Kingdom Man

Just finished reading Kingdom Man (kindle version) by Tony Evans. It was a book that I pulled a few ideas from for my sermon this past weekend at Revolution Church on “Marriage & Men.”

One of the driving forces of Revolution Church from day one has been to challenge men to step up to the plate and be the men God has called and created them to be. Dr. Evans gets it right, you can trace many of the problems and issues in our culture back to the home and absence of men.

Here are a few stats:

70% of all prisoners come from fatherless homes.
80% of all rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes.
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.
63% of all teen suicides occur in homes where the father was either abusive or absent.
Virtually every adult social pathology has been linked to either fatherless homes or homes with a father and/or husband who was absent, abusive, or neglectful.

In this book, Dr. Evans looks at this problem, but unlike many authors he doesn’t stay at the problem He quickly moves to the solution, and that’s what the book is about. He traces the biblical story, how men are created to lead, have dominion under God’s authority. The reality that we see in Genesis 3 and then in Romans 5 is that men are primarily responsible for what happens on their watch. They are given primary responsibility for their families, to lead them well. As Dr. Evans says, “As a man, you are ultimately responsible for those within your domain.” The concept of domain or dominion is important and easy to misunderstand. The biblical concept of dominion, or rule, is neither a dictatorship nor a posture of domination, but rather it entails exercising legitimate authority under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Legitimate authority entails all that God provides for and permits a man to do, but not all that a man wishes to do. Dr. Evans is calling men to fulfill their biblical calling, step up to the plate and lead and oversee as God has called them to do.

Here are a few things that jumped out from the book:

A kingdom man is the kind of man that when his feet hit the floor each morning the devil says, “Oh crap, he’s up!”
When a kingdom man steps out his door each day, heaven, earth, and hell take notice. When he protects the woman under his care, she can do little to resist him. His children look to him with confidence. Other men look to him as someone to emulate. His church calls on him for strength and leadership. He is a preserver of culture and a champion of society to keep out evil and usher in good. A kingdom man understands that God never said a godly life would be easy, He just said it would be worth it.
If you are man, like it or not, you are a leader by position. It could be that you are a horrible one by practice, but by position, you have been called to lead.
Every area of life should feel the impact of a kingdom man’s presence.
Any man who blames his wife for the chaos in his home without simultaneously accepting responsibility for addressing it is publicly declaring his lack of biblical manhood.
Pornography use is one of the greatest indicators that a man has lost touch with his own manhood since he has to piggyback on the intimacy of others.
When a kingdom man rules his realm well, everyone benefits.
As a man, when you have demonstrated to a woman, children, or people within your sphere of influence that you are dependable, responsible, and that you take ownership to fix, solve, or simply carry the burden of that which cannot be solved, you have freed them to rest. You have freed them to relax because they know that they can trust the man who has proven to them through past actions that he’s got it.
If a man is out of alignment with God’s prescription for kingdom manhood, it not only messes him up, but it can also mess up anyone or everyone else who comes into contact with him, especially if they fall under his authority.
Being a kingdom man involves exercising authority and responsibility along with wisdom and compassion. A kingdom man intentionally aligns his life, choices, thoughts, and actions under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
While it is the rare woman who will admit her age, it has become the rare man who will act his age.
What woman wants to be intimate with someone whom she has to clean up after, wake up for church, and babysit. Her rationale is that if he can be a man in bed, then why can’t he be a man in the living room, at the office, with the finances, as a father, or in the marital relationship?
Headship isn’t about essence or being; it is about function.
Headship and covering work both ways. A man covers a woman because Christ covers a man. To hold a woman accountable to something that you yourself are not willing to do is a double standard, and it is one of the major reasons that cause the breakdown of the family. If a man is expecting a woman to be answerable to him, she should see him modeling that same principle by being answerable to God’s headship as well.
A husband is to be his wife’s savior in the sense that he sacrifices his life for her well-being.
Along with being your wife’s savior, a husband is to sanctify his wife.
To sanctify something means to set it apart as special and unique. A man sanctifies his wife over time through discipling her and providing a place where she is safe to grow and develop into the creation God made her to be.
A kingdom husband satisfies his wife.
The first step to learning how to satisfy your wife is in understanding her. Study her. Get to know her. Find out what makes her tick, what motivates her, and what inspires her. Discover what her dreams are and how they connect with your own.
The time you spend with your family as a man should never be a second thought. It should always be your first thought.

While there are more and more books on what biblical manhood is, this one hits it on the mark. Definitely worth picking up if as a man you are struggling to figure out how to lead your family well.

Filed under: biblical manhood, book review Tagged: biblical manhood, book review, focus on the family, kingdom man, kingdom of God, male headship, tony evans