Perfect Manhood on Display
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | Eric Mason is a church planter who lives and ministers
00:00:09.480 | in the heart of Philadelphia.
00:00:11.200 | There he is the co-founder and lead pastor
00:00:14.040 | of Epiphany Fellowship.
00:00:15.680 | He's a husband and father and he's the author
00:00:17.880 | of the book, "Manhood Restored,
00:00:19.800 | How the Gospel Makes Men Whole."
00:00:21.700 | In that book, on page 53, Mason writes this, quote,
00:00:25.380 | "Think about it.
00:00:26.360 | The very fact that Jesus came to earth
00:00:28.480 | is evidence of his willingness to stare sin in the eye.
00:00:33.080 | In Jesus Christ, God became human.
00:00:36.000 | He chose to live in the world that man had destroyed.
00:00:39.040 | He faced fatigue, sweat, hunger, and even rejection.
00:00:43.480 | He faced the self-righteous sin of religious people.
00:00:46.700 | He faced the self-preserving sin
00:00:48.520 | of his closest friends who abandoned him.
00:00:50.920 | He faced being misunderstood by his family,
00:00:53.660 | mocked by society, maligned by the crowds,
00:00:57.500 | and even stolen from by the soldiers.
00:01:00.680 | That's just a small sampling of the rest of the sin
00:01:02.800 | that he took upon his shoulders at the cross,
00:01:05.520 | and yet he went on.
00:01:07.280 | This is manliness at its best,
00:01:10.560 | courage at its greatest," end quote.
00:01:13.720 | As we will hear from Mason later,
00:01:16.240 | the topic of defining masculinity is opening new doors
00:01:19.480 | for gospel outreach among non-Christians
00:01:21.360 | in his neighborhood, and I asked him to explain how
00:01:24.720 | and to talk more about how Christ models masculinity.
00:01:28.060 | But first I asked him about his own father,
00:01:30.260 | and I asked him why he wrote his book, "Manhood Restored."
00:01:34.220 | - You know, actually, I was gonna write on something else,
00:01:37.180 | and it was interesting.
00:01:39.740 | I was gonna write on another subject.
00:01:41.180 | I was gonna write on either urban missions
00:01:42.660 | or something like that,
00:01:43.660 | or 'cause people had been encouraging me to do that.
00:01:45.340 | And when I got with BNH and Lifeway,
00:01:47.980 | and they began, they just interviewed me.
00:01:50.020 | They brought me down to Nashville
00:01:51.100 | and just started interviewing me about different things.
00:01:53.260 | It was on my heart, and I don't know how the Holy Spirit did
00:01:56.540 | it, but basically it came out that manhood was something
00:01:59.700 | that I needed to write on within the next two years
00:02:03.060 | or whatever, and so, and as I began to dive into it,
00:02:06.540 | I really began to realize that I spent the majority
00:02:11.160 | of my ministry of almost the last 20 years discipling men,
00:02:14.780 | and realized that God had graced me with a few insights
00:02:19.700 | on just manhood, and my desire was to write really a book
00:02:24.700 | that reflected who Jesus Christ is and what he's done for us
00:02:28.060 | so it wouldn't be a book that just, you know,
00:02:29.940 | kind of beat men up.
00:02:31.900 | And then on the other extreme, it wouldn't be a book
00:02:34.380 | that didn't deal with the sinfulness of man,
00:02:37.500 | but then I wanted to offer biblical solutions.
00:02:40.300 | I wanted it to be a Bible-saturated book,
00:02:43.260 | Jesus-saturated book, but contemporary to the culture
00:02:47.260 | that we're in, and as I dove into things,
00:02:50.020 | it seemed to strike a chord with me.
00:02:52.500 | - So tell us a little bit about your own father.
00:02:56.860 | You mention him and his story in the book.
00:02:59.460 | Give us an abbreviated version here.
00:03:03.180 | - Yeah, well, my father was, you know,
00:03:05.380 | he was raised in Jim Crow South.
00:03:07.500 | He went to World War II at 16 years old.
00:03:12.260 | He lied about his age, and they let him lie about his age
00:03:14.780 | because that's how bad he wanted to get out of Jim Crow South.
00:03:16.980 | We figured going to World War II would have been better
00:03:20.820 | than being in Jim Crow South,
00:03:22.580 | and so he went to World War II,
00:03:24.860 | ended up going into the Army.
00:03:26.820 | I can't remember which war.
00:03:29.780 | He was 91st Infantry in the 24th Infantry,
00:03:32.140 | but basically he was a Buffalo soldier,
00:03:34.100 | those legendary infantry grunts from, you know,
00:03:38.060 | the Army during World War II,
00:03:40.580 | and obviously he was a probably,
00:03:43.340 | he's pretty much a decorated soldier
00:03:44.740 | 'cause he got a Purple Heart in each war,
00:03:47.380 | but because of the impact of them coming back
00:03:50.380 | and not being received as equals,
00:03:52.460 | most of the African American men along with him
00:03:54.700 | that came back from the war
00:03:55.940 | and came back to Jim Crow America,
00:03:58.640 | I mean, he went back to Jim Crow South and came North,
00:04:02.020 | and they threw their Purple Hearts in the trash.
00:04:04.060 | - Oh my. - Matter of fact,
00:04:05.420 | we're in the midst of talking to him
00:04:07.300 | about getting it reissued, so.
00:04:09.140 | - This is an amazing story.
00:04:12.340 | So how did all of this background affect him as a father?
00:04:17.340 | - Yeah, well, my father was a 100% disabled veteran,
00:04:20.700 | so they don't give you 100% disability for nothing.
00:04:23.940 | And he was, I mean, he was 100% disability.
00:04:25.980 | I mean, he's 90, he'll be 90 this year,
00:04:28.940 | so he's been 100% disabled since his 20s or 30s.
00:04:33.940 | And so my father, his father left him at a very young age,
00:04:37.980 | like when he was six months old,
00:04:39.060 | I can't remember exactly when,
00:04:41.260 | and it really had, I mean, to this day,
00:04:44.140 | if you bring up my dad's dad to him,
00:04:46.660 | he has a deep sense of bitterness and brokenness
00:04:48.940 | about his dad leaving and him rarely seeing him
00:04:52.280 | and his lack of involvement in his life.
00:04:54.960 | And that impacted the way he raised us
00:04:58.180 | because it didn't necessarily drive him
00:05:02.020 | to be a different type of father in a sense of,
00:05:05.020 | I guess he thought he was a different type of father
00:05:07.020 | because he was physically there.
00:05:08.960 | And that doesn't mean he was, I mean,
00:05:10.340 | he wasn't the worst father,
00:05:11.580 | but there wasn't for him just a model.
00:05:15.100 | So he had no idea how to lead us
00:05:18.220 | and develop us into young men and that type of thing.
00:05:21.940 | And so, I mean, he was an alcoholic most of my life
00:05:24.820 | until about 30 years ago.
00:05:27.420 | And then, well, the beginning of my life,
00:05:29.820 | not most of my life, but beginning of my life,
00:05:31.540 | until about 20, 30, a little over 30 years ago.
00:05:36.240 | And so he's doing a lot better.
00:05:38.740 | He loves the Lord now,
00:05:40.820 | has a relationship with Christ now,
00:05:42.320 | but it was very, very difficult growing up under a man
00:05:46.580 | that really didn't understand all of his life
00:05:49.000 | why he was just extremely angry at life.
00:05:51.460 | And it was, yeah, so he's a lot better now though.
00:05:56.460 | But that's pretty much the house I was raised in.
00:05:58.860 | - Man, thank you for sharing the story with us.
00:06:01.620 | Every generation has models of manhood,
00:06:04.860 | even today, some good, some poor examples.
00:06:07.720 | What you do in "Manhood Restored"
00:06:09.060 | is that you point to Jesus.
00:06:10.500 | You write this quote,
00:06:12.000 | "Jesus and Jesus alone has exemplified manhood," end quote.
00:06:16.860 | How would you explain this point to someone
00:06:19.220 | who doesn't think of Christ
00:06:20.780 | as necessarily a model of masculinity?
00:06:25.160 | - Yeah, I think that it's really, really helpful
00:06:27.760 | because actually, I wrote the book
00:06:31.540 | with my neighborhood in mind
00:06:33.540 | because I live in a mostly Islamic neighborhood,
00:06:37.240 | a black Orthodox Muslim neighborhood.
00:06:40.540 | And most of the men, drug dealers,
00:06:43.540 | most of the men around here,
00:06:44.980 | if they claim any religion, it would be Islam.
00:06:47.980 | I mean, period, I mean, probably 90%.
00:06:50.580 | So I wrote it because I've dialogued with many of them.
00:06:55.020 | They know me and I've dialogued with them
00:06:58.380 | and I'm pretty straightforward about who Christ is with them.
00:07:02.520 | And one of the things that I wanted to do
00:07:04.540 | is I really wrote the book as an apologetic to them in mind
00:07:09.180 | so that they could,
00:07:10.020 | 'cause they don't view Christianity or Jesus
00:07:12.620 | in a very, very masculine way.
00:07:14.580 | And so because of that,
00:07:16.540 | I wanted to show off his godliness, his holiness,
00:07:20.620 | in his humanity, even though he's 100% God.
00:07:24.660 | I wanted to emphasize the 100% man that he is
00:07:29.660 | and begin to extract principles from it
00:07:32.300 | that men can relate to and that men can't relate to.
00:07:36.140 | Because I think there's some ways
00:07:37.460 | in which Christ is so otherworldly
00:07:40.420 | that it will upgrade their view of what manhood is.
00:07:43.420 | And so that's really how I kind of explain it
00:07:47.340 | because I wanted to,
00:07:48.380 | that's why I picked characteristics of manhood
00:07:50.980 | so that I did everything from sensitivity to zealous,
00:07:55.500 | so they could show two sides of the same coin
00:07:57.740 | so that the man could see,
00:07:58.980 | Jesus is zealous or jealous in a good way.
00:08:02.660 | Like every man gets jealous,
00:08:04.380 | but let's explain what his jealousy is all about.
00:08:07.300 | And then on the other hand though,
00:08:09.300 | I said he's sensitive,
00:08:10.820 | but let's explain, let's redefine,
00:08:12.780 | let's show how he redefined sensitivity
00:08:16.780 | from a heavenly perspective and also a manly perspective.
00:08:19.940 | And so, and what's been interesting
00:08:22.020 | is that's one of the things
00:08:23.060 | that I keep hearing from men reoccurringly.
00:08:25.420 | And there's so many men even now that I'm meeting
00:08:28.740 | when I go places or whatever,
00:08:30.260 | that are saying, "Man, hey,
00:08:31.100 | I can give this to my unbelieving friends.
00:08:33.340 | I've been waiting for a tool that I can use
00:08:35.740 | to be kind of common ground with my unsaved friend."
00:08:38.140 | And so that's, you know,
00:08:40.420 | and so more so that's pretty much how I begin to engage,
00:08:44.620 | even I engage in non-Christians a lot,
00:08:46.900 | especially Muslims about,
00:08:49.060 | because they believe in Tanakh
00:08:50.500 | and because they believe in Tanakh,
00:08:52.420 | AKA Old Testament,
00:08:53.580 | I utilize Christ-centered principles
00:08:57.100 | of showing Jesus off and how it either typifies
00:09:00.660 | or through a longitudinal theme,
00:09:01.980 | redemptive historical theme,
00:09:03.700 | and use that as a connecting ground for them.
00:09:05.980 | That's the technical way,
00:09:06.940 | but man who restored is really a practical way
00:09:10.820 | that I take Old Testament,
00:09:12.060 | even though I use a lot of New Testament too,
00:09:13.940 | to kind of relate and communicate Jesus
00:09:16.340 | to Muslims and other people who wouldn't necessarily,
00:09:20.580 | 'cause in the Northeast,
00:09:21.500 | it's a lot of religious education up here,
00:09:24.140 | which because all of the Ivy leagues up here,
00:09:26.340 | so this is post-post-Christian,
00:09:27.900 | like America's post-Christian,
00:09:29.420 | but up here because all the Ivy leagues
00:09:30.900 | and everything's here,
00:09:31.820 | it's even impacted how people on the street think
00:09:34.420 | because some of that intellectualism
00:09:36.700 | has gotten to even just a regular person
00:09:39.580 | who's able to give an apologetic for it.
00:09:41.260 | So the book, that's why I wrote it.
00:09:43.020 | - That was Eric Mason
00:09:44.940 | and a clip from my 2013 conversation with him
00:09:47.780 | about his book, "Manhood Restored."
00:09:49.980 | And tomorrow we will resume that conversation
00:09:52.500 | and we'll talk about the local church
00:09:53.820 | and how it helps to envision fathers and men.
00:09:57.300 | For more on this podcast,
00:09:58.780 | find us online at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:10:03.220 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:10:04.300 | Thanks for listening.
00:10:05.340 | (upbeat music)
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