A Small Piece of Land

'And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.'  

Gen 35 v 3

Many people over the last few days have texted me or stopped me in shops or on the street and said 'I have no words.'  There are no words.  The pain and sadness goes beyond expression or articulation.  They, like us as a family, find it impossible to express the grief and loss of two little brothers, Joshua and Daniel, who lived for only a few short hours on 4th March 2026.  

Nothing prepares you as a parent or grandparent for news like this.  Your only response is to offer what comfort you can to the parents but the feelings of helplessness are never far away.  Sometimes our presence is all we can give when there are no words.  I perhaps never fully understood Romans 12 v 15 until we arrived in Stornoway the day after our grandchildren died.  Weeping with those who weep is sometimes all we can do. 

As the last few days have shown, Joshua and Daniel, were greatly loved and will be greatly missed.  We grieve with James and Marion.  Gazing out across the cold but beautiful graveyard in North Tolsta we lowered the tiny casket into a tiny grave.  Two brothers bound together until the resurrection.  When the service was over nobody moved.  We all stared at the grave, a small but very special piece of land.  It will be somewhere we will return to express our love and sadness.  

Our hearts are broken and our eyes red with tears.  It was a comfort to stand together as a family and as a community to weep together.  It was moving to see friends and colleagues locked together arm in arm standing in solidarity with the grieving family.  

Where is our hope in the midst of great tragedy? Can we still trust the Lord in dark providences? The answer is yes. In many ways that is what faith is. We don't understand the Lords ways but we trust His hand. As an old minister once prayed 'Lord help us to trust thee even when we can't understand thee.' That is very, very difficult at the moment. 

In his book 'In All Their Afflictions', Murdoch Campbell tells of a minister in the North of Scotland who suddenly lost his wife. As he prayed that night in the presence of friends he said 'If an angel from heaven told me that this would work for my good I would not believe him but because the Word says it I must believe it.' 

In my own fathers little book 'Behind a Frowning Providence' dedicated to my late sister he says 'we are to measure God's love not by his providence but by his promise.'  And that is what has comforted many of the saints who have gone before.  I have been particularly comforted by the story of Jacob in this past week.  When Jacob left Padan-aram in Gen 35 v 3 he could say: 'And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.'  

During the 20 hard years in Laban's household, Jacob thought back to that night in Genesis 28 when he met the Lord at Bethel.  God gave him promises.  The Lord also promised to be with him and would 'keep him in all places whither thou goest...'  God again revealed himself to Jacob in Gen 31 v 13 and said 'I am the God of Bethel...'  Jacob was being reminded, in the midst of great hardship, that the Lord is a prayer hearing, faithful, covenant keeping God.  

Jacob would need this reminder as he navigated the tragic death of Rachel as they travelled back to Bethel.  A place of blessing and fruitfulness had become a place of tragedy and death.  She died at Ephrath (Bethlehem) or a 'small piece of land.'  Bethlehem was 'too little to be amongst the clans of Judah' (Micah 5 v 2).  Rachel named their 12th son Ben-oni (son of my sorrow) before she died but Jacob renamed him Benjamin (son of my right hand).  In the midst of great tragedy Jacob clung to the promises of God.  As Spurgeon says 'when we cannot trace God's hand we can trust God's heart.'  As he goes on to say of this passage:

'Faith's way of walking is to cast all care upon the Lord, and then to anticipate good results from the worst calamities....Out of the rough oyster-shell of difficulty she extracts the rare pearl of honour, and from the deep ocean-caves of distress she uplifts the priceless coral of experience. When her flood of prosperity ebbs, she finds treasures hid in the sands; and when her sun of delight goes down, she turns her telescope of hope to the starry promises of heaven. When death itself appears, faith points to the light of resurrection beyond the grave...'

Many years later another baby would be born in Bethlehem that would conquer sin and death by going to the Cross.  It is because of Jesus Christ and because of His resurrection that we as God's people have hope in grief.  Death makes us long for heaven where as it says in Revelation 21 v 4: 'He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.'  As we weep, we long for that day.  

But until that day, we as a family continue to grieve.  We pray for comfort for a young couple experiencing unimaginable loss.  But we do not grieve as those who have no hope.  Our hope is in a resurrected Saviour.  Thankfully as Christians we have the greatest counsellor of all - Jesus Christ. As Colin Smith says: ‘God gave His people a counsellor who wept with them, put the pain of their loss into words, ministered to their guilt and grief, and brought hope and healing from the ashes of their loss.’

The Lord who sustained Jacob in the midst of his grief is our Lord and the one who we cry to in our distress at this time.  As we weep over our small piece of land where we buried Joshua and Daniel we look to the God of Bethel to be our comfort and strength.  We trust that he will answer us in the day of our distress and be with us in the way that we go.   

Biblical Manhood

This is a talk given at the Biblical Manhood Conference at Holyrood Church on 28th February 2026.  The conference was organised by Cross Training Ministries.  

Much of my talk is based on The Masculine Mandate: God's Calling to Men by Richard D Phillips.

I would also highly recommend The Redeemed Man Edited by Joel R Beek, Richard D Phillips and Paul M Smalley, The Godly Man's Picture by Thomas Watson and Family Shepherds by Voddie Baucham Jr.   

What does it mean to be a Christian man?  That is what we are wrestling with today. 

When you think of a godly man, who do you think of?  I think of my dad: principled, impeccably dressed, well prepared, gentle, caring. He loved the Bible, he loved the church and he loved the Lords Day.  My father stood for what JC Ryle once said in the 19th century: 'The first need of our day is a return to the old, sharply-cut doctrines of our fathers in the last century.'  My father stood for those 'sharply cut doctrines'. 

For me the Scottish Covenanters were great men of God.  Worshiping God in fields and on hills, ready to be struck down at any moment for their Biblical principles. They stood for Christs Crown and Covenant at the cost of their own lives. 

Where can we find a model of a godly man?  What we see in Titus 2 is model of godliness. 

'Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.'

But where are we today?

Men have always struggled with what it means to be a man but when I was growing up there was at least some traces, some legacy, some tracks.  Today, most of that is gone.  Men often have no role model, no inspiration and no roadmap to manhood. 

So, they go looking, and where do they look? TikTok, YouTube and Instagram   And what do they find there?  Many people found Charlie Kirk – a guy who spoke boldly and clearly. He wasn’t ashamed to call himself a Christian, he wasn’t frightened to use reason. 

Many men have appreciated Jordan Peterson – erudite, perceptive, analytical, brave, interesting.  Peterson talks about morality and Christianity but seems to stop short of any real understanding of the gospel or of redemption. 

But on the internet, we also find toxic masculinity.  Power, greed, money, status, violence, sex.  Women are to be used and abused. Many guys love Andrew Tate.  Why?  Well as Jordan Peterson says: ‘Many men believe it is better to be a successful reprobate than a useless scrounger.'

But if you’re looking for clarity today, I don’t think you will find much clarity on YouTube. I think if you want to find what a man is, you’ll find it in a garden and on a hill outside Jerusalem. You see it was in a garden that God gave man a mission and it was on that hill outside Jerusalem that God redeemed man so he could accomplish that mission.

But lets start in the garden. 

1. Mans Mission in the Garden

Gods mission for man starts in a garden.  If you want to dig in to this in more detail please read 'The Masculine Mandate' by Richard D Phillips. 

Let’s cover off 3 things in the garden:

·       Who is man?

·       Where is man?

·       What is man to do?

     Who is man?  Gen 1 v 26-28

Man is made in the image of God.  As the Westminster Shorter Catechism summerises it:

How did God create man?

God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.

We are not evolved animals with uncontrollable appetites.  We are not high functioning monkeys.  We are not highly evolved Neanderthal man.  We are not a meaningless group of cells as the abortionists tell us.

God has made us in his image, and his likeness and for his glory. So, there are two consequences of that: 

The first is there is only one of you.  You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

God formed or moulded man from the dust (Gen 2 v 7).

‘…then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.’

Man was different from all the other creatures.  God moulded him or ‘planned’ him. 

But secondly you are a spiritual and an eternal creature made in the image of God.

God has breathed into your nostril’s eternity.  Man has a mortal body but an eternal soul.  The reason men are so restless today is because they live their lives as if God didn’t exist.  Man was not meant to give his life to the x-box or to unbridled entertainment.  We were created for so much more. 

But where did it all go wrong? Well man fell from paradise. Again the Shorter Catechism is helpful. 

Question 19: What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell? 

Answer: All mankind, by their fall, lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever.

We still have the imprint of God’s image, but we are sinful, we are fallen.  That is why we need redemption.

That is why God promised, even in the garden that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent.   Not only was man given a mandate in the garden, but he was also promised a redeemer.  

Where is man? 

God placed man in a garden (Gen 2 v 8).  Not a wilderness.  Not a desert.  Not an island

God placed Adam and Eve in a place where they were to exercise covenantal relationships, with covenant duties.  As Richard Phillips says in his book: 'manhood is not about checking out but buying in.'

It’s about committing to one woman for life, it’s about committing to fatherhood for life, it’s about committing to church membership, church leadership.  It’s about committing to a Colossians 3 and Titus 2 lifestyle.

We are not to be wild, immature and irresponsible, we are to self-controlled, sober minded ‘a model of good works.’  Titus 2 teaching would go down like a lead balloon in most churches today.  The idea that even a Pastor must be 'sober minded' is seen as ridiculous.  Today Pastors must be entertainers, masters of ceremonies and often clowns.  

As men we are called to shun worldliness.  The godly mans place is not in the pub or in the bookies, it is at home with his family, working hard with the gifts God has given him and worshiping the Lord at church. 

Our calling is to embrace responsibility by becoming a husband, a father, a businessowner, an employee, a faithful church member an elder or a church planter.  Some men are called to singleness, that may be God's providence.  But most know that it is not good that they are alone and the seek and often long for a 'helper.'

What is man to do?

The Bible says that man is to be fruitful, to subdue and have dominion, to be a worker and a keeper – he was and is to serve and lead. 

In Gen 1 v 28: ‘And God blessed them.  And God said to them. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill (AV replenish) the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’

‘The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it’ Gen 2 v 15.

What was Adam to do?  Sit around enjoying the view?  Squander the gifts God had given him? No, he was to start a family, fill the earth, subdue it and have dominion over it.  Man was called to be fruitful, to work, to keep and protect what God gives him. 

The word work –‘ avad’ means to work/labour/serve.  What does a gardener do?  He makes living things beautiful, he helps them to flourish, he tends them, he grows them.

Whatever field God has given us, whether it’s a family, an office, a field, a shop, a congregation, we are to cultivate that field. We are to help it grow and flourish.  Men are to be planters, builders and growers. 

Men are called to start families, build houses, start businesses, pioneer projects.  We are framers and leaders.  We may be called to be mechanics, joiners, plumbers or lawyers but men are to labour.  Work post fall will be difficult but slothfulness is not an option for a Christian man.  As Proverbs says: ‘A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.’ Prov 10 v 4.

Men are also to be keepers, protectors, watching over people, guarding their families, their staff, their congregation. We are to be shepherd leaders. When you walk into a room or a work place people feel safe when a godly man is there. 

We are to stand up and be counted when there is danger and evil; in our families, in society, in church.  We are ‘Fight the good fight of faith’ against every false doctrine, against every wolf that comes into the church, against the evil that is all around us in society. 

Men are to be fruitful - Gen 1 v 28 and 2 v 20-24.  There is only one thing that God says is ‘not good’ in creation and that is that man is alone.  God’s provision for your spiritual, emotional, physical and sexual needs is a wife not an online community. Pornography, lust, promiscuity will destroy you not satisfy you. As Proverbs says: ‘Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth will be full of gravel.’ Proverbs 20 v 17.  Some of you are tasting that gravel right now.  You need a rule of life - godly habits and rhythms to keep you away from destroying yourself.  If you have never done CT12 I can't recommend it highly enough.  

Why is our culture so hostile to marriage?  Because it goes completely against the personal autonomy and individualism of the modern age.  If you get married and stay married, you are doing about the most countercultural thing any man can do.

Let me say this clearly as I can.  You are not called to get married, buy a dog and have a vasectomy.  God wants us to have families, to be fruitful. God wants you to find a godly woman, settle down, take up responsibility and start a family.  

God didn’t give Adam a companion or a mate or a friend, he gave Adam a helper.  God gave Adam a ‘kanegdo’.  It means to be ‘in front’ of ‘across from’.  Women are not be our servants or slaves, they are to complement us and yes disagree us when we are about to act rashly.  A loving husband listens to his wife and seeks to come to a consensus rather than bullying and dominating her.  

Matthew Hendry famously said: 'The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.'

Proverbs reminds us: ‘An excellent wife who can find?  She is far more precious than jewels.’  Prov 31 v 10.  The best decision of your life will be to find a life partner who has a shared vision of godliness.  

So what is man to do?

What is our mission, our mandate?  We are to be fruitful, work and keep – serve and protect. 

We are not only called to dig the earth, but we are also called to wield the sword. 

Whether that is in our home or in society – godly men fight evil and injustice.

Like Abraham in Gen 18 we are to ‘keep the way of the Lord’ by doing righteousness and justice.’

As Richard Phillips says:  ‘Adam was not to devote himself to endless quests for his masculine identity but was to be lord and keeper of God’s created realm, bringing glory to the creator as he sought to bear the image of God in servant faithfulness.’  The Masculine Mandate.

2. Man's Mission in the World

So how do we live this mandate out in our daily lives?  Well books have been written about this but let me just 10 takeaways.  

Godly men live for a greater glory

You are made for more than doom scrolling.  You are made to reflect the image and glory of God. Jim Elliot's roommate at Wheaton, Ed McCully wrote to him in 1950:‘I have one desire now – to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.  Maybe he’ll send me someplace where the name of Jesus Christ is unknown.  Jim, I’m taking the Lord at His word, and I’m trusting him to prove his word.’  Quoted in Through Gates of Splendour.

God’s worship is your highest and greatest end.   To worship we must know God, love the gospel and love his word.  As John Macarthur said: ‘the heart can only go as high in worship as it can go deep into theology.'  Study theology at a young age.  Build solid foundations now.  

Godly men flee evil and fight the good fight of faith

Be killing sin or it will kill you.  In this life we fight the world the flesh and the devil. 

Men are called to be fighters, warriors.  Some people say but Jesus was meek and mild.  But they forget that meekness is power sheathed.  When Christ unsheathed that power to speak against sin he didn't miss the mark: ‘If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.’ Matt 5 v 29-30

Your greatest challenge is your own sinful heart.  We will spend a lifetime fighting sin.

Godly men work

Work is a calling not a chore.  Yes, it will be difficult and challenging, but it is necessary. I think of Jim Elliot: ‘Wherever you are, be all there, live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.’ Quoted in Through Gates of Splendour.

Cultivate wherever and whoever the Lord has given you.  Prayerfully find your gifting and calling. Find a good coach or mentor that can help you.  

As Rick Newton says in his book ‘Start with Who’: A Stradivarius violin can be used as a hammer, but that’s not what it was designed for. It was designed to make beautiful music, not pound nails.  And yet, that’s how many of us operate – we’re being used in a way we’re not designed for – and settling for doing what we’re told to do rather than doing what makes our heart sing.'

Godly men commit to a local Bible believing church 

The Biblical mandate is to labour in the local church.  The Bible doesn't know anything about freelance Christianity.  Scotland is crying out for godly men to step up and take their place in churches.  If you are given the opportunity, become an elder become a deacon.  If you are called, if the Lord leads you, preach.  Scotland is becoming a wasteland for the preaching of the word.  

Godly men embrace responsibility

You are called to responsibility.  If you are single, prayerfully seek a wife.  Some men are called to singleness but for most of us God's will is marriage.  ‘He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favour from the Lord’  Prov 18 v 22

Start a family – embrace responsibility don’t shrink from it.  Children don’t want superhero or a TikTok influencer, they want a godly man who loves their mum and provides for them.  Children need love, security and discipline.  Lead your children to Christ every day in family worship.  It doesn't need to be long but it needs to be frequent and regular.  Set the tone in your home.  Be like Joshua 'As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.' Joshua 24 v 15.  

Godly men love their wives faithfully

If you are married cleave to your wife through storm and tide.  Some of you are thinking of giving up – don’t. The greatest gift you can give your children is a lifelong marriage.  Shower your wife with kindness, affection and devotion.  Marriage is mean to be difficult.  It is meant to sanctify us.  it exposes out sin.  

Love your wife as Christ loved the church (Eph 5 v 25).  

As Tim Keller says: ‘The reason that marriage is so painful and yet wonderful is because it is a reflection of the gospel, which is painful and wonderful at once. The gospel is this: we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared hope.’ The Meaning of Marriage.

A godly man guards and protects what God has given him

Paul commands Timothy to guard the deposit entrusted to him. We need to guard the truth and pass it on. Long after your firm, your business and your wealth are gone your children and your grandchildren will remain.  Are we handing them the legacy of the gospel?  Are we fighting the good fight of faith?

A godly man builds godly habits and rhythms

To be men of God we need physical and spiritual disciplines.  The word of God, prayer and the public means of grace need to be at the centre not the fringes of our lives. 

Where can we find how to be complete men of God?  Paul says to Timothy: ‘All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.’ 2 Tim 3 v 16

If you want to be a man of God this morning, we need to study the word of God and develop our prayer lives.  We need to switch off our phones, close our laptops and hear what God says in his word.

A godly man builds a band of brothers

We need men beside us in the trenches. Find men who can be Nathan’s, Jethro’s and Barnabas’ to you.

Godly men leave Timothy’s behind us

Who are we pouring our energies into?  For Paul it was Timothy.   Who are our Timothy’s?  Who are out spiritual children?

Conclusion

We are called to be men of God.  We are called to live for God's glory, to fruitfulness, to labour, to protect.  We are to be gentle shepherd leaders but ready at any moment to fiercely protect what God has called us to guard and protect.  We need to be like Joshua in Joshua 15 v 8 ‘…yet I wholly followed the Lord my God.’

You say 'what can I do?'  What was it Henry Varley said to DL Moody?  'The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him. By God’s help, I aim to be that man.'  What can God do with a man on fire for His glory?  Think how he used John Knox, and John Calvin, the Puritans and the Covenanters.  Where will the next leaders come from?  We are being called to rise up in our generation and stand for Christ.  

We need to be like Abraham.  When the Angel of the Lord is travelling to Sodom with Abraham with the other angelic beings in Genesis 18, the Lord says:  “For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”  Gen 18 v 19

Abraham embraced the faith of the living and true God, led his family to faith and became the father of all those who believe (Rom 4 v 11).

Why do we need a Biblical view of manhood?

So, we can ‘keep the way of the Lord’ by doing righteousness and justice’ and pass the faith on to our children and our children’s children. 

YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Andrew Tate has nothing to offer you today.  Let’s live for Christ, let’s be men of God and a lets wholly follow the Lord. Remember what said Jim Elliot: ‘Wherever you are, be all there, live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.’

God gave us a mission in the garden, and he redeemed that mission on hill outside of Jerusalem. 

Does this mission overwhelm you?  Look to Christ.  He was the perfect man and he can give us the strength to be men of God who fulfil the Biblical mandate for men. 

What better way to close than with the words of Paul to young Timothy in 1 Timothy 6 v 11-16: 

'But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 

I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.'

Ten Rules Against Satan's Devices

At the end of 'Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices', Thomas Brooks has these 10 rules or helps.  The whole book is a Puritan gold mine!

How are we to avoid being taken by Satan's devices?

1. Be men of the word. ‘Walk by rule.’ Follow up Rev 3 v 10.

2. Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4 v 27-30.  Don’t give the devil a foothold, do not grieve the Holy Spirit.

3. Plead for more heavenly wisdom

‘It is not the most knowing Christians, but the most wise Christians, that sees, avoids, and escapes Satan’s snares.’

‘The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell underneath.’ Prov 15 v 24

4. Take a zero tolerance to sin. ‘He that will play with Satan’s bait will quickly be taken by Satan’s hook.’

‘The way to fight any sin is to fight all sin.’

‘The only way to fight big sins is to fight little sins.’

5. Be filled with the Spirit

We cannot fight sin without the Holy Spirit of light and power.

Eph 5 v 18 commands us to be ‘filled with the Spirit.’

6. Be humble

‘The devil hath least power to fasten a temptation on him that is most humble.

‘Humility keeps the soul free from many darts of Satan’s casting, and snares of his spreading; as the low shrubs are free from many violent gusts and blasts of the wind, which shake and render the taller trees.’

7. Keep a strong, close and constant watch

‘But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.’

8. Keep close communion with God

'The closer we are in union and communion, the devil struggles to get a foot hold.'

'Job keeps communion with God and defeats Satan on the dunghill, Adam loses communion with God and falls inn paradise.'

9. Do not engage Satan in your own strength but in the power of Jesus Christ.

Peter assures Jesus that he will never deny Christ in Matt 26 v 35.

‘When the snare is spread look to up to Jesus Christ, who is lifted up in the gospel as the brazen serpent was in the wilderness.’

10. Remain constant in prayer.

‘Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation’ Matt 26 v 41

‘Prayer is a shelter to the soul, a sacrifice to God and a scourge to the devil.’

We need to be in much in prayer.

'Greater is he that is in you that is in the world.' 1 John 4 v 4

Reaching Men for Christ

This is an article that first appeared in Christianity Today on 27th Oct 2025 by Joe Barnard, Minister of Holyrood Evangelical Church and Executive Director of Cross Training Ministries.  

When was the last time that there were more men interested in Christianity than women? Not in the early church; not in the medieval church; not in the 18th century revivals; certainly not in the 20th century. The real question is whether this has even happened before. In all my travels, from Egypt to Argentina, I’ve always noted the same thing in churches: There are more women than men. The current rise in religious interest among men may not be unique, but it is anomalous. 

We should infer something from this: God is doing something extraordinary at the moment. We should also feel compelled to act. Unusual times mean unusual opportunities.

But before jump-starting new initiatives, a problem to be confronted. The evangelical church in most cases is currently unprepared to be fishers of men. There are five symptoms of this.

First, evangelical churches are out of fashion. For decades, we’ve been moving toward informality, egalitarianism, and anything dubbed as “contemporary”. This is the opposite direction that young men are traveling. They hunger for formality, hierarchy, and the past. This explains why so many searching young men are by-passing the doors of Baptists and Presbyterians for Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. 

Second, our men’s material is ineffective. Most books and courses produced for Christian men should have the subtitle “for dummies” attached to them. We have been acting as if all men are cut from the same cloth as Homer Simpson. But this isn’t the case for men who are drinking the milk of Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray, and Tom Holland. They may not be academics, but they are thinkers. One of the few benefits of the digital age has been the way in which podcasts have elevated the intellectual appetites of Millennial and Gen Z men.

Third, we’re embarrassed to acknowledge maleness. This is a bigger problem in the UK than the US. For decades, we’ve been trying to erase as many of the distinctives of each sex as possible. This has left us unable, even unwilling, to address men in particular. We feel the same discomfort when someone speaks directly to men that we feel when someone drops a racist comment. Thus, to avoid awkwardness, we choose silence. 

Fourth, the church has become more emasculated than it realises. A typical evangelical worship service provides ample evidence. A lot of men no more want to sing dewy-eyed love anthems than they want to watch rom-coms. Likewise, they get tired of each and every sermon being a form of pop psychology. Men want truth; they want to be reasoned with; they want a king that is worthy of self-sacrifice. Not enough evangelical churches provide this.  

Finally, men’s ministry is typically the weakest part of a church’s discipleship ministry. Most churches invest heavily in children and youth work. Women are remarkable for their spontaneous abilities to gather and organise. Men? Not so. Left to themselves they roll apart like marbles on the floor. Sadly, most churches do little to gather them.

So, the problem: On the one hand, there is a dramatic rise of religious interest among men on both sides of the Atlantic; on the other, evangelical churches are negligently unfit to engage with these men. 

How can this change? After three years of reflection and finally writing a book, here are my suggestions for making disciples of religiously curious men.

First, the church needs to help men escape the spiritual black hole that is modernity. Men today feel as if they are living in a cultural wasteland. They are not delusional. All of the great Christian cultural critics of the last three generations have more or less said so much. Modernity is like a cancer eating itself up from the inside. A lot of guys are feeling the symptoms of this. They are fed up with materialism, individualism, consumerism, egalitarianism, liberalism, digitalism, capitalism, and progressivism. They want something better to make sense of their lives and to fill their souls with purpose. 

The opportunity here for Christians should be obvious. The same gospel that offered an exit out of paganism also offers an exit out of modernism. The church needs to help men find this door. 

Second, we need to brandish the credentials of tradition. For years, evangelicals have been trying to use the authority of science and psychology to validate the truth claims of the Bible. We have been assiduous in our attempts to demonstrate that the gospel is neither anti-science nor emotionally harmful. 

We need now to realise that a lot of young men are not that bothered by evolution and not that interested in psychology. Their interest is in tradition. They want to dig up the floorboards of the past to figure out what was underneath it. 

Christians don’t need to be intimidated or annoyed by this. We can comfortably talk about Aristotle and Aquinas, Plato and Paul, Cicero and Calvin. The roots of our faith go as far back as Abraham - and beyond. We need to get better at exhibiting the richness of this tradition in order to attract more men into our evangelical churches.

Third, we need to remove both the intellectual and non-intellectual barriers to faith. Men don’t have one type of religious need; they have many. Some need to be prompted to think; others need to be stung by truth; others need their imaginations baptised; others need to be liberated from their isolation. Kierkegaard famously spoke of three stages of life: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. Modern men need to be brought through a similar circuit of experiences. 

How will this happen? It’s time for men’s ministries to regear themselves to make tools more suited for modern men. Not every man wants to talk about father wounds around a campfire. A growing number want to grapple with Stoicism or dismantle what Paul Kingsnorth calls “the Machine”.

Fourth, we need confidence in the durability and relevance of the gospel. The same power of God unto salvation in Paul’s day is the power of God unto salvation today. We must be careful in our cultural apologetics not to become too clever. It’s not the wisdom of the world that converts sinners; it’s the foolishness of the cross. This never changes.

Fifth, we need to tell men to go to church. So many guys are listening to podcasts and reading books in isolation. Inevitably, this means they are filtering their religious interests through a consumerist mindset. They want God on demand, on their terms, at their convenience. This is not the path of genuine discipleship. If guys want to find truth, they need to go where Truth discloses Himself. That’s not YouTube, Spotify, or X. It’s church. The message of Jesus cannot be abstracted from the people of Jesus. When it comes to Christianity, there is no Deliveroo option. To meet with Jesus, we must be willing to take a seat at His table. 

For more on reaching modern men, Joe’s new book, The Road Back to God: Faith for Men Dissatisfied by the Modern World (Christian Focus Publications) 

What is Meditation?

This is an article by my friend Joe Barnard from Holyrood Evangelical Church, Edinburgh and Executive Director of Cross Training Ministries.  We highly recommend that you get a copy of 'The Saints Everlasting Rest' by Richard Baxter.  This updated and abridged version from Crossway is an absolute gem.  Cross Training are doing a podcast series on part of Baxter's book.  You can listen to our podcast series here.  

Those who know me know that I talk a lot about meditation. This is not because I’m new age or trendy. Quite the opposite. I’m a proponent of meditation because, like JC Ryle, I stick to “the old paths”. Meditation is the porridge of the Christian life. It’s a tried and true meal that has sustained the faith, peace, and joy of Christians over many, many generations. 

Now, I like to rehearse the same ideas often because, if you’re like me, it takes more than one lesson to drive home a point. With this in mind, what I want to do here is to ask a question, “What is meditation?” The term confuses a lot of Christians, especially evangelicals. Somehow we manage to get through a lot of years, even decades, in churches without having a clear idea of what Christian meditation is. This is sad. After all, we can’t put into practice what we don’t understand. 

Here is a somewhat clunky definition of meditation. I’ve adapted it from the great Puritan, Richard Baxter. Meditation is the solemn acting of all the powers of the soul in the consideration of dimensions of reality that are accessible to faith, not sight. Wow. That’s a mouthful! Let’s break it down.

First, meditation involves all the powers of the soul. What this means is that meditation is not merely an act of the intellect. In addition, it involves the will, the affections, memory, even imagination. In the same way that an exercise like rowing activates all the major muscle groups of the body, so meditation activates every tissue and fibre of the soul. Think about what is required to meditate, for example, on the ascended glory of Christ? The memory must recall familiar truths and present them to the intellect; the intellect must then consider the truth in all of its particularity until goodness and beauty begin to shine; the will must subsequently delight in the excellence of Christ and submit to his majesty; and finally, the affections of delight, joy, and hope must cling to Christ - not as a mere object of thought - but as an object of worship. Baxter says, “Meditation turns truths received and remembered into warm affection, firm resolution, and holy conversation”. It’s not just a part of the soul engaged in the process, but all of it. 

Second, meditation is a solemn act. If spiritual reality was trivial, then our attitude when thinking about it could be casual and frivolous. There is no need to be soberminded when reflecting on a favourite TV show or upcoming holiday. But when the subject matter to be contemplated is of the order of heaven, holiness, resurrection, lordship, and Pure Spirit, then a different mindset is needed. This is especially the case when the truths being contemplated are not static, but dynamic - indeed living! Think of the attitude of Queen Esther as she awaited the golden scepter being extended before approaching the Great King.  If such reverence was required for drawing near to earthly majesty, what must be the condition of a heart before lifting its eyes to divine glory? Or reflect on what it would have been like to be invited into the company of Peter, James, and John as they ascended the Mount of Transfiguration? Walking up the hill would not have been an opportune time for chit chat and banter. The atmosphere would have been heavy as they approached the crest of revelation.  

Third, meditation is considering the deepest and most ravishing dimensions of reality. Baxter says, “That which will make us most happy when we possess it, will make us most joyful when we meditate upon it”. Stop and think about this statement and you will find it to be true. There are all kinds of things we can contemplate. These range from good health, to a nice meal, to seeing an old friend. It is the degree of joy experienced when enjoying a good that determines the degree of joy experienced when meditating on a good. This explains why meditating on spiritual things brings the greatest delights and comforts to a Christian. What can compare to the prospects of seeing Christ, of being resurrected, of attending the wedding supper of the Lamb, or of being eternally invigorated in the light of divine holiness? These are not just “goods”. They are the summum bonum. They encompass what we mean by “eternal life”. 

The application should be plain. Meditation is putting the heart in contact with dimensions of reality that are real though unseen. And the more we invest in the practice of meditation, the more excited we will become about “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven” for us (I Pet. 1:4).

Do you want more joy, peace, and hope? Then meditate. 

Now, I don’t need to belabor the point that much of such blessedness is inaccessible in our present condition. One hymnwriter says, “Jesus, these eyes have never seen/that radiant form of thine”. So it is in the vale of years. However, what we cannot yet enjoy experientially, we can enjoy meditatively. By faith, we are able to go beyond our senses and delight in truths that are real even if they are transcendent. This is the joy of meditation. Meditation is not speculation; it is anticipation. To meditate is like picking up a book about a foreign land and looking intently at the photographs and reading the pages. The photographs and narrative cannot physically change our location so that we can hear the noise of distant streets and taste the foods of unexplored lands. But, the more the book is studied, the more the heart will be thrilled by anticipation. What cannot yet be touched and tasted can indeed be imagined. 

“When death these mortal eyes shall seal,

And still this throbbing heart,

The rending veil shall thee reveal,

All Glorious as thou art.”

Seven Characteristics of False Teachers by Thomas Brooks

'The prophets make my people to err.' Mic 3 v 5

In his book 'Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices' Thomas Brooks gives us so many helpful remedies to use in the Christian life as we battle against sin.  The Puritans were masterful surgeons of the soul and if you are new to the Puritans, please buy a Puritan paperback and try and read a page or two per day and you will see your Christian life being deepened and enriched.  

At the end of his book he has a short section on the seven characteristics of false teachers which seem so relevant today.  They need very little introduction or explanation.

1. False teachers are men pleasers.

'Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things; speak to us smooth things: prophesy deceits.' Isa 30 v 10.

'False teachers are hell's greatest enrichers.  Not bitter, but flattering words do all the mischief, said Valerian, the Roman emperor.  Such smooth teachers are sweet soul-poisoners.' Thomas Brooks

2. False teachers are notable in casting dirt, scorn and reproach upon the person, names and credits of Christ's most faithful ambassadors.  

• Think of Korah, Dathan and Abiram in Num 16 v 3
• Ahab's false prophets turning on Micaiah (1 Kings 22 v 10-26)
• How the false teachers persecuted Paul (2 Cor 10 v 10)

'Oh! the dirt, the filth, the scorn that is thrown upon those of whom the world is not worthy.' Thomas Brooks

3. False teachers are venters of the devices and visions of their own heads and hearts.

'Then the Lord said unto me. The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceiit of their heart.' Jer14 v 14.

'Are there not multitudes in this nation whose visions are but golden delusions, lying vanities, brain sick fantasies?' Thomas Brooks

4. False teachers easily pass over the great and weighty things of both of law and gospel, and stand most upon those things that are the least moment and concernment to the souls of men.  

'The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.' 1 Timothy 1 v 5-7

'False teachers are nice in the lesser things of the law, and as negligent in the greater.'  Thomas Brooks

5. False teachers cover and colour their dangerous principles and soul impostures with very fair speeches and plausible pretenses, with high notions and golden expressions.

'Many in these days are bewitched and deceived by the magnificent words, lofty strains, and stately terms of deceivers, viz, illumination, revelation, deification, and fiery triplicity.' Thomas Brooks

6.  False teachers strive more to win over men to their opinions, than to better them in their conversations.

'But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.' Matt 23 v 13-15

'Their work is not to better men's hearts, and mend their lives; and in this they are very much like their father the devil, who will spare no pains to gain proselytes.' Thomas Brooks

7. False teachers make merchandise of their followers.

'But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.' 2 Peter 2 v 1-3

'Now the best way to deliver poor souls from being deluded and destroyed by these messengers of Satan is, to discover them in their colours, that so, being known, poor souls may shun them, and fly from them as hell itself.' Thomas Brooks

The greatest remedy against false teachers is to keep our eyes on Christ.  It was when the Israelites despaired of Moses (their mediator) coming down from Mount Sinai that they turned to false teachers and idols.  Sin makes us stupid.  Imagine trading the transcendent, merciful Jehovah for a golden bull?  Just take a look at so many churches today.  We have thrown aside the true worship of God and we want men to tickle our ears and entertain us.  Men are no longer content with the simple gospel.  

We need to know and love Christ and his word if we are to see clearly through the false teachers in Scotland today.  How we desperately need to put Christ and his precious word back in the centre of our worship services.  For more on the priority of the word read this. 

'Thy work. sinner, is to be peremptory (urgent) in believing, and in returning to the Lord; thy work is to cast thyself upon Christ, lie at his feet, to wait on him in his ways; and to give him no rest till he shall say, Sinner I am thy portion, I am thy salvation, and nothing shall separate between me and thee.' Thomas Brooks