By Voddie Baucham Jr.
The book title says quite a bit. It assumes (A) that Dads should have an opinion on the kind of man their daughter marries, (B) that Dads should expect their daughters to listen to their opinion, and (C) since the book is not titled, What He/She Must Be To Marry My Child, there is an assumption that men and women are different. As a result, the title by itself biases me to like the book, because none of these assumptions are shared by many in our culture. It’s helpful to our country that books with titles like this merely exist.
But let’s open it up, shall we?
In the intro, the author states that he has two goals: “First, to lay out a . . . biblical picture of what moms and dads should be looking for on behalf of their daughter” and second “To provide a road map for men who have a desire to lead their families biblically but simply do not know how.”
Good goals, to be sure, and Voddie succeeds in accomplishing them. But before he gets to the set of traits in men who would marry his daughters he lays a significant foundation of the importance of marriage and a ‘Multigenerational Vision’, which means preparing for the long term as you make decisions about the future of your family. He then lays down a biblical approach for what a God-fearing father should do in the leadership of his family. It’s a pretty daunting list.
And then he gets to the traits of a son-in-law. They are not trivial. When he states that a man who is seeking to date his daughter must be a ‘Follower of Christ’ he doesn’t mean a guy who once said that prayer and now attends church. He means quite a bit more than that and takes a chapter to explain it.
He grounds what he says in scripture and sometimes makes one or two page departures from the main subject to make sure it is clear that his points are biblical.
We recommend this book to anyone who has a daughter as well as any man who eventually wants to marry.
I wrote this review for the review writing program here: http://www.crossway.org/blog
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