The Week In Review

One Good Thing This Week

This week, I had the privilege of spending time with Dr. Dwight Perry, the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Dr. Perry was an early advocate for gender-based, intergenerational discipleship. He understood something the church desperately needs to recover: Men need older men.

Scripture assumes this… "What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also" [2 Timothy 2:2].

Paul had Timothy. Timothy was commanded to find faithful men. Those men were expected to invest in other men. Christianity has always moved forward through spiritual fathers and sons.

Dr. Perry described three kinds of mentors [what I would call guides or interpreters]:

Specialists: Men who can teach you something specific. Leadership. Marriage. Fatherhood. Theology. Finances. You may only need them for one stretch of the road, but God uses them to sharpen you.

Remote/Dead Mentors: Men you may never meet, but whose wisdom still speaks. Augustine. Calvin. Spurgeon. Lewis. The Puritans. There is something profoundly humbling about allowing men from another century to challenge the assumptions of your own.

Generalists: These are the men who know your whole life. They know your family, your weaknesses, your patterns, your ambitions, your blind spots. They don’t simply help you become better at what you do. They help you become more like Christ.

I love that framework. You don’t need one mentor. You need a table of mentors.

Some should be dead. Some should know your profession. And a few should know your soul. Discipleship was never meant to be self-guided. The Bible says, "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise" [Proverbs 13:20].

Men ahead of you. Men beside you. Men speaking from the grave. And eventually, you need men coming behind you. That is the rhythm of biblical discipleship. Receive what has been entrusted to you. Live it faithfully. Then hand it to another man.

This week, Dr. Perry handed me a few things. It was a good week.

Something Beautiful This Week

I went on a date with my wife this week. Fajitas. Margaritas. Then candle shopping at HomeGoods.

That is marriage, gentlemen.

You spend part of the evening eating sizzling meat and the rest debating whether your house needs to smell like Autumn Cashmere or Coastal Linen.

I have no idea what either of those things are supposed to smell like. But I loved it. Not because candle shopping is secretly one of my passions. It is not. But because I was with her.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that a good marriage is built in moments that seem almost too ordinary to mention. Dinner. Errands. Laughing in the car. Walking around a store you would never enter by yourself. The Bible says, "Rejoice in the wife of your youth" [Proverbs 5:18].

That word rejoice gets me. God doesn’t merely call me to stay married to my wife. He calls me to enjoy her. To delight in her. To keep choosing her, noticing her, laughing with her.

Marriage doesn’t stay warm on autopilot. You have to keep putting wood on the fire.

Sometimes that means a weekend away. Sometimes it means flowers. And sometimes it means fajitas, margaritas, and pretending you have a strong opinion about candles.

She’s still the prettiest girl I know…

Know someone who needs a lil' good trouble? Sharing is caring…

Give a gift subscription

Something Worth Imitating/Remembering

The math of success is brutal…

Frank Sinatra — 1,200 songs, 209 hits (17%)

Babe Ruth — 8,399 attempts, 714 home runs (8.5%)

Pablo Picasso — 150,000 pieces. 1,170 hits (0.7%)

Only those willing to take a beating and keep swinging will make it.

My 3 Favorite Quotes of the Week

"You pity the moth confusing a lamp for the moon, yet here you are confusing a screen for the world." — Anonymous

"You can judge your friends by their reactions when you win." — Anonymous

"Samson laid his head in Delilah's lap looking for love. But intimacy without discernment is how strength gets stolen." — Anonymous

Bonus… Solid gold from Saint Elisabeth:

Something I Found Interesting This Week

This stat is staggering: 30% of young men [Gen Z] gamble, watch porn, and game daily… Almost 1 in 3 are hitting the trifecta of vices.

Think about what the vices have in common. They offer men risk without any responsibility. Men, by nature, are risk-takers. Something in us wants adventure. Competition. Conquest. The possibility of winning and losing. We want something on the line.

That impulse isn’t necessarily sinful. Properly ordered, it is incredibly useful. Men have crossed oceans. Started businesses. Planted churches. Fought wars. Built homes. Pursued women. Raised families. Walked away from safe careers because they believed God was calling them toward something harder.

But today we are living in a time when, as my friend Fernando says, we are inundated with the "ability to take cheaper risks…"

Thought… The answer to cheap risk isn’t no risk. It’s better risk. Young men do not need lives made safer and easier. They need something worthy of putting their lives on the line for.

Book(s) I Read This Week

Reading Piper’s Astonished By God this week. The book is basically Piper’s last ten sermons at Bethlehem. The final 10 things he wanted to teach/re-teach his parishioners. So good.

Chapter 9, on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, is worth the price of admission. His illustration is incredible. Read it in the book, or you can listen to it below.

If you got time, watch the whole thing… If not, pick up at 13:20… So good.

Song(s) I Listened To This Week

A great reminder and pick-me-up this morning… Go ahead, turn it up to 11.

What God Taught Me This Week

"You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." — Deuteronomy 6:7

My kids went back to school this week. Back to school means back to routines. Early mornings. Breakfast. Backpacks. Drop-off. Bedtimes. I was reminded… Repetition is everything.

Notice the method God gives us for discipleship, "… teach them diligently to your children… talk of them when you sit in your house… when you walk by the way… when you lie down… when you rise."

Again and again and again. God loves repetition.

The show Blue’s Clues understood this; it was one of the most effective early-childhood-teaching television shows. It is said that Blue’s Clues beat out Sesame Street by improving on their model. How did they do it? There was only one episode a week. The same episode aired Monday through Friday each week.

Repetition. Blue’s Clues repeated important teaching again, and again, and again, becoming the most successful children’s show ever.

Discipleship is a lot like Blue’s Clues… Say the same true things again.

Tell the truth.
Love your brother.
Keep your word.
Jesus is King.

Again tomorrow.

We often confuse repetition with failure… "I already told him that." Yes. Tell him again. Discipleship is not built on constant novelty. It is built through faithful repetition.

Eugene Peterson called it "a long obedience in the same direction." You could call fatherhood the same thing. Same Bible. Same gospel. Same Jesus. Same direction.

Again tomorrow.

Looking to connect in person? Here are some places I’ll be in the next few weeks:

KC Men’s Conference, August 29, Graceway, Kansas City, MO

Sunday Service, August 30, Graceway, Kansas City, MO

Men’s Round Up, September 11-13, Camp Tadmor, OR

Texas Men’s Discipleship Forum, September 17, Arlington, TX

Brothers, my pledge to you…

"You will never suffer at my hands. I will never say nor do anything knowingly to hurt you. If you're down and I can lift you up, I'll do that. I will always, in every circumstance, seek to help and support you. If you need something and I have it, I'll give it to you. No matter what I find out about you, no matter what happens in the future, either good or bad, my commitment to you will never change."

For the King,

—Harp