Reader's Study Guide - Ambassador Speakers Bureau

Reader’s Guide Questions for Wes Yoder’s Bond of Brothers
1. What did you learn from your fatherboth good and badabout what it means to
be a man? What do you admire in him? In what ways would you not want to be like
your father? Why?
2. How does knowing your fathers life-story help you understand why he was silent
about his struggles? In what ways does this knowledge provide understanding of
your own sorrows and help you overcome silence regarding the things you care
about most deeply?
3. Wes writes that the fears that come to a man in the tough years are immense.
What fears have the tough years brought for you? What do you believe God
desires to accomplish in you during this period, which is often filled with fear?
4. Consider the following questions Wes posed to his Dinner & Conversation group
one evening: What is your deepest need right now in this season of your life? What
gives you joy?
5. How does Gods gentleness, of all things, make us great (Psalm 18:35)? What is
the connection between this seldom-talked-about virtue in our own lives and its
ability to produce greatness in a world consumed by the notion that conquest in
business, sports, and relationships produces greatness?
6. The power of Jesus Christ is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). How then
is choosing to reveal only our strengths to others and not our weaknesses wishful
thinking about our true identity? In what ways does hiding our weaknesses from
one another impede the flow of wisdom and Gods power among men?
7. Why are confession and forgiveness your keys to life, as Wes puts it, to the
fullness of your manhood, and to making life the adventure God designed it to be
for you (7879)? Which is worse and potentially more damaging to you: the
hardened bitterness of unforgiveness and a shroud of secrecy regarding your sins
and sorrows, or the risk of opening your heart and being wounded again? Why?
8. To be healthy in your relationships with God and with people, writes Wes, learn
to distinguish good voices from bad so you can reject those that repeat only wornout
lies from the enemy of your soul (92). What voices do you currently hear
speaking to you from both sides? What lies or half-truths do you accept as the truth
about you? How do you discern whether a thought has a good or evil origin?
9. What makes your marriage strong, and what makes it weak?
10. Wes says that beauty and honor are the two most powerful driving forces in men,
but that beauty and honor must be alive together, or both will die (113). The
pursuit of beauty, he notes, apart from honor can lead to pornography, and honor
divorced from beauty can lead to harshness or legalism. Reflect upon the need for
beauty and honor to live together side by side in light of King Davids struggles

throughout his life to bring both together. As a result of your struggles, in what ways
do you now share (or not yet share) Davids one desire to gaze on the beauty of
the Lord?
11. How has pornography affected your view of women?
12. The act of homemaking is usually spoken of as a womans responsibility, but how
do you see your role as a man in making your home a place of both beauty and
honor? What do you want your home to be in the next twenty years?
13. What have you learned from the hardships youve been through? Has the value of
what you discovered surpassed the cost of your sorrows? What does it mean to
allow Jesusthe Man of Sorrows, acquainted with griefinto your sorrows and to
enter, as the apostle Paul puts it, into the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings
(Phil. 3:10)?
14. What is the greatest sorrow of your life? What is your greatest fear?
15. Reflecting on his disappointing experience with an accountability group, Wes
writes, we did not live out of our weaknesses or understand authenticity. Ideas
about church and Jesus flourished, but Jesus was not the center of our life
together (142143). What does it mean for a group of men to center their shared
life together on Jesus? How are you living this out in your relationships with other
men today?
16. Wes writes, A man who is unsure of love acts in anger and must lose himself in a
cause or a set of rules to find a sense of identity (156). Do you agree? Why or why
not? Do you believe you are deeply loved by God? Why or why not?
17. How has placing a high value on performance and results caused you to
misconstrue Jesus statement to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect?
How have your performance-oriented expectations affected the way you view the
body of Christ and the way you consequently relate to other men within the church?
18. In what ways does your awareness of and cooperation with Gods Spirit, who is
alive and at work inside you, transform the way you relate with others in your
journey as a Christ-man?
19. Make a list of things that might be evidence of something lacking in manhood. Be
honest about which item on the list most accurately describes your struggle.
20. With a group of friends, discuss what characteristics describe authentic manhood.
21. Men are shaped by what they love. What do you love?