Capítulo 1
The Manhood Revolution: Reclaiming Purpose in a Confused World
When Edwin Louis Cole published "Maximized Manhood" in 1982, he couldn't have anticipated its explosive impact. The book has since been translated into over forty languages and sold nearly two million copies worldwide. What began as a divine inspiration during a flight to Oregon has sparked a global movement of men reclaiming their God-given responsibilities. Cole's work gained particular resonance during a period when traditional gender roles were being radically redefined, offering a spiritual counterpoint to cultural shifts that left many men adrift. Celebrities from the Christian world like Pat Robertson embraced Cole's teachings, while secular figures acknowledged the growing "crisis of masculinity" his work addressed. The book's enduring popularity speaks to its timeless relevance-men across generations continue to seek the balance between strength and tenderness, leadership and service that Cole articulates as the essence of true manhood.
Capítulo 2
The Maximum Sentence: A Call to Moral Clarity
Flying to Oregon for a men's retreat, Cole sensed an unusual weightiness about his upcoming ministry. For weeks, he had been praying for the right words to address five hundred men across two retreats, deeply concerned about the moral pollution disintegrating modern manhood.
The breakthrough came through Campbell McAlpine's teaching on 1 Corinthians 10, which listed five reasons the Israelites failed to enter Canaan: lust, idolatry, fornication, tempting Christ, and murmuring. As Cole meditated on these sins, fornication particularly stood out. He recalled countless people-friends, preachers, politicians-who had missed their "Promised Land" because of sexual sin.
That evening in Oregon, standing before men in a rustic chapel among pine trees, Cole felt an accelerating excitement. After leading them through a confession of Christ's lordship and a prayer of agreement, he delivered what he calls his "maximum sentence": "If you are committing adultery, fornication, homosexuality, incest, habitual masturbation, indulging in pornography, gratifying yourself with sexual fantasies or any other sex sin, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to repent."
The room fell silent before hands shot up in praise and worship. The Holy Spirit filled the chapel as these men-businessmen, preachers, laborers-who had been craving direction and leadership responded to God's voice. That night, 265 men rushed forward to repent, standing wall-to-wall before God. Not one left untouched or unchanged.
This powerful moment revealed something profound: men were hungry for moral clarity and spiritual leadership. They were seeking permission to be held accountable rather than merely accommodated. The modern tendency to relabel sins as "problems" had left them without the framework for genuine transformation. Cole recognized that what these men needed wasn't sympathy for their struggles but a clear call to repentance and a path toward restoration.
Canaan Land represents mankind's maximized potential-where God fulfills His promises in our lives spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Unlike the fantasy of Shangri-la, Canaan is real. Yet like the Israelites, modern men often fail to reach it because they've lost sight of what true manhood entails.
Capítulo 3
The Crisis of Modern Masculinity: Problems vs. Sins
A young woman approached Cole after a prayer meeting, tearfully revealing that her husband, a youth minister, kept pornographic magazines by their bed, claiming he needed them for sexual stimulation. When Cole labeled him a "pornographer," she was shocked-she'd only thought of it as her husband's "problem."
This incident illustrates a profound shift in our cultural understanding. The modern era has replaced the concept of sin with "problems." We've psychologized morality, eliminating sin from our vocabulary. When confronted with adultery, fornication, or homosexuality, people prefer to call them problems requiring sympathy rather than sins requiring repentance.
This distinction isn't merely semantic-it's transformative. Problems suggest external solutions: therapy, medication, support groups. Sins demand internal transformation: repentance, forgiveness, and spiritual renewal. One approach treats symptoms; the other addresses the root.
The Bible takes a different approach than modern psychology. Paul advocated church discipline, instructing believers not to fellowship with those living in unrepentant sin. This isn't hatred but love-without consequences, sinners have no incentive to change. Human wisdom wants to cover up sin, while divine wisdom confronts it. One pastor nearly lost his church when he insisted the homosexual music minister either repent or resign.
God's wisdom differs radically from human wisdom. Our worldly sophistication brings discord and ruin, while God's wisdom is "pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and good fruits." We must stop relabeling sins as "problems" and tackle them like men.
This crisis of masculinity manifests in two common extremes: the overly feminized man who avoids confrontation and responsibility, and the hyper-masculine "macho" man who substitutes aggression for true strength. Both miss the biblical model of manhood exemplified in Christ-strong yet compassionate, principled yet merciful, decisive yet considerate.
When we transform moral failures into mere psychological problems, we strip men of both responsibility and the path to redemption. True manhood requires facing our failures squarely, taking responsibility, and seeking transformation through repentance and God's grace.
Capítulo 4
The Balance of Tenderness and Toughness
Balance is the key to life, and men must learn to be both tender and tough. During an appearance on The 700 Club, Cole debated this principle with the female co-host who insisted her husband would never be tough with her. Cole maintained that while equality exists in marriage, men must lead, requiring both toughness and tenderness.
With children, rewards must balance punishment, caresses balance spankings, and commendation balance correction. Today's society errs on the side of softness rather than toughness. Even love must be disciplined, or we'll love what kills us. A friend who lost her husband refused to move on, keeping everything unchanged and speaking of him in present tense. Her undisciplined tenderness ultimately destroyed her.
Jesus perfectly balanced tenderness and toughness. The same Jesus who embraced children drove money-changers from the temple with a whip. God wants to reproduce this Christlikeness in all men. When Jesus' life manifests in anyone, they're maximized.
Decision-making marks true manhood. While at CBN, Cole witnessed Pat Robertson decisively shut down unprofitable Housetop Records after careful analysis and prayer. His tough leadership protected the ministry's resources. Leaders make decisions based on what's best for followers, not personal preference.
Women desire men to make decisions not as dictators but as leaders. Indecisiveness creates instability, as Scripture states that the "double minded man is unstable in all his ways." When decisions prove wrong, admit it, repent, learn and move forward.
Maturity comes not with age but by accepting responsibility. Men must accept responsibility for both successes and failures. Today's runaway children often mimic runaway parents-mostly fathers. In California alone, 400,000 women lived with children because husbands abandoned their responsibilities. Many men flit from woman to woman, mistaking procreation for manhood, when they're actually immature and rootless.
Churches suffer when men forfeit spiritual leadership to women. While women can provide spirituality, strength comes from men. A church, family, or nation is only as strong as its men. Spiritual maturity requires more than salvation-it demands studying God's Word and prayer. Only through accepting responsibility, like the prodigal son, can men enter their Canaan Land of true manhood-Christlikeness.
Capítulo 5
The Priestly Role: Leading Through Service
Every house has a priest, and God has designated that role to the man. This doesn't mean families can only reach God through men, but rather that men must minister to their wives and children. This ministry requires work and real manhood, but God provides all necessary guidance.
Most men fail to recognize their priestly role. One day, a tearful woman called Cole, afraid her husband would discover their conversation. Though they were both active Christians who never missed church, her husband had never discussed spiritual matters at home in all their years of marriage. He prayed with her only once, fifteen years into their marriage, when she was sick and requested it. Though he provided materially, she felt profoundly lonely, especially after their children left home. "Please tell men across America," she pleaded, "we want them to be men."
The priest of the house must pray for his wife. Prayer produces threefold intimacy: with the one to whom you pray, for whom you pray, and with whom you pray. Moses became God's friend through prayer. When a man prays with his wife, he develops a spiritual intimacy far greater than physical union.
A woman craves intimacy by nature. When denied spiritual intimacy with her husband, she naturally seeks alternative sources. Men who know their wives in prayer know them in every room of the house. In Canada, a man approached Cole after a sermon on prayer, admitting he'd prayed with his wife for the first time in eleven years. "Today we are closer than we ever were," he reported, his wife beaming beside him.
To be a good priest, take your wife away regularly-have a honeymoon at least every six months. Pray with her, minister assurance, give her undivided attention, and fall in love again periodically. You have no options-God called you to be the priest in your home.
Ministry is loving, not just preaching. A man never stops ministering-it's his life, whether selling cars, building computers, or making corporate decisions. Many men minister to everyone except their wives, defending themselves with excuses of fatigue and work pressure. But ministry at home comes first. Modern men often trade wives while keeping businesses, failing to realize they're merely stewards, not possessors, of their wife's love.
Capítulo 6
The Power of Appreciation: Transforming Relationships
While managing a television station, Cole had to fire a young man named Tom who had all the ingredients for success yet consistently failed. This was his fifth unsuccessful attempt in ministry-he'd pastored two churches unhappily, failed in a ministry business position, struggled as an associate pastor, and now couldn't produce results at the station.
Tom, a third-generation Christian from a prominent ministerial family, had always tried riding on his heritage's coattails. His wife Sue, in contrast, came from a difficult background with a promiscuous mother who moved her through dozens of schools before she found Christ through a youth group and won a Bible College scholarship where she met Tom.
After marriage, Tom never explained the demands of being a pastor's wife to Sue. When she inevitably made mistakes, rather than patiently teaching her, Tom publicly humiliated her to cover his own embarrassment. This pattern of demeaning his wife blocked God's blessings in Tom's life and ministry.
Self-justification's process is to make yourself look right by placing blame on someone else. Tom justified himself by making Sue his scapegoat through ridicule. What he needed was to take Sue somewhere private, open his heart to her, and heal their relationship.
Cole faced a similar crisis while pastoring a struggling church in California. Working alone one afternoon on the church floor, he pounded out his frustrations to God. In response, God revealed how he'd been demeaning Nancy, making her the target of his frustration and the scapegoat for his failures. Seeing her through God's eyes-gracious, virtuous, lovely-he begged forgiveness.
That evening, Cole brought Nancy a small gift "just because I love you." At dinner, he genuinely appreciated her soup instead of criticizing. After the meal, he left a dollar bill under his plate-a significant amount for them then-as a token of appreciation. When she found it, he explained that he wanted to show his appreciation just as he would at a restaurant.
That simple change transformed their relationship. Nancy's value multiplied in both their eyes, their home improved miraculously, and their ministry leaped forward. The more he appreciated her, the lovelier she became-"the loveliest lady in the land."
This principle extends beyond marriage. Appreciation transforms all relationships. People blossom under genuine recognition. The habit of criticism, so common in many men, slowly poisons relationships and stunts growth. By contrast, consistent appreciation creates an environment where others can thrive and develop their full potential.
Capítulo 7
Change Begins at the Top: The Buck Stops Here
Change always comes from the top. If it doesn't, it will come from revolution at the bottom. This principle applies to businesses, churches, and especially families. The man needs to change so his family can change. He sets the example.
Al, a professional troubleshooter for failing businesses, discovered a consistent pattern: "No company that is sick can be healed and made financially healthy unless the man at the head is willing to change." His standard approach was to investigate operations, finances, and interview personnel, but he always spent significant time with the company head. Invariably, his recommendations included changes the leader needed to make in methods, motives, attitudes, relationships, or lifestyle.
But intention to change isn't change-most people judge others by their actions but themselves by their intentions. America spends millions on juvenile delinquency prevention and women's programs, then sends children and wives back to homes where men remain unchanged.
A rehabilitated child and reformed wife will find only frustration when returning to an unchanged man. The man is the head of the house: change must start with him.
God has planned for someone to take charge. Men-it is you. The Bible in Ephesians 5:23 names the man as the head of the house, comparing him to Christ as the head of the Church. As Christ provides solutions to the Church's problems, so should men provide solutions for their families.
After a meeting in Phoenix, a couple approached Cole about their runaway daughter. The wife did all the talking while her husband stood back. When they returned later with their daughter, Cole spoke with the thirteen-year-old privately. She revealed her frustration: "He never listens. He never accepts my side of the argument, and he blames me for everything."
Cole challenged the father with a condition: for thirty days, his daughter could say anything she wanted to him, and he could only listen without responding. Three months later, Cole returned to find a transformed family. The father had listened to his daughter and realized he was wrong in many ways. When he apologized and asked for forgiveness, their relationship began to heal.
Men who abdicate their leadership responsibilities are passing the buck-a pattern of self-justification that began with Adam in Eden. When men blame others instead of taking responsibility, they teach their children to do the same. The solution to family problems begins with the father accepting responsibility rather than seeking revenge or punishment.
Capítulo 8
The Art of Listening: Ministry Through Attention
A successful insurance salesman revealed his secret to a convention: "You can get a man to do anything you want him to, if you only listen to him long enough." This basic sales principle-listening until you hear the need, then meeting it-applies powerfully to relationships.
Listening is not random hearing but ministry. God repeatedly says, "He that hath an ear, let him hear." The father instructed to listen silently to his daughter for thirty days learned that men must learn to listen. We must study our wives and children in light of God's Word, listening to learn as the first step toward ministering to them.
A revealing poll showed 75% of men thought their marriages were fine, while only 25% of their wives agreed-meaning 50% of men had marriage problems they didn't even recognize because they weren't listening. Large corporations spend thousands teaching executives to listen because without this skill, it's impossible to locate needs.
Men and women process information differently-men are "head-liners" focused on the big picture, while women are "fine print people" noticing details. This difference appears in how men briefly summarize their day while women seek elaboration. The man of the house must be everything to his home that Christ is to the Church-a leader, steward, priest, and minister-counselor.
The sin of omission is humanity's basic sin-we don't get in trouble for what we do but what we don't do. Just as sinners are separated from God not for their actions but for failing to receive Christ, husbands frustrate wives not by their actions but their inactions. When communication stops, relationships die.
Today's society suffers from absent fathers-physically or emotionally. Studies show the average American father gives only thirty-five seconds of undivided attention to his child daily. The absentee father-physically present but emotionally absent-is the curse of our day.
Television has created distorted images of manhood that traumatize our youth. From Homer Simpson to Ed Bundy, foolish, incompetent fathers are portrayed as figures to be mocked and disrespected. These images powerfully shape the minds of children, who then transfer these negative stereotypes to their own fathers.
One frustrated father couldn't understand his son's attitude despite providing all life's necessities. He failed to realize he'd allowed television to create authority images in his son's mind. When the son saw flaws in his father, he identified him with the negative TV caricatures and responded with the same contempt.
Capítulo 9
Maturity: The Heart of Manhood
In the twenty years since writing the original edition, Cole observed that the world changed dramatically. Today's crisis isn't merely absentee fathers but "fatherlessness"-an absence of concern for family. Columbia University researchers found children in single-mother homes fared better than those with unconcerned fathers present. This fatherlessness, caused by men's immaturity, has become a pandemic problem worldwide.
You're only young once, but you can live immature for a lifetime. God commends childlikeness but scorns childishness. When a man acts childishly, it forces his wife to act like his mother-and you can't make love to your mother. Though men often blame their wives for intimacy problems, calling them frigid or unsympathetic, the truth is these women understand their husbands' immaturity too well.
Pornography exemplifies modern male childishness-promising intimacy but providing only self-gratification. It's a form of idolatry where a man creates mental images that become objects of worship through habitual masturbation.
Maturity doesn't come with age but begins with accepting responsibility. The first Adam refused responsibility for his actions, while Jesus Christ (the last Adam) accepted responsibility for the entire world's actions. Every man can choose to be merely male, a man, or a covenant man.
Jesus compared the men of his generation to children playing games, complaining when others wouldn't follow their arbitrary rules. Today's equivalent is men telling wives "my way or the highway" or religious leaders refusing fellowship with those who don't follow their traditions-childish behavior with devastating consequences.
The heart, not the mind, is where our true nature resides. Dr. Pearsall discovered this when doctors couldn't diagnose his cancer until he insisted on tests that confirmed what his heart was telling him. Remarkably, the heart forms before the brain in the womb. Scripture confirms this priority: "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."
Jesus commanded us to love God with our whole heart first, then soul, mind and body-in that order. Religious men may honor God with lips, mind and body, but their hearts remain distant. Divorce happens when love grows cold in the heart or when a man loves only with mind and body.
The decline in morality follows the waning of love for God. As long as divorce remains an option, you can never fully commit to the marriage covenant. Marriage, like salvation, is a covenant, not merely a contract. It's all a matter of the heart-the source of both evil and good.
Capítulo 10
Legacy: A Father's Greatest Achievement
Your talent can take you where your character can't sustain you-true for athletes, CEOs, and preachers alike. A father's greatest legacy is the character he instills in his children, and "That's my dad!" are among the most rewarding words a man can hear.
Government cannot force parents to love their children or keep promises. Divorce devastates children-as one child put it, "My childhood stopped when my parents divorced." Judith Wallerstein's 25-year study shows children of divorce never fully recover from it. Society must affirm traditional marriage, teach parents to love their children, and strengthen families.
A man's life is founded on stewardship, relationship and leadership-all vital with children. Fatherhood is sacred; children should be products of love, not lust. Any male can conceive a child, but only a man can father one. We're responsible for raising "G" rated children in an "X" rated world, which requires quality time-there's no substitute for giving yourself.
Abraham, the father of faith, commanded his family and passed down essential practices: obtaining righteousness by faith, tithing, rescuing others, and leading his family. He fulfilled four key responsibilities: circumcising his son (spiritually nurturing), giving an inheritance, teaching a trade, and finding a wife. Sons can inherit ministries but not anointing-they must get that from God alone. A father should teach his son a work ethic and prepare him for life, while also teaching the sacredness of marriage.
Being a good father is earth's noblest calling, with stepfathers needing even more grace as they must earn authority rather than having it birthed into the family. A man must be equally faithful to stepchildren as to his own. The father serves as priest for the family-no man has the right to talk to his children about God until he has talked to God about his children.
After nearly fifty years of ministry and fifty-four years of marriage, Cole still believes living for Christ is earth's greatest adventure. When a friend asked for his input on his life, Cole answered: "Faded glory!" Like wallpaper needing replacement or the fire of early faith dimming to smoke, many Christians, marriages, businesses and even America itself suffer from faded glory-living in the afterglow of what once was.
Nancy said it best: "Edwin, let's not just fade away, but let's burn out for Jesus." While General MacArthur noted that old soldiers fade away, that's the way of flesh, not God! Cole wanted to be fired up until he died. Today is the best day of our lives, not some nostalgic past. God's glory never fades-people do. His glory remains the same yesterday, today and forever, and we've been born into an inheritance that is imperishable and unfading.
