I was walking through the public library recently and I saw a copy of Popular Mechanics on the shelf with an intersting headline. It read: Popular Mechanics list of 25 Things Every Man Should Know. I was intrigued by this list, mainly because I am not skilled in many of these things. I was reminded of a conversation I had a few years ago with some men. We were looking at Thomas Watson’s book, The Godly Man’s Picture (drawn with a Scriptural pencil). We had been meeting for weeks studying the various characteristics that make up a godly man. After about 5 weeks of this, these men decided they didn’t like my study because (and these are their words) “it wasn’t very practical with what they were currently dealing with.”
When we stand before God someday, we won’t be judged on Popular Mechanics list, but we will be judged based on the righteousness of Christ. What are you building into? John Piper recently called for a masculine Christianity. He defines it as:
The theology and the church and the mission are marked by over-arching male leadership and an ethos of tender-hearted strength and contrite courage and risk-taking decisiveness and readiness to sacrifice to protect and provide for the community—the feel of a great, majestic God making the men lovingly strong and the women intelligently secure.
Men of faith, let’s rise up and demonstrate true manhood as the Bible defines it.