Pete's Blog

I've already posted this entry in early May, but the formatting was choppy. In posting the entry yesterday on the True Woman Conference, though, I had an idea for how I could post the list in a more appealing, more organized way. The original post follows, although, I did make a few changes.

Last year when I got back from Tanzania I wrote a list of the characteristics that I think every Christian man should exemplify. I was motivated to do this having worked with some tremendous men who displayed amazing character and vision and love for Jesus Christ. Furthermore, a girl I was working with commented that she respected the biblical man I described. I figured I would share these characteristics.

Another thing to note is that these come from the mind of a single guy. I've never dated a girl so I'm not basing these assertions on any BGR experience. You may compare them to the list of 13 characteristics (the first six and the final seven) of manhood that Albert Mohler wrote up, which he relates heavily to married life.

They're not grouped according to importance. Some of them are abstract (e.g., 35) but most of them are practical (e.g., 2). But they're not grouped this way either. I aimed to group them topically.

Sorry the list is so long. That notwithstanding, please give me feedback.

The Lord's men are those who:

Update: I've added a clarification on number 22.

Labels: Abbreviations, Characters, Manhood, Resources

"It's not about going back to the nineteenth century; it's about going back to the Scriptures." Albert Mohler said something like that on his radio program on November 25^th, in reference to complementarian Christian women asserting that they want to start a counter-cultural movement where it is acknowledged that there is a difference in the roles that men and women are to enter into. He said that when he read the True Woman Manifesto (I'll get to it in this post), he got the impression that if a Christian woman in the 19^th century were reading it, she would wonder why the document was written. It would be like a duh moment. The goal of the complementarian movement is not to make people old fashioned. The goal is to be biblical.

On the program, he was talking with Mary Kassian, professor at Southern Seminary, Canadian, author and speaker (and the first person to get a post with the "Character" label on my blog). On it, they were talking about the True Woman conference that happened back in mid-October, where about 6300 women went to listen and interact about biblical lessons on gender, and more specifically, femininity. They talked a fair chunk about the document I mentioned above. Mrs. Kassian wants to see 100 000 women sign the document internationally. That's my hope for many of the girls who read this blog, that maybe you would sign it.

I mostly wrote this post because I liked what Mohler said so much. Evangelical feminism is brand new, less than a hundred years old. It's coming out of the culture of radical feminism, not the Bible. If egalitarianism were biblical it would have emerged in Church history at some point earlier. It didn't. Biblical gender is not about going back to the cave man days, but it's about being biblical.

Below is the audio that's from the conference. I hope you listen to it. I've only listened to the panel discussion and Mrs. Kassian's first talk so far, but I'm going to read the rest soon. I highly recommend her talk.

Thursday, October 9

Friday, October 10

Saturday, October 11

Labels: Characters, Miscellaneous, Resources

This will not be a common practice on this blog, so as to not steal Meredith's blogging style.

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While scripting in my head a possible blog post, I used the word "intimate" (using the less commonly known definition of it: To make known subtly and indirectly). I wondered whether people would think that I was showing off since it's a word that's not in common use, which could easily be replaced by "imply" or another synonym that's more widely familiar. A friend once used a big word and he was criticized for it.

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I want to admit that I don't know anything about the pill. I said in an earlier post that I might share my thoughts about the birth-control pill. I don't have any. There, I've shared my thoughts. I think that I was trying to so more knowledgeable than I am. I apologize.

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Probably the biggest contention between Catholics and Protestants is the use of Scripture. Catholics would say that there are two infallible rules of faith, tradition and the written Scriptures. One of the tenets that Martin Luther fought for in the reformation was Sola Scriptura. It "teaches that the Scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith for the Church" (taken from James White). Anyway, since the Catholics (claim) to rely on tradition, they introduce doctrines like the eternal virginity of Mary, purgatory or the infallibility of the Bishop in Rome (eventually dubbed the Pope), to name a few.

The one in particular I want to talk about is the dogmatic statement of Ark of the Covenant (Ex. 25:10-16; Hw. 9:4) as a type of Mary. (Read here about types.) Usually what a protestant would do upon hearing the rationale for thinking there's a biblical defense of the type (i. that both the Ark and Mary bore the Word of God; ii. in Ex. 40:34-38 and Lk. 1:15 God overshadows Mary and the Tabernacle, in which is the Ark), he criticizes how poor the biblical defense is. I think that this is dangerous. If (and I recognize that this is a very big "if") the Ark of the Covenant were a type of Mary, inspired by the Spirit, then the use of these biblical passages in this way is legitimate. What needs to be done first is show that the Roman Catholic Church has no innate authority, that it only has authority in the Word. Then show that the Scriptures don't suggest that the Ark is a type of Mary, so we don't need to look for verses to support it.

The reason I point this out is that if we fail to state that the Roman Church doesn't have the authority to dogmatize unbiblical types, jumping into pointing to the poor exegesis of Rome, then we suggest that's how Matthew's writings should be dealt with.

Matthew 2:15 says, "This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, 'Out of Egypt I called my son,'" quoting Hosea 11:1. When you read the Hosea passage in context, the "son" being spoken of was clearly Israel. So, Matthew, under the inspiration of the Spirit, pointed out that Israel was a type of Christ. If it had been that God didn't inspire Matthew, then we should say that he's either a fool or a liar for misusing the OT like that. But God is essentially saying through Matthew, "I called Israel out of Egypt to make to make it look like history parallels my Son's life."

Rome could do that too if they actually had the authority to interpret the Church's history, but they don't.

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One of the reasons I hadn't posted in a while is because I'm still debating what the purpose my blog is. As I said, I have no intention in indulging in the feast of having your attention over my personal life, so this won't be a blog where I post diary entries. But, I still want my blog to be unique, offering you something that you can't get elsewhere, otherwise it would be wasting your time. So, while I've had a few ideas for posts, I didn't think I could offer something that hadn't been done before. I'm still thinking through this.

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Yes!

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Over Reading Week '05, I was studying 1 Corinthians. I came to the eighth chapter, verse 6. Part of it reads, "for us there is one God, the Father." That whole year I struggled with whether I agreed that the Bible supported the doctrine of Christ's divinity. When I came to this verse, it almost tipped me over the edge to heresy. Until last week I'd been uncomfortable with what I thought the implications of that verse were. If only the Father is God, how can Christ be God?

The other day, though, I heard James White explain that if you use the same logic on another part of the same verse, "for us there is ...
one Lord, Jesus Christ," then it implies that the Father is somehow God without being Lord, which is absurd. The verse actually implies the divinity of Christ!

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I also heard James White talk about how a Muslim recently argued that Jesus couldn't be God since He ran from His creatures when He was born. I think it's hilarious.

Labels: Bible, Blogs, Characters, Friends, Humour, Long, Resources

Piper has announced that he's starting another expository, verse-by-verse sermon series. This one is going to be on the Gospel of John. I'm really excited by this. From listening to him explain the tough texts there, such as what water means in 3:5 ("Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God'") or what it means for John the Baptist to not be Elijah (1:21; cf. Mt. 11:12-14), to being exposed to his thoughts on the textual issue of 7:53-8:11 (for more information read Dan Wallace say it is not inspired Scripture and read [in the fourth to eighth paragraphs] Mac say that it is inspired Scripture [I'm with Wallace, as his argument, in my assessment, is far more compelling than what Mac provides]), or to be fed the Gospel and hear of the Saviour's life from a Johannine perspective (Paul was very much so a thinker, whereas the Apostle John was a feeler). I await this series with much anticipation.

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I introduced a character here. I have great respect for Dan Wallace. He's a professor at DTS. The most amazing story that I've read (also read the sequels of the interview: parts 2, 3 and 4) about him was that he taught himself Greek from a textbook he'd written himself. In short, he suffered a form of amnesia, and forgot Greek, all the while, he was teaching a class on Greek. So he kept himself one lecture ahead of the students, teaching himself, essentially from scratch, from his own textbook. Neat. He's a great textual critic (the study/art of analyzing the manuscripts of the Scriptures that we have, trying to figure out what really is inspired), and he debated (the link is just a recap of the debate, not the audio) Bart Ehrman on the reliability of the New Testament manuscripts, being the uncontended victor of the match. Lastly, and this is almost completely irrelevant, Wallace believes that the Gospel of John was written before 70AD based on the structure mentioned in John 5:2 ("Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool ... which has five roofed colonnades" [emphasis added], it'll be interesting to see whether Piper comments on this), although it seems that he's in the minority on this view. The argument is over the implications of the tense of the word "is" in the passage.

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I haven't thought about the issue of the dating of John's Gospel for a while now. I had no intention of writing much on it, but now that I'm reading back on it, I've aroused my interest. As a perambulatory note, before entering this discussion, my leaning was to agree with Wallace. I respect him a lot. On the other side though, is D.A. Carson, for example. From a basic reading of the passage, I would immediately agree with Wallace. But the fact that there is disagreement over the passage makes me think that the English might betray some nuances of the Greek.

Another note, for full disclosure, I've only read one article dissenting from Wallace's view. The basic premise is that the author of that article has other reasons, mainly theological, to suppose that the Gospel was written after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70AD. From there, he interprets John 5:2. (This is fair, not necessarily correct, but certainly fair. Evangelicals use Romans 5:1 to interpret Jm. 2:24 and 1P. 3:21, for example.) So, to interpret John 5:2, the author produces two other verses where he thinks that the Greek verb (eimi) is used similarly (in a parallel fashion), where it is used in one tense to refer to a different time. (E.g., if the author is right, he would mean that when John wrote, "the structure that is there...," the Evangelist actually meant, "when I put myself back in Jesus' days, the structure that is there...".) The two parallels are John 10:8, "All who came before me are [eimi] thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them" (emphasis added), and John 19:40, "So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is [eimi] the burial custom of the Jews" (emphasis added, again). I don't really agree with the dissenting author, as I don't find these alleged parallels compelling, but I can somewhat see what he is talking about in the former (i.e., Jn. 10:8), the current thieves were (past tense) not listened to, but I still think that it's a stretch. All that said, I haven't read Wallace's article yet.

I report on this, only because I think that it's really interesting.

Labels: Bible, Characters, Resources

(This post is a response to a post on Lydia's blog about women serving in the church. The response is too long, in my mind, to justifiably be placed as a comment on her blog. Though the entry seems like a long one for my blog, follow the headings if you only want to read the essentials.)

Suppose that you have an isolated group of Christians, one well trained woman and some men who are unready for ministry. What is she to do knowing that God has ordained a separate role for women within the church than the men?

Maybe all that needs to be said is to listen to this talk given by Randy Stinson. The whole of the talk is him explaining what a husband and father's leadership in the family looks like. It should be very similar for an elder in a church. The talk is helpful for this discussion because in listening to what the man should be doing (i.e., leading), you get an idea of where a woman can justifiably step in (i.e., leading does not equate with doing everything so she can help when the leaders ask for that help, as long as it's within the bounds of Scripture [e.g., the leaders can't ask for her help to rob the bank when the church treasury is in the red]).

(The following paragraph is an encouragement to prepare for the long haul that does not contribute to the main thought of answering the question.)

Before saying anything, I think that it would take a lot of time to build a healthy church out of this. Church planting is tough. A woman, by herself, raising up unskilled men to plant a church: tougher. Furthermore, she might not even be getting them to plant a church. She might be going against their old paradigms, such as, possibly, Someone else will do it. When MacArthur went to shepherd Grace Community they had female elders there. It took quite some time to bring a biblical vision of church administration and leadership to his church. Dever, who also went to shepherd a church in need of a private reformation (when I use "reformation" in the context of a single local church, I mean one, where if you walked in, it might seem like they're playing church, they don't have a biblical structure for church leadership, the church doesn't deal with public sin, the preaching is unsystematic and possibly only loosely based on a text of Scripture, where they need to change a lot of the ways that they do ministry, thus, it needs a reformation), now pleads with pastors shepherding churches in need of reformation not to do it quickly, nor with a totalitarian style to it. So, if she's dealing with some men with baggage, it might take a long time. Fortunately, a church has that amount of time, five to ten years. A campus ministry, where your leaders are around for at most four years (i.e., a degree for five years minus the frosh year), is not a likely place for this reformation to be able to happen.

(Back to answering the issue.)

I was about to use the word "unqualified" where I wrote "unready" in the first sentence of the question paragraph, but I chose to use "unready" because I don't think that in every case it takes too much to be qualified. For example D.A. Carson said in a talk on elders that the churchmen in Derbe, Lystra, Iconium and Antioch of Pisidia couldn't have been believers very long before Paul and Barnabas "had appointed elders for them in every church" (Ac. 14:23). This suggests to me that they were simply relatively spiritually mature (i.e., they were spiritually mature in comparison to some of their brothers within the church).

With this in mind, I think that the woman should select two or three of the men who she sees are the (relatively) stronger believers. Then she should (gently) encourage that they be appointed the elders of that church. (This is where I think that the Stinson talk would prove helpful.) These men obviously want the church to exist (otherwise they wouldn't be in the picture). After she suggests that they should be part of it they'll leave, desiring to remain in complacency, or they'll stay, and, with fear and trembling, accept the task of building the church. These men can resource the woman and ask her help in setting church direction, as long as the responsibility and outcome rests on the shoulders of the men. The individual men can ask her help when doing Bible study preparation, or even in their quiet times in finding out what the Bible means.

Hopefully with much prayer and patience, the Lord would bless this entreprise.

(That's it for my suggestions. All of the following is my attempt to explain why I'm thinking in this way, from the Bible.)

The reason this is difficult is because we need to apply 1 Timothy 2:11-15 in a God-honouring, people-building way. The first observation that I would make is that the passage in question is referring to the local church and corporate worship within the body (read Grudem for the argument behind this claim). More specifically, I think that it's saying that elders (or pastors; same thing [cf. 1P. 5:1, 2]) may not be women (read Piper for his argument behind this claim). Otherwise, it's not very specific. I think that Paul deliberately left lots of room to work within. The woman, then, would be balancing giving as much help as possible to build the church, while neither giving the church the appearance of being led by a woman, nor of giving the members the feeling of reliance on female leadership that would become systemic and difficult to heal later on. For example, I think that the woman could legitimately do a lot, but she needs to be concerned about what the future outcome of her current actions will be: With what I am doing right now, will the church in the future be more feminine (and thus, less healthy) than if I take a step back now, slowing down the progress of the church, but investing in the long term health of the church? That might be the case.

For this reason, if there were other churches around in the area, or even in the next city over, I think that the wisest choice for the woman (for the sake of clarity, from, say, church A) would be to discern from among them a healthy church (say, church B) that would be able to help church A. She could then ask the elders of church B to offer the men of church A some guidance and help in building up their body (i.e., church A). This would show the importance of relying on male leadership, but would also give her church real and valuable help.

As a note, Mohler, for example, would say that 1 Timothy 2:12 prohibits women from speaking at C4C functions. Since Paul was specifically referring to the local church, I don't entirely agree. Paul was not specific, so, in trusting that the Scriptures are sufficient in their restrictions, we must believe that God is not opposed to women speaking at C4C meetings. (If you disagree with this, then, essentially, you're saying that 1 Timothy has wider applications than just within the church. Are there to be deacons in every C4C group? Are there to be weddings? Lists of widows? All in all, I don't think Paul is referring to outside of the local church, and I don't think that C4C is a church.) So it comes down to a question of beneficial and unwise, as opposed to right and wrong. So, while I think that it's beneficial to have as many male speakers as possible at C4C, I don't think that it's wrong to fill in the gaps with female speakers. (That was my attempt as Weekly Meeting Coordinator at Carleton.)

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I introduced three characters in this post. Randy Stinson is the president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and Dean of the School of Leadership and Church Growth at Southern. Sometimes he reminds me of Driscoll, making fun of guys who don't fit the Wild At Heart paradigm for men (i.e., guys who might cry, or wear pink – though Stinson is more apologetic in this case than Driscoll typically is, or who drink decaf coffee). Other than that, I find him helpful. He must be brilliant to serve under Mohler at Southern, though.

D.A. Carson is a professor at TEDS (i.e., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, but I call it by the rhyme of "peds" for short, while most of its students, I think, call it Trinity for short). He was born in Quebec, shepherded a Baptist church in B.C. and now lives in Chicago. (Well, not quite, Deerfield, Illinois.) The biography of him that I linked to above was written by Andreas Köstenberger and is thoroughly enjoyable. It's short, descriptive and enlightening. Piper once said that he recommends choosing one author and devoting yourself to reading everything he's written. (Piper's chosen Jonathan Edwards.) I might choose Carson. Carson is so well renowned that he became the subject of a satire blog on the subject of him. (Of which, I particularly enjoyed, this entry involving Paige Patterson.) I could go on about Dr. Carson, but I'll stop here.

Labels: Abbreviations, Bible, Blogs, Characters, Friends, Humour, Long, Manhood, Ministry, Resources

Labels: Bible, Blogs, Characters, Miscellaneous

My Twenty Two word attempt to make an application question on Matthew 6:21:

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Why do churches pay janitors but not their Sunday School teachers?

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The Shack, written by William P. Young, is popular pretty much everywhere in evangelicalism. Power To Change's bookstore is selling it. Michael W. Smith is endorsing it.

But, you know who else likes it? Greg Boyd. In case you don't know, Greg Boyd does not believe that God knows the future. Realistically, it comes down to the question of God and suffering that Dr. Boyd gave up the view that God had foreknowledge. He tries to reconcile a loving God with the existence of evil by (at least as far as I can tell from reading him) saying that man has perfect free will and that God doesn't know how His creatures will choose and act, nor will He intervene.

This is not an issue of Calvinism versus Arminianism. This is a Gospel issue. For example, consider Abraham of Ur, son of Terah. In Romans 4 Paul says that Abraham was justified by his faith (v. 3). This was an example of how all saved people are saved by faith in God through the grace bought on the cross in Jesus' death, the argument that Paul had just made, prior in Romans 3:21-26. Consider 3:25, 26: "This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." This essentially says that God waited before punishing the sins. God had a plan to punish sins (His justice) while at the same time forgiving men (His mercy) the whole time. If God didn't know for sure that Jesus was going to be killed by man, then how could God be just and let Abraham's sin go unpunished? He couldn't. God unquestionably knew the future results of sending His Son to earth. I read this argument being made in Bruce Ware's chapter of Beyond the Bounds (beginning page 309 in-text, or 295 in the PDF), a book critiquing Open Theism, edited by Piper and Justin Taylor (writes my favourite blog, dealing with what I like to call "Popular Theology", used to work for Piper at Desiring God, now works for Crossway, working on the masterpiece, The ESV Study Bible).

Anyway, Boyd wrote of The Shack, "those who told me Young expressed my understanding of God and evil in narrative form were largely right." This scares me about the book. Boyd falls terribly far from orthodoxy, so if he's right, and the book is representative of his theology (by and large) then this is not a good book if you're looking for a modern Christian allegory.

If you want to hear more about it, refer to Dr. Mohler's critique and review of the book on his radio program. (His critique begins at 10:35 in the audio.)

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Update: I was listening to Mark Dever today and heard him say that he doesn't let open theists take the advantage by calling themselves by that label. Instead, he addresses their heresy, not as open theism but as limited God.

Labels: Bible, Characters, Resources

I was listening to a panel discussion with Dever, Ligon Duncan, John MacArthur, Mahaney and Mohler, when I heard an amazing quote by Dever that started at about the 1:16 point. It goes: "I'm encouraged in my evangelism because I know that when I'm preaching to corpses I don't have to figure out how to make them believe." I would reference this to Ephesians 2:1.

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Ligon Duncan is probably the man I know the least about who will fall under the category of "Characters". The only way I know him is 1) through the ministry of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and 2) through the ministry of the Together For the Gospel friendship (which runs the conference that had the panel discussion that I listed above). He's a paedobaptist, so I probably won't reference him too much. This is not to say that I think that misunderstandings of baptism are Gospel issues, but I do think that it makes evangelism more difficult, it makes the Roman Catholic Controversy more difficult to talk about than it needs to be, and it makes talking about ecclesiology, the study of all things related to the local church, more difficult. So, while I'm sure that I would respect him, as I do John Calvin or Tim Keller, I would simply prefer to refer you to a credobaptist than a paedobaptist.

I think that John MacArthur is the best contemporary Bible preacher - yes, better than Dever. He is so good at getting his congregation into the context that you feel confident that you know what the text means. Praise God that Mac (what I'll colloquially call Dr. MacArthur, typically) was blessed with such gifts of bringing clarity! Now, for full disclosure, MacArthur subscribes to, what I would call, some peculiar doctrines that I think are unnecessary and very weakly supported, and some that have larger significance, that he is very firm on, but that I still think that he's wrong on. I respect him, and thank God for him primarily for his ability to exposit the Scriptures.

Labels: Bible, Characters, Ministry, Resources

Labels: Characters, Disclaimer, Resources

Labels: Characters, Ministry, Miscellaneous

I decided to make my blog a little bit more God centred by making it more Piper saturated, although, right now it's not even close to appearing saturated. To begin pushing it in that direction I've decided to create an ongoing list of the Piper stuff that I've been reading that I recommend.

Labels: Characters, Disclaimer, Resources

Last year when I got back from Tanzania I wrote a list of the characteristics that I think every Christian man should exemplify. I was motivated to do this having worked with some tremendous men who displayed amazing character and vision and love for Jesus Christ. Furthermore, a girl I was working with commented that she respected the biblical man I described. I figured I would share these characteristics.

Another thing to note is that these come from the mind of a single guy. I've never dated a girl so I'm not basing these assertions on any BGR experience. You may compare them to the list of 13 characteristics (the first six and the final seven) of manhood that Albert Mohler wrote up, which he relates heavily to married life.

They're not grouped according to importance. Some of them are abstract (e.g., 35) but most of them are practical (e.g., 2). But they're not grouped this way either. I aimed to group them topically.

Please give me feedback. (Sorry the list is so long. I intended to post them over the span of three entries, but I've spent hours trying to do that, so I just gave up and did it this way. I hope that you still read it.)

The Lord's men are those who:

1. are steadfast in honesty and reliable in their follow through;

2. always wear the same face knowing that God is omnipresent;

When I say this I am speaking against people who get serious, humble and servant-like when they are in leadership but who are rowdy, immature and self-interested when not in that leadership role. People should follow their male leaders because of who they are, not the example that they display from "9 to 5."

3. learn from their mistakes;

4. admit their weaknesses and get help when they need it;

5. take good help when it is needed and offered;

I often struggle with a saviour-complex. Men need to be humble enough to give others who are blessed with talents—especially talents that these men do not have—the opportunity to serve where they have been blessed without fearing the possibility that the spotlight of leadership may dim as the leader takes less responsibility; men should take on leadership "not to please man, but to please God" (1 Thessalonians 2:4).

6. give others the chance to excel;

7. do not fear those smarter, more talented, more experienced, or more knowledgeable than them;

8. step up to encourage those around them;

9. make time for the people they're leading;

I'm writing this having returned from South East Africa project (hereafter referred to as SEA) interning (i.e., a leadership role). On top of that, for the Adventure Cycle (a one week component of SEA where teams went to different regions in Tanzania and show the evangelistic movie The Jesus Film) I led a team. From that I noticed that it's important to take care of the people who are being led by us which is very difficult if you are disconnected from them. On top of that, this important character trait of the Lord's men implies that men who are in leadership need to take time to connect with the people who are difficult to get to know whom they are leading. This needs to be done in order to serve the whole team. Ignoring the tough-to-get-to-know person has the highest probability of making him feel neglected (having been this type before in the past, I state with confidence neglected people always know that they are being neglected) which leads to bitterness. One bitter person can bring the whole team down. Illustration: One moldy slice of bread put in any loaf of bread quickly ruins the whole good loaf.

10. share their strength with others;

When someone is feeling dismayed by circumstances but the man is not discouraged at all, muster up a strategy to explain why there is hope, why it is better to not worrying about it, or even distract the discouraged person from his circumstances by talking about something that will bring the person's mind somewhere else.

11. are able to look long and hard for ways to relate to the most difficult men;

12. do not give up, but who are able to persevere, especially around the people they lead;

13. steadfastly never complain without taking action;

It's useless to complain and do nothing, in fact, it is destructive. Others might see the merits of the complaints and become discouraged. My personal opinion is to never complain in public, especially to people you are leading. People love watching leaders improve situations. So if a man complains about the situation, he had better be ready to set an example of working towards solutions instead of being those Israelites wandering the desert grumbling.

14. are courageous;

15. are patient;

16. are generous and sacrificial;

17. are fair;

18. are compassionate;

19. genuinely love their parents;

20. recognize that they need to lead women;

21. honour women in their personal thoughts;

This is referring to sexual purity with respect to the man's personal thoughts. Every woman was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26) and men's sisters in Christ are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). Treat them as such.

22. never flirt with women;

This might raise controversy. I think that flirting is immature and completely inappropriate for men (women too, but I'll leave that issue for those more qualified to deal with). If a man is interested in a woman then he should initiate something with her—not keep her guessing. And if he's not interested in her then he shouldn't treat her in a special way. If you wouldn't do it to a guy, don't do it to a girl. An example of this deals with men's playing around with women's clothes. At the beach it might be tempting to steal a girl's shoes and tease her with it. A man wouldn't do this with a guy because the reaction isn't appealing; it only feels good coming from a girl. On top of that, it is easier to do it to a girl because by and large men are physically bigger and stronger than women, which makes it easier to do. Each of these reasons for acting in this way is unacceptable.

23. treasure deep friendships with brothers in Christ;

The Church is being weakened because men have not made enough deep connections with brothers who can sharpen them (Proverbs 27:17) but often sacrifice it for deep connections with women, which makes personal growth in manhood ambiguous (read: If a guy hangs out with girls all the time, they'll sharpen them in the ways of the Lord, but not into biblical manhood since they cannot experience that together as they are women, not men!). Men need men. And they should not be ashamed of these relationships.

24. greatly value the men in their lives who are their role models;

25. have hearts for the lost, broken, and abandoned;

"Jesus wept" (John 11:35). The ultimate man cried. Men should not be ashamed to have convictions that lead them to tears. It is not a weakness.

26. privately rebuke;

This important character trait has two implications: 1) That men should rebuke; and 2) that they should do it in private so as to not humiliate those who err.

27. never cut others down (especially not to make a point);

28. naturally cast vision, not only out of necessity, but out of deep conviction of heart;

29. lead others to prayer;

30. respect authority;

Men need to learn to submit themselves to rules, especially the ones that they do not understand or that they disagree with (provided these are not going against God's commands) in order to demonstrate how they want to be treated when they lead.

31. lead out in doing the tasks that none want to do;

32. oppose indecision and inaction at every challenged faced;

In most occasions decisions must be made and action must be taken. Fear of being wrong is not an excuse for doing the contrary. If others are not willing to do both, step up as one of the Lord's men, make a decision and act.

33. never demand anything based on their own merit;

Too often it's, "I need," which is fair; men have needs. But men may not (i.e., are not allowed to) demand it. Men deserve hell (Romans 6:23). It is rude and unloving to expect that a man should be given his every need because he exists. God gives and He takes away at His leisure (Job 1:21). To state this positively, in humility, ask for your daily bread.

34. know the Word of God;

35. glorify God with their lives;

36. attribute their every gift and success to their King.

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