Within the church a family reformation is taking place. Parents are turning away from the norms of our Western culture and seeking God’s will in His word; turning away from cultural norms as standards for family structure and patterns and towards His ways. Voddie Baucham is amongst the leading teachers at the forefront of this revival. An excellent, literal exegete, he digs into scripture to uncover principles relating to the standards for Christian husbands and the methods we utilize to enter into the covenant of marriage in What He Must Be …If He Wants to Marry My Daughter.
With three daughters under the age of six, many would find our family’s passion for careful attention to the courtship process in our daughter’s lives bizarre. However, we’ve been given a passion for guarding the hearts of our children, and doing our utmost to ensure that they marry qualified Christian young men. With growing numbers of families like ours in the church, Baucham has heeded the call and put pen to page to create far more than a simple checklist of “what he must be”. Far more than a simplistic check-list that potential suitors must go through to achieve paternal approval, Baucham has written a mini-apologetic for marriage, biblical manhood, and yes – courtship, within one accessible volume.
The stage is set in the initial chapters that lay out the multi-generational vision for Christian families who serve the Lord, the vital importance of covenant marriages, and the necessity for fathers to become involved in the courtships of their daughters. In this foundation Baucham rightly rejects outright the current practices of serial monogamy (dating), in order to protect and maintain purity of body and heart in our children. It is only then that he begins to illustrate the bare bones requirements that he, and any father, should ensure are met before giving away their daughter’s hand in marriage.
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