Jeff Foxworthy candidly shares his journey to understanding biblical manhood and fatherhood, admitting his own upbringing presented challenges and required him to learn from others and seek divine guidance.



Legendary comedian and actor Jeff Foxworthy says biblical manhood and fatherhood didn’t come naturally to him because of his own father’s frailties, and that he learned how to be a dad only by watching others and seeking God’s guidance.

“He was married six times, drank, smoked, cussed, told dirty jokes,” Foxworthy said during a “Conversation on Biblical Manhood” event sponsored by The Church of Eleven22 in Jacksonville, Fla., and hosted by pastor Joby Martin with Ali Parsons. Men from a range of backgrounds participated, including Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and Texas pastor Matt Chandler.

“I didn't know how to be a good husband. I didn't know how to be a good dad – but I could see guys that were good husbands, and I could see guys that were good dads, and I knew enough to go pick their brain,” Foxworthy said. “And I'm like: ‘How do I stay married? You know, my dad can't stay married three years. How do I stay married? How do I be a good dad?’”

Foxworthy cited a quote on a small card tucked inside his Bible: “Please break my heart with the things that break your heart.”

“And I think God is brokenhearted the way manhood has kind of crumbled,” Foxworthy said, referencing society at large.

Martin, pastor of The Church of Eleven22, said modern society has lost a clear understanding of what it means to become a man. Church Leaders first reported on the event.

“We are one of the few societies in all of human history that does not have a differentiation between boy and man,” Martin said. “And for almost all of written human history, there was only two classifications of male – there were boys and there were men. And men bestowed manhood on a generation of boys. And in the last 80 years, 100 years, there's a new classification we call adolescence – or a dude. And a dude is a dangerous thing – and there's nothing more dangerous than boys trying to bestow manhood on other boys.”

Foxworthy added in agreement: “It's the freedoms of adulthood with the responsibilities of childhood, and we’ve got a bunch of guys locked right in there with that, and it's not a good combination.”

Tebow recounted a humorous story about the sense of responsibility he felt when he and his wife, Demi-Leigh Tebow, drove their newborn daughter home from the hospital. He was anxious.

“I was locked in – and Demi's laughing,” he said, noting his hands were firmly at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel. “She's in the back with our little girl, and she's filming me.

“... I was not fumbling this one.”

The “level of responsibility” he felt to protect his child, he said, is the “level of responsibility we should always feel as men, as believers – the responsibility that God has bestowed on us and what we've been called to do.

“And it shouldn't just be in that one-time moment,” Tebow said.

Foxworthy said Christians are the “worst advertisement for the thing we believe in.”

“I sit there every single morning on my porch and go, ‘God, do not let me sit on the judgment seat today. That is not my job. Do not let me judge people.’ And tomorrow morning, ‘I'm going to be sitting up back out there, going, ‘Sorry about yesterday. Please don't let me sit on the judgment seat today.’”

That realization, he said, reminds him daily of his own need for grace.

“I need a Savior,” Foxworthy said.

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