Stuart Scott’s The Exemplary Husband: A Biblical Perspective is one of the more serious books a husband can pick up, and it is heavier than the listing suggests. Some retail pages show it at around a hundred pages. The revised edition from Focus Publishing actually runs a little over 360. Plan accordingly.
It is a marriage book, not a parenting book. An earlier version of this review called it a parenting resource, which it is not.
What it is
Scott taught biblical counseling at The Master’s University and has taught at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The book carries a foreword by John MacArthur, and it was written as the companion volume to Martha Peace’s The Excellent Wife. That pairing tells you a lot about the tradition it comes from.
The structure is systematic. Scott starts with the husband’s relationship to God before he gets anywhere near his relationship to his wife, which is the right order and is why the book has lasted. From there he works through a husband’s character, the specific sins that wreck marriages, communication, conflict, finances, physical intimacy, and leadership in the home. Each chapter is built directly on texts, with heavy footnoting.
Focus Publishing sells a separate Teacher’s Guide for group study. The main volume is written for reading, not as a workbook, so if you want a men’s group curriculum you will want that second book.
Where it stands, and where CalledToBetter stands
Scott is thoroughly complementarian and he is specific about it. He lays out what he understands a husband’s authority and a wife’s response to look like in practice, in some detail.
CalledToBetter holds that men and women are different but equal, equal in worth and dignity before God, with distinct roles described in Scripture. We do not go further than that. We do not publish rulings on the contested specifics, because faithful Christians who take the Bible seriously land in different places on them. Scott goes further than we do. That is not a knock on him. It is a live disagreement among people who all treat Scripture as authoritative, and readers deserve to know where a book sits before they buy it.
Read it as one careful argument, not as the only faithful reading. Scott’s case is made from texts and made in good faith, and a husband can profit enormously from the book while not landing exactly where the author does on every application.
What it does best
The chapters on a husband’s own sin are the reason to buy this book. Scott does not let you locate the problem in your wife. He is relentless about pride, anger, selfishness, and passivity, and he names them specifically enough that it stings. Most marriage books are gentler than this. That is exactly why this one works on men who have read the gentle ones and changed nothing.
Readability
Dense, organized, and dry in stretches. This reads like a counseling textbook because it more or less is one. The upside is that you can find things again; the subheadings and lists make it usable as a reference for years. Do not expect stories or momentum.
Who it is for
The husband who wants the thorough treatment and will actually finish it. Men in biblical counseling. Pastors and small group leaders, especially paired with the Teacher’s Guide.
If you want something short and readable, start somewhere else and come back to this one.
Bottom line
A demanding, well built book with a specific position on roles that goes beyond what we state here. Worth the effort if you know what you are buying.
Find The Exemplary Husband on Amazon.