Authentic Masculinity - Seth Troutt

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Well, what does it mean to be a man in to day's culture? I didn't have any anxiety about the masculinity stuff until the social pressure started to hit. And that's a lot of what I'm hoping to do with this book: beat these guys to the punch, right, and help them get a positive vision so that when they hear those. negative examples, they'll have a counterpoint ready to go. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr.

Gary Chapman, author of The New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . For years we've heard the accusation that masculinity is toxic. But pastor and author Seth Trout says authentic masculinity is rooted in living according to God's design. He'll unpack that for us today and what it means in marriage and society. Our featured resource at buildingrelationships.us is Seth's book, Authentic Masculinity.

Leaving behind the counterfeits for God's design. Again, find it at buildingrelationships.us. And I want to turn the question to you, Gary. As a pastor, as a counselor, You have seen counterfeit masculinity through the years. How have you responded to that?

You know, Chris. As soon as you said that, Yeah. There came to my mind a visual image of a man who came into my office a number of years ago. One of the most muscular men I've ever seen. I mean, his muscles were just bulging.

And you said, Dr. Chapman. I got a serious problem. My wife just filed for divorce. And he said, I don't know why.

So I listened to him for the next 40 minutes on what was going on, you know. And I realized This man's idea of masculinity is muscles, and he spent the bulk of his time, his free time, after work. You know, working out, working out, working out.

So she felt like she didn't have a husband. She wasn't leaving him. She didn't have one. She was just acknowledging what is. Unfortunately, I was not able to help them, really.

Come to a conclusion that I had hoped would happen. She had felt so neglected for so many years that she just, uh you know, wasn't willing to work on the marriage.

So yeah, people have different ideas on what it means to be masculine. That was just one example. But this book is going to be helpful to a lot of folks, and I am really excited about our conversation today.

Well, let's meet pastor and author Dr. Seth Trout. He is the teaching pastor at Ironwood Church in the Phoenix metro area. He's been pastoring full-time since 2011, holds a doctorate focused on digital technology, Gen Z, and gender identity. He's an alumnus of Arizona State University, Phoenix Seminary, and Covenant Seminary.

Seth and his wife have been married since 2013. They have two children, and his latest book is our featured resource at buildingrelationships.us: Authentic Masculinity: Leaving Behind the Counterfeits for God's Design. Again, go to buildingrelationships.us. For Pastor Trout, welcome to Building Relationships. Thanks for having me on.

It's a real treat to get to talk about masculinity with you all. There must be something you saw as a pastor and father that made you want to write about this topic of authentic masculinity. Tell us about it. What motivated you? You know, that story you shared earlier about the kind of muscle-oriented masculinity resonates.

You know, I meet a lot of guys at the gym who are non-Christians who. Think that testosterone equals masculinity, and that's kind of where their list ends and they're really locked into that type of stereotypical vision. I simultaneously talk to a lot of younger guys who are not motivated in their life. They understand that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, but they're just kind of stuck in this malaise, slothful existence. What hill should I try to climb?

What should I work hard at? What does it mean to do the best I can with my life? And so there's kind of an aimlessness, like they don't know what the bullseye is, so they don't even shoot. They don't know what the goal is, so they don't strive. But the real reason that I got into this masculinity stuff was there was a church with a lot of college students a couple of miles from ours, right by Arizona State University.

We're probably about 30 minutes away from there. And they said, Hey, can you come and talk on this toxic masculinity thing? There's this famous guy named Andrew Tate who Recommends that men get strong, stop smoking weed, work hard, and then also says things like: Marriage is a trap designed by feminists to keep men domesticated, and you should basically go out and have kids with as many women as possible. And the divorce laws favor women, society is favored against men. And like half of what he says, I'm like, Yes, move out of your mom's basement, don't smoke weed, work really hard.

And the other half is just a baptism of the desires of the flesh. But he's been the masculinity influencer that a lot of Gen Zerists have. Bought into and so this guy This pastor locally said, Can you come talk on masculinity? And I thought, I would love to. And that's kind of what got me thinking deeply and praying deeply about younger men in particular.

And the men in my congregation are audience zero. But beyond that, I just see a real need for the church to cast a positive vision, not just to critique what is negative in the culture, but to cast a more compelling vision for God's design for men.

Well, I certainly agree. That is definitely needed in today's culture.

Now you begin the book with stories about when you were younger and were told to be a man. What were you being told about manhood at that age? Yeah, the first time I got challenged to be a man, I was playing video games at a friend's house in fifth grade, and he said, Hey, come, you want to see some porn. And at that point, I didn't even know what that was, but I could tell based on how he was saying it that I probably shouldn't want to do that. You know, I had two attentive, caring parents who.

They weren't really insecure about gender or anything like that. You know, my dad's a PE teacher, my mom's a preschool teacher. They're pretty warm and connected. And so I kind of knew this is not good. I shouldn't do it.

I don't know what it is. You know, the had a gut instinct of And then I said, no, thanks. And he said, oh, come on, be a man. And I thought, well, I don't want to be a woman. I don't.

Want to be a child, so I better say yes. And that was my first exposure to. Pornography was that insecurity there. And then other little stories that began to shape my assumption about what men should want, what men should do. I remember being in middle school.

at basketball tryouts and the guys were doing pull-ups on the basketball rim and i couldn't do it and someone said i'll be a man fatty you know and that was my first experience of not liking my body you know my my strength feeling weak. Other times having discipleship leaders in the church telling me to be a man and do my reading, you know, and that's not really a negative example as much as an additional example, but. The main thing all those have in common Or their shameful experiences of Feeling like I didn't belong, feeling like I wasn't good enough, feeling like I needed to do X, Y, and Z to be accepted and loved by this community. And that kind of sexual, responsible, strong. And be this kind of caricature, otherwise, you're not a man, really stuck with me and affected my mind.

I didn't have any anxiety about the masculinity stuff until the social pressure started to hit. And that's a lot of what I'm hoping to do with this book is beat these guys to the punch, right, and help them get a positive vision so that when they hear those negative examples, they'll have a a counterpoint ready to go. Yeah, yeah.

So important. Boy, I think this book's going to really help. young men. Where should men look to best understand masculinity that thrives in obedience to God? I think what's been most helpful in my own journey, but also in discipling other guys, has been really looking closely at what Adam was supposed to do versus what Adam did do in Genesis 1, 2, and 3.

There's a lot there that's compelling in terms of a man's role, a man's passivity, a man's failure. But then going to the second Adam, the final Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, and seeing all the ways that Jesus is the anti-Adam, the final Adam, the Redeemer of all the men who have been like Adam and are like Adam. And so I do think that biblical masculinity is not really a type of masculinity, but it is the true vision of masculinity. And I think that the biblical story is actually really compelling and helps guys get a vision for what it looks like to be a Christ-like man who is not an Adam-like man. And I think that compare and contrast has been a really helpful resource in terms of forming and discipling young men on terms of what they want to be like and do.

Well, Seth, you outline a masculinity pyramid in the book. Can you walk us through that diagram and give us an overview of the masculine virtues? Yeah, this is actually the part of the book that I'm the most proud of. You know, I like the whole book. I wrote it, my name's on it, etc.

But this structure has been what's been most useful in even helping disciple my son, who is six. And it really kind of begins through a handful of negations.

So, the bottom layer of the pyramid is that man is not God. And that sounds obvious, but a lot of guys don't get how significant that is: that man is not God, he is a creature, that he's finite, he's limited, he's located. In that God designed him, and that we actually, if we want to be sober-minded, have to submit our idea of what it means to be a man to God's idea of what it means to be a man. And so, that bottom layer of the pyramid is: man is not God, therefore he must be humble or he should have humility. And that humility is really rooted in the creature-creator distinction.

But then. On top of that, out of Genesis 1 through 3, you get the gospel story of the fact that we're not just humble because we're creatures, but we're humble because we're sinful creatures who require grace, that we must be blessed by God if we are going to be anything. And so that's the bottom layer. It kind of makes me think about Matthew 5: blessed are the poor in spirit. That we come to God with humility, submitting to His designs and recognizing that we're indebted to His grace.

Then the next layer up is that man is not an animal, that, okay, so creator-creature distinction, but mankind is fundamentally different than the rest of the creatures. That we are made in God's image, we're moral creatures, we have vision and purpose, self-reflectiveness, and we have this capacity to rightly order our desires. That animals are governed by instincts and desires. But mankind can be governed by vision and submission and goals and dreams and purpose. And so man is not an animal, so he has to have discipline or be disciplined.

That we discipline our desires, we discipline our bodies, we order our loves, and downstream from that, we find discipline, right?

So, if I want to eat six donuts for breakfast, but more than that, I want to be an attentive, hardworking employee who doesn't have a stomachache, then I say no to the lesser desire in favor of the greater desire. And so, that's a discipline. Then, the layer up from that is that man is not a child, he's responsible. And so, responsibility, this is the opposite of what Adam does in the garden when he sins and is confronted by God. He says, That woman you gave me, he blames shifts.

That's childish behavior. He blames the context. He blames the environment. You know, grown men will blame their lust on what the woman was wearing, or they'll blame their fit of rage on the fact that their five-year-old wasn't listening to them, and they blame, blame, blame. Whereas when we embrace responsibility, we own ourselves.

We recognize that self-conquest is part of the task of masculinity. And then the final layer, the top one, is what I've called chivalry, that man is not woman, so be chivalrous. And I like that old word because it's masculine-coded, but it also has to do with honor. And I get that from 1 Peter 3, 7, which says that husbands are to live with their wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel. And that Peter roots that in the vessel, the body difference, that because man is stronger, he has this additional responsibility to understand and honor.

His wife. And so that masculinity pyramid is humility, discipline, responsibility, and chivalry. And I do think that those first three layers we have in common with females. And I think that some of what I want to emphasize is that there is a danger in overemphasizing the male-female difference, but there's also danger in underemphasizing it, like the progressive left has done. But when Adam sees Eve in the garden, his reaction is: bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, finally, one who corresponds to me.

And so I think when we understand the lower levels of the pyramid first, that then frees us up to engage the discussion about chivalry. And we now carry our strength with humility, discipline and responsibility. And that leads us to honor the other vessel, the other sex. I think that pyramid's going to help a lot of folks. In distinguishing what this is all about.

We'll talk about some of those later in the program, obviously. Has the label of toxic masculinity uh harmed how men express emotion or reject anything that that resembles the you know some stereotype. Yeah, I think the discourse around toxic masculinity really misses the mark because toxicity is about excess, right? You can drink too much water and get water poisoning. You can also have a toxic level of fentanyl at much smaller doses.

And so some of like the chauvinist or misogynistic or womanizing type men you see get labeled toxic masculine as though their problem is that they're excessively masculine. And I think that totally misses the mark. I think they're actually insufficiently masculine, that they're anemic, they're not toxic, that they lack humility, discipline, responsibility, and chivalry. And so rather than warning men about toxic masculinity, I'd much rather warn them about anemic masculinity, the abdication, the passivity, the haughtiness, the lack of capacity to honor the other. And I do think that part of what you're seeing in culture is a reaction to the liberalism that tried to feminize women and kind of promote this interchangeability of the sexes.

And there's kind of this resurgence, especially among Gen Z, towards moving back to that old masculine stereotype of men don't have emotions, men suppress them, and men don't need friends and men don't need connection. And so I do think there is a flip-flop thing happening in culture where this new promotion of kind of the John Wayne cowboy type. masculinity that's really incongruent with the person of Jesus who Has compassion in his gut and weeps at the womb of his friend Lazarus and has meaningful friendships and connections. And so I think the whole toxic masculinity thing is a reaction to the third wave feminism stuff. And I'd much rather cast a positive vision than just critique the harmful visions that are out there in culture.

Yeah. How have you seen a lack of authentic masculinity harm churches and our marriages? Yeah, the point you shared earlier at the very beginning of the program is this man who's at the gym abdicating his responsibility as a man because he's neglecting his wife. I do think that that passivity or that lack of use of power is a huge problem. Where a lot of the guys I talk to and a lot of the wives I end up talking to through the church, a lot of what they're suffering from is not abuse from men, but abdication from men, the lack of interest, the lack of engagement.

the lack of emotional availability, the lack of connection. And I do think that misuse of power, abuse of power is a huge problem. And I do think that it's probably more common than a lot of even jokes understand it to be. But I think more so, just on a percentage basis, the disengaged man, the aloof man, Causes more issues than the abusive man, just broadly speaking. Both are huge problems and both require.

Attention, but I think those kind of weak marriages where wives don't feel attuned to, they don't feel connected, they don't feel cared for, they don't feel cherished and nourished, like Ephesians 5 talks about. Those poor marriages lead to poor parenting, which leads to weak churches. And I do think same with pastors and churches. I just speaking about myself, I have way more of a proclivity to be a passive pastor than an abusive pastor. To allow and tolerate what I shouldn't allow and tolerate than to Be domineering and authoritarian.

And so, some of it is like you got to know yourself as a man and go, Are you inclined towards hyperaggressiveness? Are you inclined towards passivity? And I think most men. If they're honest, they're probably inclined towards passivity over against being domineering. Can you describe one situation where You were a passive pastor, and you saw it, and you thought, no, I need to jump in here.

Yeah, I think especially around Relational dysfunction or emotional unhealth in leaders, where there's reactivity, or there is hostility, or there is. uh kind of conspiratorial behavior And you kind of sell yourself on, oh, if I just love 'em They'll get healthier over time and it'll play out well, as opposed to rebuking and reproofing like the New Testament tells me to as a pastor. And so I think a nervousness to engage or intercede or protect or defend. When someone is relationally unhealthy, or when they're sinning, to try to kind of go, okay, I don't want to go yanking out all the weeds because it might disrupt the roots of the good plants. And I think that almost every time that ends up biting me, and I've kind of talked myself into a passivity when I should be out there confronting people and for the greater good of the whole church.

And that's difficult. It's difficult, especially in the church setting. But I hear you, man, and I think you're right.

Well let's talk about sex. How does an authentically masculine man view sex? Yeah. Yeah, I think most basically we have to understand that sex is defined and determined by God. And so the common narrative nowadays is that sex is just like shaking hands, that it's just two bodies touching.

What's the big deal? That it's just a physical act that's aliken to hunger. You know, it's an appetite. It's animal. It's natural.

There's nothing sacred or significant to it. And so I think the first thing we have to do is recognize God's design for sex, that it's this mutually connecting and benefiting connection between a man and woman exclusively in the covenant of marriage. And one of the things that I try to tell guys in particular on the younger side is that one of the worst things you can do to your girlfriend is treat her like a wife. That don't ask your girlfriend to do wife stuff. Don't ask your girlfriend, and don't.

That means don't share a bank account. That means don't make her your accountability partner. That means don't move her across the country with you. It means don't have sex with her. And so that women.

Especially biologically speaking. Deserve and need to be given the safety that covenant sex. delivers that emotional, legal. Public financial connection because women bear in their bodies the consequences of sex. And I mean, consequence there, not negatively, but positively.

When a woman gets pregnant, she's way more vulnerable than a man who doesn't get pregnant. And I think that connected, covenanted, one-flesh union is the proper context for sex. And when you look at the literature and the surveys of it, You see that actually that type of committed relationship sex is actually better for women than it is for women who have kind of hookups. And so I think there's a design there that we receive, that there is a one fleshness that covers us physically, financially, spiritually, relationally, publicly, and legally. And that's the proper context for that.

And so if you care about this woman, then you'll want to offer your body to her and ask her to offer her body to you in the context of a warm, connected, mutually enjoying, covenantal connection and not in some other context. Yeah, that's that's so so needed in today's culture. You know, some research has indicated that those couples who live together, have sex together before marriage, are far more likely to not get married. and consequently go through the pain of a broken relationship. God's plans are not there to make life hard on us.

They're there to help us have the best possible life, right? Amen, amen. There's one study I read recently that talked about in a non-committed hookup situation that women only experience the most pleasurable part of sex 10% of the time, which is a pretty poor numeric thing. And it goes much higher in the context of a committed relationship. And I think it goes even higher when a husband is devoted to cherishing and nourishing this woman and not just using her body.

And so I think even within the covenant of marriage, Husbands who don't cherish and nourish, broadly speaking, or even give attention to their wife and her body. Can be selfish even in the context of marriage rather than the kind of 1 Corinthians 7, this mutually giving that's mutually encouraging and mutually satisfying. And so, one of the things I've heard said before, you know, is good married sex begins in the kitchen. And what they're getting at is this, you're engaged and serving and attentive, not aloof, in the whole of the relationship. And I hope that men recognize that sex is not just something they get from their wife.

That whole framing of it is, I think, awful and dehumanizing, but it's something that they do together to cement and connect their covenant relationship and hopefully and ideally in a way that brings about children and allows you to pass on the faith and yourself to the next generation. Yeah. God's playing. Is always the best plan. It's just that simple.

What are some of the ways that men can genuinely live out their God-given design? Yeah. I think, especially this next generation, one of the ways that we can shine like stars in a dark generation is to work really hard and to resist the sin of sloth. I think the doom scrolling, the social media, the permanent dopamine loop that you can find yourself in. I think as Christian men recognize that God has prepared good things for them to do ahead of time.

That we should walk in them and to just actually believe that God has a design for me. And I know when you're younger, the specificity of that's not always clear. What exactly is my career? What exactly is my role? Generally speaking, we know we want to work and serve the common good and add value to society and love and serve our wife and kids.

And I think as we grow in competence, we get more confident in our careers. But I do think that the first problem we see in the scripture is Genesis 2: there's no man to work the ground. And so God puts a man in the garden to work it. And then the next problem is there's no helper fit for him. And so he creates a woman.

And I think that Genesis 1, subdue and dominion, which corresponds with work and making culture and cultivating and creating value and that fruitful multiply, which has to do with the home. I do think that the work and the home are two big parts of a man's identity. And either of those things are not going well. Men tend to really struggle. And so I think going.

God has created me to work and work hard. God's created me to love and love deeply. And I want to lean into those two things as hard as I can and not waste my life just scrolling and meandering aimlessly, not sure what to do, but to get out there and put your hand to the plow. Like I like that Ecclesiastes verse, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. You don't want to leave any meat on the bone, but get out there and try to do great things for God, for his glory, and because he loves you as your son.

Thanks for joining us for the Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman podcast. Go to buildingrelationships.us to see a list of seminar locations coming up for Dr. Chapman and find out about our featured resource, the book by Seth Trout, Authentic Masculinity. Just go to buildingrelationships.us or visit us at fivelovelanguages.com.

Seth, you outline the five roles of manhood in the book. Let's go through each of these and explain those roles. Yeah, so the book is organized in two pyramids. That first one is that four-layer masculine virtues. The second half of the book is the five-layer masculine virus.

Masculine roles, and these do the order does matter here. And I think that you know, the baseline here, so the bottom of the pyramid of the second pyramid is son. And the reason that's first is you're a son before you're even born in the womb. You have a mother and a father, and you have all this generational baggage. You're coming with you, that's that's coming with you.

And some of that baggage is great. You know, when the airport loses your luggage, you're mad about it because I was like, I wanted that baggage. And some of that baggage is obviously negative, you know, negative patterns of relating, negative family history.

Some of that's genetic, some of that is relational, you know, nature, nurture, it's kind of all in play. But the first task of the son is you're going, I want to steward my family story and be cognizant of the ways I want to break generational patterns, cognizant of the ways I want to maintain generational patterns, and really kind of get clear about what am I grateful for in my family history and what am I grieved by in my family history and be mindful of the fact that, you know, Jesus might be in your heart, but grandpa's in your bones, as Peter Scizaro has said before. And I do think a lot of. men, young men are underfathered or unfathered. And this idea of making dad proud is kind of disgusting to them because they don't respect their dad.

But I do want men to feel like one of my tasks is to become the type of man that a wise man would be proud of, even if that's not my dad. I want to be that type of man. That's a lot of what you get in the Proverbs: you know, a son can, you know, bring stress to his mother or bring shame to his father. We don't want to be that guy, we want to be a guy who. Either maintains the honor that our family name has or redeems the family name.

And Begin it to associate with good things.

So that's like the sun. layer The next layer up is brother. And so a lot of people are brothers in the womb because they're not the firstborn. But what I think in that chapter I'm really trying to do is what 1 Timothy 5 says, which is relate to younger women as sisters in all purity. And the younger brothers, as in likewise.

And so that chapter is really kind of doing two things. One, it's on sexual purity, how to not objectify women, but to subjectify women, to see them as subjects and as sisters. And to see that lust, especially within the church, is disgusting. It's incestuous. It's not just something to be managed, but it's actually something to hate and to want to eradicate from our very souls.

And then, brother, likewise I want men to be spurred on. To have fraternal connection and have that iron-sharpened tired relationship where they're not just having friends, but they're having a brotherhood within the church.

So that's son and brother. The third layer up is Maker, which is all about a man's work and his money, and how do we manage money and how do we manage our energy as workers in the kingdom, but then also just for the common good? How do we leverage ourselves in a way that blesses other people? And the next layer up is husband, which is largely based on Ephesians 5. What does it look like to cherish and nourish a wife?

To anticipate her needs, to treat her as precious, to understand her, to be a student of her. To image Christ in the way he loves the church. And the top of that pyramid is father. And that's not to say that biological fatherhood is like the apex of life. But ideally, first you deal with your son stuff, your brother stuff, maker stuff, husband stuff.

And then when you become a father, you start to focus on the next generation and passing yourself on to others. And that's obviously not just biological, but also spiritual as we disciple and aspire to be elder qualified men, even if we never are in the office of elder. I really like the way you do that because it's covering all of life, you know, starting off with being a son and perhaps ending up being a father, but it covers the whole of life. And in those chapters, of course, you deal more intently with specifically, you know, Christian lifestyles. What does an authentic uh What does authentic manhood look like as men relate to women?

Yeah. Yeah, I think especially in the church, that sister metaphor I think is really important. That we relate as siblings who have the same father and have the same family. And really, I think relating to women is kind of like a walk before you run here thing. And I think walking has to do with honoring the other with pure hearts and pure eyes, not dehumanizing, not objectifying.

But there ends up being like that playful sibling friendship banter thing that I would love all men to have in the church with their sisters in Christ. And I think that. Going back to the masculine virtues of humility. Discipline and responsibility and chivalry, that when I bring that into my relationships with women.

Now I am able to uh have humility, not presuming on the other but Cherishing the other and recognizing that God designed them just like God designed me. I'm having self-control, I'm displaying my desires, I'm not blaming them for my sin, and I'm taking responsibility for the ways that I have sinned, and I'm also broadening my umbrella such that I can care for them as sisters and relate to them in that way. And so I think at a minimum, we're talking about sexual purity here, but at a maximum, we're looking for like a positive sibling, a playful, connected friendship that I think honors them and treats them as sisters the sisters in Christ that they actually are. You know, I think that particular section of the book is going to be super, super helpful for young, young, not for young men to start with, but for men of any age.

Now, you discuss male friendships. You just mentioned friendships, but you discuss male friendships and you introduce the Rails, R-A-I-L-S, framework for building stronger relationships. What is that concept, and why is that concept so important? Yeah, one of the jokes I've heard before is that the biggest miracle Jesus ever committed was, you know, being in his 30s and having 12 close friends. And I think that a lot of men feel that pressure, especially as you have a job, you have kids, you have a wife, and a lot of men tend to pull back on their male friendships.

I've seen it described by, I think it was the National Health Service, the epidemic of male loneliness. And I think a lot of guys are going, it feels like I have to. Become a worse husband and a worse father in order to have male friendships. And I'm not willing to do that.

So I'll just forego. The friendships and what I was trying to do with the Rails acronym, which is rhythm, affinity, intensity, longevity, and spirituality, is try to help guys see opportunities they have to improve their friendships kind of one notch at a time.

So if you have rhythm, you know, maybe you see the guy at church regularly, or you see the guy at kids drop off at school regularly, or you see them while your kids are playing flag football regularly. You already have rhythm. What's a way that you could add affinity to that? You know, let's go grab a movie together. Let's get a meal together.

Intensity is really about sharing of the emotional life, you know, your hopes, your fears, your dreams, your concerns. there's obviously different layers of that intensity. You know, there's Sharing about your shame and your regrets. I do think every man needs at least to have a couple guys that have access to all the information in their heart. Both the positive and the negative.

And then longevity is something you can't just decide to do, it takes a long time to grow old friends. But I remember meeting these three guys in their 70s who had been friends for 50 years and just asking, How did it happen? And they said, Well, it was a value and a priority to us. we decided that we would say no to job opportunities that require relocation because we valued our friendship. Not as much as we value Christ or our wife, but we also value it high.

And so going, okay, so if longevity is one of my values, then that's going to. Be a factor in my decision making. And spirituality is praying together, you know, Bible study together, things like that. And so, my hope is that as guys have connections, like one of my good buddies now, I'd see him at church. We've been friends a long time, but he invited me to start doing jiu-jitsu with him.

And now I see him with more regularity because we have this affinity, like we have a shared hobby. And our friendship is enriching because of that choice. And so, that whole rail section is just kind of a way for guys who feel stuck on how do I improve my friendships to go, what are some small steps I could take that are not going to impinge on my ability to be a husband and a father. Yeah. It reminds me of an experience I had when I was writing a book on cross-cultural friendships and I stopped in a restaurant and saw a gentleman of a different race and I said to him, may I ask you a personal question?

I told him I was writing a book on cross-cultural friendships. I said, could you give me the name of a personal friend of yours who is a different race from your race? And he thought a moment, and then he said, I don't have a close personal friend of my own race. Wow. And I think the reality is there are many men that do not have a friendship.

You know, so that that area is so important.

So it's it's just, man, I wish men could understand that. Yeah, I want men to recognize that they're valuable and they should, it's important for them to be known and seen and loved by other men. And I do think that David and Jonathan picture we get is totally pushed aside in a lot of Christian circles because there's so many men who are deadbeat fathers or aloof husbands. It kind of feels like, well, I can't really be investing in friendship because I stink of this other stuff. And so I have empathy for that, but I men knowing and loving each other and sharpening each other is a big deal.

Seth, we mentioned earlier that work is a central part of men's lives. What does the Bible say about how a man should approach being an entrepreneur and a provider? Yeah, like I mentioned earlier in Genesis chapter 2, there's no man to work the ground.

So God put the man in the garden to work it and keep it. And I do think that's preeminently looking at his role to serve and protect in that garden, which he fails to do when the serpent approaches Eve, obviously. But I think that the words subdue and dominion are pretty rich, we get in Genesis 1. And subdue has to do with applying creative force. It's like kneading bread, treading grapes.

It's applying creative pressure. It's taking what was possible and making it actual. And that provision or that protection, I think, you get in Genesis 2, is repeated through a lot of the assumptions you see in the New Testament. You know, if a man does not provide for his family, he's worse than an unbeliever and should be cut off. And I think that verse is mostly talking about caring for your aging parents or aging people in your circle, not necessarily your nuclear family per se, but there is still this.

Vision cast for that the man will bear the responsibility. I think you see that clearly in Genesis 3: that when the curse of sin is applied to the creation, the consequences of those things are applied with gendered distinction.

So to the woman, God gives, it says, you know, your desire shall be against your husband and he'll rule over you.

So she's going to feel pain in the household. And then also she says that she's told that she'll in pain bring forth children. And so kind of what you see is the female bears the brunt of the effects of sin in the home and the fruitful and multiply side. But then to the man, God tells him, by the sweat of your face will you bring forth Things from the ground. By the sweat of your face, you'll eat bread.

And so the man is going to bear the brunt of the curse as far as the subdue and dominion or the work and provide peace. And so I think part of what men need to do is recognize that work is a blessing, but work is cursed. And it's part of our responsibility as husbands and men to absorb that curse and not push it onto our wives when we are going about. Trying to build our lives together. And that's a really honor and a noble thing.

You know, absorbing the effects of the curse is one of the things that Jesus, I mean, it's a thing that Jesus does on the cross, he absorbs that.

So that we can live and flourish. And I want that to be one of my goals in my household: I want to absorb that curse and not ask my wife to be the one absorbing that curse. Yeah, yeah.

You know, also many men actually pour themselves into work and the job becomes a mistress. I remember a pastor's wife once said to me, she said, Dr. Chairman, I'm going to be honest with you, I feel like that my husband has a mistress and, oh man, my flags went up, you know. I said, really? She said, yeah, it's the church.

Yeah. Wow. But it doesn't matter what the vocation is, we can get so involved in it that we ignore, maybe not intentionally.

So what biblical wisdom would you offer to a man in that situation who is just overly involved in work and not taking time to relate to the family? Yeah, I think we have to think of our work in seasons and our responsibilities as being in meaningful competition with each other, right? I can give so much attention to my wife, I neglect my kids. I can give so much attention to my kids, I neglect my wife. I can give so much attention to my friends, I neglect them both.

I can give so much attention to all of those things that I neglect my work. And so there has to be this seasonal tension that we manage. That's not really a problem we can solve. But I think back to. A couple hundred years ago, when something like 89% of men were homesteading, there wasn't really the Industrial Revolution.

And when it's harvest time, you're out sun up to sundown, but then when it's waiting time, you have more time at home. And so, I think the most important thing is being on the same page with your wife and being a good communicator with seasonal responsibilities, seasons of emphasis, not lying to yourself about how seasons become permanent realities. And so, I know in my work, there are months where I tell my wife, I'm going to have to work a little more this week. I'm going to be home late this day. I'm going to be working kind of burning the candle at both ends for a season.

And she's on board with that when it's seasonally. And then there are other times where I'm home early and I'm in the pool with the kids at 3:30. And you kind of have to try to seasonally flex emphasis. I don't think you can ever be perfectly balanced. You get unbalanced to the right, then you get unbalanced to the left.

And that takes wisdom and connection. And I think when you have a priority of building your life with your wife and not she's just finding out about all these things, but she's included in helping you manage that tension, I think it can go well even as there's seasons where there's less availability in contrast to seasons where there's more availability. And so I think we have to embrace the reality of seasons and be honest with ourselves about when those seasons just become permanent, unsustainable realities. Seth, you talk about the ABCs of fatherhood. Uh wh what are those?

Just um inscribe those for us. Yeah, this is going to reveal my addiction to pyramids, but this is another pyramid I have in the book underneath the fatherhood thing. But I was trying to think through how I love my kids and what could be lacking. And so this is a three-layer pyramid. The bottom is affection.

This is warmth, connection, attunement, care, consideration, compassion. That's affection. That's the bottom pyramid. The middle one is blessing, which is about investment. And so proactive discipleship, proactive education, financially investing in them, relationally investing in them.

And so this is about adding to their life. You know, I think about the book, The Blessing, you know, John Trent wrote is really influential there. Like, how do I speak words of life into them and put wind in their sails and set them up for success? You know, kind of plow the driveway so that they can run on it, so to speak. And then C is correction or discipline, which is all about live feedback, engagement.

And there's a real culture now of the gentle parenting thing where parents can't say no to their kids and they can't make their kids obey them. And I do think that the Bible says, you know, a man who doesn't discipline his kid hates him. And you have to correct and intervene and engage. And so I think that can get out of whack if you flip that pyramid upside down and the base is correction. I think that's militaristic, cold, distant, aloof.

But if a foundation is affection and investment and blessing, and then you're correcting, kids can receive that correction as loving care. not just as being micromanaged or criticized. Yeah. You know, Seth, not all Christian men are going to be biological fathers. for one reason or another.

Uh but you write about spiritual fatherhood. Uh how can a man live that out?

Okay. Yeah, some of the men that I know who are not biological fathers that are making an incredible difference in the life of local church, what they've signed up to do is to invest in kids ministry and student ministry. You know, one of my close friends, this is a heartbreaking story, but his 14-year-old passed away. in a dirt bike accident three years ago or so. And he has, you know, rightly grieved, but he's no longer parenting his son.

It's really difficult, and one of the things he's done is he's stayed connected to his son's friends and he's loving them, discipling. A lot of those guys have pretty poor fathers or aloof fathers or non-Christian fathers. And he's leading Bible studies with those guys and he's supporting them and loving them. He's actually taken a group of nine of them through Authentic Masculinity right now. And that's an example of a man who can Carried his grief and is now stewarding his time and refusing to let his lack of a biological son on earth.

To take him out of the game on investing in the kingdom, investing in the next generation. And I think that engaging in discipleship and loving, especially the fatherless or the underfathered, is a huge opportunity for men who never were biological fathers to invest in the kingdom of God and to do the work of an elder, even if they never hold the office of elder. Yeah. You know, as we come toward the end of our time, you also address younger men. who have a hard time engaging face to face with women.

I'm talking about unmarried men now. They might text a girl, you know, asking for a date, but they have a hard time on the face to face thing. How how how do you uh what do you what do you say to that young man? I think, really pragmatically speaking, your nervous system takes time to adapt to new situations. And so, if you avoid the awkwardness or the clunkiness of trying to learn to talk to women face to face, you'll never learn.

That's not going to, the clouds aren't going to part and spontaneously you're going to be confident talking to women. I think you have to try and be willing to be clunky and awkward and recognize that even if a lot of women reject you, your father in heaven loves you and the church loves you and Jesus loves you. And so, your identity is not at risk when you're rejected by a female, but you have to grow. In comfortability with the possibility of rejection, if you're going to ever have those conversations in a meaningful way, I also think. You owe it to women to get good at that.

Like women deserve. to have men in their life. That are not awkward and weird whenever they're around. Like, if, at a minimum, if you want to talk to them as sisters in Christ, you can't be all sweaty and weird. And difficult when there's women around.

And so if you want to have a good and meaningful connection to women broadly speaking, or specifically romantically, it's going to take trial and error. There's no way you get good at anything right away. Like I think I mentioned earlier I started jiu-jitsu. I'm awful at it. I lose all the time.

I hate going to jujitsu every day that I go. In eight, nine, ten years, I've been doing it eight, nine, ten months, and they're thrashing me. But I understand this is what I signed up for. I know I'm bad and I'm going to get better incrementally. And I think it's the same with talking to females, talking to women, getting romantically engaged with them.

And so allow yourself to be bad at things. You can't be good at things on square one. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I would just throw this in.

If your whole relationship is by texting and online, please don't decide to get married until you spend some time talking face to face and getting to know the person. Technology is wonderful, but in terms of relationships, you can't depend on technology, right? Oh, absolutely. I think you should spend as little time texting someone as possible. That's a general rule.

I think if my wife and I are texting more than we're talking, that's a bad sign. And I think that's especially true in the forming stages of a relationship that it requires No vulnerability to type an edited message versus doing it live, where you're getting the feedback, you're experiencing the reciprocity of talking to a person face to face, doing the eye contact thing. Especially early on, you really want to get FaceTime and not just do. digital communication.

Well, Seth, we could talk on because this is a tremendous topic. And I want to express appreciation to you for your investment of time and energy in writing this book. And I want to encourage our listeners, wherever you are in human relationships, this book will be a help to you. And especially, obviously, to men. But I think women also reading this book and being there to interface with your husband as he processes all of this.

But we need to rediscover the biblical picture of what manhood is all about. And if we do, we're going to bless our family and we're going to be a part of influencing our culture.

So again, I just want to thank you for what you've done in writing it. And I want to thank you for being on our program today. Thank you for having me. It's been a real treat. We hope the conversation encouraged every man and woman listening.

And if you go to our website, buildingrelationships.us, you'll see more about our guest and the featured resource, Seth Trout's book, Authentic Masculinity: Leaving Behind the Counterfeits for God's Design. Just go to buildingrelationships.us. And coming up next week, We open the phone lines for your calls and questions about relationship struggles. Don't miss our June edition of Dear Gary in one week. And if you'd like to ask a question, call this number 1-866-424-Gary.

Again, 866-424-4279. Before we go, let me thank our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Backing. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is the production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.

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