Ideas Have Consequences

Fighting Shadows with Jon Tyson

• Disciple Nations Alliance • Season 2 • Episode 18

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Today, as men, we need to do more than understand the largely lost concept of biblical masculinity. We need freedom. Most men are trapped by "shadows" or lies and have a difficult time expressing vulnerability, making us familiar with the grip of isolation and loneliness. This is not the life God intended. Today, we had the honor of sitting down with author and pastor Jon Tyson to hear about his upcoming book, Fighting Shadows: Overcoming 7 Lies that Keep Men from Becoming Fully Alive, which he co-authored with Jeff Bethke. This discussion will touch everyone as we shed light on these crucial lies, explore how they can be overcome, and joyfully do our best to present a better vision for masculinity that is oriented around our Lord and Savior. 

Jon Tyson:

A man needs a vocational sense of call. He's got to have a sense. I was put on earth to shape the kingdom this way. Do it for the glory of God, See it as a part of divine order in human flourishing and then work towards the redemptive edge of it, like finding that place where beauty and brokenness collide and pushing culture in a direction of redemption.

Luke Allen:

Hi friends, welcome to Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world, to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.

Scott Allen:

Well, welcome again to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. My name is Scott Allen and I'm joined today by my team members and friends, luke Allen, dwight Vogt, and we're thrilled today to have as our very special guest Pastor John Tyson. John is the senior pastor of Church of the City in New York City. John was originally from Australia. As you'll hear in just a moment when we begin our discussion. He's got a beautiful accent. He moved to the United States about 20 years ago to seek excuse me, with a call to seek the renewal of the Western Church. John and a friend and co-worker, jefferson Bethke, have recently written a book titled Fighting Shadows Overcoming Seven Lies that Keep Men From Becoming Fully Alive, and that book is going to be released very soon, on May 21st. And, pastor Tyson, pastor John, it is a thrill to have you with us. Thank you for honoring us with this time that we can have together to talk about your ministry and this book.

Jon Tyson:

Well, thanks so much, mate. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Scott Allen:

I would love to start, pastor John, with just that little bit that I read on your bio. It really grabbed my attention that you're from Australia. You moved to the United States it's never an easy thing to do, you know, to move cross-culturally like that. But in the bio it said you had a call to seek the renewal of the Western Church. Tell us more. I'd love to hear more about that call and how did it affect your coming to the United States, in particular in New York City?

Jon Tyson:

Well, part of it was a vision you know sort of a very supernatural sense of call.

Jon Tyson:

When I was a teenager I became a Christian. The weekend I turned 17 at a large Pentecostal church in Australia and it was one of those churches that just believed that God could speak to you. He could speak through his word, he could speak through circumstances, he could speak through impressions of the Spirit. While praying at a youth conference, I had this really significant spiritual encounter where I felt the Lord say to me I'm going to send you to America to serve me. And I remember telling my youth pastor and he said to me why would God take you to America? It's full of Christians. You need to stay in Australia, it's full of pagans. And I said you're probably right, but I just have this very strong sense of call. I'm meant to go.

Jon Tyson:

So when I was 20, I ended up getting a scholarship to study theology, which is originally why I came to the US. I met my wife in the first 10 days, so she certainly assisted me in staying here. But I think in some sense it felt a little bit like Leslie Newbigin's gospel to the West, sort of a call. You know, leslie Newbigin was a missionary in India. He came back to the UK and realized, hey, this has been radically secularized and Western culture needs an authentic encounter with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and so, in some sense, that's sort of a vision. How do I bring, particularly in New York, where I've been for almost 20 years, how do I bring New York City into an authentic encounter with the person and gospel of Jesus Christ? So, yeah, it feels like a missionary call. It feels like I wanted to be in a place in the US where the church was radically underrepresented. Where we are in Manhattan, we have the same level of evangelical Christianity as they do in Japan.

Jon Tyson:

I mean it's like the same level of evangelical Christians as the 1040 window in some places, so radically underserved demographic. Now there's Catholics here and obviously a lot more Christians in the outer boroughs. But I wanted to be in a place that needed the gospel and felt like God was calling us here and we have had the time of our lives hardest thing we've ever done brutal painful. Glorious like most church plants. Wow, glorious like most church plants.

Scott Allen:

Wow. Well, on behalf of three Americans, thank you for answering that call. I do feel like— Having the time of my life. It's a time where I think our country really does need missionary influence from outside of the country to remind us what the true gospel is, and so I'm grateful that God put that call on your heart and that you responded, and it sounds like you're really having an impact in New York and, I'm sure, beyond that as well. So tell me about the connection between that call to seek the renewal of the Western Church and the book that I just mentioned, Fighting Shadows Overcoming Seven Lies that Keep Men From Becoming Fully Alive, because I'm sure there's a connection. You've obviously got a heart for men and you see the troubled and difficult times that we're living in right now for men and masculinity. How does that connect to that call? Draw that connection for us.

Jon Tyson:

Yeah, I think in some ways it's a bit of a sub-theme. I mean, my main passion is making compelling missional disciples. That's the big picture. And then I'm looking around and asking the question where are there struggles or real deficits in that? And over the last 20 years or so I've just seen a slow and steady decline in the kinds of men that we are producing, not in society as a whole, but inside the church. You know, the church is reeling with scandal after scandal, it doesn't matter if you're a Pentecostal or a Presbyterian. There has been major pastoral scandals and ministry failures, pastoral scandals and ministry failures, and it just feels like our ability to make and form godly men has disappeared from the church. And so a lot of it was just sort of. You know, how do we fill in these gaps? How do we address a practical need? Part of it's my own story of, like my own journey, trying to become a man and figure out what it means to follow Jesus in these confusing times. Part of it was in raising my son he's 23, trying to help him navigate what it means to be a godly man in a world like ours, and then I do believe that men like Jesus are a gift to the world.

Jon Tyson:

We are groaning right now, particularly here in the US. We've got a major election coming up and you know, and not to be controversial in any unnecessary way but I think so many people are like are these the two best men of the 100 million men in America that we've got? Is this it? Is this the bar One who has cognitive decline and then one who has moral decline? Is this it Is there the bar One who has cognitive decline and then one who has moral decline? Is this it? Is there? Nobody else? And so I think our culture is screaming. Are there not better men out there somewhere?

Jon Tyson:

I think there's a real opportunity for the church to make men who think like Jesus, love like Jesus, care like Jesus and to deploy them for the good of the world out of the church. So it's definitely connected to a vision of renewal, for sure.

Scott Allen:

Yeah yeah, my own take, john, is that, you know, I think we've taken it for granted, this formation of godly men in the church, because I think there was a lot in the culture that just kind of enabled that to happen for a long time. Yeah, and these changes that have happened since, like say, 1950s, 1960s, with the sexual revolution, the rise of modern feminism in its various forms, that's all pretty, you know, recent in the big scheme of things, but it really has thrown a monkey wrench into, you know just, the whole area of male and female and what does it mean to be a man, what does it mean to be a woman created a ton of confusion and I just don't think the church has really addressed that.

Scott Allen:

So you have a lot of young men who are just adrift right now, as you said without any kind of clear sense of what this means, or even if it's a good thing and the culture obviously is telling them, it's not a good thing, you know, it's a toxic thing. There was one thing that you wrote in the book that really jumped out at me. I thought it captured the culture's message, anyways, towards men really well. Men are today supposed to be calm. Men are today supposed to be calm, placid, agreeable, nice, apologetic, lamenting, I guess remorseful, and are supposed to sit back, shut up and hand things over because we've already had our turn. I thought that was well put. I think that's a pretty good sense of where the culture is. At least a lot of the culture is telling men, you know, kind of, that's where you're supposed to be at. Do you think men in the church, john in your church and other churches have bought into that?

Jon Tyson:

Well, they certainly feel that pressure. I mean, if you have a job and there's HR at your job, you feel that pressure. And there's HR at your job, you feel that pressure. I'm not. Yeah, there's so many changes that have worked to do this. Part of them are technological. Many of the traditional jobs that required male physical strength have disappeared. We're definitely in an information technology.

Jon Tyson:

I think societal changes, religious changes, secularism, all of these things are creating a compounding dynamic where it's hard to pinpoint one particular thing. But I do feel like this. Men feel cultural pressure externally to conform and inner shame based on the amount of sin they have in their life that absolutely robs them of the capacity to show up in the world how God's called them to do. So. I think there's inner forces sabotaging them. I think there's external forces and they play together and that's where I think a lot of the apathy, the disengagement, where that sort of thing comes from. So the church in many ways their primary job is to deal with the inner forces that enable them to go into the world and act differently and respond to the cultural forces. And I would say we have absolutely failed a generation of men A we've done church as entertainment rather than church as formation.

Jon Tyson:

We've done church as celebrity or self-help or practical, and so we haven't had a vision of helping men become like Jesus. This generation hasn't latched on to traditional men's ministry. I remember when I first moved to the US, promise keepers was huge seven promises of a promise keeper. You go back and view those. Those are great promises.

Jon Tyson:

Yep I remember, like if they had kept those. But I'll tell you, I've worked in 20 years with thousands of men and I know they're out there, but I just have not met a man who said my dad was a promise keeper and formed me into a healthy man. I know there's got to be some out there. I just haven't met a lot of those and so the next gen, that just wasn't transferred. So we've lost those mechanisms. We've even lost same-gendered spaces of formation where a man can be honest and vulnerable, really put his heart out there. So yeah, I think the church has failed to do that and men definitely feel that, and a part of what we're trying to do in the book and through our ministry is bring that back, call men out of a place of fear and shame and hiding into the light so they can reach their full redemptive potential, like Jesus calls us to.

Dwight Vogt:

When you say the church has failed in that area, are you referring to pastors specifically? What do you mean?

Jon Tyson:

Why do?

Dwight Vogt:

you think that I mean when I think of the Promise Keepers. That was such a great movement and I do go what happened?

Luke Allen:

How did the?

Jon Tyson:

church fail that you know. Well, if you talk to the people at Promise Keepers, I think they would say I mean, maybe it was pride meaning that they got so full of a vision of stadiums. It looked like they were going to.

Jon Tyson:

You know, they did the Million man March and we're going to sort of like accumulate our power and I don't know, I can't, I can't diagnose it because I I don't know um too many primary sources on that, I think everything. So the church has been ill-equipped to face the pressures of secularism. You guys are all about worldview. We have absolutely failed to produce christians who think critically I have a biblical worldview know how to analyze culture and then build an alternative discipleship in a robust way.

Jon Tyson:

So, whether that's pastors, christian teachers, whatever it, is we're losing 1.2 million kids a year from the church right now, and the number one reason is because they do not find Jesus compelling. And what a tragedy to take the best man who's ever lived the most remarkable life and make him boring to a generation of kids. So I don't know if that's youth pastors doing ministries entertainment. I don't know if it's kids ministries doing Bible light. I don't know if it's senior pastors preaching self-help. I don't know if it's Satan coming against the church.

Jon Tyson:

It's a complex thing to diagnose but, I, do know it's been effective and it's probably all the things lowering of biblical authority, rise of self-expression, radical individualism. It's been an onslaught of forces for which the church was not prepared to respond. But I think in many ways it was the compound effect of the 50s and 60s and it all hit at once and the church just felt ill-equipped to fight seven battles the battle for biblical truth, the battle for biblical identity, the battle for Christian sexuality, the battle for servanthood, the battle to engage the culture. The typical pastor can't handle all of that, so it's been a challenge for sure.

Scott Allen:

I'd like to talk about the title Fighting Shadows, overcoming the Lies. Talk a little bit, john, about those shadows. What are they and how do they impact men today? The mental, emotional, spiritual well-being of men today.

Jon Tyson:

Yeah, the central idea of the shadow is a lot of people sort of say. Is that based on Jung's idea of the shadow and the importance of integrating the shadow? And the answer is no. I think I'm not anti-Jung, I'm not pro-Jung. He had a couple of nuggets in there that were helpful, but it's not based on Jung's framework of integrating the shadow.

Jon Tyson:

It's based on a conversation Peter and Jesus had that I just perceived to be a revelation about the enemy strategies for our life. Jesus comes to Peter and says Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. What a terrifying moment to realize that you are in the crosshairs of the enemy. And he is personally asking to come after you like he came after Job. That's a bad conversation and what you would hope is Jesus, please tell me. You told Satan to leave me alone. That's not what he says. He says I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail, and that word fail, the Greek word eklepo, where we get the word eclipse We've just recently had an eclipse here in the United States and it means something gets between the sun and the person viewing it, so it appears as if the sun has disappeared.

Jon Tyson:

And it actually says the sun stopped shining when Christ is on the cross it's that same Greek word that's used there and I felt like man. This is an insight into the enemy's strategy. He wants to put something between us and God in such a way that it appears that God has disappeared From the vine. You can position your hand so close to your face that it looks like the sun has gone, and it's not the sun's. Fine, but from that vantage point it can seem like it disappears.

Jon Tyson:

So you know, I think Satan wants to put these forces, these eclipses, in front of God, where we're left in the dark, living in the shadows, thinking that God has left us. The shadows are and people ask how did you come up with them? It was like through mass surveys of talking with men that we work with. There's many, many more, but we felt like these were the core ones men were facing Loneliness, shame, lust, ambition, work, apathy, loneliness these are sort of the core things that we feel are coming over the hearts of men right now, stopping them from reaching their redemptive potential. We've spent a lot of time counseling, doing events, preaching to workshops, listening with men and trying to help them get out from under these things and into the light. So, yeah, that's the sort of central idea of the book.

Scott Allen:

Dwight, I believe you wanted to, or Luke, both of you guys wanted to jump in on some of those because you know we could spend an entire podcast talking about any one of those shadows.

Dwight Vogt:

Well, I do have one immediate thought. As you listed them, I'm thinking what happens sometimes and this is probably historically more in the past, but it's like these shadows come in and, for example, ambition and sex are okay. Both of them are one is I'm trying. I have ambition for my job, I ambition for my career. Sex is a part of life, it's a part of marriage, and so the tendency is, well, if sex is bad and ambition is bad, we just get rid of them.

Luke Allen:

We just push them away.

Dwight Vogt:

And so in your book you talk about formation and deformation, and I don't know if it's tied to this, but I love that idea that when something is formed in the way that God designs it to function, it becomes part of the light. It's no longer the eclipse?

Jon Tyson:

Yes, absolutely.

Dwight Vogt:

And I skimmed through your book pretty quick, I admit, but that was the sense I was getting from you, that we're not trying to get rid of these things. In fact, that's the wrong approach. It's like you deal with them and God's gift becomes part of his light.

Jon Tyson:

So can you unpack where you're going with all this? Yeah sure, Ambition's an easier one. Is ambition good or bad? Well, it depends.

Dwight Vogt:

Bonson said it's good and you go to his church or he goes to your church, right, david Bonson?

Jon Tyson:

Yes, David Bonson is a good friend of mine.

Dwight Vogt:

Yeah, anyway, he was on a podcast recently.

Jon Tyson:

I think ambition is good. I don't think it's neutral. But ungodly ambition is damaging. A passage like James 3, wherever you find selfish ambition or bitter envy there, you will find disorder, every evil practice. It unleashes hell and it says it's earthly, unspiritual and demonic. That's what that produces a culture and the earthly culture says ambition is about you beating other people and looking good when you do it in the chapter I refer to james k smith, who says the two dominant traits of ambition are domination and recognition.

Jon Tyson:

So it has a competitive element I have to beat you. And recognition, which means I have to look good while I do it. That is unhealthy and that produces much of the dysfunction and chaos in our world today. But a man wanting to do his best for the glory of God, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be the best. It's being the best at the expense of crushing other people and having a comparative element that says I cannot be the best unless I look good at making you look bad. So that's the worldly component of ambition. My goal is to convert worldly ambition to holy ambition.

Jon Tyson:

And holy ambition has three, and I talk about the life of Nehemiah. Holy ambition has a kingdom orientation rather than a self-orientation. It's looking beyond the horizons of the self to God's purposes in your generation. Secondly, it's going to require that you take sacrificial action for others and not just for yourself, so your effort and your leverage are not for self-accumulation but for the good of others. And then, lastly, you've got to have a vision of including God in this. It can't just always be about you. So history is shaped in a man's family, in a company or in a nation by men with holy ambition. Nehemiah saw more in 52 days than the previous 52 years, because he had holy ambition.

Jon Tyson:

When God trusts your ambition, you become the kind of person he can use to catalyze change quickly because he knows you're going to do it for the right reasons to give glory to others.

Jon Tyson:

So James K Smith says at the start of that chapter the opposite of ambition is not humility, it's cowardice. It's not godly. Shrinking back it's fear-based. I think there's some truth to that. So, yeah, what you want to do is convert the worldly dynamic to a holy dynamic and then deploy it as a tool to accelerate the kingdom in the moment that we live. So yeah, a lot of it is about asking what was God's original intent? How has this been deformed? By our culture, and then how is it reformed in Jesus?

Scott Allen:

I love that. That's really powerful. Luke, do you want to jump in here on this one? I'm sure you've got some questions or thoughts.

Luke Allen:

Talk to me, luke, I'm trying to keep up, I'm trying to keep up. You guys are moving and this is fantastic. I wanted to just highlight your guys' definition in the book of masculinity, or of healthy masculinity, and you can tell me if I get this right. I think I got it right, though bearer and son of God, entrusted with power and the responsibility to create, cultivate care and defend for God's glory and the good of others.

Luke Allen:

I absolutely love that. That sounds about right. I just love that definition. It is so comprehensive and it includes a lot of things that in a lot of other definitions I've really missed out on, including concepts like cultivate and to create. And you even included the word power in there, which I don't tend to hear very often and what it means to be have healthy masculinity. And that just came to mind because of what you were just talking about there with ambition.

Luke Allen:

And a lot of guys don't have an understanding of what biblical authority looks like, or if there even is biblical authority or power. And, like you were saying, with Nehemiah, he understood that and therefore he was entrusted with it. But so many people, because of what we see in our world, we don't have an understanding of what those things look like because in our sinful nature, power is almost always used negatively, same with authority. So, anyways, I just want to highlight that definition of healthy masculinity that you guys lay out in the book Also earlier on in the discussion.

Luke Allen:

This might take us in a little bit of a different direction, but you mentioned the lack of intergenerational community amongst men that we see today, and this is something I've been thinking about a lot recently. I think, in our hyper individualistic culture that we live in today, where our, you know, archetypes of masculinity are, like, you know, james Bond, john Wayne, batman, you know these just loner guys who never ask for directions, uh, we, we think like that's, that's the you know the direction we should be heading in. And with that, of course, you lose community and um, not only amongst your friends, but you also lose it amongst generations, and I think a lot of these shadows that you guys talk about in the book come from hyper-individualism, totally agree.

Luke Allen:

I think the three that stuck out when I first looked at the book were shame, loneliness and lust. This might be a generational thing, but I think guys around my age would probably agree that those three are crippling and yes, I'm lonely so I look at a bunch of stuff I shouldn't.

Jon Tyson:

I feel shame. It's just like a giant cycle.

Luke Allen:

All right, exactly spiral and if you, and if you do it by yourself and you think this is an only me problem and you don't open up to people, you think it just breathes in the darkness. Those three things. And yeah, as a young guy I just think we could do so much better at, especially in the church, having more opportunity for that intergenerational community. Just to say you know, we've been through this. You know, when I was your age I went through that same path. You know, for young guys lust is always an issue almost, and just to hear from other guys, you know you're not alone.

Jon Tyson:

Yeah.

Luke Allen:

That's, you know, that kind of stuff I just I want to see more of that.

Jon Tyson:

We definitely. We've absolutely lost that and the goal male formation, how men were produced in other societies. I wrote a book of the intentional father and it's all on how to reclaim rights of passage to take boys from adolescence into manhood. The number one thing people misunderstand about that book it's called the Intentional Father is that a dad does this alone. It's always in history the community of men that form a boy. He's relying not just on his father, though the father plays a significant contributing role. It's the community of men.

Jon Tyson:

That's where the church, if done right, has a massive advantage. Sure, because where else can a man in the modern world—men are isolated. They live in, for the most part, cities, away from their families, most people who are not connected in a local church. Where are they getting? Community Local sports teams, fantasy football, people at work. You can never be fully vulnerable. Imagine saying in a meeting at work hey guys, I've got suicidal ideation, I've got a low-grade, constant depression. I was on a porn binge all weekend. How did your weekend go? Hr is going to snuff that out so quickly.

Jon Tyson:

We need spaces where men can be honest, and then what you need— Dwight tells me that every Monday, yes, yes, the enemy's lie.

Jon Tyson:

You said it is to make you think I'm the only one Listen. Statistically, almost 90% of men look at pornography monthly. It's heartbreaking. You're not alone, and so let's get it in the light, be really honest. Let's examine our desires. Why we think this is a good coping strategy. Let's reorient our desires away from that which causes shame and doesn't fulfill into what builds us up and encourages us. So I'm a big believer in recovering sort of multi-generational rich spaces for male formation. It tends to go well around a fire pit better than like sitting in a circle. They're looking at nothing. There's actually a bunch of research on why sitting around a fire is helpful, but whatever it is, it's just like create a space. Refuse to be trite and shallow. Don't get past your favorite sports team. Stop and talk about the deep issues of your heart, and just bringing it into the light undoes half the damage of it.

Scott Allen:

You know it's also, as you well know, Pastor John, not easy to do. What advice would you have right now to somebody who's listening to our podcast, who's struggling, let's say, with porn addiction and lust and but they don't know where to begin with that because you know it, to just bring it into the light, you know you have to be so careful. Right, it can be used against you or who knows? You know, I think there's a lot of reasons people don't do that, and they're valid reasons. So what advice do you have for for somebody practically in male spaces.

Jon Tyson:

That is not weaponized against you. In, in, in. Like, if you're in a small group with a bunch of women and you say, hey, can you guys pray for me, I'm really struggling with porn this week, that's like it's not. It's actually probably not a healthy environment, to sort of put that out there. Yes, that could be weaponized against you. Yes, you're worried about a loss of social status. Yes, you may view yourself as becoming less dateable or people will remember that, of course. But if you're with other men, you're like fellas, I'm in a war with lust. This is a hard week. You're not going to get judged for that, you know. I mean not, not in any environment I've ever been in. In in any honest men's environment, everybody's struggling with these things. So the question is not are we struggling with it? The question is, will we struggle alone and in silence?

Scott Allen:

or will we struggle for together in community. You cannot have victory, as you well know, alone on this one. It just absolutely requires a community.

Jon Tyson:

Yeah you need a comprehensive span. I mean, if someone's addicted to porn, that's different than someone who is struggling with porn.

Jon Tyson:

You know that would require a deeper sort of more thorough treatment, but someone who's wrestling with it is like, yeah, man, you need a deep examination of. I like Jay Stringer's stuff on unwanted. I think we've got to analyze what our temptations are telling us, our misplaced desires, our disordered loves, how we can reorient those towards Jesus, use temptation as a form of spiritual formation. But yeah, you can't. Isolated and alone is rarely, rarely a healthy environment for discipleship.

Luke Allen:

Hi friends, thanks again for joining us today. The church is not a building or a Sunday morning activity. It is the body of Christ on mission in every sphere of society, every day of the week. The Monday Church Training Program from the Disciple Nations Alliance is a training program that explores the greatest tool that God has given you to impact the world your work. God intends your daily work to be for the service of man, the blessing of nations and the glory of God. Monday Church provides a biblical framework for each of us to establish meaningful, integrated understandings of our life and our work. Whatever your vocation is, god has called you to a new way of living, fully in his presence and for his glory. To learn more about Monday Church, head to quorumdeocom and sign up today for free, and the course is also available in Spanish and Arabic. Again, that is quorumdeocom, and from there you can sign up for Monday Church today.

Scott Allen:

Well, luke and Dwight, if you're okay, I'd like to turn the conversation to the positive. I loved—there's a series of words that you and your co-author, jefferson Bethke, have come up with to describe kind of a vision of Christlike or— godly manhood or masculinity. I loved those words a lot and I would like to just kind of go there, and you kind of offered them in a number of couplets. The first one was work and keep. I wouldn't mind just going through some of these. I just found them to be a really powerful, very biblical kind of vision. It created vision for what does this look like? What does a godly man look like? Yeah, do you mind if we go there, guys?

Dwight Vogt:

Sure, let's do it.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, do you want to—maybe I'm trying to think if it's best to read, to go through these, as you know, kind of couplets, or do you want to kind of lay them all out? Do you have any suggestion on that? John, lay them out and then let's unpack them.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, okay, so this is what I had, and correct me if I get any of these wrong. The first couplet is work and keep. The second is Lord and kingdom. In my view, that had to do with authority, and so we'll come back to that. I think you said it had to do with discipleship, but that one screamed authority to me Nourish and cherish. That had to do with relationship, Our relationship as men to women, particularly our wives and daughters. The next one was train and instruct.

Scott Allen:

I love all of these, but this had to do with our relationship to the next generation, particularly our own children, and enemy and neighbor. This had to do with love Love your enemy and love your neighbor Incredible power here, and this is where biblical masculinity is so countercultural. So I'm looking forward to talking about that. And then the last one is glorify and enjoy, and I just put the word joy there. But yeah, I'd love to go through these. I just want to thank you, John, because I thought you know it's one thing to critique what's happening in the culture, and that's important, and to lay out the shadows, as you've done, these things that we're struggling with, but it's another thing to put forward this kind of truly positive vision and kind of frame it with some helpful hooks like this, these words so yeah, work and keep. Let's talk about work and the importance that that has for godly manhood.

Jon Tyson:

Yeah, the vision of of sort of like laying a very biblical and basic framework yeah I was working with some young guys in their 20s and I was like what does it mean to be a man? Where do I start?

Jon Tyson:

what does the bible teach and I was like let's just get a as basic as possible almost checklist of what the bible clearly teaches about these core roles and let's just start there. So for younger guys it's like hey, listen, get a job and do your job well, and in so doing you will get a sense of agency, nobility, you'll have resources to build a legacy and you'll be able to contribute to society. Get a job and do your job well. A man who does his job well, whether he's a janitor, a mechanic, a customer service rep, a financial advisor, a marketing director as opposed to a man who does a half-hearted job, will be a blessing to the world. And so do your job for the glory of God and do it unto Him. You'll be rewarded. You'll participate in a larger economy. The standard of work is so shoddy in the modern world. The way you stand out is just doing things with excellence. So, yeah, it's get a job, do it with all your might, do it unto the Lord and start there.

Scott Allen:

See, john, I want to say something that you know in my own ministry experience. This whole area of work and I'm just going to speak kind of theologically or biblically it's so neglected in the Church, it's you know, it comes right out of.

Scott Allen:

You know what Darrell Miller, our co-founder, would call the kind, call the cultural commission in Genesis, chapter 1, right have dominion, right. You know, god gives us this position of dominion, of rulership in his world, and the way that people like James Smith, who you quoted earlier, and others, the way they unpack this so helpfully, is that you know, basically the basic idea is God's made us in his image. He's a creative, working God. We're made to create and to work and to leave this world better than we found it, which is an amazing thing that we can actually do that you know the modern world tells us that we're just consumers and we rape and pillage and leave the world worse off and we should actually get rid of people.

Scott Allen:

But the Bible says no. You know, we actually have this capacity and this call to work and to create and to make things, and make things that help people, and you know. And then there's the keep aspect too, but all that is so neglected in my own view. John, in the church, you know where the message often is. Our job is to win souls, right, you know? Yes, of course, but not. You know it has nothing to say about our work and in fact, you have even many people thinking work is part of the curse or they have all these bad ideas about work. So I was so grateful that you started there and I was kind of curious what your own background was on that. But I was really grateful that you started there and I was kind of curious what your own background was on that, but I was really grateful that you started there. Yeah, I mean.

Jon Tyson:

I'm a big Kuyperian man Bavink, kuyper. I think they have probably produced the best theology. I remember reading Lectures on Calvinism by Kuyper under a tree in the woods and just weeping and just saying where has this theology been? My entire life I know.

Scott Allen:

Same, same same.

Jon Tyson:

Yeah, the rest of the gospel. I mean, if you don't have a kingdom theology which is why I talk about kingdom and Lord you're going to have, like the classic, it's, a two-part gospel. I mean, you rob people from the very way they make Jesus manifest as Lord in the world. We're going to work—you know the kings—I'm a Richard Mao guy too, obviously— but the kings of the earth, bringing the glory and splendor of the nations in the New Jerusalem.

Scott Allen:

You're singing our song here. This is actually part of our core teaching. We do all over the world this idea that we are to bring the glory and the splendor of the nations, and what role do you have in playing in that? And that's unique glory. You know it's different in Australia than it is in the United States. 100 percent.

Jon Tyson:

Yeah, each ethnos has distinct cultural glories and expression of the.

Scott Allen:

Gospel.

Jon Tyson:

And I always say heaven is going to be like a giant Met Museum museum of natural history, but a live, interactive exhibit of the best of human culture for the glory of God, without the futility of the fall.

Jon Tyson:

So yeah man, I'm a big faith and work guy. You can't be in New York, disciple people have people, move you for the job and not give a vision on that. So I've written on that, taught on that. A whole bunch believe in that fundamentally, a man needs a vocational sense of call. He's got to have a sense. I was put on earth to shape the kingdom this way. Do it for the glory of God, See it as a part of divine order in human flourishing and then work towards the redemptive edge of it, like finding that place where beauty and brokenness collide and pushing culture in a direction of redemption.

Dwight Vogt:

So, we are fully aligned on that.

Scott Allen:

I want to hear about.

Dwight Vogt:

Lord and Kingdom.

Scott Allen:

Okay.

Dwight Vogt:

Wait, I still want to talk about Word no, no no, we're running out of time.

Luke Allen:

I want to hear about Lord and Kingdom.

Scott Allen:

You're right, let's move on let's talk about Lord and Kingdom. Yeah, that's the next couple.

Jon Tyson:

It's pretty simple. Listen. The Christians conquered the world with three worlds. They took out the Roman Empire with three words Jesus is Lord. That was all it took. A man that doesn't have a Lord will be his own Lord, and that's where all the moral chaos and abuse in the world lives. But a man who believes he has a Lord will be under authority and steward his authority. I tell my daughter all the time the reason I don't want you to date a man who's not a Christian is because he will think he's a god. She's dating a wonderful Christian guy, but if you date a Christian guy, he's going to fear God and give an account to him for how he treats you. So you've got to be with a godly man who's accountable. That's the thing. In the world today. We have a crisis of lordship. Many of our failed politicians have no fear of God or sense of accountability to anything other than political results and that's why there's just total chaos.

Jon Tyson:

And I like Kuyper, he became the prime minister of his nation. I mean that was strong.

Scott Allen:

I love this idea of kingdom too, because, well, go ahead.

Dwight Vogt:

Dwight, you're asking about kingdom. Yeah, the question is and kingdom, lord, and?

Jon Tyson:

kingdom unpack that? Yeah, well, the kingdom. So the church is not synonymous with the kingdom of god. They overlap in some components. Again, I'm a big sphere sovereignty guy.

Jon Tyson:

The kingdom of god is the lordship of jesus manifested through every sphere of society. I believe god has a plan for the arts. He's got a plan for the arts. He's got a plan for economics. I believe he's got a plan for the family. He's got a plan for business, and it is our job to push culture in a redemptive direction. That looks more like that. The difference is we don't do it through human mechanisms, we do it through suffering, love. We do it through excellence. And that's how the early church conquered the Roman Empire not with political might or military might, but by telling a better story, building a better culture and working towards a better world, and, over the course of time, as salt and light. They did that, and now is a tremendously ripe time to have a vision of the kingdom, to seek it first, and to begin to push the lordship of Jesus. Put it on public display in the world.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, to me. I like this idea of kingdom so much because it puts us into the mindset of a kingdom and, like you said, lord and we use these words straightly in the church but if you just take it out of church context, you know and think about a kingdom and a king and you're under the authority of the king and Jesus is our king. That's going to shape everything about you, right? If you really bow to him and say you are the king, your will be done, not my will. You know we are in a kingdom and he's the king.

Scott Allen:

And yeah, I just thought that was a really, because somebody's going to be the king, just like you said, john. I mean somebody's going to have authority. That's going to shape everything. Everyone's under some kind of authority and that could be yourself, like you said, your ego, your appetite or whatever, but you know that's going to shape everything about you. If you say Jesus is king and you act that way and you bow your knee and that drives everything you do, that's going to shape a particular kind of masculinity. Yeah.

Jon Tyson:

Yeah.

Scott Allen:

I love that. Well, maybe we could lump the next two together, even though they would be worthy of talking and unpacking separately. But yeah, nourish and cherish and train and instruct. These have to do with our relationships, particularly in families, towards women, wives and children.

Jon Tyson:

I mean, yeah, I mean, I heard one person say this. I thought this was very, very apt. Because women are so rarely nourished, they settle for being occasionally desired and I think so many men fail to nourish and cherish. I think there can be a lot of unintended damage. It's very subtle and subconscious, but when a man says God made me to rule, women are here to help me rule. They're just a partner for helping me. The goal of life is for me to maximize my gifts, calling and ministry, and the wife is an accessory and servant to help me. And there are so many women who have never become what God intended them to be because they're married to men with that kind of mentality, which is not biblical.

Jon Tyson:

It's a shadow framework. This verse Ephesians 5, remarkable verse is actually saying men with that kind of mentality which is not biblical, it's a shadow framework. This verse Ephesians 5, remarkable verse is actually saying to the degree that a husband's wife is flourishing is to the degree that he is leading properly. Wow, and when the man says, woman, submit, the wife gets the right to say man, die. And that is really the great, the great conquest.

Jon Tyson:

So my other definition of masculinity which is an adapted version of someone else's but I I would humbly submit I upgraded it is the joyful pursuit of sacrificial responsibility. That's when a man is at his best, when he is joyfully asking how can I serve you and help you? And when a man is doing that with love in his heart, that's a good man in the world today. So husbands should not be saying wife, what can you do to sacrificially serve me? But how do I do this? How do I nourish you, cherish you and show this through sacrificial love. That can be making sure she has time to develop her own heart. Maybe it's educational opportunities, making sure that you watch the kids while she returns to school.

Jon Tyson:

That was the story of my own home. But yeah, you want women who feel like I am valued and cherished and I am being built up in my faith, cared for thriving because I'm married to this man. The big question I always ask men is your wife thriving because of you or in spite of you? Is she having to route her flourishing outside of your leadership and love because you are too driven? Husbands, love your wives, don't be harsh with them. Is there a harshness to your leadership? Is there an assumption that is there for you? And you see many pastors' wives, many men's wives. They're just tired shells who exist to lift up the man rather than a joyful, sacrificial partnership with the wives because of the man they married.

Scott Allen:

We could spend 10 hours on this. This is really a tough one. No, it is, and I think there's just a lot of confusion and a lot of false application or wrong application around this topic, partly too because, again, the culture has so villainized this whole area. You know, the patriarchy, right, is just one of the most evil things that we're told exists out there, right, and you know so. This is kind of the male headship idea in the home, and you know so.

Scott Allen:

A lot of, I think, christian men have reacted against that and just kind of take this very passive role. They don't want to be leaders, they don't want to be actively, you know, taking initiative in the home with their own children in discipline, or with their wives or in any other way, because they're taught that patriarchy is evil. It's not, but it has to be practiced in the right way, as you're describing, one that's focused on, you know, the wives and daughters being cared for and nourished and cherished. That's what's tricky, that's what's hard. Is that we? You know it's hard to get all of that together. So I really applaud you for doing that.

Jon Tyson:

It's easy to say in a podcast, it's hard to live out in real life.

Scott Allen:

Mate, it sure is, it sure is, but yeah no, this is something just you know, I didn't know when I got married, you know, to Kim, I had to learn this through the course of marriage. I was very much shaped by kind of the feminist culture I was raised in, that you know, I was very much shaped by kind of the feminist culture I was raised in that it's wrong, this idea of male headship and submission, all this is really wrong. So and it was actually my wife that had a vision for that, she had to kind of teach me how to do that, listen to me it doesn't matter what progressive culture says.

Jon Tyson:

I'm in the middle of New York, which could not be more progressive if it tried. It could only be more progressive if it was portland okay um, it has been again. This is it's. It's only my opinion, but it's an informed opinion of 20 years of pastoring in the city. When men step up and provide sacrificial initiative, women say thank you. Oh yeah. Rather than how dare you? Well for sure, there's just something to it.

Scott Allen:

This is how God designed it.

Jon Tyson:

That's why, yeah, it's almost like men are designed to serve and sacrifice.

Scott Allen:

yes, yeah, no, absolutely. Let's talk about enemy and neighbor. This whole, the power of love. I just think this is, this is. It sends a thrill up my, a shiver up my spine when I think about this one, because it's just so powerful. What is? How does love and love of neighbor, love of enemy, how does that shape biblical masculinity, john? Well.

Jon Tyson:

I mean number one. It's shown in the person of Jesus. I mean Jesus. When the Pharisees are trying to, or the teachers of the law are trying to, restrict the vision of neighbor, draw it around a tight, homogenous community, jesus blows that out with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Jon Tyson:

You know, who's the better neighbor. And he says go, do likewise. So Jesus is expanding the category of neighbor to include all of humanity. That was something absolutely countercultural. For the Jews, the boundaries of Jesus' concerns are bigger than our own sociological concerns. I remember Francis Schaeffer, you know. He talked about personal peace and affluence. He says when the evangelical church, its vision, is reduced to personal peace and affluence, the church is going to die. It's a great evangelical disaster because our horizon of concern is no different than the pagan. As long as I got what I want and my people are good, life is good that is not the christian faith.

Jon Tyson:

So our neighbor, um, we have an obligation to those who are around us, who are like, like us, and those who are different from us, to love them. And then, secondarily, the way the church conquered the Roman Empire was through enemy love. I mean love your enemy was the John 3, 16 of the early church, says Preston Sprinkle, and it's the hallmark and the reason that we do it is because we were enemies of God and he loved us while we were still enemies. Christ died for us. So we don't love those who are deserving, we love those who God has loved.

Jon Tyson:

And there's these terrifying passages in the Bible that says that he is kind and merciful to the wicked and the ungrateful. It's like, oh, that just doesn't seem fair. But the gospel is not fair either, because you were the wicked and the ungrateful. So again, this is not the golden rule which all religions have and all societies have sort of got a placid do unto others. This is a love your enemies, this is love with teeth, this is love that changes and tears down hostility and enemies and produces a supernatural peace. So it's absolutely distinctive of the Christians.

Scott Allen:

I was curious. You had read a book called the Rise of Christianity. It's a book that probably goes back 15 years now by a sociologist named Rodney Stark, Okay you've heard of that book, yeah.

Jon Tyson:

Yeah.

Scott Allen:

Because he talks about the early church and his question was that question what caused this tiny little group of persecuted followers of Jesus to essentially grow into the church that eclipsed the Roman Empire, and he boils it down. It was really fascinating to what we're talking about right here, and he looks specifically at the plagues that swept through the ancient world, the Roman world, and how the natural human response was to flee. Right, you know, if somebody got sick, you left because out of fear for your life, you just abandoned them. You know, and then something happened that had never happened before in human history. Apparently, these Christians went towards the people that were victimized by the plague and they began to love them in the same way that, you know, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, you know, that kind of practical demonstration of love and compassion, nursing them back to health, very often taking the disease on themselves and dying. But they were willing to do that because their king you know this is Lord and kingdom right their king did that for them, right.

Luke Allen:

He died for them.

Scott Allen:

And then he said go and love other people in the same way. And they actually did that and it had such a profound impact on the people that received that love that again Rodney Stark said this is what it was. This was the catalyst that caused the Church to grow. You know, people just had nothing to say in response to that. You know other than you know, this is real nothing to say in response to that?

Jon Tyson:

you know, other than you know, this is real. Julian the Apostate, the last Roman emperor, really to provide resistance to Christianity. You know he tried to revive paganism. He just constantly complained about how the Christians were outliving the Romans. And his last words? He was injured on a battlefield and he died. His last words were the Galileans have won.

Jon Tyson:

His whole life he tried to beat them and that was really the end of opposition to Christianity in the Roman Empire, and that's it. So I say to people all the time I'm getting ready to preach on politics this Sunday Because of our short-range soteriology and our lack of belief in the power of enemy love in the gospel, we project our need for certainty and power on any current political regime and we do not believe that enemy love is a legitimate strategy for influence in the culture, and so we resort to human power and we've absolutely destroyed our witness, particularly for this next generation, believing that godless people can do what only a godly man, through enemy love, can do. It doesn't mean that we don't have a role in politics. I've already said I'm a Kuyperian, but I do believe this is a tool, a world and culture conquering tool that we have to collect and must recover.

Scott Allen:

It's the most powerful force that we know of. You know this power of love, christlike love, in my view, the most powerful force to change culture that exists.

Jon Tyson:

Yes, yes.

Scott Allen:

And it's you know. By the way, I think it's completely. When you look at the forces of Marxism and you know atheism it's completely absent. You know they discount this altogether. All there is is power. Power in a negative sense, power to force you to do what I want you to do, or whatever it is. But this is not the Christian way and, by the way, this requires a real masculinity, this kind of love when you're giving your life for somebody. This isn't some weak kind of limp-wristed type of thing here you know we're talking about so go ahead.

Jon Tyson:

John, I just read a bunch of long-range sociological data on diversity, equity and inclusion training and guess what they found? This research came out of Harvard a bunch of other organizations not Christian research at all that forcing people out of guilt to change their hearts is a completely ineffective strategy and that the majority of the training actually agitates and increases racism and prejudice rather than alleviating and listen for minorities that have been misrepresented or experienced prejudice. They don't have the luxury of waiting for the world to all become Christian and then have everyone's hearts change and then change the world. I get it. We need justice works. We need people to push on these issues from a godly perspective.

Jon Tyson:

But it makes total sense that if you tell someone they have to do something again, only apply power. They're compliant as long as the power is exerted. As soon as the power lifts, they return to the state of their heart. The gift of Christianity is to change the heart through love. Amen. And this is a real opportunity for the church to lead right now. And if we can raise a generation of men who think, act and love like this, we are going to be well on the way to the kind of society that God's calling us to build.

Scott Allen:

Amen, amen. Well, we're running out of time, but just touch on the last one too. John, Glorify and enjoy, like those words. How does that relate to godly masculinity?

Jon Tyson:

Well, I mean that's why you were put on earth. I mean it's Augustine. You have made us for yourself. We're made for someone. A man's heart is made for someone and we will be restless until we are satisfied in him. And that is all, jesus' invitation. If you're an outsider, I'm the gate. I'll let you in. If you need care, I'm the good shepherd. If you're in darkness, I'm the light. If you're lost, I'm the way. If you're hungry, I'm bread. If you're thirsty, I'm living water. If you're weary, I'm rest. I mean these are just all invitations to come and find what your heart was made for.

Jon Tyson:

So the catholics talk about the fulfillment of all desire. Beautiful phrase, and that's really what Christ is offering. This is union. This is the beatific vision. I mean this is theosis. I mean this is mind-boggling stuff. We were made for union with God. The vision of heaven is a huge wedding celebration and that's not some beat down, it is. It is joy in all of its fullness. I think of, uh, that passage to peter. Though you do not see him, you love him and are filled with an inexpressible joy. So I'm not a christian, I'm not in a get out of hell card, though I'm certainly grateful. I'm in a fulfillment of all desire card. You know, it's just I, I'm. It's a little piper-esque, but I'm trying to improve on it um this.

Jon Tyson:

You know, greco-roman society was built. It was, the tension was between hedonic desire and eudaemonic desire. I would like to talk about theodonic desire, which is love and satisfaction in God, and when Christians really get that third level, here is satisfaction, here is pleasure, here is joy.

Scott Allen:

Well, listen, that's it to me. Well, joy, I think it's so much a part of the biblical worldview. Our God is a God filled with joy. You know he has joy in his relationship in the Trinity and shares that. Wants us to experience that joy to the full, as Jesus said. But I think very often, especially on subjects of masculinity, where it can be kind of shaped by stoicism and you know we're supposed to suppress our emotions and our desire for joy or whatever, it is just duty this gets lost. But you know we're not talking about Buddhism here, we're not talking about Stoicism, we're talking about Christianity, and joy is a huge part of that. So I really appreciated you bringing that in too, that that's what God wants, and there's only one way, as you said, for that to be fulfilled, and that's, you know, in God himself, in Jesus himself.

Scott Allen:

So go ahead.

Jon Tyson:

Sorry, John Go ahead Our core curriculum. Listen, I just preached for Matt Chandler yesterday, okay, and it was at a men's event, and you know what I did? I was like guys, you need to repent for being joyless If you— Wow, it's a fruit of the Spirit.

Jon Tyson:

It's a command to rejoice in the Lord. But if you don't believe God's a joyful God, that means the more joyful you are, the further you move away from God. But if you believe he is a joyful God, the more you become like that, the more godly you're becoming. So the pursuit of joy is the pursuit of godliness, and if we do not give men a vision of defiant joy, which is one of our core values, it's defiant joy, and a man with a joyful heart is a rare thing in the world and it's attractive. It is.

Jon Tyson:

And we're all about cultivating joyful men.

Scott Allen:

Dwight, I think of you a lot on this because I know that this was an area that you grew a lot in in your adult life just this willingness and ability just to enjoy life, and I always love that.

Dwight Vogt:

So I don't know if you want to jump in on that? No, no, it's just good. Anabaptist background, John, if we want to learn more from you. Where do we go? What do we do? Where can I hear you?

Jon Tyson:

Oh, mate, I mean you can go to our Church of the City podcast. Our website is churchnyc churchnyc. You can find our stuff all over the internet, that sort of thing, you can follow me on. Instagram or whatever. John Tyson and I think johntysonorg I send out a weekly email for men and it is literally designed to form men's hearts, that's at primalpathco slash email.

Scott Allen:

Okay, primal Path, say that again.

Jon Tyson:

Dot co dot co. Slash email or johntysonorg will get you there. Johntysonorg will get you.

Scott Allen:

Johntysonorg will get you all of it and I just want to recommend to all of our listeners John and Jefferson's new book Fighting Shadows Overcoming Seven Lies that Keep Men from Becoming Fully Alive. Is that available for a pre-order right now? It sure is. If you pre-order right now, it sure is.

Jon Tyson:

If you pre-order the book right now, you get a free book bonus content called Fighting Lust, a book called Fighting Exhaustion and a book called Fighting Greed. You get a 45-minute keynote on what is a man and there's something else you get. And if you buy three copies, I think we give you the curriculum for free for the book. If you go to fightingshadowsco there's a bunch of stuff in there, but it comes out on May 21. Well, I want to applaud you.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, you just got such deep kind of biblical, worldview-shaped thinking as it approaches this subject, pastor John, and I just really want to thank you for that and for your work, your ambition to get these materials out and to strengthen our churches in the United States and the men that are a part of the church, in particular, when it comes to this book. So thank you so much for your ministry. No worries, great chatting with you today.

Jon Tyson:

So much for your ministry, no worries, great chatting with you today.

Scott Allen:

Thanks for your time today. It's been a real blessing. Yes and thank you all as well for listening to yet another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciples. Nations Alliance.

Luke Allen:

Thank you for listening to this episode with Pastor John Tyson. I thoroughly enjoyed this discussion and I hope you did as well as always. If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any of the episodes, feel free to reach out to us, and the best way to reach us is on the episode page which is on our website, or you can always reach out to us via email. Our address is info at disciplenationsorg. And if you'd like to reach us on social media, we are Disciple Nations on Instagram and Disciple Nations Alliance on Facebook.

Luke Allen:

If you'd like to get your copy of Fighting Shadows, make sure to head to fightingshadowsco. And, as John just mentioned, if you'd like to find out more about him or his church, you can find his website, newsletter, podcast and social media handles, which are all available also on the episode page, which is linked in the show notes. Also on that page, you can find out more about the course I mentioned during today's break Monday Church our daily work for the service of man, the blessing of nations and the glory of God. So that is also available on the episode page. Thanks again for joining us. As always, the podcast Ideas have Consequences is brought to you by the Disciple Nations Alliance. To learn more about our ministry, you can find us on Instagram, facebook and YouTube, or on our website, which is disciplenationsorg you.