Hebrews 11 is a roll call.
The writer goes through the Old Testament saints by name. Abel. Enoch. Noah. Abraham. Sarah. Isaac. Jacob. Joseph. Moses. Rahab. Gideon. Barak. Samson. Jephthah. David. Samuel. Each one named. Each one with a sentence or two about what they did by faith.
The chapter is not an anonymous tribute. It is a list of names.
There is a reason for this. God remembers names. Christ said the Father knows the number of hairs on your head. Revelation says there is a book of life with names written in it. The Lamb's bride is not described as a crowd. She is described as a city with names on the gates.
Naming matters.
“And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets…” Hebrews 11:32
The writer of Hebrews almost runs out of room. There are so many names. He keeps trying to wrap up the chapter and a new name surfaces in his memory. I cannot leave Gideon out. I cannot leave Barak. I cannot leave Samson. I have to say Samuel.
That is the spirit of this section.
We are building a wall of names here. Real men. Living, breathing, working, fathering, husbanding, struggling, standing men. Not famous ones. Not perfect ones. Just men in the trenches whose lives, witnessed up close, exemplify what a Christian man is supposed to look like.
This wall will not fill on its own. It will not work if I make up examples. It will only work if real brothers get nominated, named, and written up by men who actually know them.
So if you know one — a brother, a father, a friend, a deacon, a coworker, a coach, a youth pastor, a mechanic at the shop down the road, a man whose life makes you want to stand up straighter — tell me about him. Send a name, a few sentences about what he does, and his permission to be written up. We will honor him here, by name, the way Hebrews 11 honors Moses.
This is not flattery. This is not influencer culture. This is the ancient Christian practice of telling the truth about good men, out loud, so that other men can see what a faithful life looks like and want one.
A few rules. Real names only, or stated pseudonyms with the man's permission. No celebrities. No public figures. Ordinary brothers. Specific stories — what he actually did, not abstract praise. And no flattery in life. The goal is to tell the truth about him, including the parts he had to repent through to become the man you are nominating today.
Because that is the testimony, isn't it. Not here is a perfect man. Here is a man who fell, repented, and got back up. Here is a man who almost left his wife and stayed and rebuilt. Here is a man who was a passive Ahab for ten years and is, today, a husband his wife trusts again. Here is a man whose father walked out and who is, now, the father his son comes to.
That is the wall we are building. The men still in the fight. The men who took the long way back. The men who, at fifty-five, finally became the man God called them to be at twenty-five.
Lions don't bow.
Lions also don't go unnamed.
Send me a brother.
Nominate a Brother
Send me his name, three to ten sentences about him, and his permission to feature. We honor him here, by name, the way Heaven honors Moses.