Lies Boys Believe - Erin & Jason Davis

What our culture, what our world needs is strong men who love the Lord and live out godly principles in their day-to-day lives. If our boys don't believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth, then they're going to be adrift, and we're seeing that played out.

Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, a couple raising four boys tackles the lies our culture is throwing at them, powerful lies, but they believe God's truth is stronger. Jason and Aaron Davis join us today to talk about the lies boys believe. That's the title of our featured resource today, buildingrelationships.us, subtitled and the Epic Quest for Truth.

You'll hear more as we get to the lies and how to counteract them. Our host is Dr. Gary Chapman. Gary, you know a little about the culture that kids are growing up in today and what a minefield it is.

Well, it is today, Chris, no question about that. And that's why I'm really glad that we're going to be discussing this topic today with our guest. Well, let's meet them. Aaron Davis is a popular speaker and author. She contributes to the True Woman blog. This is her first book co-authored with her husband, Jason, who is a mild-mannered marketing manager by profession.

The Davises live in the rural Midwest where they raise their four sons and have some animals on the farm. And if you go to buildingrelationships.us, you will see our featured resource, Lies Boys Believe and the Epic Quest for Truth. Go to buildingrelationships.us. Well Aaron and Jason, welcome to Building Relationships. Thank you for having us.

Dr. Chapman, it is an honor. Well before we get into the topic today, tell us a little bit about your own love story. How did you meet? How did you know he was the one for you, Aaron?

You first and then Jason. I was going to say, I got this one, baby. I can tell the love story. We actually grew up together in this little town where we're now raising our boys.

And so we bumped against each other in life as we were growing up and started dating in high school. Jason might tell you this version or he might not, but the story is I asked him out and he told me no. That's how it initially happened. But then he changed his mind. That's my version.

I don't know what Jason will say. It didn't take me long to change my mind. It came to my senses rather quickly. Well it appears that you made a good decision, Jason. You're right.

Absolutely. So Aaron, did you dream of having four boys when you were dating and thinking of marriage? I didn't. God gave me the life I didn't know to dream of. I'm from a broken home and so that skewers your vision of your future a little bit. And so I wasn't dreaming of kids or marriage.

I was dreaming of career when I was growing up. But God grabbed my heart as a teenager. I gave my life to him and then very quickly redirected me. And when Jason and I got married, I knew I loved him and wanted to spend my life with him but didn't necessarily dream of kids. But God brought him along and I'm so grateful.

The best gift I didn't know to hope for. That's great. You know, before we got married, my wife said she wanted to have five boys.

She grew up in a large family. And I was in love and I said, whatever you want to do, honey, is fine with me. Of course, the first one was a girl. And I remember she was still under anesthesia. And when I walked in, she said, honey, it's a little girl, but I couldn't help it. And the doctor who was standing there said, don't you worry about that.

She'll have him wrapped around her little thing, his little finger. And he was right about that, too. So four boys. I don't know anything about four boys.

We only had one. So, so your sons are growing up fast. Were they your motivation for writing this book about the lies that boys believe?

Absolutely. They're growing up fast and they're growing up in a deceived world. And we want them to know the truth. We want them to stand on the truth.

And we know that God's truth can help them fight back against the lies. But they're also kind of the poster children for a whole generation of boys. Ours are not the only boys that are facing deception and lies and need to stand on truth. So they motivated us to do the work, but we hope many, many boys are challenged and strengthened through this resource. We definitely feel a need and a desire to minister well to our sons.

And the beautiful part about writing a resource is they were a part of it all along, talking through lies and the stories and making sure those were engaging and pieces like that. But like I was saying, the beautiful part about writing it down and distributing it is not only will our boys be positively affected by the message and lies boys believe, but potentially thousands of other young men around the world will be impacted positively with that message. You know, looking at your own sons and then the issues that are affecting other boys in our culture, Jason, what concerns you most?

And then Aaron, I'd like to hear what you feel. What concerns you most about this particular area? What's concerning is the fact that our boys are growing up believing a variety of lies, many of them the main ones we tried to cover in the resource, and it's making them weak young men. And weak young men grow up and become weak men. And what our culture, what our world needs is not weak men, it needs strong men who love the Lord, seek Him and live out godly principles in their day to day lives as they're caring for their families and their communities in the future. Yeah, I mean, what Jason's describing there has a label in our culture, which is toxic masculinity. And that's been described to people, men who are strong, men who can operate in God's design. Now, are there some men who abuse their design?

Of course, there are. And we don't want our sons to grow up to have that kind of toxicity in their lives. But it is concerning that even masculinity, boyhood in general is something that the culture is pushing back. But the lie that most concerns me or the area that most concerns me is that truth is relative.

And when we were growing up, we're in our 40s, it's not like we're that old, the sky was blue, and the grass was green, and there were things that were known as absolutes. And our sons are growing up in a world where that just isn't true according to the culture. Truth is whatever it means to you, and you don't have the right to impose your version of truth on somebody else. And that's really concerning. If our boys don't believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth, then they're going to be adrift. And we're seeing that played out. I think you put your finger on a really key issue, no question about that. And it's true in our day. So talking about lies may sound negative to some folks, but you're actually excited about the future for your sons, right?

Absolutely. I'm excited because we are raising four strong young men who love the Lord, they're motivated by their convictions, and they desire to serve people well. And a generation of young men like that, and they shape society moving forward. I have hope that if we raise up a generation like that, that our society will be shaped in incredible ways, and will be drawn to the Lord, and will live out the biblical principles in their day-to-day lives. Yeah, I mean, lies is just one side of the coin. When you flip it over, the other side of that coin is truth. And so what excites me is that there have been people in every generation—because God is good and God is a generational God—there have been people in every generation that, despite what any other voice might say, they say, no, there is truth. And truth isn't an idea, it's not malleable, it's a person. His name is Jesus, and He is the way, the truth, and the life. And so I'm confident in God, even though there's a lot to be worried about, I'm confident in God that if He should tarry, if He doesn't come back in our generation or our son's generation, that He will do what He's always done, which is raise up people, men and women, who are willing to stand for truth.

But it doesn't just happen. It takes discipleship and prayer and conversations like the one we're having today. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" . If you'd like to hear a past program take an assessment of your love language or see our featured resource today, go to buildingrelationships.us. There you'll also find today's featured resource Lies Boys Believe and the Epic Quest for Truth. It's written by our guests, Aaron and Jason Davis.

Find out more at buildingrelationships.us. Aaron, are the lies that boys believe different from the lies that girls believe in our culture? Well, there's some crossover. I mean, when we're talking about lies, we have to acknowledge that there's a liar, there's a deceiver. Satan, we see him very early in scripture, and scripture also tells us that he has a mission, and that's to kill, seek us out and destroy us. He does that through deception. So it's not that only boys are lied to or only men are lied to or only girls or only women.

We all have to battle the deceiver, but we are different. We were made different on purpose. And so there are some differences. I think there are some ways that the enemy guns for men that he doesn't as often gun for women and vice versa. So definitely I think there's some differences. Now the format of the book is fiction.

Why did you choose that format? And say a word about that. As Aaron mentioned in the last question, or her answer to the last question, boys and girls are different. That's one of the fundamental truths that is under attack these days, but also a fundamental truth of scripture. As we were evaluating ways to write a book that we felt would impact young men the greatest with truth, it was obvious that a fiction book that had the ability to illustrate important biblical principles and truths of scripture was going to be significantly more engaging to them than just a standard, here are the facts book. With boys being more engaged by fiction, we wanted to write it in that format so that they would be impacted in great ways. And honestly, that's how our boys really enjoy a story more than just the information. And they get tangled up and captivated by a story. And so that's what we really wanted to achieve with this book. Chris, you can identify with that because you're a fiction writer.

Exactly. No, I thought the same thing because there's something that happens with fiction that goes around the back door of your heart that can knock in a different way than nonfiction does. And there's nothing wrong with nonfiction. It's wonderful to have those nonfiction helps, but there's something. You tell me if you agree with that, especially for boys, Aaron, in a story form, there's something that happens to them, don't you think?

Yeah. I mean, our boys are five to 15 with two in the middle, so that we're in lots of stages of boyhood at our house. And every single one of them is drawn to these grand stories of adventure.

The little ones are wanting to dragon slay and all of that. The big ones are more into mysteries, but our kids are voracious readers and those are the books they gravitate toward. And I just saw a little factoid the other day that our brains can hold onto stories much longer than they can just straight information. And who wired our brains that way? The Lord did, of course. And as we look at how Jesus taught, he used stories all the time. And so since our goal was to get to the back door of boys' hearts, I love that phrase that you used there, Chris. We just wanted to make it accessible. We wanted them to get caught up in the story.

There's a dad and two boys, they take this great adventure trip out west in the book. And along the way, we want to make deposits of truth in their heart that are going to stick long after they close the book. The other thing that happens, boys have a harder time reading than girls on average.

Just looking, that doesn't happen with everybody. But if you can get a boy hooked on a book early on, that's going to mean a lifetime of reading for him, a lifetime of adventuring, and then a lifetime, too, of connecting with God through his word. So I really commend what you're doing. Yeah, one of the lies that we tackled is that following Jesus is boring. And I don't know that a boy would say that outright, but if we've given him the impression that following Jesus is about going to a church service once a week and you have to be really still and you have to be really quiet, which is hard for all of our boys, and maybe you're hearing a sermon that is probably a wonderful sermon and the adults in the audience are latching onto it and learning from it, but the boys are going, I'm not tracking. We want our boys to know that following Jesus, some of those things can be part of following Jesus, but it is a grand adventure. And so the story parallels what we hope their own walks with Christ become someday.

Yeah. Well, your goal is to get the boys to treasure God's word. I think all parents who are Christians would agree with that.

But how do you do that without being heavy handed or coming across as heavy handed? Well, in our day to day life, scripture is a part of everything that we do as a family. We don't sit down and say, okay, boys, you have to listen to the scripture today right now. But as we're going about our day, as we're going about our lives, we infuse scripture into those conversations. For instance, our son Noble has a speech he has to give today.

And so we were talking about, as we were driving this morning, what that means, why it's important to be able to speak to people, why it's important to be engaging. And we talked about scripture, how many people gave speeches throughout scripture, Jesus being paramount, Sermon on the Mount, and other times where he addressed people publicly. And that's just one small nugget of a conversation that Noble and I had this morning that could have been not related to scripture at all. But because he and I are both interested in scripture, that conversation naturally goes that way. That comes straight out of scripture. Deuteronomy says, talk about it as you go and talk about it on the way and put it on the doorposts of your home.

That could be things we literally do with our kids, but the idea is just infuse it. So we have scripture all over our home and our decorations. They all have scripture verses in their room.

That was intentionally put there by us. We listen to scripture in the morning. There's some music we love that streets scripture.

That's how they wake up. When I'm writing them notes, I'm writing them scripture. We discipline with scripture. We have sayings that we say as a family.

I will say to them when they have a moment of lacking self-control, I'll say, boys, what is a man without self-control? And they will say, a city without walls, which comes straight from scripture. So no, the Davis family doesn't sit in a circle quietly with our Bibles open, exegeting the minor prophets.

That might happen someday. And for the families that that happens for, that's great. But we try to just make it a part of our lives because God is a part of our lives and scripture is a part of our lives.

So it feels more natural that way, I think. Yeah, I love that. I think you're exactly right. If we can bring it into the day to day life, it's going to become a part of their life, which is what we want for sure. So let's look at some of the lies, a few of the lies that are in the book.

One of them is, I'm good enough. Where does that message come from and how is it impacting our boys? Well, all of our boys are different.

Every parent has that same experience. And for some of our boys, they think the rules are there to be broken. And if we tell them no, they're going to fight back against us. But for some of our boys, they're just kind of naturally rule followers and naturally get good grades and aren't defiant.

And yet, they need Jesus too. And so we had specific personalities of our boys and boys we know with that lie. And the lie could be, why do I need a savior? I'm a good boy. I don't get in trouble. I get good grades at school.

Mom's very busy with my brother or my sister because they seem to rebel a lot, but that's just not me. And the truth is, according to God's word, nobody's good. And we don't have any righteousness on our own. So we really wanted that good boy early on in the book to recognize Jesus and the gospel are for me too. Another one of the lies is, following Jesus is boring.

Now, you mentioned that earlier, Aaron. If that's a lie, what's the truth? What's God's truth? Well, when you look at Scripture, you see that following Jesus is the opposite of boring. And that's one of the reasons I believe much of Scripture is written in a story format so that we can see the wins and the losses and the successes and failures of those who serve the Lord and follow Him. But we also see that it's an adventure.

Raising an ax head, running super fast, seeing a storm cloud over the horizon and knowing that that's going to create a downpour soon because you've been praying for it. Being swallowed by a great fish when you run away from the Lord, preaching to the city of Nineveh and seeing a great revival, fishing and having no success and then being told, cast your nets on the other side. And so you gear back up, you go back out and you cast your nets on the other side of the boat and the boat nearly sinks because you catch so many fish. I mean, fishing is something that our boys love and I love doing as well. These are all adventures and no boy grows up thinking, you know what I want?

I want to live an average, mundane, boring life. Now there's no doubt that there's parts of that in every life. But when you're following Jesus, it's an adventure. It's exciting.

You're treading land that is scarce and perilous and exciting. Yeah. It'd be hard to feel bored if you just sit down and walk through the life of Jesus, right? Just see what some of the things you mentioned there as well as things in the Old Testament.

It's pretty obvious that the disciples were not bored when they were hanging out with Jesus, nor will we be. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. And one version of a boring life I don't want my sons to have is a life lived for themselves. And that is the message that they are hearing, like live for your own pleasure.

Take what you want, make it happen for yourself. And that is such an empty pit. It's such an empty life because you just have to have more and more and more. And so the most exciting thing about living for Jesus is you die to self and you live for him. You get to live for the King of all Kings. And there's nothing boring about that.

Yeah. Jesus himself said, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for others. And so he's the model. And if we help our young men and women, of course, have a concept that we're here to serve others in the name of Jesus. We're preparing them for a life of service. And I don't think anything's more satisfying than to pour out your life in using the talents, abilities God has given you to help others. And so that's one of the greatest lessons I think we can teach our children.

Yep. One of the lies you include, there are 10 of them, but there's a bonus lie. And it says, it doesn't matter what I watch, read or listen to. And there are boys who really feel that way, maybe have been taught differently, but they still feel that way. It doesn't matter what I watch, what I read, listen to. It's not important.

Jason, what do you say about that? Well, there's a scripture that says what goes into a man is not what makes him unclean, but what comes out is what makes him unclean. And I don't, I'm not saying that that scripture is specifically talking about what you view on the internet or anything like that. But I do think that it illustrates a point that what we ingest is what eventually comes out. So if you view something that's inappropriate for you, your mind will dwell on that and be held captive by it.

If you read or however you ingest content, media, whatever, that doesn't just stay in you, which is bad enough that it's in you, but it eventually does come out in some way. And we are called to live differently. Yeah, Jason is quoting Jesus there from the Sermon on the Mount. And another thing that Jesus taught was that we reap what we sow. And that should be so obvious to all of us, but it is a part of why Jason and I are raising our boys on a farm is so that they can learn those things.

When they plant a tomato plant in the spring and they pick tomatoes later in the summer, they know that that's because what they planted was tomatoes. And the same principle certainly applies to what they ingest. And there's a whole spectrum here. I mean, I'm sure you guys have talked about this on your show before, but the age of exposure to porn is incredibly low and it doesn't just have to be hardcore porn.

They can just flip on a streaming platform and it's right there in front of them. And so we are teaching our boys the best we can to guard their eyes. And then when we are exposed to something that we don't want them to be exposed to, which has happened and it breaks our heart, it's an opportunity for us to explain to them. This isn't just about following rules. It's not just about labeling things good or bad.

It's about guarding your hearts because as Jason was explaining, what goes into your hearts is eventually what comes out. So it absolutely matters what our boys read, watch and listen to. And I know for our older boys, there's a tendency to just want to compare notes with their non-Christian friends. Like, oh, I'm not watching or listening to this that my non-Christian friends are watching. And so we're always having to remind them that's not the standard, guys. God's the standard and we want to protect your heart so that you can glorify Him.

And so that stuff doesn't get in because once it's in, it's hard to pull those roots out. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times best seller "The 5 Love Languages" . We're talking with Aaron and Jason Davis today about their book Lies Boys Believe and the Epic Quest for Truth. You can find out more at buildingrelationships.us.

Again go to buildingrelationships.us. Another one of the lies is, I'm too young to fill in the blank. Is there a vision for greatness that you hope readers are going to catch from this book? So what we want the reader to understand is that through life, things change and we perform different ways and have different responsibilities as we get older and whatnot. But the time to serve the Lord is now. The time to set the appropriate habits is now. It's not, oh, you know, when I'm older, I'm going to fill in the blank.

Now is the time to be doing that. There's a quote, and I wish I knew who said it, but it says, we are what we do. If we live the way we want to be when we're older, when we're younger, those habits will be ingrained and will be who we become. I think one of the passages we give the boys in the book is 1 Timothy 4.12, which says, don't let anyone look down on you because you're young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity. That's straight from the heart of God that young people would set the bar for the rest of us.

This lie can take lots of forms. We can think, I'm too old to do something for Jesus. I'm too busy to do something for Jesus. I don't have the gifts to do something for Jesus. What we wanted the boys to take away is right now, if you're a follower of Jesus right now, you're a part of the Great Commission, which means you're on commission with Christ to spread the gospel to the lost.

We don't want them to wait. I'm thinking out loud now, but if a son says, well, grandpa doesn't do that, that verse you just gave us says, well, you need to be a model for grandpa. Olders can learn from youngers. I think young men and women who really are walking with God are a model for older adults.

I've seen adults who said, man, I'm amazed. I started talking with that young man and he knows the scriptures. I mean, he's got a heart for God.

I think he's only 12 years old. I mean, that's what we want, you know, concept. Let's lead those who've made poor decisions in the past, not let them lead us. From a parenting perspective, this isn't always convenient. I'm thinking about our own sons. We're praying about whether we're going to let our oldest son take a mission trip to Africa this summer. There's some concern there, of course. He also serves on the leadership team at his youth group, which means we have to get to church really early one Sunday a month, which means we have to drag everybody out of bed early.

He's also committed to a Fellowship of Christian Athletes group at his high school. That also kind of interrupts our schedule. Kids don't do things like on our schedule when we want them to do it, so we have to be willing to say, okay, Lord, I want you to use my son. That might disrupt some things in our family, but it's worth it. We're willing to be inconvenienced.

Absolutely. Well, families are busy, no question about that in today's world, and also often distracted by all kinds of things. How do we find time to teach these biblical concepts to our children? It's important to us to intentionally weave Scripture and biblical principles into the comings and goings.

As we're going about our days to be talking about Scripture and scriptural principles, answering questions with Scripture as our boys bring those questions up, some of the deepest and most impactful conversations about God that the boys and I have had are while we're working around the farm or hunting together or fishing together, doing menial tasks and just infusing those conversations with Scripture. I'm going to say something really practical that I'm surprised might be controversial, but that is that your family needs to be in church. Even when Jason and I were growing up, Sunday was not a day where there were other activities.

There weren't sports practices on Sundays. There weren't those kinds of things, but now those things have very much encroached on Sundays. That hasn't been easy for our family. We've had some difficult conversations. We haven't always agreed on what that looks like, but you can make time to be in church together.

That shouldn't be the only way that you're discipling, of course, but that's a hub that God's given us so that as parents, our tanks are full, so that our kids are hearing truth from other voices. I would just say protect that time. It's not necessarily about making the time.

You have the time, and I hope you're involved in a church. For us, we do let our boys practice on Sundays, which has been sometimes a point of contention, but if it infringes on Sunday morning service or Sunday evening fuel, it's just a no-go. That's helped us just order our priorities a bit.

I think that's so important. When they can hear other people at church who are teaching the same things that you're trying to teach at home, it just affirms what they're learning at home. The church doesn't have the responsibility to raise our children, but they certainly can be very helpful. Of course, the Scriptures indicate that as Christians, we're not just living ourselves individually.

We're living with a community, and the church provides that kind of community. Let me ask this. How did you choose the 10 core lies that you deal with in this book?

Which ones do you think are particularly harmful to boys in our day? We're standing on the shoulders of some great thinkers and some great writers. Nancy DeMoss wrote Lies Women Believe many years ago and has ministered to millions of women.

She really set the bar. Our friend, Dana Grash, wrote Lies Young Women Believe and Lies Girls Believe. Our friend, Robert, wrote Lies Men Believe. We were really building on the structure that they had given us. That's where we looked first. Where are these lies that have already been written about, already been thought through? Which ones do we think apply to boys?

Which ones don't? Our own boys were like a focus group for a year and a half. We were just constantly reading them things and asking them questions and saying, do you think this is true or not true?

Do you wrestle with this? We also are involved in children's ministry at our own church. We were using those little hearts and minds to vet things. We came up with 10 lies, plus that bonus lie, just through that whole process.

They build on each other. The first one we tackled, and I think it's paramount, is reading the Bible just isn't for me. That's because the Bible is the sort of truth. In the Bible, we have a mirror for who we really are. In the Bible, we see more importantly who God really is. We don't want a generation of boys that will set God's Word aside. Everybody, I think, knows that biblical literacy is nose diving.

If it's nose diving among adults in this generation, what's going to happen in the next generation? So if I was going to elevate one as maybe most significant, that's the one I'd pick. As Erin said, we have a focus group living with us day in and day out. It's been really fun to watch the resource take shape while talking it through daily with our boys. I agree that the scripture is paramount, and that's probably a great one to say.

That's the top one. Another one is loving God is for girls, or God is mad at me. I think boys specifically, speaking as a man myself, we can take on more of the judgmental side of God and view grace with less of a lens and mercy with less of a lens. I think that it's important for boys to understand both sides of God, the side that judges and pours out wrath, but also the other side that distributes mercy and grace because of the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. Jason, don't you think part of that is because a lot of boys have fathers who are stern, and so they see God as that way as well?

Yeah, I think you're right. I think a lot of young men are growing up without fathers. They're an example of what a heavenly father would be. Theoretically, you would look at your own father and say, Oh, my father gives me guidance, gives me instruction, but also shows me grace when I need it.

They're not seeing that. They're either not seeing a father at all, or a stepfather who may be abusive or demanding or controlling. So the bottom line is, even if the child, the son, has a father that's engaged and is loving and does their best to emulate God to their children, they're going to fall short, radically short. It's important for that father to communicate that to their son and demonstrate their own need for mercy when they drop the ball. So many young men are growing up without fathers or fathers who are abusive.

It's really a sad state, and it does not allow a son to look to their own father and say, This is an example of how the Lord loves me, because that example is not there. Thanks for joining us for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, and thanks for telling a friend about the program. Maybe you know a parent who would benefit from our conversation. You can find a link to the podcast at buildingrelationships.us. Plus, see the resource Lies Boys Believe and the Epic Quest for Truth. It's by our guests, Jason and Aaron Davis.

Just go to buildingrelationships.us. Before the break, Jason, we were talking about fathers are not perfect, and sometimes we do or say or fail to do or say things that we should. I think it's really, really important that a father apologize to their children when they realize that they have failed them at some point. I've heard fathers say, Well, I think they won't respect me if I apologize. And my answer is, they'll respect you more.

They already know what you did was wrong. And when you deal with it, we're also teaching them another skill. And that is, when we fail, be willing to apologize to the person you failed against and to God. So that part's important too, right?

Absolutely. What I think of as the most beneficial teaching times that I've had with my sons are times where I have dropped the ball and I've gone to there. I can think of probably half a dozen examples and several times where I've gone upstairs to their bedroom and woken them up and said, You know, I just I need to get this right. I dropped the ball there. The way I treated you was not right. I assumed malice when there wasn't malice or, or whatever the example is. And to apologize, I'm sorry, I did that. It was not the not the way I wanted to do it is not right.

And it wasn't a good example. Would you forgive me? And they're always gracious to forgive me and to speak to what you were saying in your question. I think that it does produce greater respect when I know in my life when someone who I respected has failed me, and they come to me in person and apologize and make it right. My respect for them only grows in those situations. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. Aaron, I want to go back to that number one lie you talked about and that is that reading the Bible is not for me. You know, there are parents who are not Christians, who don't want to expose their children to any religion. They say, I want to let them grow up and make their own decisions about that. How unfair is that attitude for on the part of a parent? Yeah, I said it before, but it's something that I'm really fascinated by, which is that God is a generational God.

He when he describes himself, he talks about from generation to generation, I am God, his word is full of genealogies, which we can find all at times, but God saw fit to in his inspired word that will last forever and ever include all of these family trees and also part of his design is that our faith in the ideal situation gets passed. The statistics, non-Christian social scientists will confirm this and their studies vet this out, but our kids are more likely, very likely to hold on to the faith that we have, the political beliefs we have, those kinds of things, those get passed. There's no such thing as a blank slate when it comes to our hearts and our minds. We have this idea that, oh, if I don't give them any ideas, they'll come up with their own ideas. Well, the culture is very happy to indoctrinate your child. The culture is very happy to disciple your child and part of our job as parents is to stand in the gap.

I think you're absolutely right. It's a disadvantage to not equip our kids with our own beliefs and I hope it's our lives more than anything. I'm the only woman in my house, so I can admit I can be verbose.

I can use way more words. My boys get this look on their face like, mom, I'm done listening to your words and I know that it's time to pivot, but my life is telling a testimony and every parent's life is telling a story that your kid will listen to and learn from. I can't speak to the ideas of non-Christian parents because I have a totally different worldview, but as a Christian parent, my hope is that my life and my words are passing along what is true and what is right and what is good and that's Jesus. Absolutely. Why would a parent ever want to keep their child away from the best-selling book in human history?

Amen. At least let them be exposed to what's happened in the past in terms of relationships with God. I met a young man once that said, I don't believe the Bible is true, but I can see that if you live the way the Bible tells you to live, that it's the best way to live.

I thought that was so remarkable. He could tell that God's rules are for our good and they tell us how to interact with each other. They teach us to forgive.

Even if you don't think it's the inspired word, which I do, it's absolutely full of good stuff. Absolutely. The book, of course, is talking about lies that young men believe, but obviously the focus is not on the lies. The focus is on the truth that counteracts those lies, right?

Absolutely. You can't recognize the lies unless you know the truth. And once you know the truth, and God's word is the standard for that, you'll become better at recognizing the lies. So we don't just want boys to say, okay, that's a lie, that's a lie, that's a lie. We want them to be able to replace that with what is true. And if you don't replace a lie with truth, it'll likely just be replaced with more lies. So it's really important to replace it with good, true, biblical, foundational truth. We touched on this briefly, but Erin, can you just say another word about how you think technology has affected the mind of young men today and how important it is that parents to really think about guidelines and use of technology?

Yeah. I mean, every generation of parents has a unique challenge that they have to deal with. And I'm grateful that I'm not parenting in the days of polio or a world war, but I would say that the greatest challenge that I face as a parent is the influence of technology on my kids' hearts and minds.

Nobody is disputing that it shapes our thinking. And our kids go to a school district where their entire curriculum is on iPads, and that's the way of the future. Our kids are going to work in technology. They have to be able to use those things.

The technology itself, I used to say it's neutral. I'm not sure that it is because it is a gateway to all kinds of things that apart from easy access to technology, my sons would not be exposed to, or at least not be exposed to at the young ages that they're being exposed to. So there's this need to be very vigilant and that can be exhausting. And even if you have a lot of restrictions on your own kids' technology, they are very likely to be exposed to other places. And so I don't want to default to fear. That's the least my heart wants to go as a mom, is to be very afraid of the things that my kids see and hear on the internet. But that's kind of a helpless posture of fear. I want to trust the Lord with it. So it's a prayer point for sure.

And we have in our own family, despite our best efforts, we've had some situations where our boys were exposed to things through other people's technology that they weren't ready for and we weren't ready for them to be exposed to. But that's another opportunity. God redeems all things. That's Romans 8.28.

He works it all to the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. So we've used those moments to talk about guarding our hearts, to talk about self-control, to talk about why we need to be open and not hide things and bring things into the light. So it's a huge influence. It's not going away.

I don't think we can put that toothpaste back in the tube. And so we have to be very wise as parents and prayerful and proactive. Well, no question about it. It's difficult raising children in today's world. Maybe it's always been difficult.

To us, it just seems like it's more difficult. But I think this book is going to help a lot of parents who really want to do a good job of raising their children and particularly sons, as this book addresses. So let me just thank you again for being with us today and for what the time and energy you put in to write this book. And let's pray that God will indeed use it to help parents. Amen. Thank you, Dr. Church.

It's been a really great opportunity to visit with you. What a great resource for a boy in your life. Aaron and Jason Davis have been with us, and you can see their book at buildingrelationships.us.

It's Lies Boys Believe and the Epic Quest for Truth. Find out more at buildingrelationships.us. And next week, more help for parents. Dr. Kathy Cook says you can change the culture one heart at a time. We'll hear how to parent differently in one week. Before we go, let me thank our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Backing. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.