The Week In Review

October 25, 2025

Oct 25, 2025

One Good Thing This Week

Read a piece by

this week on what he calls disordered masculinity. Disordered masculinity is not the absence of power but the misuse of it. It is Adam reaching for fruit instead of responsibility; Cain grasping for recognition instead of reverence; David taking Bathsheba instead of protecting her. These men were not weak—in the moment(s) they were ungoverned. They have all the raw material of manhood, but it’s aimed in the wrong direction.

Bradley talks about three types of men:

1. The Self-Serving Man
He views every relationship through the lens of personal gain. People are not image-bearers to love but assets to leverage. His friendships are transactional, his marriage contractual, and his leadership conditional. His driving question is: "What’s in this for me?" This man may appear ambitious, but beneath the surface, his ambition is parasitic. He attaches himself to others only as long as they feed his ego or advance his agenda. Like Samson, he uses his strength for self-gratification rather than covenant faithfulness.

2. The Self-Centered Man
His world has only one orbit—his own. Every conversation, decision, and situation must somehow return to him. He does not serve; he performs. He does not lead; he demands. His driving question is: "What does this have to do with me?" Such men cannot see beyond their own reflection. They confuse leadership with spotlight and identity with applause. In Scripture, Saul embodies this posture, so concerned with public approval that he disobeys God to protect his image.

3. The Self-Preserving Man
He builds his life around comfort and safety. Sacrifice feels optional. His motto is survival, not service. His driving question is: “How does this keep me from experiencing any discomfort?” He avoids hard conversations, hard work, and holy suffering. Like Pilate, he washes his hands instead of taking a stand. He confuses peace with passivity and wisdom with cowardice.

Together, these types form a distorted trinity of modern manhood: serving self, centering self, and preserving self. Each is a corruption of the original design: men created to serve God, center their lives on His glory, and preserve the good of others. When the self becomes the axis of a man’s life, everything else—family, faith, and purpose—spins out of order.

A good and convicting word.

Something Beautiful This Week

I read this excerpt by a mom with an autistic son this week… absolutely beautiful:

"Your son might work in a grocery store bagging groceries for the rest of his life," someone said to me right after my son Jack was diagnosed with autism. The words stuck with me for years.
I thought about them when he was in kindergarten. When he started fifth grade. When he was a teenager.

Fast-forward. Jack is twenty-one now. Today marks six weeks at his new job. He works in a grocery store. He cuts fruit in the produce department. In this life alongside autism, I’ve learned it’s not always about the destination, but how you got there in the first place.

He filled out applications.
He went on interviews.
He studied the bus schedule and wore his best shirt.
And he got a job.

I’ve learned that a life lived differently is not a life less lived."
Carrie Cariello

Well done, Mrs. Carrie.

Something Worth Imitating

I've been reading lots of history the last few weeks, and I have determined [with the help of G.K. Chesterton] that there are three types of people when it comes to the things they love: their country, their church, their family, even their faith.

The Nationalists love the thing so much that they become blind to its flaws. Their loyalty becomes idolatry. They cannot bear the thought that what they love might be broken, so they defend it even when it’s wrong. Their love turns to blindness.

The Anarchists hate the thing so much that they can see no good in it. Their cynicism becomes destruction. They’d rather burn it to the ground than believe there’s anything worth saving. Their hate turns to blindness, too—just in the other direction.

But the Loyalists, the rare few, love the thing so deeply that they are willing to face its faults. They will tear it down brick by brick if that’s what it takes to rebuild it stronger. Their love is not sentimental; it’s redemptive. They are not blind to what is wrong, nor ashamed about what is right. They love enough to reform, not just to defend or destroy.

Imitate the Loyalists.

Would you help me spread the word? Remember, sharing is caring.

My 3 Favorite Quotes of the Week

"God will not protect you from anything that will make you more like Jesus." —Elisabeth Elliot

"You don’t stand before God… you stand behind Jesus. It’s our only chance." — Josh Lackie

"Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions." — Primo Levi

Stat(s) I Found Interesting This Week

The Cooperative Election Study has been asking about religious affiliation since 2008. The total sample size in 2008 was 32,800. The 2024 survey was 60,000.

These are state-level estimates of the share who claim NO religious affiliation.

My Favorite Pic This Week

This image is of a man in the Jewish Brigade, a segment of the British Army that fought the Germans in Italy in 1944. The rocket says, "Hitler’s Gift."

Book(s) I Read This Week

I read a series of books, poems, and other material centered on the Holocaust as I prepared for Auschwitz this week. One of the books is Night by Elie Wiesel.

Wiesel writes something that is haunting:

"They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions."

The 'they' are the Holocaust deniers and anyone who would belittle or lessen the plight and history of the Jews.

Brothers, there is no denying what I have seen and heard this week. And though I have never denied the Holocaust, I certainly have not given it much thought. I’ve asked the Lord to forgive me. Forgive me for not paying enough attention to His people. Forgive me for being ignorant and callous towards history.

Below are renderings from children who were at Auschwitz. Most of the children were murdered. Some managed to exercise childlike imagination and creativity before reality, cruelty, and death struck…

Song(s) I Listened To This Week

Took my wife to see Lyle Lovett last week… He opened with Pass Me Not. It was incredible.

What God Taught Me This Week

"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." —2 Corinthians 4:8–9

This week, I spent two days in Krakow, Poland, visiting Auschwitz I & II [Birkenau]. Not able to bear many more of the stories, at one point I asked the guide, "Why didn’t the Jews just overrun the camp [often outnumbering the guards 30-1]… Why didn’t they fight back?"

"We did," the guide said. "We lived, and we keep living."

On those hallowed grounds, I saw the human capacity for hate and hope. In one of the darkest chapters of human history, resilience took on a sacred form. For many, living and the hope of a future life became both a protest and a form of preservation.

Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist and survivor of Auschwitz, wrote that everything can be taken from a person “but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” Frankl watched men die standing up inside, even when their bodies were wasting away. He concluded that hope—anchored not in circumstance but in meaning—was the difference between despair and endurance.

God showed me that resilience is not denial. It’s defiance. It’s the soul saying, “You can strip me of everything but not my faith, not my dignity, not my God.” And true resilience is resurrection faith, the stubborn belief that light will have the final word.

Thought… When your world feels small and suffocating, practice the same holy defiance:

Remember that God has never abandoned His people, not once. And He will not abandon you.

Refuse to let bitterness be your final word. Hope trumps all.

Resolve to believe that your suffering is not meaningless in the hands of a Redeemer. God will allow what He hates to accomplish what he loves.

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

Iron Sharpens Iron, November 1, Georgetown, TX 78628

BetterMan Michigan, November 8, Brighton, MI [Church 2/42]

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