells him to regard women as the weaker sex, not because they are less than him, but because he is called by God not to take advantage or abuse them. In putting his faith into practice, Joel honored a created boundary that will serve him — and women — very, very well.

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