Masculine Mandate Chapter 3

Chapter three explored man's sacred call to work, it looks at the frustrations of fulfilling our mandate in the world as it is post fall with all the complications and limitations sin brings. However, helpful Phillips maintains that work is good, pointing out that in the parables of the mina's and talents the reward is more opportunity to serve the master.

The most helpful part of the chapter is that exploring how we distinctively evaluate our work as Christians. He gives us a number of questions we ought to be asking; does it glorify God, does it benefit our fellow man, will it provide for our material needs, does it enable me to enjoy a godly balanced life?

He also challenges the assumed drive for prosperity which we absorb as part of a western culture. He encourages Christian men to ask if our lifestyle is realistic if our job doesn't enable us to meet our needs and give.

Throughout the chapter he asks the question can we glorify God in and through our work whatever it may be as we work with integrity. Because ultimately we work for an audience of one - God.

It is another good and helpful chapter, though I was left thinking what about the person who is currently unemployed because of ill health or the state of the economy. A section applying this truth to those situations would have been very helpful. It is, however, a chapter we sorely need to hear in our work, promotion, wealth creation consumed culture.

The Masculine Mandate

This book was reviewed in this months briefing and I can't wait to get it, I was hoping to order it in bulk for church but haven't been able to yet, however Amazon have it available now and it is in my astore link.

Richard Phillips the author says that, “Rather than following the American stereotype of cold, macho masculinity, Christian men should seek to grow in their ability genuinely to bless others.” He points to this mandate in Genesis 2, which "shows that God created man for a purpose. God ordained that Adam would bear His image both in his person and in his work, and God put Adam in the world to work it and keep it—to be a cultivator and a protector.”

Men today, like Adam, are called to “work” and “keep.” “God put Adam in the garden ‘to work it and keep it’ and the only difference between Adam’s calling and ours lies in the details of how we seek to fulfill it.”

Phillips concentrates on five: employment, marriage, children, friends, and the church. I'm ordering my copy today and I'll be reviewing it in the coming weeks, it has however, been tagged by some as the best book on Christian manhood.