#133: Paul Horrocks: Tough Guys of the Bible
Paul is an author, speaker, and non-profit leader. In our discussion today we discuss his latest resource, Tough Guys of the Bible. Paul challenges us to think about how this matters today, and it matters no matter if you are male or female!
Links:
EP. 133
Tony: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the reclamation podcast, where our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life. I'm Tony. And today is episode 1 30, 3 of the podcast where I sit down with. Podcaster author and speaker Paul Horrocks. Paul talks to me about tough guys of the Bible, right?
He talks about biblical courage. He talks about the work that he's done, both in the secular world and in the ministry world to help bring about new thoughts, new ideas, and new causes for men in scripture. So we get in deep on his new book, tough guys, the Bible, what it would means and and just some great stories there.
I think Paul's got a voice that you're definitely gonna want to hear. And if you do hear it, do me a favor, subscribe, share this episode with a friend wherever you listen to podcasts [00:01:00] now, without any further ado, here's my conversation with Paul Horrocks. Paul. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
I want to jump right in by asking a very important question. We're going to talk about your resource tough guys of the Bible, but I can also be really honest and say that most of my listenership are women. Why should women continue to listen to this conversation?
Paul: Yeah, that's a great question. And the reality is, is, you know, there's a lot more.
Women, especially single women in the church than there are men. And we need more men. We need more courageous men. And I think that they should listen to this conversation because they want to challenge men in their life that, Hey, there is a side of Christianity that you should see where there's incredibly courageous men in the Bible.
And also people who have lived it outside of the Bible who were Christians. And I think it could make it much more appealing for men in their lives who maybe aren't going to church currently. Aren't so interested in learning more about that.
Tony: That's [00:02:00] such a great point. Why do you think that there are more women engaged in the faith at, on a personal way than men?
What is it about men that make us so resistant to the idea of serving and worshiping such a good and such a good God.
Paul: You know, a lot of books have been written about why men are not going to church. And I think that there's a lot of good points out there. My observation is a couple of things. One is the media and our culture portrays Christians as weak and ineffective and dumb.
And that's not something you want to be part of. If you're a man you don't wanna be thought of as weak or dumb, you want to be thought of as competent and. And so I think that's one thing that discourages men from even exploring Christianity is that they have this perception of, I go to church, I'm hanging out with a bunch of other weak men, but another thing that I observed.
And so it goes to my story of growing up in the church and then walking away from it. And then ultimately coming back [00:03:00] is that when I came back. I observed that at least where I was going to church in New York city, what they preached was from my point of view, a powerless gospel, the gospel that lacked the ability to change people.
And so I think a lot of times men are going to church and what they see is the story of, Hey, it's easy to be a Christian. And I remember thinking at that stage in my life, Hey, if I didn't grow up with it and I didn't understand that. I would say to myself, Hey, if you were saying, it's so easy to be a Christian, why are so many of you so terrible at it?
Right? Why are you so awful at being a Christian and following the commands of the Bible? And so that's another observation that I see. It's just that we're not necessarily challenging that I think men respond to a challenge. If you tell men something is easy, they're like going to say why bother, but if you tell them, Hey, this is really hard to do.
And I'm not sure that you're up. That's going to actually make more men interested than using the first approach. [00:04:00]
Tony: So I'm curious w w what caused you to walk away from the church and what brought you back?
Paul: Yeah, no, it's I'm black sheep of my family. I'm one of four kids and three of them stayed and I left really just selfish.
As I grew up in the church. I felt like all these things you do as a pastor's kid were a big obligation. And I wanted to do things my way, and I wanted my time and my freedom and so forth. And so I went out and I tried, you know, the world's way and, and for more than a decade, just living it, and it was incredibly empty.
It was just all the things of the world, whether it is chasing money or fame or women, whatever it is at the end of the day, it's, it's always empty. And I would say to friends when I was in that stage of my. Hey, if I have success with some of these things, if I had success in a business, if I were famous, what happens next?
And they would look at me and be confused. And what are you talking about? Like, well, what happens if you, if you achieve [00:05:00] these goals that you're shooting for what happens next? And no one ever had an answer. The answer was always, I guess you create another goal and that's kind of it. So just walk away because I wanted to try things my way.
And ultimately found out that my way was really empty and the way the world is really,
Tony: What, what was there, was there a moment or like a big conversion experience when you're like, I got to get back to church? Or what, what was the one thing that kind of drew you back in?
Paul: Yeah. And so, you know, there's not a specific moment.
It was really more of a process. Part of it was, I turned 30 and I was looking at my twenties and just looking again at this emptiness, I was describing. And I started to say, Hey, it's time for me to stop making this excuse that, Hey, I grew up in this and this was my parents taught me and it's their faith.
I have to say, well, what do I truly believe? What's I really, I think at age 30 started to explore the Bible in much greater detail. So I started reading the Bible as an adult. I started going back to church or sort of reading [00:06:00] apologetic books. I do remember one conversation. I was on a trip. Not long after I turned 30 with a.
And he challenged me and he said, well, do you think you would ever be another religion to be Hindu or Muslim? And I thought about that and I thought, yeah, that doesn't ring true to me either. I got to explore Christianity again. So that question did get me to explore it more quickly, but it really was a process of just reading things as an adult.
Tony: So I've got three kids and I've been a pastor for a decade and been in ministry even longer than that. I'm curious, what wisdom do you have for my wife and I on raising pastors? Kids?
Paul: Yeah. So the one thing I would say is my parents did a great job. They went three for four and I did ultimately.
Tony: That'll get you into the hall of fame. In baseball, at least.
Paul: Yeah. So my parents [00:07:00] did it really well. And no matter what you do, of course, you're not going to be perfect. And they did a great job. Even when I walk away from the church, they didn't pressure me. They didn't try to beat things, go ahead. They just let me work through it on my own. But I would say certainly just one thing that frustrated me as a kid was that there's a lot of things you do in church.
My whole life was church. And there was just things I felt like I was obligated to do as a pastor's kid. And I understood the point of view. My parents couldn't say, Hey, we're asking all the other parents to have their kids participated in this, but our kids are not going to participate in this. That would, of course be ridiculous.
And so there were just a lot of things I needed to participate in that felt like obligations. So maybe one thing to do is just talk about that reality. Look, this is the hand you were dealt. You're a pastor's kid. You got to do these things and just making sure they understand. That's just the way things go.
And we understand you'll have freedom when you're older, but right now this is what you have.
Tony: So this resource [00:08:00] tough guys, the Bible is a book that you wrote with your dad. And I did want to ask what was that experience like? I mean, it, in my, as I was looking at the resource and I was you know, kind of researching you and your dad and, and do my homework and getting prepared for the interview I kind of romanticized about how special that would have been.
W what was it like for you? Any, any big takeaways? I, by the way, I do want to talk about the preface of the book that you guys wrote. It's one of my favorite things I've ever read, but we'll get to that in just a second. So yeah. What was the, what was the experience like for you?
Paul: Yeah, it was really interesting.
I grew up as a ministers kid, but obviously working with him when the book, one of the things that I developed an even greater respect for, it's just how much my dad knows the Bible, that there would be little things. That we're not exactly correct. And one, I wrote a say portion of the book, and I said that some of the Kings of Israel, the Northern tribes were wicked.
And my dad said, no, [00:09:00] no, Paul, all of the Kings better tracks were wicked. And so there's the little nuances and details that he just knows so well from all these years and so what we did is I really took the lead on writing it and he would come in and help me add it. And then the other thing he did is he had all these stories from his ministry.
And what was really fun about that was these are men that I knew. And so I had met them, but I met them as a child. And I knew them as an adult or as a, as a child. And I knew sort of things about them, but he would tell me these stories about these incredibly courageous things that they do. And it would just blow me away thinking like, wow, look at what that person did and how, what they were learning at church.
And their Christian faith really guided their lives in such a powerful way. And so that was fun just to see these men who I knew and liked and enjoyed as a kid, just to see them from a different perspective as incredibly courageous and not famous, or well-known men, just men who were courageous in their everyday life.[00:10:00]
Tony: Yeah, you guys really do a good job of setting up the book and the preface and it's w what I appreciated is you really talk to the style, you and your dad both seemed to have this very dry sense of humor and a little, I maybe sarcastics too far. Maybe it's not, but. It's the only time in my life I've ever read a fake email address and the preface about about footnotes.
Will you tell that story and how that came to be and share the email address with everyone? Because it is so funny. I, I burst out loud, laughing.
Paul: Yeah. So I'll just, I'll pull out the book and the the preface. Yeah. So I wrote the preface just to make sure people understood the book and we do use some humor throughout the book.
I didn't want anyone to come out and sort of be offended by any of the humor because our humor is dry. And so one of the things we say in the book is, Hey, before you call us to complain re you know what we want you to just read the footnotes and you can email us at, did you read the footnote at, we will not respond to [00:11:00] lazy readers dot.
So that was our statement. We're trying to make a point now I've not actually purchased that domain email.
Tony: You won't actually respond for me. I don't know why. I think it's so funny. Cause I'm a writer, you know, and, and I've, I, you know, as, as somebody who preaches on a regular basis and teaches it laziness when it comes to footnotes and actually what the context of the writing is, is like, Hey, did you read the whole piece?
Did you look at anything? And so maybe I just. Maybe you're just speaking from the bottom of my heart as well, but I, I read that and every time I read it, I just started to giggle about it because I've wanted to say that a million times.
Paul: Read the whole thing, read the footnote. I, I definitely had to address this in the footnote.
So yes, that's absolutely true when people get upset and you realize you just read a little bit more.
Tony: I think you won't be upset and you guys put a lot of work into the footnotes too. How long did it take you guys to write this piece? [00:12:00]
Paul: Well, I had the idea about 13 years ago. So it took a long time. And what happened is I would write it in fits and starts.
And part of it is I don't live in the same place as my dad. And so we would work on it so that when we're together, but really COVID got me across the finish line is that I had about half the book written and the other half was in notes. And when COVID hit, I said, you know what? I'm going to take advantage of this time where we're really locked inside to finish.
And we do heavily footnote at one of the goals of the book was we really want people to read it and then go and read that story in the Bible. And so I really took the time to say, Hey, this is where you can find that particular story in the Bible so that you can read it for yourself and understand it right from the script.
Tony: So I'm curious on how God was working in your life. Because if my research is correct, you're a former insurance executive turned a Christian author. How does that [00:13:00] transition happen? How did you feel God's calling your life that, Hey, I'm going to go speak to men and then. And then started a nonprofit to help men help women.
And tell me about that transition in your life and God's call and how that all took place.
Paul: Yes, it was interesting when I came back to the church at first, I was just trying to figure out the whole thing for myself, reading the Bible as an adult, and really you know, studying these apologetic books.
And so. But once I got there, what I started to notice is as I started to get into place where I was meeting Bible studies, again, I realized that the people who I was meeting in these Bible studies a lot of times, Hey, they went to church for years, but they didn't really believe that they didn't really conform their life to God.
And so that was surprising to me. And as I dug deeper and deeper, I just found that there was a lot of, there's a lot of what I would call nominal [00:14:00] Christianity. And it's. It's not just that there's nominal Christianity. There doesn't seem to be a lot of people challenging them. And one of the stories I tell people is when I came back to the church, there were still some sin patterns in my life.
And nobody challenged me. Nobody said anything to me. Nobody said, Hey, this is not good for you. And quite frankly, it's what I was seeking. I was seeking. Hey, will someone please challenge me? Will somebody please? Other than my parents tell me that, that what I'm doing is not right, so that it'll sort of get me over the hump of saying, all right, I got to give everything to Jesus.
So really the book came from a place of saying, wait a minute, we're not challenging Christians. And in particular men. And I think in my experience with men, we have to hit them over the head a little bit more and really a lot more than you do with women. Women are much more open to listen to. And, you know, almost every man I've ever had in a Bible study has come because I've grabbed them and said, Hey, why don't you come?
Women will go to the church website and sign up and go join a community [00:15:00] group and go and meet with a bunch of strangers. A man I find largely don't do that. You really have to sort of drag them in. And so that was really the, the impetus for writing the book to say, we have to challenge men much more aggressively and talk to them about, again, a powerful gun.
Where their lives will truly change where it's not just about, Hey, we're saying nice things on Sunday, but then we're going out and living our life. Exactly like the culture. This is now, if you believe this it's really going to impact your life.
Tony: Do you think that, attractional church. And this idea about welcoming everybody in has kind of watered down the, the bar of entry.
Like it's just lowered it so much that it's not even that interesting anymore. Is that, is that kind of what you're inferring in all of this? And then w what is, how do we respond as the church to something different?
Paul: Yeah, I think one of the things I'm observed, and again, my [00:16:00] experience coming back to the church was largely New York city.
Is that in New York city, there's a lot of seeker friendly churches. And this idea of, Hey, let's talk about the parts of the Bible that are popular with a culture, draw people in. And hopefully they'll sort of figure out the tough parts on their own. And just my observation is. There's a lot of that going on around our country and it's not leading to revival.
One of the points I make is that we're seeing the number of people who identify as Christian. That's continuing to fall. There's a trend in our country where there's fewer and fewer people who are identifying themselves as Christians. So if this seeker friendly approach of, Hey, just come in and we're going to make this really easy for you.
And we're not going to talk about difficult things and you know, the difficult parts of the Bible, where they conflict with. If that was effective, we would see a revive already, but we don't, we see the exact opposite. So just my observation is that's not working. And the model that works in the Bible is true.
Discipleship. Jesus tells us to be disciples. He tells us. [00:17:00] Hey, go out and teach people to follow all my commandments. He doesn't say, Hey, tell him about the popular things I said, and then let them figure out the tough things on their own. He says, teach them all my commandments. And I just think that that's a much more effective model as it was proven, obviously by Jesus.
It was proven in the early church and to the extent that we're doing it and where I come across, churches that are doing that, I'm just impressed that the. The beliefs are so much stronger and it really impacts people's lives. And so that's, my observation is just that the seeker friendly approach has been tried.
It's not working. It's time to move on from that, in my opinion, church should be for Christian. That, when you're coming to church, when you're raising your hand and saying, I want to know about this, tell me about all of it. Don't just tell me about the parts that are acceptable to culture. Tell me about a hundred percent of what it says, and then give me the opportunity to truly conform my life to it because your channel.
Tony: Now, one of the things that I always talk to guys about is that if you look at the relationship of Paul and [00:18:00] Timothy, Paul is very adamant about calling Timothy, his spiritual son in the faith. And I always want to ask guys who, who is your spiritual son? Who's your spiritual daughters, who are the people that you're raising in the faith?
When we think about disciple-making, I'm curious aside from your dad, was there another guy in your. Faith walk that really began to shape this theology for you, you know?
Paul: When I came back to the church, I'm so thankful for my experience growing up, because there were these incredibly strong men in the church and they were strong men who were great dads.
They were Sunday school teachers. They were youth group leaders. They invested in us as kids. And quite frankly, I didn't appreciate it when I was a kid. I didn't appreciate it. I mean, I, I like these men, but I didn't appreciate what they were doing in terms of being great. So there were a number of men at the church where I grew up, who, [00:19:00] as I got older and I thought about how do I want to live my life from here on out?
You know, now as I'm coming back to the church, I look to them to say, what did they do? And some of those stories made it into the book and in some. But those were the man that I just really admired and thought, okay, I've seen some of their lives up close. I've seen some of the struggles that they've gone through now, but also seeing where they have been incredibly resolute in their Christian faith and done it even when it is costly to them.
So.
Tony: Yeah, I think one of the things that I appreciate is I feel like you're taking head-on. What, what is somehow along the way, became a controversial topic about whether or not it's okay to be a tough guy. Right. And somewhere in the last decade or so being a tough guy, Cape fell out of fashion, but I, I think you're really trying to set it up in a different way.
And you've got these kind of four major points. I'm wondering if you could kind of take a minute and [00:20:00] walk us through, what does it mean to be a tough guy of the Bible?
Paul: Yeah. Great question. So when we studied these men of the Bible have incredible courage and really followed God. We saw four characteristics that just kept coming up.
One is they took risks to serve God. So over and over again, they were taking risk. And in terms of saying, I'll go and do what God is asking me to do to serve him. Second thing is they spoke the truth. They didn't use language where you weren't really sure what they said afterwards, and you walked away kind of confused.
And they were trying to play both sides. They were incredibly direct with people. And as a result, a lot of times people didn't like what they said, but they spoke the truth directly and they were much more effective. The third thing is they accepted what. And we have examples in here of just men who were incredibly effective in the Bible.
And if you met them, you would be blown away by how well they were able to accomplish whatever task was put in front of [00:21:00] them. And then the last criteria is they fear God more than that. And that's really critical. And you really need that to be a tough guy, because there's going to be these constant battles of, are you gonna follow God?
Are you gonna follow the. And we just saw that over and over again, that these men who were tough guys said, I'm going to follow God and not,
Tony: Hey, guys just wanted to take a quick second to interrupt this conversation with Paul to tell a bit about the spirit in truth. The reclamation podcast is a part of the spirit and truth podcast network, and we're organized to be empowered by the spirit rooted in the truth and mobilized for the mission, this podcast and the spirit of treatment.
Is completely supported by listeners like you to learn more information and to give to the podcast and to the ministry, check out spirit and truth.life. Everything you do to support the ministry goes back into helping churches and helping us produce great content like this conversation. And now let's finish up my conversation with [00:22:00] Paul.
So I I'm wondering if we can drill down a little bit, and I know that you kind of interweave them throughout the Bible. But, but what does it mean to kind of take risks and how do we put that into present day circumstances? Cause in this cancer culture taking risks feels well. Like it's hard to come back from.
Paul: So I'll give an example from the Bible and I'll do an example from my dad's ministry. So one of the people we talk about in the book is Gideon getting, he has an incredible story. And for those who don't know the story, Gideon is one of the Northern tribes in Israel. The Midianites and Amalekites are oppressing them.
And every year they're basically coming and stealing all their food. And so they have 135,000 people in. Who are there to basically pillage the Northern tribes of Israel and getting is called by God to go and fight them. And so initially he gets 32,000 men and these 32,000 men [00:23:00] are gonna go fight these hundred and 35,000, which is not a fair fight, but God says that's too many.
And so they sit down to 10,000. And so now it's really not a fair fight. And God says that's still too many. So God hasn't reduced it down to 300 men. And so these 300 men take on 135,000 and God confuses the enemy army. They turn on themselves. And these 300 men ultimately defeat you know, these, these 135,000.
And so it's this incredible story of courage. And one of the things that we try to bring to life in the book is just how hard this would be. Cause in the Bible. A lot of times they just talk about this in a couple of verses, and it seems like it's all happening very quickly, but this would have happened over a period of time.
And if you're getting, and you're these men, we're making this plan and we're going to do this. You're having to maintain that courage for a period of time. Maybe it's days, maybe it's weeks, maybe it's months, but you're having to maintain this courage to go and fight this battle. And it would be just [00:24:00] incredibly frightening.
You think to yourself, how is it possible that we're going to do this? But yet these men went because they believe that God could act. Deliver that from this enemy of 135,000 men. And so that's an exempt, a sort of fantastic example of what it means really viable, guided to take risks. But quite frankly, it's not one that most of us will likely face.
Right. It's unlikely. Most of us will be asked to go and do that. We might be able to do, asked to go and take risks physically in other ways, but that's certainly what. The the example I'll give from a man from my dad's ministry is a guy named Chris. And so Chris, he basically took risks because he was working and this is more economic risk.
He's working at a company he's a sales rep. And they asked the sales representatives. They said, look, we're going to start having a deceptive during practice. We're going to overbuild our clients. And he announces this to the entire sales team. [00:25:00] Well, Chris had shared his faith with all these people at his company and all of a sudden he's faced with this dilemma.
Hey, I have five kids at home. I'm the only breadwinner in the family. Do I go along with this to keep my job or do I walk. And the problem is if I go along with it, all these people to whom I've talked to about Jesus are going to look and say, oh, so your faith is flexible. Only when it's convenient, do you follow Jesus?
But when it's hard and you're not going to do it. And so all of a sudden he would have this terrible witness to all these people. Plus he would be obviously not following God's commands. So. You slept on it. Prayed had total confidence, went into work and said to the boss, look, I can't be part of this.
I really love your company. I love your products. I love representing you, but this deceptive practice, I just can't be part of it. And, and why do you want to do it? Because it's going to be a loss of integrity for your. [00:26:00] So what ends up happening in his story is that the boss said, you know what, you're right.
And ended the deceptive billing practice. Wow. So not only did Chris keep it right. The thing is the amazing thing that Kristin and I think this is such a story for men today is because he spoke up the rest of the sales reps at that company didn't have to lie. So they weren't willing to speak up.
They weren't willing to risk their jobs because he took a risk. They. And that's one of the ways that I think men in our culture who are Christian, when we speak up in difficult circumstances, we can prevent all these other people from having to do things that are unethical and immoral and, and things that they don't want to do.
But they're just too afraid to speak up. So the great thing about Chris's story is that. He knew that God could provide for him that even if he resigned that day and the boss accepted his resignation, it was over God could have found him another job. He could've provided for him some other way. And he just had total confidence in that.
And as a [00:27:00] result of that, he was willing to go and take that risk because he said God's more powerful than my boss. And I know that, and I believe that. And that's real to me, not just something I read about in the Bible, it's something that is actually real. And I'm going to take action based on that.
Tony: D do you think that part of the, the scaling back of men in Christianity has caused us to kind of swallow our voices in the workplace and while, and just in, in any place?
Really?
Paul: Yeah. I see that in a lot of places that it seems like the only people who are not allowed to speak up are Christians, then every other. Religious group or minority group, they're allowed to speak up and say, Hey, what you're doing is offensive to me. And yet if you're a Christian you can't do it.
In fact, one of the things I observed, I worked at a big insurance company and I always tell people that I was always so impressed with Jewish people at the company [00:28:00] who I remember there was a young woman, she was a an intern. And when she started working in my department, she was working for me. She came and she told me, Hey, on Fridays, I leave her.
She did not ask me. You told me on Fridays, I leave early. Cause that's part of my religious belief. It wasn't a question. She wasn't asking my permission. She just said it. Whereas when I interact with lots of Christians they'll say, Hey, the company has a meeting on Sunday morning or. And they'll ask for permission.
Hey, is it okay if I skip out for a couple hours to go to church? No stop that you go. When you tell your company I'm going to church on Sunday morning, that's what's happening. And so I think when I look at the examples from people, maybe in some other religions, I'm actually more impressed with them than what I see with a lot of Christians and don't get me wrong.
There's many, many Christians are incredibly courageous and are [00:29:00] incredibly. I'm really speaking about more, you know, the trend that I see where many Christians are afraid to speak up for the faith. They're afraid to say, Hey, this is something that I want to do for my faith or that that God has called me to do.
And so I'm doing it and basically telling people that in the public square, a ton of people that at work or at school or whatever it is. So that's just my observation is that for some reason, we're afraid to speak up about our faith. And I think rather than making it a big deal, we need to do it very matter of factly the way that this young woman did it and just say, Hey, I'm not going to go down that path or I have to do this other thing because that's what my face.
Tony: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Now I don't want to hit all four characteristics of tough guys of the Bible because I think that people should buy the book to get all four of them. But I would like to talk about number four, which is this idea about fearing God? I don't think that's a very Common practice, you know, this idea of reverence and holy reverence.
And so I'm [00:30:00] wondering if you could kinda walk us through that the same way that you did with took risks.
Paul: Yeah. So let me talk about two people who fear God, and I'll tell one of course, incredible story. And that'll tell a story of someone a more recently. So Elijah has these incredible interactions with God.
And so Elijah music prophet to the Northern tribes and they have the king is following bale. Who's a false God. And the people are following fail, and God tells him to go and basically confront a hat. And so he confronts Ahab and they build these two authors, one to bail, and one to God. And they say, who will bring fire down from heaven.
So the prophets of bale pray and nothing happens. And then they wet the altar to God and then Elijah prays and God brings fire down. So at this point in the story, Ahab has been searching for Elijah for three and a half years because he proclaimed that there would be this, there would [00:31:00] be no rain for three and a half years.
And so they had basically wanted to kill Elijah. So the fact that he went and confronted him, he's incredibly courageous that he believed that God. Could deliver him. God said, go and do this. And he went and he called down fire and he, you know, you can imagine the scene for it. Must've gone on for hours where these prophets of bale are praying and trying to get this fire to come down and your Elijah's sitting there.
He went so far as to mock the profits of bail. He said some really offensive things that perhaps your God is on vacation or asleep, or, you know, relieving himself. I mean, it's really offensive language when you read it. And so he had to have incredible confidence that God was more powerful than bail was more powerful than all these people.
These basically standing alone against so many of these profits and the people and they have in the army and all the other people that would have been there. And ultimately just to close out the story, God does send down fire and it burns the alter and the people [00:32:00] turn on these profits and fail. So because he fears God and he demonstrates.
He sees people basically recognize that, Hey, this is the true God and this other God bails a false God. So the other person I'll talk about is a a missionary that was our church reporter growing up, a guy named Joel. He grew up, he actually in Pakistan and his parents were missionaries over there. And he ultimately became an aid worker.
And so a veterinarian called and said, I want to go to Afghanistan and I want to help this animal health project, where I teach people how to vaccinate their animals so that they'll live longer and they won't have to you know, basically kill some of these animals if they get diseases and so forth.
And so I'm going to bless these people with my veterinarian skills. And so Joel decided to go basically go along to train. And this is long before we invaded Afghanistan. This is in the early nineties. And, you know, as an American, you think to yourself who doesn't love a good trip to Afghanistan [00:33:00] should have think that's ridiculous.
But for Joel, this was normal. He went because he wanted to serve people. So they go and towards the end of this trip, where all they're doing is serving the people of Afghanistan. That's all they're doing. A warlord takes he in a veterinarian. And so they're basically trying to get ransom for them and they're holding them and they're trying to get people to give money and he and the veterinarian are separated and after three months, the veterinarian he's let go, but he's there for six months.
And what's incredible about his story is during that time, he doesn't just bemoan the fact that, oh, this is terrible. My freedom has been taken and I can't believe they've done this to me now, what he does. It is. He spends time in prayer. He's spends time basically singing hymns on his own, but he spends time actually teaching these people about Jesus.
He tells them about Jesus. He blesses them by teaching them English. He helps them with household chores. He helps them with building [00:34:00] projects. He does all these incredible things to basically show people the love of Jesus in this moment of captivity. When you think to yourself, Hey. You know, w who wouldn't sort of look inwardly in that moment and say, this is terrible.
What has happened to me? But instead Joel looked outwardly and he feared God. He feared that God was more powerful than these people who were holding them captive that God could deliver, bring them home. And ultimately God does ultimate. And he, he is released by this warlord, after this Woodward, ironically got a lot of pressure from the surrounding people saying, Hey, these folks were helping you.
And if you do this, they're not going to send more aid workers to help us. And so eventually the warlord felt enough pressure from people that he ultimately released.
Tony: That's incredible that w what what an incredible testimony about using your gifts in situations that don't feel very welcoming or warm and what an important.
[00:35:00] Message for all of us. Now I, I know that you are super passionate about growing men, but also helping men. Be advocates for women. And, and so I, I'm kind of, I'd like to hear a little bit about justice New York city and what that looks like and kind of how that either grew out of this ministry or this writing, or, or did the writing grow out of the ministry or tie all that together for me?
Cause it, it feels very paralleled.
Paul: Yeah. So in my time in New York city, one of the things I did is I served on some nonprofit boards. Really focused on mercy and justice and helping people with a variety of challenges, whether it was homelessness or poverty, whether it was educational after school type programs substance abuse.
And what struck me as I interacted with all these different nonprofits is that so many of the challenges that they face really come as a result of sexual sin, that largely when men go out and they [00:36:00] get women pregnant and they abandoned them, they effectively make those kids or. And what's happening is that in our country, you are dramatically more likely to grow up in poverty.
If you grow up without father, you are dramatically more likely to end up in jail to have a substance abuse issue. I have to end up homeless. So there's all these justice issues that if you really look at the root cause sexual sin is either the factor or a very big contributing factor. And so what I did with justice MYC was bringing men in and start talking about this.
How do you really bring this all together? How do you look at these justice issues and say, wait a minute, we need to promote a biblical view of, of sex and God's design for sex and marriage because it's driving all these justice issues. It's not enough to say, Hey, after the fact we're going to go tutor somebody.
And this is the sort of hypocrisy that I see. That, Hey, I'm going to go tutor some kid in an afterschool [00:37:00] program. Who's growing up without a father, but then I'm going to go home and sleep with my girlfriend and you go, wait a minute. You're, you're trying to solve a problem over here, but you're creating it over here.
If you're the one literally creating it because you're participating in this culture that says, Hey, it's okay to have sex outside of marriage. And that's leading to children growing up in single parent homes and it's leading to poverty and all these other challenges. So I just saw that and really put that together to challenge men, to say these are real issues.
And don't think that your actions have consequences. I mean, another great example of that is we had a woman come and talk. Who'd been trafficked. And, and when I say traffic, that's a fairly broad definition of that. She wasn't literally kidnapped. It was that she was under age and somebody took pictures of her and then put them on the internet.
Then they were you know naked pictures. And so in the sort of congressional definition of trafficking that counts as trafficking, but one of the say, Hey, when you're looking at pornography, there's [00:38:00] a woman, there's a real person on the other side of that screen, in many cases who didn't want to be there.
Right. They were pressured into it. They were forced into it. Or even if they did choose to be there, they probably chose to be there because a lot of other things weren't going so well. And so when you're consuming this pornography, you are contributing to this whole ecosystem that is exploiting these women.
And don't think that you're not. And I had some men afterwards say that to me say, I never thought about that. I never thought of the person on the other side of the screen as a person, I always just sort of thought like, Hey, this is a trade. They get some money and I get satisfaction. Which of course, there's a whole bigger story there where you don't really get satisfaction, it's an addiction and it does terrible things to your brain.
And we actually had a speaker come in and talk about what it does to your brain. And it's really it's not good at all. It's really kind of an interesting story, but that really just drove me as I saw those issues to say, Hey, [00:39:00] we got to talk about this. And one of my observations, again, going back to the sort of seeker friendly churches.
They're not talking about this. This is rampant in their churches, and they're not talking about this because, Hey, we don't want to say this thing. That's unpopular with the culture. We don't want to drive people away. Yeah. But guess what? They're continuing to live their lives as way they're contributing to all these justice issues.
So it, it feels to me hypocritical that you're talking about. Participate in these mercy and justice initiatives while you're allowing people in your church to go on challenged and how they are contributing to these mercy and justice stations.
Tony: Man, I love the way that you get to the root cause of the issue and not just treating the symptom. And I think for far too long as Christians, we've been treating symptoms of our sin instead of the actual sin ourselves. And so there's a lot there that, I mean, that's a whole nother podcast, honestly, but Yeah, I, I love it.
I love what you're doing here. [00:40:00] My listeners love to pray. They're very faithful prayers. As you send this book, tough guys of the Bible learn the traits of a courageous man who, who truly follow God into the world. What's the prayer that we can be praying alongside you for this resource.
Paul: Yeah, my goal in writing, this was really to challenge men within the church and then men outside the church who were seeking that they would see this different view of Christian men, that they would see this courageous. You have Christian men and just. The story of the Bible, not by the people who follow God, the least, but by people who follow God the most.
And so just my prayer is that it would really help disciple men. It would challenge men within the church to give everything to Jesus, to go all in on a hundred percent, every single part of their life and whatever part of their life that they're holding back, that they would give it to Jesus. And then for men outside the church, that it just would be an impetus to say, Hey, I want to take another look at this.
I want to understand. [00:41:00] That side of the Bible. And I want to get beyond this media portrayal of Christian man is weak and stupid and hypocritical and so forth. And look at these men who really follow God. And is that interesting to me? And of course, ultimately we want to look to the life of Jesus, but I want this book to, it should be an impetus to get them to explore that in a different.
Tony: That's wonderful. Well, we'll be praying that along with you. I know that my listeners are going to want to learn more about you. I have one more question for you, but before I do that, w where's the best place on the interwebs to find you and the ministry that you're doing, or to pick up a copy of the book and any of that, Jess?
Paul: Yeah. So you can get a book. Anywhere books are sold. You can obviously go to Amazon's one of the simplest places. In terms of reaching out to me, I have a podcast called biblical courage and it's biblical courage.com. And so if you go to biblical courage.com, you can learn a little bit more about me.
And also here's some of the things we're talking about. And [00:42:00] what we're really trying to do with that is just expand on these stories from your book, tell even more stories of courage people who are Christians who've been in difficult circumstances and how they have really lived out there. So that's how people can find out more.
Tony: That's great. Yeah. I've checked out the podcast. It looks really great. I can't wait to dive into it. So make sure you hit, go and subscribe to that biblical courage podcasts on iTunes or Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts at Paul, last question. I always love to ask people. It's an advice question and it's giving yourself one piece of advice, except I get the name the very specific time.
And what I'd like to do is I like to take you back to your first day back into the church. So you had left the church. You've come back. You're in your early thirties, if not just turning 30, if you could go back and talk to that younger version of Paul, what's the one piece of advice you'd give.
Paul: One piece of advice I would give them is go all in.
It was a three year, three [00:43:00] years journey to really fully commit to Jesus. And there were certain sin patterns in my life that I didn't want to give up. And it took me about three years to give them up. And so my advice would be go all in, give everything to Jesus because it's worth it because nothing, none of the.
Sin patterns in my life during that three years were productive or helpful. They just sort of continued the emptiness of what was going on in my twenties. So that's what I would say. Go, go all in. It's worth it and you will not regret it.
Tony: Amen. Amen, Paul, thank you so much for your ministry to men.
Thank you for your time today. Thank you for your generosity. And I really hope that we can stay connected as God continues to work in both of our lives.
Paul: Absolutely really appreciate your time today and the opportunity to be on.
Tony: I told you guys what an incredible conversation I love, the way that Paul breaks down the kind of the cornerstones of tough guys of the [00:44:00] Bible, right?
They took risk. They spoke the truth. They were excellent in what they did and they feared God love this dialogue. I think it's important for so many of us to look at men in scripture in a new. As always the best compliment you can give us, leave a rating review on iTunes, share this episode with a friend and don't forget to subscribe.
We appreciate each and every one of you supporting us on this journey. And remember, if you want to follow Jesus, you must be willing to move.
