#309 - Kyle Thompson // TOXIC vs. TETHERED: Godly Aggression

Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit,

the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts

are Jobimartin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's

sharpen up.

Alright, welcome to a new week of the Daily Blade. Toxic, masculinity. That's the headline,

I mean, you guys have seen it all over the place. It's just kind of casually thrown out there as

an accusation and as an ace of space to end any argument about culture, right? And guys, to be

honest, I get interviewed on a lot of shows and I almost always get asked about quote-unquote toxic

masculinity, what it is, what it isn't, how to avoid it. Should we even care about it? So on

and so forth and for me, the accusation is always pretty amusing. I mean, anytime someone accuses me

of being toxically masculine or doing something in a toxically masculine category, actually look

at it as a compliment. I think you should as well. The reason is because I've dealt with people

like that for so long that I know that they, well, I know what they mean by the term toxic

masculinity, but they don't even have the foggy idea of why I act the way that I do and why I do

the things that I do and why I encourage men all over the globe to do the same things.

The reason isn't toxic masculinity. It's actually a new term that I want to introduce to

all of you so that you can start using it. Tethered masculinity. Tethered masculinity. So what is it?

It's actually pretty simple. It's the identity and actions of a man submitted to the authority

of scripture. That's it. It's the identity and the actions of a man submitted to the authority

of scripture. So this week on the Daily Blade, we're going to look at five different cultural

claims, things that the culture would say is toxic masculinity, but we're going to set the record

straight and show how it is actually tethered masculinity. So cultural claim number one that we're

going to look at is masculine aggression is toxic. So this is one of the main things thrown out

there by our atheistic culture that hates God, hates men and resents the blessings that have come

from men acting like men. They say that men being aggressive, which is shown by their competitiveness,

their intensity, and sometimes even violence, makes men as a whole dangerous. But with most

things from our sick and depraved culture, they get the description kind of right, but the prescription

is completely messed up. So they will say that since men have used their aggression to hurt people

throughout history, which is obviously insertifiably true, that masculinity in and of itself is toxic

and should be suppressed if not outright destroyed. But again, what's the theme for this week?

It's about displaying tethered masculinity. Because here's the difference when men do not tether

their masculinity to what the Bible says, what God says, then the overwhelming likelihood is that

they will indeed use their masculine aggression improperly, and it will lead to destruction.

So what does tethered masculine aggression look like? Let's actually go to John 2, starting in verse

13, this is right after the wedding in Kena, where Jesus did his first public miracle of turning

water into wine. The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,

and the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the moneychangers

sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep

in the oxen, and he poured out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables,

and he told those who sold pigeons, take these things away, do not make my father's house,

a house of trade. His disciples remembered that it was written,

zeal for your house will consume me. So right there, that's the line of Judah. It's premeditated,

righteous, aggressive violence. Yes, violence. And people will sometimes read this and just

picture Jesus driving the animals out like, you know, kind of this angry farmer or cowboy,

but they forget that Jesus drove the people out, not just the animals, and he did it with a whip

that he made for the occasion. But did Jesus just see something that made a mad and then he

just decided to go crazy and break stuff and scare people because he had, you know, an uncontrollable

fit of rage? Well, no, that would have been toxic masculinity. You see, he got angry and express

his physical righteous aggression because people had to file the temple grounds by scheming and

stealing in order to make money. Now, super aggro, aggressive guys love that Jesus did this

at the beginning of his ministry. And they love that Jesus did it again, you know, the week of

its crucifixion as we see in Matthew 21, Mark 11 and Luke 19. But this wasn't aggression without

restraint. That's just immaturity. That's toxic. It was aggression under submission to God and

in defense of his moral mandates. So do you listen to this? Have you bought into the cultural lie

that your masculine aggression is somehow toxic? If you haven't, have you tethered your masculine

aggression to God's word and his will for your life? Keep those questions in mind today.

Rating and Review. Stay Sharp.