Book Review - "Being a Christian Husband"

Being a Christian husband
Colin Hamer
Evangelical Press

I liked this book straight from the start. It is about men being godly men in their marriage. This world needs Christian men to demonstrate what being a godly Christian husband is like. We live in a world where young men often grow up in single parent homes and don't know what a father behaves like, or where young men see a father behave in a way that may even be good, but isn't godly. Even marriages between Christians aren't necessarily Christian marriages, in other words they don't follow God's guidelines.

As well as being on a theme that is very necessary, I enjoyed this book because the author writes in a concise and fresh style. In a good way you can tell that he is not a minister - if a minister had written this book it would have been twice as long!

The book really falls into four parts: an introduction, the biblical basis, the practical implications, and a conclusion. After considering some of the contemporary views of marriage and manhood, Hamer outlines what the Bible has to say. He takes some time over this before he gets to the practical applications. In a very helpful way he focuses on Jesus, showing what Jesus was like as the perfect man, and showing what Jesus is like as the perfect husband to his bride, the church. This is a tremendously important section - and forms the basis for what he goes on to say later as he applies it to husbands.

The third section takes the four principles discovered from Jesus and applies them to marriage: the Christian husband has to love, to take responsibility, to exercise authority, and to be faithful. These are fleshed out in practical situations, though perhaps more detail could have been given, but that's the minister speaking!

Repeatedly though these sections he returns to Christ; something that I feel is often missing from other books on marriage.

The book closes with a section which looks at some objections to this biblical pattern of manhood, and gives biblical advice on looking for a wife.

All in all, I feel that this book would be a great book for every newly married husband to read, or for any newly converted Christian husband. In one sense it isn't rocket science, it is a laying down of foundation principles - but that is exactly what needs to be done, even for Christians.