Kingdom Man by Tony Evans calls men to take up authority in the family, church, and community. We find here a clear vision of how to do that.
Step up and be the man God made you to be by taking authority in the ways He designed you to.
God is raising men to have authority for His glory and His name in the world. We sometimes keep God on the outside of things like He is someone to keep around in case something goes wrong. But we are called to fear God in everything we do and allow that fear of God to inspire love and obedience in every area of our lives. That includes what we do in front of the whole church and when no one is looking.
Claiming authority and territory in our lives seems complicated. After all, the whole world is engaged in battles over authority and territory in different ways. But God will respond to people who are gaining territory for His sake. When God sends the people of Israel to claim the promised land, He reminds them at the beginning of the Book of Joshua that Moses is dead but that they should step up to the challenge.
In this summary, you will learn:
- what biblical manhood means;
- how to take up authority in different spheres of life; and
- the ways that God is working through men in the world.
Kingdom men rule like NFL refs.
A kingdom man is a powerful kind of guy – the kind of man who frightens the devil every time he wakes up in the morning. Kingdom men know that God has called them to serve. Kingdom men know that they need to stand up for their wives, children, cultures, and churches. They are the kind of people that the whole city calls on in a time of need. They are like football players erupting from a tunnel.
Kingdom men understand that there is a third team on the field at all times. When we watch football, we watch three teams compete. There are two sports teams, and then there is the team of officials who are tasked with making sure that the game is fair and is played according to the rules of the NFL office. The officials are called and commissioned by the head of the league to make decisions and act in accordance with the rule book that the league office sanctioned. As long as officials make decisions in line with the league rule book, they are protected by the league office.
Just like league officials, kingdom men are called to rule the world with the rule book that God has handed down. God has emphasized that He has supreme authority over all the world and all the men of the world. But God is also delegating this authority to certain men of the kingdom, just like the league office delegates certain authority to the people who are referees.
The refs can only make calls according to the rule book and, in that way, retain their authority. If the refs start making calls that are based on their own opinions and preferences instead of on the rule book that the league office has handed down, then the league office will not protect them, and they may lose their authority. Kingdom men, in the same way, rule the world according to the rule of God. God is the ruler and judge over all of us in the same way that He was the ruler of the Israelites. But we have Jesus Christ (not Adam) as the Archetype for the ideal Ruler and Man.
Men need to wake up and take seriously their role in the world.
It will be impossible for us to live out the definition that God gives for men if we don’t take seriously what God says in His Word. If you are a ref and only take part of the rule book seriously, then you can’t function as a ref. But there are so many men who don’t quite understand that idea or take it seriously when it comes to God’s directions. Some men take part of God’s Word and live by it but then decide that other parts do not apply to them.
To grasp the position that men are in today, we need to go all the way back to Adam. Men’s responsibility and role in the world is based on the order of creation that God initiated. But then there was a fall, and God had to hunt down Adam. The reason that God couldn’t find Adam was the same reason that it is difficult to find any men of the kingdom today: Men have often left their posts.
Women are frequently stuck with the men that they’ve married. And Christian leaders often misuse men in the church to build buildings and run events without turning them into active disciples. God’s kingdom is supposed to govern all the creation of God. Kingdom men should be inserted into systems where they can have an impact on the whole world.
Men are responsible for what happens in their family, their church, and their city. So many men have tried to give back to God the creation-driven right to rule and lead in creation. We have created churches that are for women, and men find themselves not equipped to fight the battles that the church needs them to fight. Men are becoming busy instead of serving. Rather than fighting for the church, we have men that are trying as hard as they can to climb the corporate ladder and live vicariously through other famous men in the world. Men who use the sports jerseys of other men to feel strong or men who use pornography to feel intimate may need to check in on their manhood.
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