Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, August 20th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I am Bob Lepine. We are going to talk today about the powerful role we have as fathers in helping our daughters and our sons be ready for marriage.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today! Thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. This has been interesting this week as we’ve been talking to the author of a book called Why My Daughter Will Never Get Married…
Dennis: That is not the name of the book, Bob.
(laughter)
Bob: Maybe the net effect of the book don’t you think?
Dennis: It may be but the name of the book is What He Must Be If He Wants to Marry My Daughter by Voddie Baucham. I’m honestly tempted to call Voddie’s daughter, Jasmine, and see if we can’t get her on the line. Keith, why don’t you try and do that and while Keith is doing that let me chat with our listeners for just a moment.
Bob: Alright.
Dennis: We are facing some challenges as we close our ministry’s books out for the year. August 31st is the end of our ministry year and as I’ve shared with you on a number of occasions it has been a bit of a challenge this year. But you know what? I’m excited about what God has done and what he is doing all around the country who have benefitted from FamilyLife Today. They will come up and they will say I heard that series that you did with Barbara on adoption and she really ministered to me and gave me a vision for that. Another one that I got over Facebook the other day said, “I download your broadcast every day and I love riding to work with you and I’m benefitting personally from that.” That’s why we do what we do here on FamilyLife Today and if you have benefitted I’d like to challenge you to step up and make a gift to our ministry at FamilyLife. I need your help. Our ministry needs your help and I promise if you give we’ll squeeze every bit of ministry we can out of the dollars you give and make a great impact for Christ not only here in America but in 77 countries around the world.
If you have never given perhaps this is the time for you as a listener to FamilyLife Today to step up and say I agree with what you and Bob are doing and I want to stand with you. Could you help? I need your help and I promise we will use it well.
Bob: You can donate online at FamilyLife Today.com or you can call and make a donation over the phone at 1-800-FL-TODAY. We do appreciate your partnership with us and we do consider it a partnership when you help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today. So again go online at FamilyLife Today.com or call us toll free at 1-800-FL-TODAY.
While we have been talking I think Keith has been able to get Jasmine on the line but before we introduce Jasmine we ought to introduce her father, Voddie Baucham. He joins us again on FamilyLife Today. Voddie welcome back.
Voddie: Thank you.
Bob: I think we do have Jasmine on the line.
Dennis: You Jasmine?
Jasmine: Hi Mr. Rainey.
Dennis: How are you doing?
Jasmine: I’m doing well thank you. How are you?
Dennis: I’m doing great. We are calling you to verify the veracity of the story of this gentleman we have in the studio.
Bob: He’s telling us Jasmine, What He Must Be If He Wants to Marry My Daughter…
Dennis: Was ghost written by you.
(laughter)
Jasmine: Not quite.
Bob: He says it comes with the Jasmine Baucham seal of approval. Is that right?
Jasmine: Yes, sir.
Bob: This is what you want, right?
Jasmine: Yes, sir, it is.
Bob: Now you’ve seen your dad. He’s a big fella, right?
Jasmine: Yes, sir.
Bob: I mean some guy comes along he’s going to have to be pretty stout just to step up and say, “Mr. Baucham, I’d like to talk to you about Jasmine.” I’m not sure I could do that.
Jasmine: (laughter)
Bob: You know what I’m saying?
Dennis: Does that ever cross your mind that he’s kind of eliminating some of the pursuiters?
Jasmine: Well, it only takes one.
(laughter)
Bob: Okay, but Jasmine you are 19 years old right now right?
Jasmine: Yes, sir.
Bob: Are you still going to give this book the Jasmine Baucham seal of approval when you are 25?
Jasmine: Yes, sir—28, 29, 32.
Bob: If the guys haven’t stepped up you are okay with that at 32?
Jasmine: Yes, sir.
Dennis: Why would you give this your seal of approval?
Jasmine: I just believe that marriage is a serious step and it’s a blessing from God. When I enter into that state I want to be fully confident that the man that I’m going to marry is pleasing in the ways of the Lord.
Bob: Well, I think there may be some guys listening to you right now who are thinking I’d like to talk to you.
(laughter)
Bob: I guess we should give them your dad’s cell phone number is that right?
(laughter)
Dennis: I think we send them a picture of Voddie .
Bob: That’s what the book should be. A picture of Jasmine on the front that says “if you are interested in this” and then a picture of you that says, “you have to come through this.”
(laughter)
Bob: What do you think?
Dennis: Jasmine before we let you go here I have to believe at points you have seen the model of what a marriage was designed to look like in Scripture. Can you tell me what you’ve seen in your mom and dad’s relationship and in their marriage?
Jasmine: I’ve seen what’s laid forth in the book. I’ve seen my father leading my mother in love and I’ve seen my mother joyfully submitting to him. My parents aren’t perfect people but they look to God’s word for their standards for living. So seeing them gives me confidence that the kind of marriage that they have isn’t impossible because I see it lived out every day.
Dennis: Tell the truth—ultimately because you are the only daughter you are your dad’s favorite, right?
Jasmine: (Laughingly) I like to think so.
(laughter)
Voddie: That’s my girl.
Dennis: Jasmine you are a good sport to let us interrupt your day and take this phone call. Thanks for authenticating your dad’s message.
Bob: I think that when they send out future copies of this it ought have at the bottom “The Jasmine Baucham seal of approval” right there on the front cover.
(laughter)
Bob: Thanks, Jasmine.
Jasmine: Thank you.
Voddie: Love you baby girl.
Jasmine: I love you, Daddy.
Dennis: Bye. Bye.
Jasmine: Bye.
Dennis: I wish we had a picture of your face for radio right now because you are beaming. You’re proud.
Voddie: I am.
Dennis: There is nothing quite like putting together a different legacy than the one you were given.
Voddie: Absolutely.
Dennis: God in His grace has really empowered you and your wife to do something different than the home you grew up in in Los Angeles.
Voddie: Absolutely. He really has. It’s God’s grace. It truly is God’s grace. I love my little girl. She’s 19 and she’s still my little girl. I am very proud of the woman that she has become.
Dennis: You just wait until a guy starts circling.
Bob: Well, he’s got to be a guy who loves Christ
(laughter)
Bob: He has to be a guy who understands how to lead. He’s got to be a guy that understands that marriage is the priority in a family relationship. In fact, out of all relationships it is the priority. He’s got to be a guy who loves kids and is ready to have kids.
Dennis: Right.
Bob: And then he has to be a guy who understands the four P’s, right?
Voddie: Yes, sir. He’s got to understand his role as priest, prophet, provider and protector in his home. I love this quote from George Whitfield and I used it as a header in the chapter.
“Every governor of a family ought to look upon himself as obliged to act in three capacities—As a prophet to instruct, as a priest to pray for and with and as a king to govern, direct, and provide for them.”
Here’s an interesting side note. When he says king there I thought that may not translate very well in our culture so taking king and I put provider and protector there.
Bob: Because that is what a king is supposed to do.
Voddie: Yes, that is what a king is supposed to do to kind of help people grab onto these things and understand what we are talking about.
Dennis: Let’s talk about those four P’s for a second. Protector—in the culture it’s really interesting to even hold the door open for a woman as a man. I mean I have women look at me like why are you doing that. Ultimately it’s a man saying to a woman my life for your life.
Voddie: Right.
Dennis: I want to serve you and esteem you as Bob was talking about and value you by holding the door open for you. And yet protecting goes way beyond just a common courtesies.
Voddie: Absolutely it goes way beyond that. In our church we have rights of passage for young men and we talk about these four P’s all the time. Sometimes men will have their sons at 12 or 13 that symbolically represent these four P’s. For some of them they talk about a protector and they take a self defense class. Some of them will take them down to qualify them at the gun range like me.
(laughter)
But it is something to symbolize this idea that you are called to protect your family. You are called to lay it all down if necessary for your family. You are called to position yourself between your family and all harm that would come to them—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Bob: I heard a great story about this very thing. An essay written by a mom whose daughter had gone to work at a pizza delivery place. She was out delivering pizzas in her car and the call came in for an order for a pizza and there was a guy at the pizza place who took that order and looked at the address and said, “No, you aren’t taking this one. I’m taking this one.” And it’s not because it was a big tipper it was because in that part of town a single woman shouldn’t be delivering pizzas.
And the mom said that’s what you want a man to do. I didn’t think that man should have let my daughter go down there. She didn’t say you know we need equal rights for men and women. No, she said I was glad that there was somebody man enough to step up and say no, I’ll deliver that pizza to that part of town.
It’s the same kind of principle. My question is how do you recognize in a 20 year old whose voice hasn’t changed that long ago if he is protector enough to marry your daughter?
Voddie: In a very real sense if he’s not man enough to stand up to me for her he’s not going to be a protector.
Bob: You are a pretty intimidating guy.
Voddie: That’s right but I’m not as intimidating as a noise downstairs when you think somebody is breaking into the house.
Bob: So what does standing up to you look like? You don’t want him to challenge you.
Dennis: First of all it means he’s going to move toward meeting with Voddie.
Voddie: That’s right.
Dennis: And he’s going to put his hand out and have firm hand shake and look you in the eye. Even though his gut may be twisted into a knot he isn’t going to tell you.
Voddie: That’s right.
Bob: He’s going to say, Dr. Baucham nice to meet you.
Voddie: That’s right. There’s going to be a sense in which he is willing to face what he must for the sake of my daughter. He proves that to me when he first makes his intentions known. Now if he sneaks around me like a coward then I probably know he’s not going to protect my daughter.
Dennis: We’ve talked about protector. Let’s move to a different P.
Bob: And the one I’m interested in is this one about a husband being a prophet. You think about a prophet that is somebody who is firey and lets you have it blasts at you. It’s somebody who speaks prophetically who stands up and gets in your face. Is that what you are saying this man needs to be?
Voddie: I think Whitfield says it best when he says a prophet to instruct. That’s the role of a prophet—to instruct. To warn if necessary. But again this goes back to his responsibility in Ephesians 5 to wash his wife with the water of the word. Also, this man will ultimately have the responsibility to bring his children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. So he has a prophetic responsibility to instruct his family in the word.
Dennis: Another part of being a prophet as well is he takes the relationship and the young lady before God in prayer.
Voddie: Absolutely.
Dennis: That means there does need to be some kind of spiritual dimension to the relationship. You’re saying that a young man who is this kind of a leader needs to be a prophet. He needs to represent the young lady before God.
Voddie: Yes. Actually I put that one in the priest category. The priest representing her before God. The prophet representing God before her.
Bob: Right.
Voddie: It is very much that same division that he has to be an individual who is an intercessor who prays for his family and goes before the throne of God on behalf of this one whom he loves and to whom and for whom he’s giving his life.
Bob: As I’ve been raising my sons now one of the things that I’ve warned them about is as you start to cultivate a relationship with a young woman it can’t be premature to pray with her too soon. There is something very intimate about praying together as a couple especially in the heart of a young woman. I know as a husband when I take my wife by the hand and say sweetheart let’s pray. There is a sense of comfort, safety, and security. She’s drawn to me.
Voddie: Definitely.
Bob: If a young man came up to Jasmine and said let’s pray about that, an innocent kind of big spiritual brother kind of a thing there would be something that would go off in her heart, wouldn’t there?
Voddie: Absolutely. I would say that that goes back to the issue of protector. A young man needs to know that is one of the areas where he must protect this young woman. He has got to protect her from premature attachment and devotion to him. That is one of the things that is sometimes hard for a young guy to get. That is something that we have to teach our sons. As I’ve said part of this is about what we teach our sons. So we have to come around our sons when they are reaching the teen years and girls are starting to be interested in them. We have to say things that really sound counter intuitive.
Son that girl is interested in you. You need to stay away from her because you can’t satisfy the desires that she has and you don’t need to as Solomon would say in the Song of Solomon awaken love before it pleases.
Dennis: Right.
Voddie: Don’t arouse it before it pleases. So no don’t go trying to pray with her. Don’t be mean to her but protect her heart. Do not encourage her to deepen the affections that she has for you. That’s part of what we do to teach our sons to protect young woman spiritually and emotionally.
Bob: Voddie, you have a son who is 16 right now right?
Voddie: Yes, sir.
Bob: You got married when you were 20.
Voddie: Yes.
Bob: If he at age 20 is coming and saying, “Dad, I’ve noticed this young woman. I want to begin to pursue her. It’s not so much is he old enough chronologically. It’s really is he old enough in terms of the maturity. Things we’ve been talking about this week. For you to sign off he could maybe be there at 20, couldn’t he?
Voddie: He better be there at 20. If he’s not ready to be married by the time he is 20 I haven’t paid enough attention to my job of preparing him. Here’s the idea that we give our sons. Son, I want you to go and suck all the joy out of life and then after you’ve sucked all the joy out of life and you are in your late 20s or early 30s I want you to look longingly into a woman’s eye and say there is no more joy to be found I’m ready to marry you and die.
Bob: (laughter)
Voddie: that is the attitude we are giving our sons. No, the Bible talks about the wife of your youth. Now am I saying you have to get married when you are 20 years old? No, that’s not what I am saying. But what I am saying is by the time you get there I want to have done everything I can to prepare you to be married by that time.
Bob: So 18, 19 even would be okay if he is ready.
Voddie: Yes, if he’s ready.
Dennis: And to that single woman who is listening to our broadcast and is thinking I’m out of the home I’m in my 20s. My daddy is not connected. And I’m looking on the horizon at my church among those I work with and I don’t see any men like you are talking about. Just a piece of advice as a father to those single woman?
Voddie: Yes, a couple pieces of advice to single women are when women find themselves outside of that covering recognize that God has given you alternatives. He’s given you your church, elders, people who are biblically qualified and responsible to look out for you. We have a plan in place at our church. Our elders have a plan in place so that if a single young woman finds herself in a situation where there is no father to step in we would function for her in the absence of that father to walk her through this courtship process. I think young women need to be in a situation where that is the case.
Here’s where it may be a little controversial. And I know you guys are not used to me being controversial.
(laughter)
If a young woman says to me I don’t see men like this at my church. I’m saying what are they doing and why are you there?
Dennis: What is happening at the church spiritually?
Voddie: Exactly.
Dennis: It should be attracting some guys…
Voddie: Exactly.
Dennis: Who’s hearts are in the right place.
Voddie: Not just attracting but building them. It may sound harsh but come on let’s face it. When you look at the average church and what they are spending their time and energy and effort on is it any wonder that many of them are not producing this in young men. It’s play time and we are paying a price for it.
Dennis: Well, marriage isn’t play time.
Voddie: That’s right.
Dennis: Marriage is game time. It’s for keepers and for a life time. Voddie, I appreciate you being a straight shooter. I really appreciate your courage. You’re breaking a generational curse as the Bible speaks about and you are doing something that has been a verse that has been resonating in my soul for the past couple of years. “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.”
What you are doing is overcoming evil with good in your own marriage and family by building your sons and looking out for your daughter. Also, through a book like this and through your church and your preaching and teaching you are helping to call the Christian community to be truly Christ followers and men to step up. Thank you for being on our program.
Voddie: It has been a joy and I am so grateful for the opportunity you guys have extended to me and for the trust that you have placed in me because your radio program means so much to so many people. You guys have been wonderful stewards of the platform that God has given you and I’m honored that you have trusted me with this time.
Bob: Well, I’ll tell you what. When we get guests like Voddie Baucham to come on to challenge men to step up and be the kind of dads they ought to be that’s what it is all about. We appreciate you being here with us and want to encourage our listeners to get a copy of your book with is called What He Must Be If He Wants to Marry My Daughter.
You can go to our web site FamilyLife Today.com and the information about Voddie’s book is available there. There is also information about Dennis Rainey’s book Interviewing Your Daughter’s Date. Which is kind of the prelude to Voddie’s book. We have both books in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center.
All the details about these resources can be found on our web site FamilyLife Today.com. Or you can call toll free 1-800-358-6329. That’s 1-800-“F” as in Family “L” as in Life and then the word TODAY. When you get in touch with us we will make arrangements to send these resources you need sent to you.
If you’ve been with us throughout this program you did hear Dennis at the beginning of today’s program talk about August being a strategically significant month for us here at FamilyLife. We are hoping a lot of FamilyLife Today listeners will consider making a contribution to our ministry this month.
If you are able to help with a donation this month we have a thank you gift we’d like to send you. It’s the audio book for Interviewing Your Daughter’s Date. It’s our thank you gift to you when you support the ministry of FamilyLife Today this month with a donation of any amount.
If you are making your donation online at FamilyLife Today.com when you get to the key code box on the online donation form just type in the word “date” and we will know to send you a copy of the CDs.
Or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. You can make your donation via telephone and just mention that you would like a copy of the CDs on Interviewing Your Daughter’s Date. Again we are happy to send them out to you and we do appreciate your support of the ministry.
Quickly let me remind you of something that is coming up in September that you and your family may want to attend. It’s the first national Bible Bee is taking place this fall and the regional competitions are going to be happening cities all across the country. 17,000 young people signed up for this event and then from the regional competition there will be 100 who will be going to Washington, D.C. to compete in the national Bible Bee finals in November.
Dennis and I are both going to be there and we will keep you updated throughout the fall with what is going on about the national Bible Bee. We are excited to be a part of this competition. I wanted to mention this because you may want to attend one of these regional competitions just as a spectator. Take your kids and let them see other kids competing and maybe next year you can get your kids signed up to compete as well because some of these kids are going to win some significant cash prizes. I think the grand prize winner in the senior division wins $100,000.
Again if you’d like more information about the Bible Bee and if you want to find out where regional competitions are taking place go to FamilyLife Today.com and click through the link to the Bible Bee web site.
Speaking of the Bible Bee we want to invite you back to tomorrow we are going to be talking about the importance of Scripture memory in every family. Larry Fowler is going to be with us from the AWANA organization. You are familiar with AWANA right? We are going to talk about Scripture memory tomorrow. Hope you can join us for that.
I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.
On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I am Bob Lepine. We will see you back tomorrow for another addition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.
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