Voddie Baucham Jr. - What He Must Be: ...If He Wants to Marry My Daughter

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Also by Voddie Baucham:

Family Driven Faith:
Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters
Who Walk with God

WHAT HE MUST BE

... if he wants to marry my daughter

VODDIE BAUCHAM JR.

CROSSWAY BOOKS

WHEATON, ILLINOIS

What He Must Be... If He Wants to Marry My Daughter

Copyright 2009 by Voddie Baucham Jr.

Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Attorneys and Counselors, Orange County, California

Published by Crossway Books

a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers
1300 Crescent Street
Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Amy Bristow

Cover illustration: iStock

First printing, 2009

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Bible quotations are taken from TheHoly Bible: English Standard Version. Copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations indicated as from NIV are taken from TheHoly Bible: New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

ISBN PDF: 978-1-4335-0573-7

ISBN Mobipocket: 978-1-4335-0574-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Baucham, Voddie.

What he must be if he wants to marry my daughter / Voddie Baucham.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-58134-930-6 (tpb)

1. Mate selectionReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Marriage
Religious aspectsChristianity. 3. FamilyReligious aspects
Christianity. 4. ParentingReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BV835.B3485 2009

248.4dc22 2008032937

ML 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09

14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To
Jasmine

M y desire in this book is to kill two birds with one stone. First, I want to lay out a clear, balanced, realistic, biblical picture of what moms and dads should be looking for on behalf of their daughters and seeking to produce in their sons. Unfortunately, most parents give little or no thought to what it takes to raise godly men. Moreover, we tend to be very vague when we encourage our daughters to find them. However, the Bible is far from silent on the issue. God has given us a clear picture of the role of the husband/father in the home, and by looking at that picture we can set a path for our sons to follow.

This book does not present a pie-in-the-sky portrait of the perfect man. My hope is to present the biblical principles that Paul puts forth so clearly in Ephesians 5 in an effort to give us some idea of the basic requirements that all men should seek to achieve.

In addition, I want to provide a road map for men who have a desire to lead their families biblically but simply do not know how. Since the release of Family Driven Faith (Crossway Books, 2007), I have been bombarded with calls, letters, and e-mails from families in general and from men in particular who are desperate for someone to tell them what to do next. I get it. I see now that I am called to lead my family. Do you have any resources to teach me how to do that? This is typical of the correspondence Ive received. I knew that a groundswell of people out there was interested in family discipleship, but I was not quite prepared for the eagerness with which parents sought further instructions.

As we peel back the layers of what the Bible requires of husbands and fathers, several realities come crashing in on the male reader. I know this because they came crashing in on me as I researched and wrote. As you read, I pray that the Lord will guide you through the process of regret, repentance, revival, and reformation.

First, it is my prayer that these truths will cause men to regret the years the locusts have eaten. We have been lied to. Weve been hoodwinked, bamboozled, and led astray. As a result, many of us have experienced lamentable losses in our personal lives and in our families. Some have failed marriages, estranged children, and other issues lingering over their heads as a result of having bought the lies that our culture has sold us concerning true manhood. Unless we come to regret these losses, we will never arrive at the next phaserepentance.

Beyond mere regret, it is my prayer that these truths will cause men to repent. Repentance is a change in attitude that leads to a change in behavior. It is a turning away. We turn from sin toward God. Once we have recognized the error of our ways, the biblical response is to repent. It is not enough to look at the damage that has occurred as a result of our failures as men and wallow in regret; we must repent. As the truths in the coming pages resound in our minds, it is my hope that the Holy Spirit would grant repentance.

Third, it is my prayer that these truths will cause men to experience revival. We need an awakening. We need to experience what Jonathan Edwards called a genuine work of the Holy Spirit. We do not need men to merely feel guilty about falling short of the biblical standard; we need to see a supernatural wave of genuine gospel revival. Our culture has been on the losing end of a spiritual battle for far too long. As a result, most men are numb to the constant pummeling to which we are constantly subjected. It is going to take more than just good intentions to turn the tide. We need a genuine movement of God.

Finally, it is my prayer that these truths will cause men to seek reformation. Revival changes the affections, but reformation changes our course. To reform something means to remove its ineffective or unjust qualities. Our current understanding of manhood is in many ways ineffective and unjust. It is ineffective in that the current state of the family is confusion and disorder. It is unjust in that it is in direct violation of the Word of God.

Of course, there is always the danger that these truths will cause men to retreat from their high calling. Two types of men stand at the base of Mount Everest. The first (and most common) type is the man who says, Thats incredible... I could never make it to the top. The second type is the man who says, Thats incredible... I cant wait to see the view from the top. Some men will look at the biblical portrait of a multigenerational family leader and say that the bar is set much too high. Those men will continue to be satisfied with doing just a little bit better than our failing culture. Others, however, will see the heights to which they have been called and the fruit that the climb will bear in their lives and in the lives of those whom they are called to lead and will gladly take up the challenge.