Titus 2:1-8

“As for you, Titus, promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching. ² Teach the older men to exercise self-control, to be worthy of respect, and to live wisely. They must have sound faith and be filled with love and patience. ³ Similarly, teach the older women to live in a way that honors God. They must not slander others or be heavy drinkers.^[a] Instead, they should teach others what is good. ⁴ These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, ⁵ to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God. ⁶ In the same way, encourage the young men to live wisely. ⁷ And you yourself must be an example to them by doing good works of every kind. Let everything you do reflect the integrity and seriousness of your teaching.⁸ Teach the truth so that your teaching can’t be criticized. Then those who oppose us will be ashamed and have nothing bad to say about us.”

So are you a mature man? If not are you a:  

1. Moldable Man – Younger Men, Verse 6

Interestingly after pointing out six qualities for older men to emulate, when it comes to younger men  Paul now only points out one: 

1. Live Wisely 

This is not because they won’t be required to reach for the other five qualities as they grow up and grey, but because the first step in the process is to surrender your passions to Christ. If you don’t you will forever be the bull in the china shop, instead of being a blessing you will be a bruiser. Guys mentoring matters, we are called to encouraging young men and they desperately need our encouragement. Look they don’t need a lecture they need life lessons. What about you, are you encouraging or discouraging others by the way that you are living your life? 

Elephants in Africa game parks were relocate to thin the herds. The problems was hat they took the younger imature males because they were easier to transport. Soon there was a problem in the other parks, rangers started finding dead rhinos so they set up cameras only to discovered that these adolescent elephants were maruding around in groups killing rhinos. They theorized that in the absence of older bull elephants these younger elephants were left without any model of what they were supposed to do. So they brought in some older bull elephants and within weeks this violent behavior stopped. In a short time, the younger elephants were following the older and more dominant bulls around while learning how to be elephants. The same thing is happening in our country young men are not acting like men because their only experience of modeling the behaviors of men had been taught by their peers and not by their fathers. Societies solution to this problem is more police, scriptures solution is not police its parents. Look real men protect the vulnerable, not assault them because the most basic tenet of manhood to protect is not the job of the police it’s the job of fathers. What men are you modeling your life after?