Ancient societies were prolific in producing heroes for their men to follow. Those ancient heroes articulated who society needed men to be. Proper masculine role models created men, so the ancient world offered a pantheon of masculine ideals. They did not tell the story of actual men but of aspirations. They told heroic tales of men like Odysseus, Hercules, and Achilles.

It’s easy to imagine ancient Greek boys growing up with images of these men in their minds. Look like them. Act like them. Become a man like them. Possibly even die like them, but by so doing acquire their honor and glory. That is what any Greek boy could aspire to become. Heroic stories became the foundation of Greek and Roman culture, their identity as a people, their aspirations as adolescents.

We naturally think that the Bible offers similar but distinctly Christian alternatives to those heroic lives to inspire us and show us our own path toward proper manhood. After all, the Bible is full of men. We slap these biblical figures on flannel boards, imagining them as our own pantheon of greats. We hope they can serve as our own masculine role models. They had Hercules; we have Samson. They had Hector; we have David. They had Odysseus; we have Abraham. But as we spend time in these biblical stories, we soon find that the Bible isn’t very good at meeting our expectations for heroes. Sure, you can imagine men like Moses as a hero, standing toe to toe against the most powerful ruler in the world. David fearless before giants. Or Abraham, who set out on the adventure of a lifetime and fathered a nation.

But those are only selective memories of their lives. Their full stories are filled with fear, insecurity, anger, misdirection, disappointments, and devastating sins. Moses was constantly afraid and frustrated.