Understanding our Masculine Mandate

Defining Masculinity is Tough

Current Cultural Challenges

Lack of clarity on what masculinity is

Tough, athletic, driven, handsome, physically fit, sexual prowess, beards, beer, bourbon and cigars

None of these things in and of themselves implicitly sinful but none of them are implicitly masculine either.

What about intellect, discipline, organization, faithfulness

Even Hollywood is prone to show men and husbands as incompetent in leading and loving their wives and children.

Fluidity of Gender

The world as we know is seeking to break down the barriers between femininity and masculinity.

Fluid exchange in roles

Mistaken comparison between gifting and roles.

Gender is something we choose.

We live in a complicated world.

Spaces to be men are hard to find

We need to rediscover space for men to be men and raise future men.

I have 3 boys I am raising…this topic is always in front of me.

HISTORICAL PICTURE

The PUB was where the men of the village or town would gather to discuss life, politics, and family life.

Historically, prohibition was a cloaked and early feminist movement that focused on the abuses of alcohol by many men and the affect it had on the home.

We threw the baby out with the bathwater as it were.

The Barbershop in the Black Community

Traditionally a space where men gathered and dads took their boys for more than a fresh fade.

There have been few spaces in black American experience where a black man could feel like he mattered and made something of himself than after he left the Barbershop…[LOVE THE MOVIES]

Challenges to the church are numerous

How do we train men to be men?

How do we love those who are gender confused or transitioned once they wonder into the church?

How does this shape the way we preach the Gospel? or does it?

We need to rediscover space for men to be men and raise future men.

Grounded in the Garden

I have 3 boys I am raising…this topic is always in front of me.

answers 4 Fundamental Questions that will help us along the way. I will lean on Richard Phillip’s material here and I commend it to your study.

HISTORICAL PICTURE

The PUB was where the men of the village or town would gather to discuss life, politics, and family life.

Historically, prohibition was a cloaked and early feminist movement that focused on the abuses of alcohol by many men and the affect it had on the home.

We threw the baby out with the bathwater as it were.

The PUB was where the men of the village or town would gather to discuss life, politics, and family life.

The Barbershop in the Black Community

Traditionally a space where men gathered and dads took their boys for more than a fresh fade.

Historically, prohibition was a cloaked and early feminist movement that focused on the abuses of alcohol by many men and the affect it had on the home.

There have been few spaces in black American experience where a black man could feel like he mattered and made something of himself than after he left the Barbershop…[LOVE THE MOVIES]

We threw the baby out with the bathwater as it were.

The Barbershop in the Black Community

Traditionally a space where men gathered and dads took their boys for more than a fresh fade.

There have been few spaces in black American experience where a black man could feel like he mattered and made something of himself than after he left the Barbershop…[LOVE THE MOVIES]

Who are we?

Spiritual Creatures -

God made no other creature with such care as he did mankind.

Mankind (men and women) are not just a different specifies. God breathed life into mankind. “Ruach” -Hebrew word - Spirit

We have been enabled to bear the image of God [] precisely because of this reality.

We have been given a “spiritual nature and everything runs down stream of this truth!

Where has God put us?

God put mankind in the garden - “how are we to think about the garden?”

place where God relates covenantally with Adam and Eve [All Mankind]

Place where God gives covenantal obligations and relationships to Adam and Eve [All Mankind]

Therefore, Adam was called to cultivate and work so that God’s glory would grow and spread.

We hear a lot about unrestraining men today. They need to be wild and free. But is this the goal.

But Adam was not created outside the garden in the wilderness [like the book Wild at Heart presupposes] and put into the Garden supposing that the Garden restrains mankind.

Man cannot find his true identity outside the Garden. God places him in the Garden to gain his God given, covenantal identity there.

What are we?

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth

God put Adam in the Garden to be its Lord and Servant.

Adam was to bring glory to God by bearing fruit that would extend outside the Garden

Adam was God’s assistant lord, exercising authority over all creation.

This is given mankind as a whole but Adam specifically called Eve “helper”.

This is why men are called to engage the world, their towns, their neighborhoods in various ways so as to cultivate and reflect the Glory of God to all people we meet.

We, like Adam, are not called to endless quests for masculine identity. We are called to be lords and keepers of the world so as to shine the glory of God everywhere.

This leads us to our last question

How are we to obey God?

We are called to Work and Keep the Garden…life, the world we live in.

Work = work to make things grow

Nurturing

cultivating

tending

building up

guiding

ruling

Keep = protect and sustain progress already achieved.

Guard

Keep Safe

watching over

caring for

maintaining

THE MASCULINE MANDATE -

“to be spiritual men placed in real-world, God defined relationships, as lords and servants under God, to bear God’s fruit by serving and leading.”

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Why is it important that men have their identity forged in the garden and not in the wilderness?

The world teaches men to be “strong and silent”. What is wrong with an emotionally distant man?

In terms of man’s call to “work”, living in a world broken by sin, work is hard and demanding. How have you in the past or do you presently experience this?

How do you manage the tensions between work and home?

In terms of the call to “Keep”, living in a world that is broken, how can we as men of God lead well as the world suffers from a crisis of leadership?

Discuss & Define the primary Masculine mandates to “work” and “keep” in your own words.