Gifts · For men

Christian gifts for men
that he’ll still be using in February

Most Christian gifts for men are decorations. A plaque for the office, a bracelet with a verse stamped in it, a mug that says something about coffee and Jesus. None of them are wrong, exactly, but a man with a real faith does not need it announced on his wall. What he needs is for the eight minutes at 5:40 in the morning to be easier, because that is where the faith actually happens and that is where it actually fails. So everything on this page was chosen on one test: will it still be in use in February? If the answer was “it’ll be on a shelf,” it did not make the list.

One thing to settle before the list. Do not give a man a book about being a man. There is a whole shelf of them, and most are about wildness and battle and the heart, and a man who is tired reads them as one more standard he is not meeting. Give him a practice instead — something with a first page, a last page, and a date the thing is finished. Men finish things that end.

The first and last items are our own titles, and I say so where they appear. The rest are paid, sponsored links — I earn a commission if you buy through one, at no extra cost to you. I have not used every product here and I say so on each one. No prices on this page; Amazon changes them constantly, so click through and see what it costs today.

Ninety days, one page a morning, and then it is finished

The devotional that survives is the one with an end date. A daily book with three hundred and sixty-five entries is a sentence; miss a fortnight in March and the gift becomes a reproach on the nightstand. Ninety days is a season. It is long enough to become a habit and short enough that a man can see the far side of it from the first morning, which is the thing that keeps him going on the eleventh.

Our own title · three volumes, choose by where he is

The Damascus Road is a series of ninety-day devotionals for men — one page a morning, a passage, a short reflection, and a line to write. These are our own titles, so I’ll skip the pitch and tell you how to choose. Becoming New is for the man who is new to this or coming back to it. Battle Ready is for the one who is fighting something — the armour of God, the mind, standing firm. Breaking Free and Staying Free is for the one with a habit that has him. If you are not sure which, give the first; it is the one written to be picked up cold.

Becoming New Battle Ready Breaking Free

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A Bible that is his

A surprising number of men do not own a Bible that is theirs. There is the one from confirmation with the spine gone, the family one that lives on a shelf and is not to be written in, and the app. A man who has never chosen a Bible has never read one that was his to mark, and marking is where reading turns into keeping. So the gift is not a nicer edition of what he has. It is the first one that is his.

A plain, sturdy KJV he will not be afraid of

A standard-size King James in dark brown faux leather, red letter, with a thumb index and a ribbon. I have not handled this particular edition; what I can speak to is the specification on the publisher’s listing and the fact that it is the same house whose giant-print edition is one of the best-selling Bibles on Amazon. The thumb index matters more than it sounds: a man who has to hunt for Habakkuk in front of other men stops opening the book. If he reads with the lights low, or he is over fifty, the personal-size giant print from Thomas Nelson is the same idea with larger type and cross-references in the margin, which is the footnote a man will actually follow.

Dark brown, thumb index Giant print, cross-references

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A word on the waterproof Bibles, because they come up every year for the man who hunts or fishes. I looked at them for this page. The listings run thin and expensive and several are sold by third parties rather than Amazon, and a page that has to hold up from now until Christmas should not send you to a product that may be gone by then. If he genuinely reads in a deer stand, they exist and they are well reviewed; I am just not going to link one I would not stand behind in December.

The pen, because he will underline with whatever is in the truck

He will. A ballpoint dents thin Bible paper, a Sharpie goes straight through it, and the first mark that looks like damage is the last mark he makes. A fine pigment pen makes the first underline look like it belongs there, and that is the whole difference between a Bible that is read and one that is owned.

The pen that survives Bible paper

Archival pigment fineliners in six sizes, black. No feathering on thin paper, waterproof once dry, and the finest tip fits a note in a narrow margin. I have not written in my own Bible with these; the case for pigment ink is on its own page and it is the entire argument. Black, not the colour set — he will use black.

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A notebook he can find things in

Men who take notes in church lose them, because the notes are in the back of a work notebook between a parts list and a phone number. The fix is not a nicer notebook. It is numbered pages and a contents page, so that the thing he wrote in October about Romans 8 can be found in March. That is the whole specification, and very few notebooks meet it.

Numbered pages, a contents page, and it opens flat

An A5 softcover with numbered pages, a blank table of contents at the front, thread binding that lies open on a table, and paper heavy enough for the pen above. Dotted, not ruled; a dot grid disappears under handwriting and gives him a grid for the sermon outline. I have not used this particular one; every spec I have just argued from is on the manufacturer’s own listing. Plain black cover. Give it with the pen and he has the whole kit.

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Something for the visor of the truck

The verses a man needs are the ones for the moments he cannot get to a Bible — the meeting, the phone call from the school, the 2 a.m. one. An index card on the visor of the truck is not a system, but it is where a man actually looks, and one verse learned that way is worth more than a plan for forty. Twelve verses chosen by the moment are on this site for free; the box below is where they go once they are learned.

A card box, with the first card already written

A 3×5 index card case with a hundred ruled cards and five dividers — the shape of the five-section memory system, and the least expensive thing on this page. I have not used this particular case; the contents are on the listing. Write Joshua 1:9 on the first card, put it at the front, and give the box with that one card in it. The card is the gift. The box is just where it lives.

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For the man who argues about the end times

Every family has one. He has read the novels, he has a view on the rapture, and he will tell you about it at dinner. The generous gift is not a book that agrees with him and not a book that corrects him, but one that lays out every position fairly and lets him argue with the text instead of with his brother-in-law.

Our own title · every major view, no date-setting

Revelation, Verse by Verse — a hundred passages on the end times, the Antichrist and the Second Coming, with every major interpretation explained side by side and no fear-mongering. This is our own title, so take the description rather than the pitch. It exists because the men who care most about Revelation are usually the ones who have only ever heard one reading of it. The hardcover is the one to give; it is the edition that survives being argued over.

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What not to give

The plaque, the bracelet, the mug — anything with a verse in script on it, because it decorates a faith rather than feeding one. A men’s study Bible for a man who does not yet read the one he has; two thousand pages of notes tells him the book cannot be read without help. A book about masculinity, for the reason above. And a dated daily devotional that starts on the first of January, because the first missed week turns the gift into evidence. Give him the ninety days instead, and let him finish something.

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. 1 Corinthians 16:13