Show me who a man lives with

... and I will show you what he is. 

You must remember we are all creatures of imitation; precept may teach us but example draws us. Thoughts for Young Men (p58)

Only true grown-ups can parent

A funny, searching and helpful exploration here of why it is we might be good at critiquing our parents but go all wobbly when it comes to doing the job better ourselves!!
No doubt there are multiple applications of this. But the main one seems enough to be going on with to be honest! 
Timothy Larsen says this very interesting thing in the article:

More and more I have come to value those who model how to no longer hold to the exact version of faith they grew up with while still finding ways to be grateful for and affirming of the community of faith that raised them.

HT Justin Taylor

Thoughts to Young Men (3)

General Counsels to Young Men 
1. Get a clear view of the evil of sin 
2. Become acquainted with our Lord Jesus Christ 
3. Never forget that nothing is as important as your soul
4. Remember it is possible to be young and still serve God 
5. Determine always to make the Bible your guide
6. Never make a close friend of anyone not a friend of God 

Thoughts for Young Men - JC Ryle Chapter 3

Thoughts for Young Men (2)

Special Dangers Facing Young Men 

1. The sin of pride
2. The love of pleasure 
3. Thoughtlessness and lack of consideration 
4. Scornful contempt of religion 
5. The fear of other people's opinions

Thoughts for Young Men - JC Ryle Chapter 2

Thoughts for Young Men (1)

Reasons for exhorting young men (in the 19th Century!): 
1. There are few young men anywhere who seem to have any genuine religion.
2. Death and judgement are facing young men and they nearly all seem to forget it.
3. What young men will be will, in all probability, depend on what they are now yet they seem so easily to forget this. 
4. The devil uses special diligence to destroy the souls of young men.
5. A lot of sorrow would be spared them if they started serving God now.

Thoughts for Young Men - JC Ryle Chapter 1

Getting Back to Work!

What do you mean ... stuck?

What if I'm stuck with a job I hate from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

What if there are no jobs?

is there work to be done? ... 

spiritual kinks in your hose?

nice nugget: 'discipline transfers' 

thus the odds!

Dad, help!

Calling the wrong number?

Why Work?

Can teenage rebellion ever be right?

I have just ordered this - something I should have done for a while now - and expect I will be convinced that in this sense teenage rebellion is not only right, but it is necessary for godliness!

Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations

This is the website that connects with the book: the rebelution

Proverbs was written for Boys

So says Doug Wilson in Appendix B of Future Men. 

'the book of Proverbs provides us with an example of what sort of instruction is necessary. The book as a whole is applicable to the writer's son, and many passages apply the teaching specifically to him. What does God say a son should be told?' 

A boy must learn to be teachable: 
Proverbs 1:7-8 
Proverbs 2:1
Proverbs 3:1-2 
Proverbs 3:21 
Proverbs 4:1-3 
Proverbs 4:10 
Proverbs 4:20 
Proverbs 5:1
Proverbs 6:20-21
Proverbs 7:1-3
Proverbs 13:1 
Proverbs 19:27 

If the book of Proverbs teaches anything to sons, it teaches them to listen. Sons are told to: 

• hear instruction 
• receive sayings 
• incline ears
• hide commandments 
• forget not parental law
• keep wisdom & understanding in view
• bow the ears to understanding 
• keep a father's commands
• forsake not a mother's law
• bind wise words to the heart
• wear them as a necktie
• guard them as the apple of the eye
• wear them as rings on the fingers 

'generally, taking one thing with another, to shut up, sit down and listen.' 

'(the regular repetition) should be an encouragement to parents who feel they have to repeat themselves too much. They might assume that the need for repetition means that they have failed. It does not necessarily mean anything of the kind. What it means is that boys are tough ground that need a lot of ploughing.' 

'The first subject on the curriculum is to be teaching a son to hear'

 'In order to get a son's attention it is necessary to discipline him. Boys are not born teachable, and godly discipline is resisted by them.' They have to be taught this too: 
Proverbs 3:11-12

'..discipline is not intended as a behaviourist exercise ... The correction is to enable a boy to receive instruction.'

Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge.
Do not withhold discipline from a child;
if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.
Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.
My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad;
my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right.
Proverbs 23:12-16

Proverbs 13:24 
Proverbs 19:13, 18
Proverbs 29:17 

Once they are listening, a son needs to learn about women. At least Proverbs has a lot to say on that subject. 

Proverbs 5:1-23 
Proverbs 6:23-35
Proverbs 7:1-27
Proverbs 23:26-28
Proverbs 31:3 

They need to learn about money: 
Proverbs 6:1-3

And laziness / greed: 
Proverbs 23:19-26
Proverbs 6:6-11
Proverbs 28:7
Proverbs 31:1-5
Proverbs 1:10-15 

And political activism: 
Proverbs 24:21-22

In short wisdom in sons is a true glory: Proverbs 10:1; Proverbs 24:13-14

Sons do a lot of good, or they do a lot of damage. 
They bring great grief or great gladness.
Proverbs 15:20; Proverbs 17:25

p185 Future Men

Honour your father and mother

ReverenceHonour is first of all a heart attitude, expressing reverence or respect. 

Leviticus 19:3 (cf. Roverbs 3:9; John 8:49; 1 Timothy 1:17 etc.) 

This is the language of worship! 

Of course Scripture contrasts sharply the deference due to God with that due to human beings: Acts 4:19; 5:29 ... even parents: Matthew 10:35-37; Mark 10:29-30; Luke 9:59-60; 14:26.

That Jesus places loyalty to himself above loyalty to father and mother (even though he emphatically endorses the fifth commandment in Matthew 15:4-6; Mark 7:9-13) is a momentous claim to deity. That loyalty to God transcends loyalty even to parents is an implication of the first commandment. 

Our reverence for parents is not in spite of our reverence for God, but because of it: Deuteronomy 5:16; Leviticus 19:32; Ephesians 6:1-3; Colossians 3:20. In a similar vein we are often commanded to express deference and respect to others in thoughts, words and actions: Genesis 31:35; 1 Kings 2:19; 1 Timothy 5:1. 

Submission 

In a way this is part of reverence, for when we respect someone we hear them with respect, we expect to learn and we are willing to change out of respect for their words. When we disagree we do so reluctantly, and we express even that disagreement in respectful language with gentleness. 

Scripture regularly presents parents as teachers (Deuteronomy 6:6-7; Proverbs 1:10; 2:1; 3:1; Ephesians 6:1-4).

Obedience in turn is a form of submission. Ephesians 6:1; Colossians 3:20. This applies to other authorities too: Romans 13:1; Titus 3:1; 1 Peter 2:13-14; Phil 2:12; 2 Thess 3:14; Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 3:6; Colossians 3:22-25; 1 Peter 2:18-20. 

Obedience to other human beings is always limited because God's authority is supreme and limits every form of human authority. Acts 5:29. Luke 2:51 & Luke 2:49.

Financial Support 

Mark 7:9-13; 1 Timothy 5:4-8

God's Social Security System

There is, as we all know, a very much better way of looking after the elderly than simply shovelling money in the direction of strangers, in the hope that they will look after them.

I am thinking of the most effective social security system ever devised by man or nature. It is a system that still operates in most primitive societies, but one which is on the verge of collapse in modern Britain.

I mean, of course, the family.

In almost every way, I would much rather live here than in a mud-hut village in Africa.

But I reckon that the very old in the Third World, looked after by their families in communities bustling with life, have a much better time of it than a great many British OAPs, sitting around in care homes stinking of urine, watching afternoon television and counting the days or weeks until that rare visit from their young.

Tom Utley in the Telegraph, quoted in IF IT'S NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE. 
See also Eamonn Butler in the Spectator: 

the state pension system and the National Health Service make families less dependent on one another, and so weaken the bonds between them. In my youth, few people spent years in old age because they didn't live that long, but it was perfectly normal and routine for families to look after their elderly relatives, finding space for them in their own homes. True, our society is more mobile and parents now live farther from their children, and there are other changes which might make in-home care harder to arrange than it was in the past. But I have no doubt that the main reason is that the financial and health care of the elderly has become a function of the state, and this has weakened the family bonds between us.

What, then, is the solution? The NHS and the state pension system were introduced for good reason: to ensure that people did not have to endure poverty or ill health when they did not have families to look after them. But there issomething attractive about a system where an individual can rely on their family, rather than the state, when they are in need. This is routine in emerging economies that have not yet developed an extensive welfare state. The care and support given by families, being more personal, is probably better than that given through anonymous state institutions. But there are wider social benefits too. Perhaps it is time we thought about asking families to pick up more of the strain.

Young people today!

The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress. [Peter the Hermit, 1274]

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. [Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato]

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint" [Hesiod, 8th century BC]

I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid. [GK Chesterton] 

The young always have the same problem-how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another. [Quentin Crisp]

Boys won't be Boys

Frances Childs writes an interesting little piece today:

we ... tend to castigate boys for being 'silly' and for not 'sitting nicely' like girls. We tell them off for wanting to play with inappropriate toys like guns, rather than showing them how to play responsibly in a boyish way.  

Traditionally male characteristics such as strength, competitiveness and authority are invisible in modern children's literature because they are not valued in our society. 

And I for one don't want my daughter growing up in a society which tells her she's in charge because she's a girl. I don't want my four-year-old to grow up in a culture that diminishes men and boys. 

Crucially, I want her to go to a school that promotes equality and allows for difference.

Read more here

The World is Filled with Boys Who Can Shave

So says Mark Driscoll: 

The Apostle Paul says, "When I was a boy, I talked like a boy, I thought like a boy, I reasoned like a boy. When I became a man, I put childish and boyish ways behind me" (see 1 Cor. 13:11). A lot of guys don't, as if responsibility is a bad thing and the longer you can prolong it, the more masculine you are. That's the world. It's absolutely childish and it's consumerism.

The marketing sweet spot for many companies is young men ages eighteen to thirty-four. These guys don't know what it means to be a man, and so marketers fill the void with products that define manhood by what you consume rather than what you produce.

The tough retrosexual guys consume women, porn, alcohol, drugs, television, music, video games, toys, cars, sports, and fantasy leagues, as if being a man is defined by how much meat you can shove through your colon, how many beers you can pound, how fast you can drive, how stinky you can fart, how hard you can hit, how far you can spit, how loud you can belch, and how big your truck is.

The artsy, techie metrosexual types consume clothes, decaf lattes, shoes, gadgets, cars (not trucks), furniture, hair products, and underwear with the names of very important people on the waistband. For them, manhood means being in touch with one's feelings, wardrobe, and appearance.

A legion of moms and girlfriends enable these boys who can shave. They pay his bills, pick up his messes, loan him their car, and refill his sippy cup with beer or martinis, depending upon his preference. Girlfriends, gal friends with benefits, and miscellaneous other mannies (nannies for men) need to know this: you want a guy you can marry and have babies with. You don't want to marry a guy who's a baby.

Men are supposed to be producers, not just consumers. You're defined by the legacy, the life, and the fruit that come out of you, not by what you take in. But most guys are just consumers.

To see the whole article visit the Washington Post here