There have been some amazing Kindle deals over the past couple of days, so if you weren’t around over the weekend, be sure to scroll down to September 1 and 2. As for today, we’ve got the entire “Blessings of the Faith” series along with several other interesting titles. On the general market side, Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath is a fun and interesting read—just one of many there.
(Yesterday on the blog: I Know It Broke Her Heart)

Jacob explains why it’s a bad thing when old men stop planting trees. Or as his dad says, “When old men stop planting trees that they’ll never sit under, we’ve got a real problem.”

Rebekah Matt: “Statistically, my life ought to be a serious mess right about now.” Yet by the grace of God it isn’t.

“If you are rolling your eyes about whether or not we even need this article, you may be losing touch with the current cultural climate and the effects of the internet-age.” I quite agree.

Matthew considers the differences between URL and IRL ministry. “Christians should not attempt to pastor themselves. But that is the temptation that faces them when they use abstract ministry resources (space) to the neglect of the faithful local churches and faithful church leaders that see them and know them (place).”

“In February of this year, I was diagnosed with a rare type of brain cancer. I am, quite literally, one in a million. A seizure brought me to my knees and was the catalyst for the discovery. A brain biopsy and a craniotomy followed in the days and months after. I went from being independent and in the prime of my life, just on the cusp of turning forty, to being dependent, unable to drive, living with family, and staring down the face of a life-altering diagnosis that is presently incurable. “

It was such a joy to read this article. “We met her when she was almost three months old. We adopted her only a matter of weeks ago. On her adoption day, she wore a little pink smocked dress with princesses on it, and as she sat in her stroller surrounded by the three children who had welcomed her into their world and loved her sweetly and sacrifically, we all heard her practicing her new name under her breath, ‘Ivy Joy Edgington.’”

As a Christian reader, my task, my challenge, and my joy, is to read with discernment, to subtract what is opposed to a Christian worldview, and to bind together the pieces through distinctly Christian thinking.

No man shall ever take from me the joy that Christ rose from the dead.
—Charles Spurgeon

Masculinity has become complicated. At least, it has become difficult to be confident about what it means to be a man—to be a man as God has designed men to be. The culture has plenty to say about masculinity that is toxic, but far less to say about masculinity that is good and honoring. We hear more about women becoming men than men simply being men. And many wonder: What are men meant to be and what are men supposed to do?

Into the fray steps Brant Hansen with a wonderful new book titled The Men We Need: God’s Purpose for the Manly Man, the Avid Indoorsman, or Any Man Willing to Show Up. “This book is about a big vision for manhood,” he says. “We’ve lacked that vision, and all of us—men, women, and children—are hurting because of it. The vision is this: We men are at our best when we are ‘keepers of the garden.’ This means we are protectors and defenders and cultivators. We are at our best when we champion the weak and vulnerable. We are at our best when we use whatever strength we have to safeguard the innocent and provide a place for people to thrive. This is the job Adam was given: keeper of the garden.”
I need to say right away that this is not one of those books—those trite and cheesy books for men that focuses on a clichéd version of masculinity bound to a particular culture and a bygone century. Hansen isn’t advocating a form of masculinity that depends on swinging hammers, wrestling bears, or distributing swords. In fact, he says he’s not even capable of writing that book because “I don’t even hunt. I play the accordion. … I’m an avid indoorsman. I own puppets.”
The heart of masculinity, he says, is taking responsibility—responsibility for those things God has made men particularly responsible for. “God gave Adam the job of looking after the garden and the things within. He was to guard it, tend it, and help it flourish. He was responsible for it. I believe looking after our own ‘gardens’ remains our masculine purpose, and we all implicitly know it. Our culture is in chaos regarding what masculinity really is, so it’s dangerous to suggest there’s a distinct, wonderful thing called masculinity. … Masculinity is about taking responsibility.” Hence, true masculinity is not displayed in flexing muscles or fixing stuff or achieving sexual conquests. Rather, true masculinity is displayed in being humble, responsible, dedicated keepers of the gardens God has given us.
Once Hansen lays a foundation for masculinity, he leads readers through “Six Decisions that Will Set You Apart.” They are:

Forsake the fake and relish the real. His focus here is rejecting pornography and video games and other fake forms of virtuous longings. “The hurting world and our hurting communities need us to solve real-world problems, protect real-world people, and fight real-world injustice. Actually, let me rephrase that a bit. The hurting world and your hurting community need you to solve real-world problems, protect real-world people, and fight real-world injustice. Please don’t waste your God-given desire for adventure and accomplishment by being a fake hero fighting fake injustices in fake worlds.”
Protect the vulnerable. Here he says that “The people in your neighborhood, at your school, or at your workplace should be safer because you’re there. Even if they don’t know it.” This means men must be willing to protect others and must be steadfastly unwilling to become a threat to others.
Be ambitious about the right things. “You will struggle with feeling meaningless when you choose to invest your time and energy in meaningless things,” he says. Hence, we must use our God-given ambition to pursue causes that actually matter.
Make women and children feel safe, not threatened. Here he calls upon men to invest themselves in helping the people around them grow and thrive. “I’m trying to be this kind of man, a man who makes his wife feel secure and protected. I know my wife is every bit my equal. I know she’s highly intelligent and strong and creative and funny. I know she can survive with or without me. But it’s my goal to see her thrive and flourish. I believe in her so strongly, I’m excited about what she can yet become.”
Choose today who you will become tomorrow. Quite simply, who we will be tomorrow is a direct result of what we pay attention to today. For this reason we must take great care when it comes to those things that earn our attention.
Take responsibility for your own spiritual life. This final chapter is dedicated to forming a real, open, honest relationship with the Lord—a loyalty to the God who is so very loyal to us.

At a time when masculinity is viewed as a liability more than an asset, as something that is more likely to harm the world than help it, Brant Hansen describes and celebrates a form of masculinity that is good, pure, and true—a form of masculinity that will serve families, serve the church, and serve the world. He calls men to embrace it and display it in their lives. It turns out that in this time of confusion, The Men We Need is exactly the book we need.

Buy from Amazon

There are two ways to read the Bible. The first way to read it is as a series of stories, books, statements, and teachings that are fragmented and disjointed, that, though they have little relationship to one another, have been compiled into an errant and fallible collection. The other way is to read it as a consistent, connected, and consecutive work that tells one cohesive story. When we read it this way, we see that Genesis is as connected to Revelation as it is to Exodus, that the ending perfectly complements and completes the beginning. When we accept it like this, we understand it as it truly is.
I’d love for you to read this lovely piece of writing by Theodore Cuyler who explains how we ought to read God’s Word—how we ought to read the story of how God is at work in this world to save his people and bring glory to his name. Read it and be blessed!

Some people regard the Word of God as a mere miscellaneous collection of disjointed fragments. They could not make a greater mistake. The Bible is as thoroughly connected and consecutive a work as Bunyan’s “Pilgrim,” or Bancroft’s History. The whole composition hangs together like a fleece of wool.
It begins with the creation of the world; it ends with the winding-up of all earthly things and the opening scenes of the endless hereafter. The Old Testament is the majestic vestibule through which we enter the matchless Parthenon of the New. It is mainly the history of God’s covenant people. Through all this history of nearly forty centuries are interspersed the sublime conversations of Job, the pithy proverbs of Solomon, and the predictions of the Prophets. We hear, at their proper intervals, the timbrel of Miriam, the harp of the Psalmist, the plaintive viol of Jeremiah, and the sonorous trumpets of Isaiah and Habakkuk.
Through all the Old Testament there flows one warm and mighty current—like the warm river of the Gulfstream through the Atlantic—setting towards Jesus Christ. In Genesis he appears as the seed of the woman that should bruise the serpent’s head; the smoke of Abel’s altar points towards him; the blood that stains the Jewish lintels on the night of the Exodus is but a type of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world; Moses and the prophets testify of Jesus. Just as the rich musical blast of an Alpine horn on the Wengern is echoed back from the peaks of the Jungfrau, so every verse of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is echoed in the New Testament of Immanuel.
After a silence of four hundred years, the New Testament begins—and with the genealogy of the incarnate Savior. The first four books are occupied with the earthly life and sacrificial death and resurrection and ascension of the same Personage. The four independent narratives of the evangelists—like the four walls of a church edifice—contain and enclose the complete narrative of Christ’s life. Each one has its place and its purpose. Matthew wrote for the Jews, and in his gospel Christ is represented as a king; the book describes his kingdom and its laws. Mark describes his wondrous deeds as the man of action—the Christ as a servant doing his Father’s will. Luke wrote for the Gentiles, and of Jesus as the Son of Man. John occupies his rich aromatic pages with the wonderful words of the Son of God. He defines his special object at the close of his twentieth chapter: “These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name.”
The biographies of Jesus are completed, but not his life upon earth. The next book carries it forward. He still lives by his Spirit in the chosen Apostles. The Book of the Acts written by Luke, commences with these words—“The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and to teach.” This second treatise simply continues to narrate what Christ does and teaches through his Apostles and representatives. It is devoted to the founding of Christian churches in certain great centers of influence, like Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth and Rome. The churches thus founded must next be instructed in the commandments of their Lord and be indoctrinated in the practical principles of holy living. Hence arises a necessity for the Epistles. Each has its province. The epistle to the Romans is the grand argument for justification by faith. That to the Galatians treats of deliverance from the bondage of the law. The letter to the Philippians is redolent of gratitude and of joy in hours of trouble. Its motto is “gaudeo; gaudete!” The epistle to the Ephesians is the setting forth of the “heavenlies;” that to Philemon is the charter of human rights and the seed of emancipation-proclamations; the epistles to the Corinthians are manuals for personal conduct and the government of churches. When Paul wrote to Timothy and to Titus, he furnished manuals for Christian pastors. John’s epistles are all love letters—the effusive sweetness of the heart’s honeycomb. When Apollos penned the Epistle to the Hebrews (as I am inclined to believe that he did) he set forth the priestly office of Jesus and the blessings of personal faith. Peter utters the practical precepts and warnings that are needed not only by the dispersed disciples, but by all disciples to the end of time.
When the life, the death, and the mighty works and divine instruction of Christ (by his Apostles) have been completed, there bursts upon us the magnificent panorama of the Apocalypse. This is the book of sublime mysteries. But through all the apparent confusions of thrones and of armies, of thunders and lightnings, of trumpets and viols and winged angels, we can distinctly trace the progress of the final conflict between King Jesus and the powers of darkness. The long battle terminates in the overthrow of Satan, and the glorious victory of him who wears on his head the many crowns. Then comes the final resurrection of the dead, the general Judgment, the revelation of the New Jerusalem, prepared for the endless habitation of the redeemed. The Apocalypse closes with its seven-fold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies.
Such is the wondrous volume which God has given to man, and which outweighs all the libraries on the globe. It contains many writings, yet is it but one book. It has many writers, yet it is all from one Author, the Almighty Spirit of God. The pure, white, spotless fleece hath throughout its connecting fibers; the fabric is divine in its origin, its unity, and its imperishable power and glory.