What He Must Be...

Voddie Baucham is an excellent thinker about family and marriage. This week on FamilyLife Today is a five interview with this excellent guest!

I highly encourage you to listen to this series and get the book he wrote.

Here is a summary that I wrote about this book:

“God has given us a clear picture of the role of the husband/father in the home, and in What He Must Be…If He Wants to Marry My Daughter [the author] breaks this picture down into ten desirable qualities. Not only should parents of young women seek these qualities in a son-in-law, but parents of young men should strive to cultivate these qualities in their sons.” (Back Cover) This book is called the “down-to-earth apologetic of biblical manhood”.

He quietly, but strongly supports courtship as a model for finding a marriage partner. “’Let’s just drive around until something grabs me.’ Unfortunately, most of us treat the search for a spouse the same way this man treated his search for a house… We must find a better way. We must commit ourselves to preparing our children to find suitable mates without relying on the pagan, relativistic mythology that dominates our day.” (Page 49)

He makes an excellent case for marriage as the preferred state for our children in chapter two titled “The Ministry of Marriage”. Parents need to prepare both their sons and daughters for marriage. “We will not give adequate attention to the preparation of young people for marriage unless we view marriage as the preferred state.” (Page 42). To clinch this argument, the author pointed out that Jesus even though single as a man on earth is spending His time in heaven since His ascension preparing for His Bride (the Body of Christ, cf. Revelation 19:7-8 and 21:9). “Jesus is our ultimate model for biblical manhood, and as such he shows us what it looks like for a man to spend his life preparing for marriage.” (Page 45)