The Masculine Mandate Quotes

“Our calling in life really is this simple (although not therefore easy): We are to devote ourselves to working/building and keeping/protecting everything placed into our charge.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“Of all men, Christians should work especially hard, giving more than an honest day's work for a day's wage.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“A. W. Pink rightly says:
Humility is not the product of direct cultivation, rather it is a by-product. The more I try to be humble, the less shall I attain unto humility. But if I am truly occupied with that One who was "meek and lowly in heart," if I am constantly beholding His glory in the mirror of God's Word, then shall I be "changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:18).24”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“Our society tells young adult men to deprive themselves of God's provision for their physical, emotional, and sexual needs so they can remain as immature and self-absorbed as possible, for as long as possible. You know what the Bible says about this: it just is not good.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“Indeed, this is what modern and postmodern masculinity has been all about-men behaving like little boys forever, serving themselves in the name of self-discovery. (Can we imagine someone like Ronald Reagan or Winston Churchill talking about going on a quest to find his masculine self? They were too busy changing the world.)”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“Christian men who are not yet called into formal church office should never complain that they have nothing to do. We all have much to do in our own hearts and lives, and the requirement for well-qualified men to serve as leaders in the church is always urgent and vital.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“God's curse on the man draws him unwholesomely away from the woman, even as God's curse on the woman draws her unwholesomely toward the man. This is why most marital counseling sessions are some variation on this theme: Wife-"You don't pay any attention to me." Husband-"You are too demanding and nag too much." God has cursed the marriage relationship with a poisonous desire for control by the woman and a self-absorbed focus outside the relationship by the man.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“To be clear, male leadership in marriage does not mean the husband does everything or even that he decides everything. Rather, it means he typically initiates and always leads those shared discussions with his wife by which the various aspects of marriage and family life are decided and planned. The wife's opinion is vitally important, and a godly couple should be a close-knit team. But there should be no area of family life in which the husband does not serve as leader, facilitator, and overseer.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“any Christian man who wants to serve the Lord, in any role and at any level, must begin by devoting himself to God's Word. A man who is weak in the Word of God will be of little use for service, for we cannot truly serve God effectively in our own knowledge and strength. But God's Word stirs up in us the faith and spiritual strength needed to serve Him.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“For our marriages to regain the love and unity God designed them to have, it is not merely a matter of wives submitting to their husbands in the Lord. Husbands, in fact, have the first and greatest responsibility. As we gain insight about our wives through our shared lives together and our attentive
and cherishing interest in the affairs of their hearts, we must nourish our wives with God's Word, and with our own encouraging and upbuilding words informed by Scripture.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“It is necessary to state up front that authoritative positions of leadership in the New Testament church are to be held only by men. Women can and should play leading roles in the church, for a church with a strong masculine presence will have a strong feminine beauty about it as well. But the positions of authority—the roles of teaching and ruling—are restricted to men. To become convinced of the truth and authority of Scripture, and then to read the plain words of the New Testament, is to come to this conclusion easily and naturally.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“Set out for us there is an excellent agenda for any Christian man to follow: personal godliness, self-control, knowledge of truth, and a good reputation within and outside the church.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“God took a part of Adam, so that the woman corresponded to him, but then God made her a little different, fashioning Adam’s rib into the woman. The word for “made” or “fashioned” indicates special artisanship, which we see in the beauty that women bring into men’s lives. Because God made the woman from man and then fashioned her to be different, she is precisely fitted as a helper for man, and beautifully so.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“If we want to be the men God is calling us to be—men who are rightly admired and respected by those we love, men who faithfully fulfill our duty before God—then we will make as our motto and watchword the Masculine Mandate that we as men have received from God: We will work and keep.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing" (Zeph. 3:17).”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“This biblical mandate to work—here with the emphasis on cultivating and tending—explodes a great misconception regarding gender roles. We have been taught that women are the main nurturers, while men are to be “strong and silent.” But the Bible calls men to be cultivators, and that includes a significant emphasis on tending the hearts of those given into our charge.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“It is the male arm around the shoulder or pat on the back that God allows to have the quickest access to the heart of a child or employee. Men who are seeking to live out the Masculine Mandate will be nurturers.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“He is still calling on men to cause good things to grow and to keep precious things safe.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“To be a man is to stand up and be counted when there is danger or other evil. God does not desire for men to stand by idly and allow harm, or permit wickedness to exert itself. Rather, we are called to keep others safe within all the covenant relationships we enter. In our families, our presence is to make our wives and children feel secure and at ease. At church, we are to stand for truth and godliness against the encroachment of worldliness and error. In society, we are to take our places as men who stand up against evil and who defend the nation from threat of danger.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“Not surprisingly, the model of the leader as shepherd fits perfectly the work-and-keep Masculine Mandate of Genesis 2:15. God placed Adam in the garden to work it—to make it grow—and shepherds are leaders who nurture and inspire the hearts of those who follow. God also called Adam to keep the garden—to stand guard over it—and it is the shepherd-leader who protects those under his charge, keeping one eye always on the flock and the other alert for predators. Good shepherd-leadership, then, will always resemble Adam’s servant-lordship as the flock, like a garden, grows and bears fruit of all kinds under the watchful protection of the shepherd.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“So man is to work and, generally speaking, he is to marry.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“He calls us to do this by being leaders and servants in the ultimate cause of displaying God's glory and bearing the fruit of God's love in real relationships.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“Therefore, the humble working man, toiling faithfully at his job, nurturing and shepherding his wife, and seeking to bring up his children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, conforms to God's picture of a real man.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“Anger is a serious issue for many fathers because a child's disobedience is seen as an affront to the father's authority and honor. But sinful displays of anger only undermine a father's authority, tempting a child to hold the father in disdain and contempt.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“It is not sufficient for fathers to send their children to church, Sunday school, Christian camp, or private Christian school. You must read the Bible to your children yourself. Obviously, our children must see some correspondence between the Bible and our lives. But even as we work out our own Christian growth, we must read God's Word to and with our children.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“our basic mandate as Christian men is to cultivate, build, and grow (both things and people), but also to stand guard so that people and things are kept safe-so that the fruit of past cultivating and nurturing is preserved.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“That is 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.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men

“This should remind us that the primary threat to the safety of our loved ones is always our own sin.”
― Richard D. Phillips, The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men