The 4 Tests of a Godly Man by Thomas McMillan is a short book, 119 pages, published in November 2024. Its premise is that a man serious about following Christ will face four particular tests, not once but repeatedly, and that knowing what they are makes them easier to recognise while you are in one.
What we can tell you, and what we cannot
We are going to be straight about the limits of this review.
The book is independently published, and there is very little about it or its author findable beyond the listing itself. No publisher’s catalogue, no wide review, no author platform to check. We can confirm it exists, its length, and its publication date. We cannot confirm what the four tests are, because no reliable source states them and we are not going to guess.
The previous version of this page did guess. It quoted a line as McMillan’s own words and cited a named reader’s praise, and we could not verify either. Both have been removed. It also described the book’s structure, its scriptural references and its relatable stories in confident detail that nothing supports.
If the framing appeals to you, read the Amazon preview before you buy. On a book with this little independent information available, the preview is the only honest way to decide, and it costs you nothing.
Why we are keeping the page up
A short, cheap, self-published book by a man writing out of his own experience is a perfectly legitimate thing, and plenty of the most useful books in this category never had a publisher. Being unknown is not the same as being bad.
But it does change how you should treat it. Do not let a book you cannot check become your main teacher. Read it alongside Scripture and alongside men who know you, and hold its framework loosely. That advice applies to a great deal of the self-published men’s material on the market, and this book is a fair example of the category rather than an unusual case.
What to be alert to
Books built on a numbered scheme, four tests, seven habits, five marks, tend to share a weakness: the number comes first and the material gets shaped to fit it. Sometimes the fourth item is as strong as the first three and sometimes it is there because four sounds better than three. That is worth watching for as you read.
Watch too for whether the tests are drawn from Scripture or illustrated by it afterwards. Those are different things, and only the first should carry much weight with you.
Who might want it
A man who likes a compact framework he can hold in his head and does not need it to be authoritative. At 119 pages it is a single evening, and the cost of it being mediocre is low.
Anyone wanting substantial teaching on Christian character has far better-established options, and we would point you to those first.
The 4 Tests of a Godly Man on Amazon