True Manhood

“Example is not the main thing in influencing others.

It is the only thing” Albert Schweitzer

What is a man? What makes a man great? With all the confusion today concerning manhood, the author seeks to answer these two questions in this book. What I especially appreciated is that he doesn’t just talk about manhood, but shows it in the actual lives of seven great men. I strongly agree with Metaxas when he stated, “You can talk about right and wrong and good and bad all day long, but ultimately people need to see it. Seeing and studying the actual lives of people is simply the best way to communicate ideas about how to behave and how not to behave. We need heroes and role models.”

The author’s personal greatest role model is Jesus. He not only talked, but also walked with His disciples to communicate Himself to the men who would then communicate Him to the world. The men he chose for this book - George Washington, William Wilberforce, Eric Liddell, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jackie Robinson, Pope John Paul II and Charles Colson - all had one particular quality in common, that of giving themselves to a higher purpose.

Each of these men knew that at the heart of being a man is the courage to live selflessly for God in the service of others. The author observes that the word courage comes from the Latin cor, which means heart. “So to have courage simply means to have “heart.”” This is why the Bible often exhorts us to “take heart” or to “be of good courage,” which means the same.

God never intended that we live merely for ourselves. Jesus told us we must choose, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25) The choice is yours; follow your heart.

Dying to live,

Steve