(upbeat music) Eric Mason is a church planter who lives and ministers in the heart of Philadelphia. There he is the co-founder and lead pastor of Epiphany Fellowship. He's a husband and father and he's the author of the book, "Manhood Restored, How the Gospel Makes Men Whole." In that book, on page 53, Mason writes this, quote, "Think about it.

The very fact that Jesus came to earth is evidence of his willingness to stare sin in the eye. In Jesus Christ, God became human. He chose to live in the world that man had destroyed. He faced fatigue, sweat, hunger, and even rejection. He faced the self-righteous sin of religious people.

He faced the self-preserving sin of his closest friends who abandoned him. He faced being misunderstood by his family, mocked by society, maligned by the crowds, and even stolen from by the soldiers. That's just a small sampling of the rest of the sin that he took upon his shoulders at the cross, and yet he went on.

This is manliness at its best, courage at its greatest," end quote. As we will hear from Mason later, the topic of defining masculinity is opening new doors for gospel outreach among non-Christians in his neighborhood, and I asked him to explain how and to talk more about how Christ models masculinity.

But first I asked him about his own father, and I asked him why he wrote his book, "Manhood Restored." - You know, actually, I was gonna write on something else, and it was interesting. I was gonna write on another subject. I was gonna write on either urban missions or something like that, or 'cause people had been encouraging me to do that.

And when I got with BNH and Lifeway, and they began, they just interviewed me. They brought me down to Nashville and just started interviewing me about different things. It was on my heart, and I don't know how the Holy Spirit did it, but basically it came out that manhood was something that I needed to write on within the next two years or whatever, and so, and as I began to dive into it, I really began to realize that I spent the majority of my ministry of almost the last 20 years discipling men, and realized that God had graced me with a few insights on just manhood, and my desire was to write really a book that reflected who Jesus Christ is and what he's done for us so it wouldn't be a book that just, you know, kind of beat men up.

And then on the other extreme, it wouldn't be a book that didn't deal with the sinfulness of man, but then I wanted to offer biblical solutions. I wanted it to be a Bible-saturated book, Jesus-saturated book, but contemporary to the culture that we're in, and as I dove into things, it seemed to strike a chord with me.

- So tell us a little bit about your own father. You mention him and his story in the book. Give us an abbreviated version here. - Yeah, well, my father was, you know, he was raised in Jim Crow South. He went to World War II at 16 years old.

He lied about his age, and they let him lie about his age because that's how bad he wanted to get out of Jim Crow South. We figured going to World War II would have been better than being in Jim Crow South, and so he went to World War II, ended up going into the Army.

I can't remember which war. He was 91st Infantry in the 24th Infantry, but basically he was a Buffalo soldier, those legendary infantry grunts from, you know, the Army during World War II, and obviously he was a probably, he's pretty much a decorated soldier 'cause he got a Purple Heart in each war, but because of the impact of them coming back and not being received as equals, most of the African American men along with him that came back from the war and came back to Jim Crow America, I mean, he went back to Jim Crow South and came North, and they threw their Purple Hearts in the trash.

- Oh my. - Matter of fact, we're in the midst of talking to him about getting it reissued, so. - This is an amazing story. So how did all of this background affect him as a father? - Yeah, well, my father was a 100% disabled veteran, so they don't give you 100% disability for nothing.

And he was, I mean, he was 100% disability. I mean, he's 90, he'll be 90 this year, so he's been 100% disabled since his 20s or 30s. And so my father, his father left him at a very young age, like when he was six months old, I can't remember exactly when, and it really had, I mean, to this day, if you bring up my dad's dad to him, he has a deep sense of bitterness and brokenness about his dad leaving and him rarely seeing him and his lack of involvement in his life.

And that impacted the way he raised us because it didn't necessarily drive him to be a different type of father in a sense of, I guess he thought he was a different type of father because he was physically there. And that doesn't mean he was, I mean, he wasn't the worst father, but there wasn't for him just a model.

So he had no idea how to lead us and develop us into young men and that type of thing. And so, I mean, he was an alcoholic most of my life until about 30 years ago. And then, well, the beginning of my life, not most of my life, but beginning of my life, until about 20, 30, a little over 30 years ago.

And so he's doing a lot better. He loves the Lord now, has a relationship with Christ now, but it was very, very difficult growing up under a man that really didn't understand all of his life why he was just extremely angry at life. And it was, yeah, so he's a lot better now though.

But that's pretty much the house I was raised in. - Man, thank you for sharing the story with us. Every generation has models of manhood, even today, some good, some poor examples. What you do in "Manhood Restored" is that you point to Jesus. You write this quote, "Jesus and Jesus alone has exemplified manhood," end quote.

How would you explain this point to someone who doesn't think of Christ as necessarily a model of masculinity? - Yeah, I think that it's really, really helpful because actually, I wrote the book with my neighborhood in mind because I live in a mostly Islamic neighborhood, a black Orthodox Muslim neighborhood.

And most of the men, drug dealers, most of the men around here, if they claim any religion, it would be Islam. I mean, period, I mean, probably 90%. So I wrote it because I've dialogued with many of them. They know me and I've dialogued with them and I'm pretty straightforward about who Christ is with them.

And one of the things that I wanted to do is I really wrote the book as an apologetic to them in mind so that they could, 'cause they don't view Christianity or Jesus in a very, very masculine way. And so because of that, I wanted to show off his godliness, his holiness, in his humanity, even though he's 100% God.

I wanted to emphasize the 100% man that he is and begin to extract principles from it that men can relate to and that men can't relate to. Because I think there's some ways in which Christ is so otherworldly that it will upgrade their view of what manhood is. And so that's really how I kind of explain it because I wanted to, that's why I picked characteristics of manhood so that I did everything from sensitivity to zealous, so they could show two sides of the same coin so that the man could see, Jesus is zealous or jealous in a good way.

Like every man gets jealous, but let's explain what his jealousy is all about. And then on the other hand though, I said he's sensitive, but let's explain, let's redefine, let's show how he redefined sensitivity from a heavenly perspective and also a manly perspective. And so, and what's been interesting is that's one of the things that I keep hearing from men reoccurringly.

And there's so many men even now that I'm meeting when I go places or whatever, that are saying, "Man, hey, I can give this to my unbelieving friends. I've been waiting for a tool that I can use to be kind of common ground with my unsaved friend." And so that's, you know, and so more so that's pretty much how I begin to engage, even I engage in non-Christians a lot, especially Muslims about, because they believe in Tanakh and because they believe in Tanakh, AKA Old Testament, I utilize Christ-centered principles of showing Jesus off and how it either typifies or through a longitudinal theme, redemptive historical theme, and use that as a connecting ground for them.

That's the technical way, but man who restored is really a practical way that I take Old Testament, even though I use a lot of New Testament too, to kind of relate and communicate Jesus to Muslims and other people who wouldn't necessarily, 'cause in the Northeast, it's a lot of religious education up here, which because all of the Ivy leagues up here, so this is post-post-Christian, like America's post-Christian, but up here because all the Ivy leagues and everything's here, it's even impacted how people on the street think because some of that intellectualism has gotten to even just a regular person who's able to give an apologetic for it.

So the book, that's why I wrote it. - That was Eric Mason and a clip from my 2013 conversation with him about his book, "Manhood Restored." And tomorrow we will resume that conversation and we'll talk about the local church and how it helps to envision fathers and men. For more on this podcast, find us online at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)