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

Gentleness is not a lack of strength; gentleness is strength under control.

A young man who is worthy of a wife will have a clear understanding of the covenantal nature of marriage. He will also have a healthy apprehension when he thinks about the magnitude of his responsibility should he assume the role of a husband and father. He must know the weight he is taking on his shoulders and be willing to accept it. He must be a man who is willing to endure hardship for the sake of his family should he be called upon to do so. What

Who a man is as a husband and father to a large degree shapes who he is as a minister of the gospel.

God gave marriage as a living illustration of the relationship between Christ and his church (Ephesians 5:32). If you want to teach the world the love of God, become husband who loves his wife as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:25). If you want to teach the world how the church submits to the Lord, become a wife who submits to her husband (Ephesians 5:22-24).

The church is instructed to look for its leaders in the first institution, the family.

Today churches look at resumés and never examine the home. In the New Testament church, a man’s home was his resumé.

Our support for our children is not a matter of limiting their number in order to have the things that we desire. On the contrary, supporting our children means we are willing to do without for their benefit.

Martin Luther. Luther argued: I have brought up a daughter with great expense and effort, care and peril, diligence and labor, and for many years I have ventured my entire life, my person and possessions, in the undertaking. . . . And now she is not to be better protected for me than my cow, lost in the woods, which any wolf may devour? Who would approve of this? Likewise, is my child to stand there free for all, so that any knave, unknown to me, or perhaps even a former enemy of mine, has the power and the unlimited opportunity secretly to steal her from me and take her away without my knowledge and will? There certainly is no one who would want to let his money and goods stand open to the public in this way, so that they may be taken by the first comer. But now the knave takes not only my money and goods, but my child whom I have brought up with painful care; and with my daughter he gets my goods and money besides. And so I must reward him for the grief and harm he has caused me and must let him be the heir of the possessions I have acquired with pains and labor. Surely, this is rewarding wickedness with honor; this is inviting grief and injury.

In the New Testament church, a man's home was his resume.

...he thought we had what southerners call a shotgun wedding. That's when the father holds a shotgun on his new son-in-law to make sure he marries the man's pregnant daughter.

Finally, it is my prayer that these truths will cause men to seek reformation. Revival changes the affections, but reformation changes our course.

A man who does not master the art of patient instruction is not likely to lead his wife in the Word. Lead

In the work of regeneration, we play no role at all. It is instead totally a work of God.

We are seeing a complete cultural shift in our perception of marriage as the preferred state. In fact, I believe this trend is foreshadowing something far more serious—a wholesale rejection of marriage as an institution.

Kids, you must seek to become the kind of people who plant shade trees for others to sit under.

I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food” (Job 23:12).

Jonathan Edwards was not the product of a great revival; he was one of its catalysts.

At the same time I must acknowledge that the order of the human family demands that she and her future husband will have complementary, not equal, roles (equal in value but not identical). This is a delicate balance that can be difficult to achieve. Nevertheless, if our desire is to obey the Lord and bring him glory, we must seek this balance.

Some people refer to Psalm 119 as the law chapter. I like to think of it as the delight chapter.

[M]y dear son and daughter, you need not consider praying for a pious spouse a disgrace. For you do not consider it a disgrace to ask God to give you a sound hand or leg. . . . Now a pious spouse is as necessary as a sound hand or leg. For if a husband or wife do not turn out well, you enjoy few good days or hours and would prefer to have a paralyzed hand or leg instead. MARTIN LUTHER, What Luther Says