When I talk about masculinity, people often assume I’ve always had it. They assume that because I wrote a book about it, I must have been born with some natural understanding of what it means to be a man. That I’ve always walked confidently in it. That I’m speaking from a place of lifelong mastery.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The reality is that I didn’t always understand masculinity at all. I had to learn it. And more importantly, I had to relearn it—because for a long time, I accepted a definition that was never meant to shape me in the first place. I didn’t get my understanding of manhood from Scripture. I absorbed it from the culture. From the noise. From voices that spoke loudly and confidently, but not truthfully.

I shamefully took my definition of masculinity from feminist ideology instead of the Word of God.

I didn’t do it because I hated men. I didn’t do it because I wanted to reject strength or leadership. I did it because that definition was everywhere. It was presented as moral. As enlightened. As compassionate. And questioning it came with consequences. You were either “evolved,” or you were a problem. You were either safe, or you were dangerous.

So I adapted.

I learned to distrust masculine instincts instead of disciplining them. I learned to apologize for confidence. I learned to question leadership before I ever questioned passivity. I learned to associate masculinity with harm instead of responsibility. And over time, I stopped measuring myself by God’s design and started measuring myself by cultural approval.

That shift didn’t make me better. It made me confused.

Because the problem with borrowing definitions from ideologies is that they don’t just redefine words—they redefine identity. And when masculinity is framed primarily as something that must be restrained, softened, or explained away, men don’t become virtuous. They become hesitant. They become unsure of themselves. They become disconnected from purpose.

What I eventually had to face was this: masculinity didn’t need to be dismantled. It needed to be redeemed.

Biblical masculinity is not feminism’s caricature of dominance or cruelty. But it is also not weakness disguised as humility. It is strength under authority. Leadership with accountability. Courage anchored in obedience to God. And I didn’t understand that because I had never been taught to look for masculinity in Scripture—I was taught to look for it through cultural filters.

Unlearning that took time. It took honesty. And it took the willingness to admit that I had been wrong, not just about masculinity, but about where I was getting my truth from.

So when I speak about masculinity now, I’m not speaking as someone who always had it figured out. I’m speaking as someone who had to confront his own misunderstanding, repent of it, and rebuild his understanding from the ground up—starting not with ideology, but with the Word of God.