Good Men

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

As a kid, you’re subject to the music choices of your parents. Thankfully mine didn’t listen to weird 70’s disco music too often. I’m definitely privileged for not being subjected to that brutal era of music. To those who can’t say the same, I feel bad for you.

Instead, my dad usually had on one of two artists: The Kinks (the lesser-known British Invasion band), or Johnny Cash (🐐).

One of the many Johnny Cash songs I’ll never forget my dad playing in the car was “The Fourth Man in the Fire,” the story of three oddly-named men from the Book of Daniel: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

That story pops into my mind a lot, because I often wrestle with the question: am I a good man, or just a nice guy? The difference, as actor/writer/philosopher/Austin legend Matthew McConaughey puts it, is that a nice guy is easygoing and agreeable, he gets along with everything, is easy to have around, creates a comfortable vibe. A good man has ideas he stands for and ideas he stands against. He isn’t endlessly agreeable. The story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is a picture of what it means to be a good man.

Around 600 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar II ruled Babylon. He’d just built a 60-cubit (nearly 100-foot) golden statue on the plain of Dura, and at the dedication he declared: whoever didn’t fall down and worship it would be cast immediately into a blazing furnace. Everyone bowed.

Except three men.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were dragged before a furious Nebuchadnezzar. Given one more chance to bow, they answered: “We have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image you have set up.”

They were bound and thrown into a furnace heated seven times hotter than usual as punishment for their defiance, only for the king to look in and see them walking around unharmed, joined by a fourth man whose appearance was “like a son of the gods.”

They walked out on command, and Nebuchadnezzar’s first words were, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.” Even he couldn’t deny the Most High God after that.

Being so confident in what you stand for that you won’t bow even when your life is on the line… that’s the most honorable way a man can live. Not just standing for something, but standing for something that actually shows up for you in the fire.

I read that story in Daniel:3 and think: dang. Whatever those guys have, that’s what I want. That’s how I want to live.