I have a confession to make. I have never had much of an interest in books about current events. However, one book caught my eye last summer and I ordered it. It addressed recent trends where the value of masculinity has been visibly diminished. The author confronted this ideology from a conservative viewpoint.
I was in for a bit of a surprise. I did not expect Senator Josh Hawley in Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs to possess such a deep understanding of the biblical theology of work.
Although I have not finished this book, let me share a few excerpts from the first two chapters. In the first chapter, he beautifully expressed his orthodox Christian views on the creation mandate, which I have written about on many occasions. I found his words to be quite inspiring.
Chapter One – In the beginning
Senator Hawley began by discussing the disturbing trend where young men are still living at home with their parents, not finding jobs, and/or struggling in school. He concludes, “All is not well with men in America.” He continues, “No menace to this nation is greater than the collapse of American manhood, the collapse of masculine strength.” I concur with his grim assessment. He notes that current political ideology “offers no path forward” and challenges us to “look elsewhere for renewal, farther back and deeper – to a more profound source of truth.”
He then dives in to present his ideas about the source of eternal truth that, if we abide by it, provides relevant and timeless answers to today’s problems: “The Bible story is an epic that speaks directly to the purpose of men. Indeed, from the Christian perspective, the story comes to center on a Man.”
His summary is brilliant:
The story in thumbnail form is this. From chaos and nothing, God created the world for a purpose. He created it to be a temple. Why a temple? The world was to be a place filled with his presence. And man was to have a role in making it so. At the center of his creation God placed a garden, and in the garden a man. And he instructed the man to cultivate that garden, to protect it, and to build it outward – to expand it into all the world. That was the man’s calling, his sacred duty, and his purpose in life.
This is an accurate understanding of the implications that we read in Gen. 1:26-28:
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Later, Senator Hawley explains, “Adam’s project begins but does not end with Adam. The commission God gives him is one the Bible says God means for all men.” I expressed this same idea in in my book and in one of the first articles I wrote and posted on my blog. (Click here.)
Here is what I see here: God worked to create, created men and women in His image, and then called them to continue His creation project. Each of us was born with and called to develop various talents and interests which lead us to the kind of work God needs in order to meet the wide spectrum of human needs. The work that you and I do is of value and truly matters to God.
Chapter Two – A man’s mission
Senator Hawley starts out by reflecting on his grandfather. I can only hope that after I am gone my grandchildren will be able to remember the things I taught them throughout their lives.
He shared his grandfather’s understanding of the basic tenets of the theology of work that is well-grounded in the verses we read above from the book of Genesis. “He taught me that a feeling of purpose in life comes from the work one does. . . He showed me that all work worth doing is cultivation in a sense: it brings forth the possibilities that are there in the world and uses them to supply and sustain others. It brings fruitfulness from void and chaos.”
Senator Hawley writes, “The Bible makes this point, that all men are to work the earth, as my grandfather did, and in this sense: each man is appointed to bring forth creation’s possibilities, to help perfect the world and build it into what it could be.” His insights are spot on and align well with the first chapters of my book where I state that God’s work in creation was flawless, but incomplete. God called men and women to be His coworkers to sustain what He created and to continue His work.
The author then deftly unpacks Adam’s and Eve’s purposes in the Garden of Eden, explaining, “God subdues the chaos, makes a temple (Eden), and places an image in its midst. But in Genesis, the likeness of God in Eden is not a statue. The likeness of God is mankind.”
Senator Hawley continues:
If Eden is a temple, Adam and Eve are its icons, the living statues of God placed in the garden sanctuary to represent him. And just as the statues of gods within the temples of the ancient world symbolized the presence and rule of the god of the temple, so too in Genesis, Adam and Even preside over earth in God’s stead. They represent his presence. They reflect him. And they are there to continue God’s work on his behalf.
This is deep! What I understand him to mean is that Adam and Eve were not merely God’s greatest creation, but they were his representatives to the world. Perhaps, they were designed, as we are also, to make visible on earth a small fraction of God’s invisible nature. Also, notice the connection made between God’s presence and human work. I call that concept Immanuel labor.
The good senator from Missouri brings us to today, challenging us with this: “God has made all the world, but it seems there is more work yet to be done. There is chaos yet to subdue, darkness to confront. Creation is an unfinished project. Men are there to help finish it.” I love this!
Senator Hawley challenges his readers to consider what all this means to us now:
Genesis encourages every man who struggles to see the point of his life, who feels that his work is a waste, or who wonders whether he will amount to anything to think again. Your work matters. Your life matters. Your character matters. You can help the world become what it was meant to be. And that is no small thing.
On a personal note
Let me reflect a bit on the last part of what he wrote above. What is the “So what?”
Much of what he wrote obviously applies to both men and women. I think, to be fair, that most women understand how valuable their work is. As my wife has said many times, it was her job to keep her boys (and her husband) alive. As a mother, her protective instincts drove her to be alert, loving, and diligent.
However, in the current culture, men do not always understand they were made for a purpose. Sen. Hawley emphasized, “There is chaos yet to subdue, darkness to confront. Creation is an unfinished project. Men are there to help finish it.”
Christian men, you have a mission. God created you with a purpose, to expand His creation. It’s time to move out of mom’s basement, get a job, or finish school. I encourage you to seek God’s face, find out what you are called to do, and then do it with all your heart as unto the Lord.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Russ Gehrlein
Featured Image by Pexels from Pixabay
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