Principles for Responsible Men
“Be strong, and show yourself a man” 1 Kings 2:2 ESV
A father’s charge, carried forward. Enduring truths that form a godly man in every time, culture, and condition, with the guides a church needs to put it to use.
Why this book exists
This is a letter more than a lecture. It is written first for my children, and then for any man willing to be formed. A son should know the kind of man he must become. A daughter should know what to expect from the man she considers.
Men are created in the image of God to bear responsibility: to lead with judgment, to provide with faithfulness, and to protect with courage and restraint.
That charge does not change when the culture changes. It held before this age, and it will hold after it. Most men rise when the standard is named plainly and calls them upward. So this book names it. It tells the truth, shows where men fail, and shows what repair requires. It asks something of a man, and it does not apologize for asking.
The set
The book forms the man. The study guide is what he works through, question by question. The leaders guide is what the man in front of the room carries.
Scripture governs the book. The book governs the group. The guides serve all three and rule none of them.
The book
Each chapter moves a man from truth to responsibility, names where he fails, and shows what repair demands. The order runs from knowing the fight to leaving something stronger than yourself.
Scripture judges. History illustrates. Other canons and traditions corroborate or contrast. We compare the norms of many ages, and we kneel to none of them.
Availability
Be Strong and Show Yourself a Man is in the final stage of production. When it is ready to order, it will be here.
Until then, if you want to ask about the book, bring it to a men’s group, or be told the day it is available, write to us.
Send an Inquiry bestrong@churchoflions.orgFor the man doing the work
A workbook that takes a man through the book one chapter at a time, and turns each chapter into something he actually does before the next meeting.
“This is a workbook. You are meant to write in it. Blank space that stays blank has done nothing for you.”
The rhythm repeats every week. Read the chapter in full. Answer the questions in writing, because a thought you will not write down is usually a thought you have not finished. Meet with your men. Name one thing you will do before the next meeting. Then go home and do it. The next week opens by asking whether you did.
The weekly rhythm
Every chapter asks the same six questions
Each chapter opens with a question to answer before you come, and closes with a short daily check to keep through the week. Every week ends with one duty. Every week begins by asking whether you kept the last one.
It works three ways
Among men who know your name and will ask, plainly, whether you did what you said.
Kept to the same rhythm, with one man outside the room who will hold you to it.
At the table this book was written for. Go slowly, and answer the hard questions first.
It ends with a working page to build your own rule of life, Scripture to carry, a plan for the weeks after the last chapter, and a charge to write to your son.
For the man who leads the room
A manual for the man who will take other men through the book, and for the pastor deciding to put it into their hands.
“This guide is not the book, and it does not stand in for the book. It stands behind it, the way a man stands behind a plow he means to keep straight.”
You do not lead this group from above it. You sit inside the circle, under the same summons as every man there. The guide asks you to confess first, to go on being led while you lead, and to send men home with a duty rather than a good discussion.
The posture
This is not hype, and it is not scolding. It is a summons. The book calls a man upward without crushing him, and it holds a standard without pretending the standard is easy.
Demanding without being oppressive. Honest without being bitter. Invitational without being soft.
It is the question every chapter returns to, and the one the book leaves with you.