Introducing...The Talk: Leading Your Son into True Manhood

Shepherd Press is preparing to release a book titled, The Talk: Leading Your Son into True Manhood, and ramping up to the release with a series of blog posts by Jay Younts. This is a short but unique and promising book that I think will have a long and useful life among Christian parents. Here is the Table of Contents as the author, Steve Zollos, and I refined it over time.

Foreword
A Preface to Mothers

Part 1: Preparations

1        Much More Than a Talk
2        The Culture Clash
3        The Arenas of Manhood
4        The Virtues of Manhood
5        Planning The Talk

Part 2: The Talk

6        Beginning the Talk
7        Male and Female Anatomy
8        How to Treat Women
9        Sex
10      Sexually Transmitted Diseases
11      Birth Control
12      Sexual Perversions
13      Abuse and Abusers
14      Work and Career
15      Considering A Wife

Part 3: Conclusion

16      Three Final Truths

First review of Rick Phillips' The Masculine Mandate

Discerning Reader has released its review of Rick Phillips' The Masculine Mandate, a book I edited last year with great enjoyment and, I'm thankful to say, Rick's approval (see my Testimonials page).

The review's bottom line? "Despite the proliferation of books on Christian manhood, this one is a stand-out." An excerpt from the full review follows.

The Masculine Mandate has several strengths. The author is clear about where he stands on issues. He writes with authority. If men want to learn to be leaders, they need strong leaders. Richard Phillips fits that role. And he does so with humility. It’s clear where Phillips derives his authority. Nearly every idea is backed up by and flows directly from Scripture. There are few quotes from other books (only 25 total footnotes), but there are Bible passages on nearly every page (the Scripture index is four pages long). And Phillips has the gift of teaching and applying them.

There are specific applications. The pastor teaches the theology, but he also gives the reader clear, specific ways to apply the teaching. It is a practical, helpful, and realistic book. Phillips realizes that men are, after all, men. We have limitations. We aren’t fully sanctified. And he admits that he isn’t, either. But he sets the goal before us. Another plus: at the end of the book are questions for reflection and discussion from each chapter, making this book ideal for a men’s group study.

This is a good, needed book. I recommend it to men, young and old. And I plan to read it again. I’ve already identified several areas of manhood that I need to work on.

In our culture, we have a messed up idea of what it means to be a man. We need books like this to point us back to what’s important...

Don't make 'em like they used to: God's mission to restore the human race

This brief, reflective riff was inspired by a passage I was working on today in Chapter 11 of Christ Formed in You.

When Christ returns, and there is a new heaven and a new Earth, there will also be a new people to live in it. We who are Christians will be among them. Still human, but changed. Still ourselves, and still individuals, but having none of present humanity’s fallen attributes: the pride and greed and jostling for power, the fear and anger and lust. We will be human, but a new race of humans without the sin—like the Savior who walked the earth, fully man, but in moral and ethical perfection. That work, that progress, is begun here, in this life. The advances in sanctification made here are important and permanent, even as sanctification itself awaits perfection in the next life. By the unending grace of God's sanctifying work in us we are becoming, even today, the perfectly sinless beings we will one day be: human as God originally designed, and therefore able to enjoy his perfections and holiness forever.

What counterintuitive creativity: The best model was the prototype. 

A kind prognostication, and a new project

In a post he made yesterday, Mark Tubbs, a principal reviewer for Discerning Reader, looks ahead to books due to come out later this year. At the top of his list is a project I'm currently working on with author Brian Hedges. I'm happily stunned that Mark would choose to say something nice about me in the context of a book that hasn't come out yet. This is especially true when some of the other authors on this list include Paul Tripp, J.I. Packer, Peter Leithart, Trevin Wax, and N.T. Wright.

Another project I've been working on lately involves a website and associated Twitter account featuring a book I edited in 2008 that was published in 2009. This is a book, I'm convinced, that can help anyone who has had trouble making a meaningful connection with an angry teen. If you know anyone in this situation, please refer them to Get Outta My Face! - How to Reach Angry, Unmotivated Teens with Biblical Counsel. The best place to get a feel for the book is at outtamy.com.

Politics is theological

A friend asked me on Facebook how the Republican Party came to be associated with Christianity. My brief answer, subject to FB's character limit, was not about history but about the gravitational forces that will always tend to pull people who hold a biblical worldview toward what is called conservatism. Here's my Politics 101 answer, slightly expanded.

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General rule: Liberals (more often Dem) tend to see people as naturally good, so they are big on personal rights, favor centralized power (calling it unity), and are therefore skeptical of property rights.

Conservatives (more often Repub) distrust human nature so they favor decentralized power, promote property rights, and see wisdom in putting some limits on personal rights.

The lines often get blurred. As if in support of the conservative view, sad and even tragic caricatures of both perspectives are not uncommon. But whether you trend right or left comes down to your response to: "What is Man?"

Politics is theological.