{"id":301129,"date":"2006-06-06T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-06T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/%series%\/becoming-a-proactive-father\/"},"modified":"2024-10-07T22:42:21","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T02:42:21","slug":"becoming-a-proactive-father","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/becoming-a-proactive-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Becoming a Proactive Father"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Lewis prods fathers to get actively involved in the awesome responsibilities of fatherhood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":294104,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"https:\/\/web.familylifetoday.com\/fl2006-06-06.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"00:","filesize":"11.35M","filesize_raw":"11904768","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":""},"categories":[2835],"tags":[4875,4727,4277,2209],"podcast_series":[7291],"cwp_profile":[3461],"series":[2101],"class_list":["post-301129","podcast","type-podcast","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-raising-boys","tag-boys","tag-dads","tag-fathers","tag-parenting","podcast_series-raising-a-modern-day-knight","cwp_profile-robert-lewis","series-familylife-today"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2024\/09\/FLT-Podcast-Cover-2-508x508-3.jpg?w=508","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2023\/02\/image-scaled.jpg","download_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-download\/301129\/becoming-a-proactive-father","player_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-player\/301129\/becoming-a-proactive-father","audio_player":null,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/familylife-today\/id212174303?mt=2&app=podcast","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0j5UaKdQOHQCuo1bt0ebEm","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"},"youtube":{"key":"youtube","url":"","label":"YouTube","class":"youtube","icon":"youtube.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/feed\/podcast\/familylife-today","embedCode":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"mAptZAVFJ7\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/becoming-a-proactive-father\/\">Becoming a Proactive Father<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/becoming-a-proactive-father\/embed\/#?secret=mAptZAVFJ7\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" title=\"&#8220;Becoming a Proactive Father&#8221; &#8212; FamilyLife\u00ae - A Cru Ministry\" data-secret=\"mAptZAVFJ7\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script>\n\/*! This file is auto-generated *\/\n!function(d,l){\"use strict\";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&\"undefined\"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!\/[^a-zA-Z0-9]\/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),c=new RegExp(\"^https?:$\",\"i\"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display=\"none\";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute(\"style\"),\"height\"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):\"link\"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute(\"src\")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener(\"message\",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\",function(){for(var 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fatherhood.","meta_box":{"show_notes":"","transcript_url":"https:\/\/transcript.familylifetoday.com\/fl2006-06-06.pdf","transcript_content":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Dr. Robert Lewis, the author of the book, \"Raising a Modern Day Knight,\" has helped a lot of dads raise their sons to understand and embrace biblical masculinity.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0We started out just simply sizing ourselves up as dads.\u00a0 Every once in a while it's just good to throw out to your sons \u2013 \"Hey, how are we doing?\"\u00a0 Then we begin to kind of shape up as a dad.\u00a0 We begin to explore some of those areas that I think are critical in strategic fatherhood.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tFather:\u00a0We're going to have a father-son adventure.\u00a0 We're going to be climbing a mountain, hopefully.\u00a0 It's going to be a fun experience.\u00a0 Being a father is one of the greatest joys, thrills, of a man's life.\u00a0 It's also one of the most sobering responsibilities.\u00a0 When your son packs up and heads off to college, and seeing him with his luggage and his car leaving and driving out of sight, it's just a real sobering reality, asking yourself the question, as a dad, \"Have I prepared him not just for college, but have I prepared him for manhood?\"\u00a0 I taught him early on \u2013 \"Son, there's two things you can be sure of \u2013 that your dad loves you, and your dad is proud of you,\" and I think he knows that.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, June 6.\u00a0 Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.\u00a0 If you ask your son, \"How am I doing as a dad?\"\u00a0 What would he say?\u00a0 We'll talk about that today.\u00a0 Stay with us.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition.\u00a0 The other day Mary Ann and I were together at an event, and she turned to me, and she said, \"I forgot to leave directions for Jimmy,\" who is our oldest son, she said, \"He is supposed to go to the dentist, and he doesn't know how to get to the dentist office.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Jimmy's 17, right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Actually, he's going more by \"James\" these days than \"Jimmy.\"\u00a0 We're starting to make that change.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0\"James\" is now approaching 18.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Yeah, he's approaching 18.\u00a0 The first thought I had was, \"He's a big boy.\u00a0 He can look up in the phone book, find out the address of the dentist office and go to Google maps or something, you know, and figure out how to get there.\"\u00a0 But Mom had said she'd leave directions, and she hadn't done that, so I called his cell phone and gave him directions, and it occurred to me that unless you've had somebody suggest to you how to get somewhere, you're not really sure where to go.\u00a0 And that's true, obviously, when you're talking about how to get to the dentist's office, but it's much more true about how to get to manhood and, hopefully, he's gotten a few pointers from me in that direction, so far, in his life and will continue to get those.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0That's right, and you've been influenced in your definition of manhood and guiding your son toward that definition by our guest on FamilyLife Today, Robert Lewis.\u00a0 Robert, welcome back.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0Thank you, Dennis, good to be back with you guys.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Robert is pastor-at-large for Fellowship Bible Church here in Little Rock, Arkansas, a very influential church across the country.\u00a0 He is the author of a number of books, but one specifically that we are looking at that is so relevant to James, as a young man.\u00a0 It's called \"Raising a Modern Day Knight.\"\u00a0 He and his wife, Sherrod, have been married one year longer than Barbara and I have.\u00a0 They go all the way back before the earth's crust hardened to 1971.\u00a0 Barbara and I were married the next year, and we're good friends and just thrilled to have him back on the broadcast.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Robert, as we talk about young men like James and boys who are growing up in homes today, it really is important for a father to know where he is taking them in terms of helping them grow up and into manhood.\u00a0 That's really the mission of your ministry, right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That is the mission, because I think that even in the best of homes with the best of dads, oftentimes what's missing is a core concept.\u00a0 You've got dads who are spending time with their sons in sports programs, taking them on fishing trips, hugging their sons and all, and that's just great stuff.\u00a0 But if you do all those things but you don't provide the core, then that son still leaves home with a vacuum, and that core revolves around the vision of what it really means to be a man and what those specific items are, those substantive items are that will make him a man.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0In this culture, if we don't provide that definition of manhood in our homes from a biblical basis with God at the center of what it means to be a real man, then we, in essence, pick our children up and toss them over the fence to the world to let the world define what a real man is.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That's right, because what happens is that hole has to be filled with something, and the world has definitions.\u00a0 They are given through myriad of images that are being bombarded on them every day, and it would be good for your listeners just to watch the images of masculinity on a TV.\u00a0 It's a dumbed-down adolescent view of masculinity. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0It's really confusing, because all over the spectrum, and you'll see something, and you'll go, \"You know, that resonates with me,\" and yet it's incomplete, or you'll see something else, and you'll go, \"No, that's not what I want it to be.\"\u00a0 But nobody is giving you the clear model of a biblically defined man \u2013 not in the media, certainly.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That's right.\u00a0 And so what you end up with is, like, you end up without a roadmap and, you know, like I said, in the best of homes a son might really feel loved and affirmed and all that, and that's wonderful stuff, but if he doesn't have a roadmap, a clear masculine roadmap \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0\u2026 doesn't have directions to get from here to there \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That's right, and what he's going to do is he's going to inevitably choose some dead ends that are going to leave hurts and wounds in his life, addictions, and things that he spends the second half of his masculine life trying to recover from rather than being a difference-maker.\u00a0 And what I want to do is help dads be proactive fathers who build in that substantive core around which they can wrap their love and presence and fun but then send a son out who then builds a healthy first stage of life and then becomes a difference-maker in the second stage.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0When I called my son to give him directions to the dentist's office the other day, the only reason that I could do that is because I've been to the dentist's office myself.\u00a0 I've been down that road, so I knew how to point him in that direction because I'd been there first.\u00a0 And if a dad is going to point his son in the right direction, there are a lot of dads who need to figure out how to go there first before they can figure out how to point their sons there, right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That's exactly right.\u00a0 I remember, year ago I had a group of parents in a room and it was for another class, but I just asked them some questions.\u00a0 I asked this question, I said, \"How many of you all attend your sons' sports events?\"\u00a0 And a lot of hands went up in the room, you know, \"We're proud that they do that.\u00a0 I mentioned, \"How many of you help your son with his homework, and he can come to you with his homework?\"\u00a0 And a lot of hands went up, and then I asked this question \u2013 \"How many of you all have told your son what it means to be a man?\"\u00a0 Not any hands went up.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0I asked the question \u2013 \"How many of you have taught your son what's the masculine role of a man in marriage?\"\u00a0 No hands went up.\u00a0 \"How many of you all have taught your son what should be some of the masculine expressions of a boy in a dating relationship?\"\u00a0 No hands went up.\u00a0 That's what I call \"core\" stuff.\u00a0 And without that core stuff, boys are lost, and they're guessing, and let me tell you, boys guess wrong most of the time.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Yes, because they're going to be left to choose from the world.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That's right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0But the Scripture is not silent on this, it really isn't.\u00a0 It really declares what manhood is.\u00a0 I love a command that Paul gave the church at Corinth, and 1 Corinthians 16:13-14.\u00a0 It says, \"Be watchful.\u00a0 Stand firm in the faith.\u00a0 Act like men.\u00a0 Be strong.\u00a0 Let all that you do be done in love.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0When you see that command, Robert, to act like men, that's real clear. The problem for most men, though, as they pull up on their screen of their own hearts, they're not sure what that is, and the picture they pull up is a collage \u2013 maybe some from their spiritual roots from the church but a lot of stuff from the world.\u00a0 Can you give us a clear, biblical picture of what manhood is all about?\u00a0 What that core is all about?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0Well, that's what we labor in, and I think rightfully so as a church.\u00a0 I think all the churches, really, should be laboring in helping men know what that succinct definition is and for years I've given my life to bringing that to crystal clarity.\u00a0 And so we brought it together by bringing the first Adam of Genesis and the second Adam, Jesus Christ, together and compared their lives because they've had more influence over masculinity than any two men in human history and just looked at their lives as men, and then out of that spilled what I think is a succinct definition off of which you can play the rest of life.\u00a0 And that is that a real man is one who rejects passivity, accepts responsibility, primarily for God's Word, God's work, and God's woman; he leads courageously and the whole time he does that he is expecting God's greater reward; that this direction is the right direction.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Now, we have to unpack each one of those phrases, but that is a place that a man can go and say, \"This is what it means to be a man, and now I'm going to develop applications and illustrations off of that.\"\u00a0 But without having some definition like that, a man has no definition, and no definition means zero, and that's how men oftentimes act \u2013 a zero.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Yeah, right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0And that's what women complain about.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0And it drives women crazy.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0It drives them absolutely nuts, because they see no initiative from a lot of men today, especially in the more responsible things of social and spiritual areas.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0I'm going to say something \u2013 my daughters, as they've gone to college in the last decade, that's one of their biggest complaints about young men in college, is there's a number of young men coming out of this culture who are passive.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0We call them \"soft males.\"\u00a0 They're supposed to be men, but their characteristics are much more passive.\u00a0 They are called soft males, and we're breeding a whole generation of either violent males \u2013 two extremes \u2013 either violent males or soft males, and both of those are just simply symptoms of a lack of vision.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0I know you saw Terence Moore's article where he referred to them as either barbarians or wimps, and that really is the picture \u2013 it's either men who are directing their masculine energy toward barbaric, adolescent, even sub-adolescent, juvenile, activities, or it's guys who are just ignoring that masculine energy and sitting down with the remote and \u2013 in fact, I've often looked at guys today with the Xbox 360, the Nintendo \u2013 you know, guys can spend hours.\u00a0 Girls don't spend hours playing Nintendo or Xbox but guys do.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That's right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0What's going \u2013 why are guys vegging out in front of the Xbox and girls aren't?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0Again, I honestly believe it's a lack of vision.\u00a0 I mean, people say, \"No, it's other things.\"\u00a0 I think it's a lack of vision.\u00a0 They don't know how to define themselves, and as we said on the previous broadcast, the masculine spirit is filled with undefined energies only, and if they're poured out in life without focus, then they spread to extremes, and on one extreme is the violent male, and on the other extreme is the passive, soft male, and the more those numbers rise in the culture, they are only symptomatic of a lack of focus.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0As I was listening to you talk about it, Robert, it's interesting that we've kind of come full circle in all of our research, because we spent the better part of two or three decades kind of erasing the father from the picture and kind of diminishing his importance in terms of the next generation of young men.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Back to Murphy Brown saying, \"Don't need one,\" right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Exactly.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0And yet here we are \u2013 and, of course, that's just the foolishness of the world, but here we are with \"Newsweek\" cover story, \"The Boy Crisis,\" and you open it up, and you're reading about the need to educate boys and all this, and right in the midst of that you have the head of the Department of Education making the statement that the greatest predictor of success \u2013 and you're expecting her to say, \"Education,\" but she says the greatest predictor of success for a boy is to have a man in his life.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0And, see, in this culture, that's a controversial statement.\u00a0 What a crisis that we're living in today in our nation that someone who makes that statement where 30 years ago we would have all agreed with that statement, but today you make that statement and people go, \"Man, you're just trying to take us back to 'Leave it Beaver.'\u00a0 You're trying to create this stereotype situation where we put women in their place.\"\u00a0 That is not at all the case here.\u00a0 What we're calling young men out of is, as Bob was talking about, the barbaric behavior or being a wimp and calling them to biblical manhood where they're responsible to love, to care, to lead, to guide, to initiate, and not be selfish young men.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That's exactly right.\u00a0 Well, I think the statistics of the world have changed, and so if you're sitting there as a sociologist or an academic researcher, and you're looking at the fact that 33 percent more women graduate from college than men, I would tend to want to be a little alarmed, because that has profound implications not only for society but for a democracy.\u00a0 Because imagine a world \u2013 imagine a country like America 20 years from now.\u00a0 If you had 50 percent more females graduating from college than men, and imagine what that country will feel like standing up against a country like Communist China?\u00a0 Then it gets real serious.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Mm-hm, and that's a complete flip from where we were 50 years ago.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That's right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0And, again, we're not saying \"Let's go back to where we were 50 years ago,\" we're simply saying, \"What is it that's causing men who used to aggressively pursue a goal like college education\" \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0\u2026 to drop out?\u00a0 What is that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0They're playing Nintendo.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That's exactly right, and if we think we can exist as a society with men on the sideline being passive \u2013 that's why I brought up Communist China \u2013 we live in a dangerous global world, and you have aggressive men.\u00a0 You can say they're barbarians or whatever you want to say, but we're living in a world that's dangerous.\u00a0 And if America's men are on the sideline playing Nintendo and looking for a mother\/wife, I\u2019m just telling you, we're in trouble.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Robert, I see a renaissance occurring today around what you're talking about \u2013 the spiritual community, the Christian community, seems to be awakening to its need to create a core, a biblical core, for young men and young women.\u00a0 However, at the same time, there are some good pockets that many of which are starting men's fraternities, and men are studying this, men are engaging around this, there are also a number of churches that seem to be rejecting any kind of core distinctive between men and women, and they are rushing to this homogenized, unisex approach where there is no distinction between men and women.\u00a0 Speak to that, if you would, for just a moment.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0Well, I think a lot of the theology of that followed the culture rather than set the culture.\u00a0 And so what we went in, we went to a more androgynous culture in the '60s, '70s, and '80s and, interestingly enough, theology followed that where we moved to this more egalitarian approach, which, really, ultimately, has met sameness.\u00a0 But I would invite anyone of any theological perspective just simply to open the first chapter of Genesis, when God made man, general, male and female, and just simply ask this question \u2013 why did He make us different?\u00a0 Because we are different, and yet nothing in society wants to define that differentness, and I think that's a dangerous thing, when God started the human race with differentness as His first creative act for humanity.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd now there's these two huge theological perspectives today of egalitarianism and complementarianism and your audience may or may not know what those things mean, but there are some who would say an egalitarian position is there really are no differences between male and female.\u00a0 That both defies common sense, it now defies everything we've seen in science, as well as everything we've seen in the Scripture at the very beginning, and we've just got to look at that and say \u2013 even if I'm an egalitarian \u2013 what would I say to my son a man is?\u00a0 And if we have nothing to say, what we leave in that son is nothing.\u00a0 And I\u2019m going to tell you, I've worked with men now for almost 40 years and specifically with male ministry for the last 20 years, and I have been inside the hearts of men over and over again at intimate levels most of your listeners will never go to and, I can tell you, when there's a void in there, there's trouble. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWhat we have to impart into those hearts is vision and at the core of that vision from the church should be what it means to be a man.\u00a0 And if we can get that across, I think everyone benefits, and it doesn't take away from the equality of woman as an equal creature, created creature before God.\u00a0 What it does, it complements her and allows her to be everything she was meant to be, and she likes it because now she has a counterpart who knows who he is and knows where he's going.\u00a0 And if I hear one cry from women today, regardless of their perspective \u2013 and I'm talking about feminist as well as strong egalitarians \u2013 is they want men, they just don't know how to define it.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tLet us bring the Scriptures to bear and define it with a vision that creates noble men that all women like.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0And not creating men who take advantage of women.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0Absolutely.\u00a0 No one is saying that.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0No, but what we are talking about here is a sexual identity that is anchored in the Scripture and in, really, the creation story.\u00a0 If you pull back, and you look when a baby is born, what is the first question that we ask \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0\u2026 that's exactly right \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0\u2026 about a baby?\u00a0 What is it?\u00a0 It's a boy; it's a girl.\u00a0 And for the rest of that baby's life, whether he is a boy or she is a girl, the question is \u2013 what does that mean?\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That's exactly right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0What does that mean to be a boy who grows into manhood, and what does it mean to be a girl?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0The first thing that shapes our identity is our gender.\u00a0 And that's just replaying Genesis 1 over and over and over again in every human being.\u00a0 That's how we start, and that's our perspective for the rest of our life set by God.\u00a0 And if we don't go in there and define that in healthy ways, it allows that to express itself in a way that builds a healthy society, then we're lost as a society.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0And, ideally, it's going to be a dad who is going to help a son define that as he's developing at different stages.\u00a0 Ideally, it's going to start with a young man who understands it himself, and as he becomes a father can immediately begin to implement this.\u00a0 It's not impossible for a guy in his 40s with teenage sons to begin to interact around this, but he is digging himself out of a hole to do it, isn't he?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0It's never too late, but if we were going to design it well, by the way a son grows healthy, we would put a man in his life early on who would give him a vision of what it's going to mean when he becomes an adult.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Well, when you put the video curriculum together, you and Dennis were doing this \"Raising a Modern Day Knight\" video curriculum, I know you were envisioning guys in their 20s and in their 30s who are new dads getting this picture and then being ready to launch it.\u00a0 When you wrote \"Raising a Modern Day Knight,\" that was the same vision you had.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tRobert:\u00a0That's right, because when I wrote \"Modern Day Knight,\" I was a young dad with young sons, and that's where I got all the feedback was from young dads who were connecting with that young dad experience.\u00a0 When Dennis and I did the video curriculum, the video curriculum is specifically targeted to dads with preteen sons \u2013 sons between six and 12 years old, because those dads are \u2013 first of all, they're excited about being a dad.\u00a0 They want to know what it means.\u00a0 They haven't made a lot of mistakes now.\u00a0 They've just got this young son who follows them around wanting to lap up everything that they'll give them, and what I want to do is deposit into those young dads' lives the substance, the core, that they can then give to that young son early on and then continue to play off of it as long as that son is under their care so that they can launch \u2013 when that son drives off to college, that dad can smile inside that he has deposited vision.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0It's not a hard thing, but if he's left his son with vision, he has given him the secret to that son's success.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Of course, we've got the video curriculum in our FamilyLife Resource Center and, again, it's ideal for young dads to get together, go through together, and sharpen iron on this subject together.\u00a0 We also have copies of your book \"Raising a Modern Day Knight,\" and any of our listeners who don't have that book, it's a wonderful book.\u00a0 You can go online at FamilyLife.com.\u00a0 On our home page, you'll see a red button in the middle of the screen that says \"Go,\" and if you click that button, it will take you right to a page where you can get more information about the video curriculum that you can use with other dads about the book, \"Raising a Modern Day Knight.\"\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0There is also information on the book you've written called \"Rocking the Roles,\" that is an excellent book for husbands and wives to understand what God has called each of us to in a marriage relationship and, in fact, any of our listeners who don't have a copy of your book \"Raising a Modern Day Knight\" \u2013 if they want to get that book together with \"Rocking the Roles,\" we'll send, at no additional cost, the CD audio of our conversation this week on this subject.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Again, go to our website, FamilyLife.com, click the red button in the middle of the screen.\u00a0 That will take you right to the page where you can get more information about all of these resources or, if you'd prefer, you can call 1-800-FLTODAY and ask any questions you have.\u00a0 Again, the number is 1-800-358-6329.\u00a0 That's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Tomorrow we want to continue unpacking what it means to be a man according to the Scriptures.\u00a0 We hope you can be with us for that.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.\u00a0 On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.\u00a0 We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe are so happy to provide these transcripts to you.\u00a0 However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would\u00a0\u00a0 you consider <a href=\"http:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/site\/c.dnJHKLNnFoG\/b.3782043\/k.384D\/Support_Us.htm\">donating today<\/a> to help defray the costs?\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tCopyright \u00a9 FamilyLife.\u00a0 All rights reserved.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.FamilyLife.com\">www.FamilyLife.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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