Reformers Bookcast Excerpt: The Masculine Mandate (with Steven Soldatos)

Transcript:

Tom: "'Masculine Mandate' - I read this book about 10 years ago, and I've just picked it up again for this bookcast, and it's still as good as it was then. It's brilliant. Richard Phillips is essentially presenting what you're just talking about - this is what it means to be a man. He looks at it, roots it really strongly in Genesis 1 to 3, particularly in the command to 'go out and be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it.'

But then, he picks up on these key words in Genesis 1, where God puts Adam in the garden and tells him to work and keep it. And so he says, well, this idea of 'work' is an idea of nurturing and building up, and this idea of 'keeping' is an idea of protecting and defending.

And so he then takes those two principles, shows you how they are expanded out in New Testament passages in Ephesians and Peter in particular, and then applies it to marriage, parenting, friends, and church. It's a great book in that it really does give you a full view and a very practical view of what it means to be a man.

And he's hard-hitting - he doesn't pull punches and he's very straight to the point, like you say.

Steven: 'So hey, have you got a quote for us by any chance? Oh, would you be on the spot now for a quote?

What's the one concept that you've taken home then? What is... I'm interviewing you now - what is the one concept that you've taken out?

Tom: I mean, I think the concept of "work and keep" is so helpful because it just gives you these two things that you can always be thinking about: Am I nurturing my wife? Am I working to make her more beautiful in the eyes of Christ? Am I keeping my wife? Am I protecting her from error, protecting her from myself?

Steven: Just having just two things to remember - it's fantastic.

Tom: Exactly right, that's simple right.