What does it mean for a husband and father to take command of his household? Joshua provides a powerful example: “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Josh. 24:15). 

In this episode, Scott Brown and Jason Dohm introduce Man Your Post, a newly published book drawn from a larger work by Puritan Philip Goodwin. Reflecting on Joshua’s courage and resolve, they discuss the God-given responsibility of men to shepherd their families, guard against spiritual dangers, cultivate godliness in the home, and lead by example. They also explore the importance of knowing the needs of each family member and establishing your family in a faithful local church.  

Their charge to men is simple: Don’t be passive, but lead your family in serving the Lord. 

When I first bought this book, I started reading it. I was stunned. You can go back a few hundred years and they have the same set of problems. A home without godly living is like a house without locks and bolts. Well Jason, we just published a new book.

There you have it. Man your post. Take command of your household with the grit and zeal of Joshua. Modern wisdom from the 1650s or something. Yeah 1655.

This actually is an excerpt of a larger book we're gonna republish that was written in 1655 by Philip Goodwin. He was an English Puritan, nonconformist. And he wrote really very much like William Gooshe's Domestical Duties, one of the premier books on family life. And here is the copy that I have. I'm not touching that.

About 17 or 18 years ago I had this, I had this typed up, I had an intern type it up And it's a very old book. I'm told there are less than ten of these alive in the world today Wow, And so nobody has this book, but I love, I love, he's writing, he's writing about the reformation of the family basically. So here's the title of the book. Are you ready? Religio domestic red Aviva or family religion revived or a treatise as to discover the good old way of serving God in private houses.

So to recover the pious practice of those precious duties unto their primitive platform lamentably laid down in these last backsliding days by Philip Goodwin. It's easy for you to say. There you go. It's a long book. We're modernizing the language and we're actually cutting it down.

We're gonna publish this entire book, but we excerpted this part about Joshua and really the picture of a courageous father. It's a foretaste, a little down payment. It's a 95, 000 word book, which is too long to publish. That's going to be this big. So we're cutting it down, But then we're also going to provide a QR code for the entire book if you want to read it.

When I first bought this book, I started reading it, I was stunned by the clarity and really the beauty of the language and just some of the ways that he talks about shepherding your family. I loved it. And so it's taken forever now to get it out into the public. Assuming it's like other books on the topic from the time you find you can go back a few hundred years and they have the same set of problems. So they might manifest themselves a little differently with modern life, but it's not fundamentally different problems.

That's absolutely right. Now, this book is really a takeoff on Joshua, who said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That's what this little section is. How many pages is this? Is it 60 pages?

Yeah, it's 50, you know, 55 pages in a short book. But he really argues for the diligent care of your flocks. I love how he speaks of it. He says, no, thy herds, you know, take care of your flocks. And he's, you know, riches are not forever, nor does a crime quoting nor does a crown endure to all generations.

You shall have enough goats milk for your food for the food of your household and the nourishment of your maidservants, Proverbs 27. Anyway, he just uses all kinds of graphic illustrative language to talk about just the plain vanilla stuff that we should be doing in our homes. I was thumbing through and one of the first sections is headed a household resolved and that really is Joshua and Joshua chapter 24. You don't think it's good to serve the Lord? Fine, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

And what a good starting place. That's really what Joshua was. He had a household resolved. He was willing to stand up and on behalf of his household say, whatever anyone else does, we are going to honor the Lord, serve the Lord, follow the Lord. That's what we're doing here.

So what a great place for dads to start is just with an iron resolve. This is what we're doing, and I'm here to make sure that we walk with the Lord. Yeah. This book is here to say, take command of your household. And Joshua is a wonderful example for someone who takes command.

You know, he was the George Washington of the Puritans in terms of family life. But, you know, Joshua was a spy. He was a farmer. He was a military leader. You know, he was a commander.

And he was a man of the word of God. You know, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. Right? So he was an exemplary man as a man's man. You know, he has a front row seat in the fall of Jericho.

He was known for tremendous accomplishments and holiness, and he's over and over again urging the children of Israel to obey God lest they be destroyed. Right. For anyone who has an impulse that gets really uncomfortable when someone says, a man should take control of his household, we just want to follow that up by saying, for the purpose of... This is not for the purpose of the man who's taking control of the household, it's for the purpose of a household getting the good of knowing the Lord and walking with the Lord. Why is the man resolving to lead his household?

It's to lead his household into green pastures and beside still waters, because that's what good shepherds do. And a dad's supposed to be a good shepherd in a household. And it starts with him. Joshua says, as for me, me, now we will serve the Lord, but as, in other words, he's leading the way. He is a shepherd who's leading the sheep in the same way that he's already going.

And this is just tremendous wisdom for a father. You've got to make sure, have you consecrated yourself first? Families need a consecrated man. They need a man who is serving the Lord. We'll talk about that later, but He says as for me.

That's really the first and then he says and My house he was he was taking ownership of his house. It's my house. I have responsibility. I've been given jurisdiction. God is gonna hold me accountable.

And then he says, we will serve the Lord. In other words, we're gonna do this together. You know, we're gonna walk together in the Lord, and then we are going to serve the Lord, which is technical language in the Bible for worship. We are going to be a worshipping family. It starts with me, and then it is carried out with us.

But it has to do with the service of God. And I think that he's not just talking about family worship, He's really talking about the worship of God formally in the institution of the church. Have you ever heard anyone say, who made you the boss? In this category, God has made husband and dad the head of the household for the benefit of the household. So the answer to the question is God did.

This is God's idea and the end intended, the end of the design is that the household would know and walk with the Lord. It's for the good of the household. Yeah. He said, or Philip Goodwin says this, observe that Joshua's resolution was full and firm. It was decisive and defiant.

He was decisive in that his will was fully set for the service of God, as for me and my house. And he just nails the passion and the diligence and the fervor that Joshua engaged his fatherhood. We need fathers like that today. And this certainly didn't start in old age with Joshua, but that quote is from near the end of Joshua's life, and certainly at the end of the book of Joshua. So it didn't start there with him, but he persisted in that for a life long.

It's very inspiring. Well, his household had expanded by that time as well. It was larger than just his own house. And so he was continuing to be a spiritual force in his whole family. He talks about the dangers of neglecting it.

That's a very powerful section. He says, a family will live in continual danger if they neglect this. He says, the service of God is the defense of families. Yeah that's so true. We can't afford to be naive that we have an enemy, the world, the flesh and the devil, very active enemies.

And so did the members of our household. And if somebody is not on the lookout and guarding against those things, this is really a call to be on the lookout for the protection of your family and actively engaged in closing the gaps and protecting. Here's what he says, a home without godly living is like a house without locks and bolts, without doors or bars, open night and day to every invasion of calamity. Easy pickings. Easy pickings.

Yeah. And then he speaks of the tremendous danger. He says when judgment comes, they are not able to cast it out. That there's a lion roaring against the door of your family. You've probably known people like I have, and you've seen them realize that their families were easy pickings to their great sorrow.

After the time for vigilance has passed, They could see I wasn't vigilant and it made the people of my household so vulnerable and it's a great sorrow. Yeah. And he goes on and talks about the dangers and the vulnerabilities that there are families in really specific ways. I found it really, really helpful. He also, he doesn't just dwell on the negative like that.

He talks about the good that's produced through godliness, the benefits of godliness, and he lists them. Number one, they are comfortable. Number two, they are honorable. Number three, they are profitable. Yeah, you might think of this emphasis on the home as just an inward-facing thing, but that ends up being not true.

I think that's what he's saying, is it ends up making the home into a unit that can have an impact on the world, certainly on your immediate community. It makes you useful. Yeah, let me read this section. Faithful performance of family duties, which by the way, is just so neglected. People kind of neglect the duties.

They like the ideas but not the duties. Faithful performance of family duties is one reason there is such a noticeable difference between the homes of God's saints and the dwellings of the wicked. The wicked are overthrown and are no more, but the house of the righteous will stand, Proverbs 12-7. So there's a strength that's embedded in the foundation of a house with a father like Joshua. I remember going to a homeschool conference one time and one of the speakers put up a slide that had two walled, they looked pretty similar, walled fortresses.

He said this one here is a monastery. The walls were built to keep the evil out. The problem is, is what you find about monasteries is there's plenty of evil on the inside of the walls. So it actually doesn't exactly solve the problem at all. He said, hey, this one is a fortress, and it's designed for strength and rest, and then going out to have influence in the land.

Which are we, homeschooling families? We're not monasteries that are just trying to keep out every evil thing, because you'll find out there's plenty within the household that we have to contend with. But it's a place for health and strength so that we can go out and have influence in our communities. I've never forgotten that. It's a very powerful, hey, but both have walls, but they have very different objectives.

He says, if godly living is to rise in churches, nations, and commonwealths, it must first be revived in families. He says, he must learn to order everything well at home and then check this little of Christ will survive in public if Christianity is suffocated in homes. We're just talking about the centrality of this institution of the home that's like a fountain. It's like a river. It's an incubator.

It's an incubator and a river. It's such a fundamental institution. And that's why I think, you know, for many years, we've really tried to say things to revive the doctrine of the home in our culture because it's been so disarmed, particularly in the 20th century and even ongoing to now. Here's what I was thinking about the point, take heed to thy flock. Oh boy, yeah I love this, the way he talks about that.

So this takes time and it takes intentionality. In other words, I don't think you just drift on the current and take heed to your flock. Hey, wait, I gotta stop you. Yeah. I'll stop you.

In the original, he says, take heed to thy herd. Okay. What do you think? Should we put that back in? Should we put herd or flock?

I think flock's fine. We thought flock probably. I think flock's fine. Flock, yeah. I didn't object to it, but when I first read it, I thought It was just so neat.

Take her heat to thy herd. I do have cattle, you know. Yeah, so this takes time and it takes intentionality and I think, Hey, as a father and a husband, I've benefited from taking a minute or two or five here and there to just stare at the ceiling and to think about the flock that's under our roof. You have individuals who need different things at different times. And just to think about, I'm just going to spend the next minute or two thinking about this child.

Where are they? What are they struggling with? What's encouraging them? And how do I tamp down the things that are discouraging them and fan the things that are encouraging them and Dad should take a little time to just think about the conditions of their flocks so that they can act, so that they can act. Until you've thought it through, you probably don't act at all.

Yeah. And he talks about that, you know, know their nature, know their vulnerabilities, know the condition of your flock, your herd. He talks also about setting your family in a good place in terms of the church. I'll read this. Seek out and settle under sound preaching.

To place a family where the gospel is faithfully preached is like planting trees beside rivers of water. Men often choose to live where there are earthly comforts, but they rarely choose a place for the good of their souls. Why haven't we seen that? Yeah. Families are wonderful, but they're not the sum total of what people need.

God has made us to need more broadly than just a nuclear family. And so the benefits that we get from being with brothers and sisters in a committed local church where you're actually committed to each other for around certain principles and truths over a longer period of time is so sweet. We've encountered that together. Yeah. So this whole little excerpt is really just to say man your post, know your flocks, keep your vineyard, and recover true Christianity in your home.

It's the fountainhead. And take diligent care of that little community that God gave you. One of the things he says is he says be a good expositor. Be a good expositor. Interesting.

Of your flock. Uh-huh. Yeah, I thought that was really really interesting language. So there you go. He's really, this book is a call for men to be the captain of their castle.

A question for husbands and fathers. If not you, who? Right. If you don't do it, who will do it? Somebody else might try to do it, but do they have the God-given advantages that you have as the husband and father of that home?

The answer is no. So others can try and others can do good to your family, but none of them have the advantages that God has handed to you. Yeah. Amen. Okay.

Well, thanks, man. I can't wait to have this vocat. It'll take us a little while to get it all out because we're still working through it. But anyway, thanks for the discussion. My pleasure.

Okay. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. You got to come to our national conference in October, end of October, 2027 on quiet faithfulness. The ordinary Christian life. Hope to see you