The Hard Corps by Dai Hankey
The Hard Corps by pastor Dai Hankey is a quick read, it's purpose to motivate and encourage Christian men to rise up and serve God. He uses David's mighty men from 2 Samuel 23 as examples and uses them as illustrations for us, hence the title of the book. He recognizes a huge problem in the Church and does his best to exhort men to stand up and take their place as men of God.
I must confess I was a bit skeptical, I immediately thought "great, another exercise of reading ourselves into the text", another "dare to be a Daniel" rant but that wasn't the case here. My fear was we would just get a "manly" set of legalistic guidelines to exhort us to fly right in moralitstic perfection, resting in ourselves, not Christ, but Pastor Hankey always went back to the gospel, always pointed us back to grace.
I would like to have seen more emphasis on the "ordinary" means of grace for growth and more emphasis on the importance of the Church in our growth. The danger of a book like this could be that we ignore the ordinary, life long, perservering walk with God that we see in the bible for a life of a manly adventure in missing the point. We can miss out on our God given calling to work, serving God in our ordinary vocation (whatever that may be), miss out on our calling to serve our family and our neighbors in love.
That wasn't the case here, Pastor Hankey laid out the problem, used men of faith as examples to us today as men, and then kept the focus on our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Also, being a short book, this was not an attempt to fully cover our role as men, that would take quite a few more pages more, but Dai does include a list for further reading at the end. His intended purpose, as I see it, has been served. I look forward to more from Pastor Hankey and appreciate his love for the gospel and his heart to see men rise up and take their place in the advancement of Christ's kingdom.
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