While the standards he presents are rarely found in young men today, Baucham’s list is not pulled from personal preference or flights of fancy. Each of his listed qualifications is pulled directly from the pages of scripture, as the Word of God explains what husbands should, and must be if they are to follow the call of God on their lives. Readers who have not had the benefit of Godly counsel in the selection of a mate will most certainly wish they’d had these criteria and the sound biblical support available to them before marriage.
Working through the importance of marriage between believers, male leadership, sacrificial love, welcoming children, and a young man’s potential to serve as priest, prophet, and provider to his wife, Baucham carefully builds an image of what these latent traits may look like in a single young man, drawing from scripture, biographies of notable Christian men, and the words of church fathers. He both debunks false requirements for potential mates (most notably ethnicity and heritage) and encourages fathers to undertake disciplining potential suitors in the required skills new husbands will need if they are found lacking.
I can’t recommend What He Must Be more highly. Written primarily to fathers I can easily see families with children approaching marriageable age digging into this together and catching a collective vision for the future. Every parent with a daughter, those raising sons who will one day be husbands, every young woman approaching marriageable age, every father, every mother, every Christian family will find food for thought and sound encouragement and equipping to answer the call back to a biblical model of courtship.
Article comments