Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Christian Dating Advice: What to Look for in a Spouse | Biblical Relationship Guide with Jonny Ardavanis and Brandon Wolf

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

Want to know who you should date as a Christian? In this honest conversation, Pastor Jonny Ardavanis and Brandon Wolf break down what the Bible says about dating, relationships, and finding the right spouse. Learn why "finding the one" might be the wrong approach, and discover the two key qualities to look for: character and chemistry.Key topics covered:- The difference between worldly and biblical dating- Why loving God should be the #1 priority in a potential spouse- How to evaluate someone's spiritual maturity- The importance of work ethic in relationships- Practical wisdom for Christian singlesWhether you're single, dating, or preparing for marriage, this Biblical guidance will help you make wise relationship decisions. Perfect for young adults, college students, and anyone seeking God-honoring relationships.Featuring Brandon Wolf, Young Adult Ministry Leader at Stonebridge Bible Church🎧 Part of the Dial In Ministries Podcast#ChristianDating #BiblicalRelationships #ChristianSingles #DatingAdvice #ChristianMarriageWatch VideosVisit the Website Buy Consider the LiliesFollow on Instagram

We're going to talk over the next few weeks about dating, relationships, who to date, how to date, singleness, preparing for marriage, boundaries, physical, emotional, spiritual boundaries. Yeah. We talk a lot about serving people. I want to marry a servant, but you're not serving. Absolutely. And you know, those are things then you work through to go. Number one, you got to look at your own heart and go, where do I stand before Christ? Do I love him? Do I not pursue him? Again, not perfect, but I'm making progress in my sanctification, become more like him. Because then when you're doing that, you find someone who's doing the same thing. You don't overlook their faults, but you understand them. You have empathy for them.

And then you can mutually encourage one another to become the people God wants you to be, whether that ends up being your spouse or not. Welcome everybody to the Dial-In Ministries podcast. I'm sitting here with Brandon Wolfe. Brandon leads the young adult ministry at our church, Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, Tennessee. But I met Brandon the first day of the ninth grade. You were my Bible teacher. And we've probably talked on the phone almost every single day, even though we lived for about a decade apart. I'm trying to think you left my junior year of high school and then you're in Chicago. We're going to talk over the next few weeks about dating, relationships, who to date, how to date, singleness, preparing for marriage,

boundaries, physical, emotional, spiritual boundaries. And I wanted to have this conversation with you, obviously, because you're interacting with a lot of young adults, which we should probably define what we mean by that. But because for most of my dating history, career, or lack thereof, I was processing that probably primarily with you, if you remember. I remember. A lot of hot topics. A lot of hot topics. I don't even know if I was afraid to date, honestly, probably before you were like, go on a date. It's okay to talk to a girl. It's okay to talk to a girl. For sure. I'd be like, hi, my name is Johnny. I would have no reason to talk to

you other than if I considered you a future spouse. Right. And I probably should tell you the first time we talk what my intentions are. Yeah. My intention is never to speak to you again, unless I could see you as a viable mother of my children. There you go. So anyways, looking forward to dialoguing with you primarily, even as even as, or I guess fundamentally as we begin, we should probably just ask the question, what does the Bible say about dating? And probably initially we just have to be blunt and say, well, not a lot. Not a lot.

And maybe just explain why. Well, I think primarily relationships in the Bible are brother, sister, and husband, wife. So there's not a lot in between. You start talking about specifics on dating. I know there's a lot of books on how to create biblical models of dating. But if we're really honest, not a lot of information of kind of the in-between going from kind of the brother, sister in Christ relationship or family, obviously, and then

eventually leading into kind of marriage. So there's a lot of kind of gray area. Yeah, the status of dating isn't like a recognizable spot in your, in your life. Now, I think it's important to, uh, guild that, which is a word I use sometimes. Can you define that for us? Curb. Uh, God does care a lot about marriage. It's obviously the central metaphor in the Bible. And because he cares a lot about marriage, there is enough, you know enough within God's word to be able to help us understand what we should be looking for in a spouse.

And then even the process in which we go about finding that individual. And I was telling you even before we started recording here and we have people in the room that are in the process of dating. So I was just even almost convicted as a local church pastor, you know, one of the things that it would be negligence on my part, not to talk about the

subject of dating or the philosophy of dating, because this is going to determine who young men and young women end up with. It determines how they spend their single years, how they spend their dating years, who they end up marrying, consequently the future generations of the church. And so maybe just elaborate on that for even someone that's in a position of ministerial leadership. Why is this worth discussing and detailing from a biblical perspective? Yeah. I mean, I would probably start by saying just on that theme, when you don't talk about it in a church, they're going to hear the topic somewhere else and learn from it. So I think, you know,

you think about dating, you think about relationships, you even think about topics like sex, where when I grew up in the church, it was kind of like a little bit of a, yeah, you don't talk about it. Or if you do, you talk really broad level. So at that point in time, if you're a young man, young woman, if you don't have a close relationship to go to somebody and ask some of these questions, you go somewhere else and the world's going to give you an answer. And so I just think from a high level, if you don't talk about it in the church, expect the world to disciple your young people, your children, even your adults that are struggling with maybe marriage questions they've got. Um, and they feel scared or they feel embarrassed to bring it up because everybody

kind of puts on an image that it's going well. So why is it important specifically? Because it's going to shape the future of your church, right? I mean, if the future of church is men and women who are married, who have children, who are growing and changing your culture, you want them to start out right. You want to be thinking right. In the future of your family, I mean, you've got four boys, three of them are teenagers. You don't want the world to teach your children how to date. I mean, I've got three little girls, but I want to start thinking through these things now as it pertains to my own family. All right. With that being said, let's define what we mean by dating. And I wrote down just kind of from a foundational perspective that dating is the process of evaluation and determination.

Is this a person I will marry rather than like this eternal status you remain in? Like some people will say things like, I mean, you know, people that date for eight to 10 years from a biblical perspective, dating should be intentional with an objective. Is this a person I could spend the rest of my life with? Maybe just elaborate on how the world views dating versus how a Christian should view dating. Yeah. I mean, if you can trace, I'd go, the world today has changed a little bit, even when I grew up. So I'm in my mid forties when I was 20, dating was actually more prevalent in the sense of, Hey, try somebody on or even live together for a little while and see if it works

out. And if it does work out, then let's get married and figure it out. I think it's changed a little bit, maybe not from its philosophy, but just because now online we can date without really knowing each other. We can, you know, just, yeah, we can talk, we can incorporate those different things. Um, different. I mean, now there's websites obviously that, Hey, you want to go on a date and they can tell you what the implicit meaning of that date is and why we're getting together. A little different than it was probably 20 years ago. But yeah, I think the world's kind of telling you, hey, let's figure out if the relationship works. Let's get everything figured out, dialed in.

No pun intended. Whether it's career, whether it's life. And then let's figure out if that person fits into that mold that you want. So we're marrying as you get older. Like the average age of marriage is going up in America. A decade. Yeah. Um, families then you're having less kids, you're having less kids or you're having them as you get older in life. And now you're dealing with things like infertility, all those types of things kind of just come up with that. But yeah, the world's telling you, find somebody that works for you and can help you become the person that you want to become. And try on as many as you got to try on in the

meantime until you find the right one. Yeah. And even that idea of the right one is like a kind of a cultural construct, finding the one. But most people, even in the church today, don't know what they're looking for. So they don't know if they found the one when they may be right there in front of them because they don't have a biblical criteria for determining whether or not this is a spouse that I should marry or whatnot. So I think that's maybe a good place to start. Now, I think just at least in defining that dating is for the purpose of marriage, it means that if you're listening to this, we're seven minutes in, I don't even know if you're dating someone that you're not

going to marry, you know, someone comes up and asks you, I'm dating a person. I don't think I'll end up marrying them. I would just say, Hey, well you should break up yesterday. Don't wait till after their birthday. I think that's a lot of, you know, like I don't want to ruin their birthday or whatever like that. But, um, I think we can start there so far good absolutely um okay so let's uh let's talk a little bit further on this concept of the one you know i i think even in the church we have this distorted perspective of what if i marry the wrong one you know i've talked to people at our church that have gone through a divorce and they say she wasn't the one. Maybe just talk through that because I think when we have that idea in our mind, it cripples us with indecisiveness, paranoia, if we're going down the

wrong path and it prevents us from maybe pursuing relationships with people that the Lord has put right in front of us that may be legitimately viable options for us to marry? Yeah. I mean, the first word that comes to mind is pressure, right? If you're looking for the one, you got a lot of pressure to make sure it is the one out of the billions of people in the world. Yeah. And I think there's probably enough pressure in our culture when it comes to dating. That pressure alone is crushing. Especially in the church.

For sure, right? I mean, the church in a lot of ways probably puts a lot of pressure on it. I mean, you grew up in that environment. What's it like to feel like, to ever feel like there was one person you better find them? Well, yeah. And that's what like the moms at church would say. You know, like you gotta find the one. We're gonna set you up.

She's the one, you know? Yeah. So there's a massive amount of pressure on you to find the right one. Yeah. But it also creates a lot of pressure for the person who's going, I mean, just in this example,

like a guy asking a girl out, the girl's feeling the pressure. I better live up to what this guy thinks is the one because I want to be married. Maybe I like this guy. Maybe we have an existing relationship. And I mean, there's just a lot of pressure that you better not screw up.

It also gives you the second part is like, it's like a maze. Like you better turn every right corner and find the end. If not, you're going to be searching for a long time, you know, needle in a haystack type thing. Yeah. And that just goes along with like your whole idea of the will of God in general, like the one person to marry the one job, the one location from a biblical perspective, there is no such thing as the one. And even with my wife, I'm not saying my wife's not the one, but I'm saying that she's the one for me because I married her. She, I didn't marry her because she was the one. She's the one because I married her. And, um, I think

that's important to understand. Now, I think for the rest of this episode, I want to spend our time asking the question, who should we date? Who should we date? And center our thinking in on two big categories of character and chemistry, both of which are important. From a character perspective, let's just kind of ask some questions and go down the line here. I'd ask the question kind of fundamentally, do they love the Lord? Now, if someone brought someone to you, one of the first things that people in the church ask is, well, are they a Christian, right? I'm not asking that question

because I think culturally that can mean a million different things. People could believe in a higher deity. They could have gone to a WANA when they were four years old and they could identify as maybe conservative politically. And of course I'm a Christian. So maybe asking that question, why would that be a good place to start? Is there an actual love for the Lord Jesus Christ? Because that's what Christianity is at its core. Yeah. Well, I think that's probably the most important thing and it's going to show itself

in a bunch of different ways. I think it's important to think through, like, we're not looking for perfection, but we're looking for somebody who loves the Lord and the direction of their lives. Yeah. Like, is it manifesting in their life that they love Christ and his word, right? That they love the church, that they love to serve. I mean, just some basic questions like that, where you can get at the heart. We're not judging the heart in the sense of like, we can tell every detail of what's going on inside of them, but we're going, they, they are acting in a way that shows that their heart loves and is devoted to Christ. Yeah. I think it's important when you say like not perfection, cause I don't want to set up, you want to set up high expectations for

the character of the individual. You don't want to be looking for Elizabeth Elliot or John the Baptist in the sense where you're like, well, they sinned, right? So you said that that love for Christ is manifested. And I think I want to expound on that. You know, you asked some good questions. It says in first Timothy 4.12, let no one despise you for your youth. People are familiar with this verse. Maybe sometimes lose sight of the fact that Timothy's 40, not 12. But they say, but set the believers as an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. And I'm mentioning this verse kind of as this undergirding for you said the love of a love for Christ is manifested in the way that we live.

And Paul gives Timothy this rubric that that love for Christ is going to be revealed in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. So let's just go down that list. In speech, Jesus says out of the heart, the mouth speaks. So maybe just elaborate. If you're a girl, which you're not, but if you were, what would you say?

Hey, how does this guy talk? Because it's one of the most revealing things about him. It's the MRI of his soul. Um, if I'm a girl or a guy evaluating girl, this is one of the first things I want to evaluate according to the scripture. Yeah. And I'd say the analogy I use oftentimes is like, Hey, it's that full cup when they get bumped, what comes out naturally, we can all put on a really good show. And if you go on, you know, you go on three, four dates, you can dress up, you can look good, you can watch everything you say.

You start to see somebody in a different environment, environment with friends, environment in a group, environment where there's maybe some stress or tension. And all of a sudden you start to see, you know, reveal the heart through the mouth. So I'd say, yeah, how do they talk? Yeah, it's not just like, it wouldn't just be cursing. I think a big thing here would be gossiping, you know, reveal the heart through the mouth. So I'd say, yeah, how do they talk? Yeah. It's not just like, it wouldn't just be cursing. I think a big thing here would be gossiping, you know, like if I'm a guy evaluating a girl, do they lean towards talking about other

people when there's a void in the conversation? Yeah. That would be a massive concern for me. You know, if a girl ran out of things to talk about and then she automatically begins with, did you hear about so-and-so? Yeah. Because that's in the scripture, someone who's called a whisperer or a gossip, and that can be disguised and cloaked in a million different ways. But speech is a big thing here. Next thing Paul says is in conduct. This is just your pattern of behavior. It says in Proverbs 25, 28, a man without self-control is like a city without walls. So underneath this banner of conduct, I'd ask the question, is this an individual who's self-controlled? What other questions would you be asking? If I was a girl, one of the number one things, I don't have daughters, you do, right? I have sons.

I talk to my sons about this a lot. Self-control, and more often than not in our society, a lack of self-control shows in anger. I mean, just naturally. If I was a girl dating or I had a daughter and I have friends with daughters, that would be one of the first things. They get bothered is their natural response,

anger with a lack of self-control. Because if it shows in those circumstances, you start to get the most intimate relationship you're going to have for the rest of your life. I don't want to marry an angry woman. And I can't imagine a woman's going to want to marry an angry man who every time I screw up has to explode on me and then come back later and apologize. There's grace, there's forgiveness, but that would be one of the things I'd look at for sure. Yeah. That anger is going to manifest itself in different ways. Like it doesn't have to be a person that's going to start throwing plates. It could be someone that's peeved and frustrated

or bent out of shape, you know, like. Yeah, or doesn't want to talk to you. Yeah, doesn't want to talk, passive aggressive, you know, like, so yeah, I think that's huge. Paul then says, speech, conduct in love. You already mentioned this, but one of the ways that we manifest our love for God is our love for the people of God.

Yeah. So one of the first things I would ask if I'm teaching my daughters, here's who you should look for. Are they an others-minded individual? How do they interact with other people? The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor. And so is there a desire to with other people? The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor. And so is there a desire to serve other people?

I think a lot of times people in a dating relationship, they're so consumed with their own life. People spend their single years serving themselves. And I remember when I was single, you know, obviously I didn't meet my wife till I was 26 or 27. I remember my, you know, obviously I don't, I didn't meet my wife till I was 26 or 27. I remember my dad telling me, Johnny, be very mindful as you spend your single years that you are going to develop a bent to being infatuated with yourself.

All you're going to think about is yourself. So because marriage is constantly thinking of someone other as more important than you, you need to practice that. So maybe just elaborate on that element of love. You know, Paul says, this is a way of the love for God is manifested as loving other people. Talk more about that in from a 22 year old or a 29 year old or a 34 year old perspective. Yeah. I mean, so I got married when I was about 25 and I would tell you, uh, even in walking into that, but those years up to

it, being single and call it young adult, that 18 in college type thing on your own, everything about your life is about you, but you don't realize it. Right. I mean, you don't think that every, when I wake up in the morning, if I'm in, if I have a job or if I go to school, like I'm going to class, it's my class. It's my schedule. It's where I go to do every single thing. My car, my clothes, my laundry, my kitchen, my food. Yep. And no one, we don't think that we're oblivious to that. I think even when I think about like when I was dating at that age, even the dating, if I'm not cognizantly thinking about being others minded is all about me and selfish, right? Until you change your mind and how you think about those things,

it changes your perspective. And so if I'm looking for someone, I'm going, yeah, are they others-minded? Do they serve? And not just the high places, but they're like, you start looking around going- Hitting the needs of people. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And that was like, honestly, one of the first things I noticed about my wife, Katie, is, and people say this, people have used the illustration, like start running after the Lord and serving his people and then look left and right. And I understand that I've grown up kind of hearing that. There's an element where you go, geez.

And then there's another element where you go, well, it was kind of true in my life where you go, I'm like, hey, I want to live my life serving God's people. I want to be someone that hosts and is a lover of strangers and a place for people to stay. And so you want to find someone else that shares that burden. Paul then says in faith. And I think this is fairly easy. I think it would just be asking the question, does their affiliation with the things of

God actually shape their affections? Is their faith the most important thing about them? There's a lot of people that you could go date or marry where a faith, their faith is a component of their life rather than maybe the filter for everything they do. The last thing Paul says, and I want to expound on this is he says impurity. One of the ways that our love for God is manifested is in our purity. 1 Thessalonians 4, 3, this is the will of God, your sanctification, that's just becoming more like Jesus.

And he says, that is you abstain from sexual immorality. So if you're giving input to a young man or a young woman, how would you have them approach the subject of purity in a relationship, but not just in the relationship, but before they ever got there? Is this a person that prioritizes their personal holiness? Yeah. And I think we'll get to this, you know, other point, but you start thinking about who in their life speaks into them. Yeah.

Right. I'll go back to, we're not looking for perfection, right? Because there's not a perfect person. Or a sinless past. That's where I was going to go next is kind of the past of people and understanding that we come from different backgrounds, but we come from different experiences

that maybe we've had to work through and have been difficult. But how are you approaching them is how I would probably look at it. Like, are you a fighter? If I'm a guy who's been struggling, am I a fighter who constantly understands this is a battle and I'm going to have some people around me that are supporting me and

encouraging that and accountability and yeah. Different things where they're making no provision for the flesh. Yeah. And I think the world we live in today, uh, there's more commonality so people can feel content in the, in their past or in how they're acting today. And I think it's a pretty big, like bold statement to say, hey, I'm not content. Like, yeah, we're all impacted in different ways

from our culture, but the way that I'm fighting looks like this. And I think that's a pretty big mark for a man that just wants to follow after God. Yeah, and then I think just underneath this main question of do they love the Lord is, you know, the fear of the Lord, it says in Proverbs, is the beginning of wisdom.

So even that idea of a big view of God that is the beginning of wisdom, when you go into marriage, it's going to be difficult. You're gonna walk through different challenges, situations where you need wisdom. And the beginning of wisdom is a fear of the Lord. It says in Proverbs 31, 30, if you're a guy looking for a girl,

we'll get to this in greater detail in a moment, but charm is deceitful. Beauty is vain. It's fleeting. It's going. But a woman who fears the Lord, that's rare, that's valuable, that's precious. And I think another maybe big thing to touch on

before we move on is if the individual you're interested in doesn't love the Lord, then they're finding their identity in something other than the Lord, which means that they're probably going to put their identity in your relationship. Which if I'm giving counsel to a guy regarding a dating relationship, one of the first things I'm going to ask is, is this a very insecure person? Because that's going to end up affecting your entire marriage. And largely when people don't find their identity in Christ, they're finding it in a million other places that are unstable. Yeah. Um, anything to add there? No, I'd say, Hey, before you go on, one of the things I'd say is, you know, we approach the question going, Hey, what are the things I should look for in a spouse? Um, I would almost flip that and say, all right, so rather than putting all the pressure on your spouse to go,

they've got to live up to these expectations, which are good and which are not. You got to make sure you have those things in your own heart. Totally. I mean, I would look back on my dating and go, I was young, kind of figuring out my love for Christ and what that meant and going, there were a lot of areas that I probably failed in

that I still had an expectation for somebody else to not fail in. And that brought a lot of regret. That brought a lot of shame when I walked into a relationship then going, well, I don't live up to it. So maybe they don't have to either. Yeah.

And we talk a lot about serving people. I want to marry a servant, but you're not serving. Absolutely. And you know, those are things then you work through to go, number one, you got to look at your own heart and go, where do I stand before Christ? Do I love him? Do I not pursue him? Again, not perfect, but I'm making progress in my sanctification, become more like him. Because then when you're doing that, you find someone who's doing the same thing. You don't

overlook their faults, but you understand them. You have empathy for them. And then you can mutually encourage one another to become the people God wants you to be, whether that ends up being your spouse or not. Yeah. And you have to look in the mirror before you're looking for a spouse. I think that's very, very fair. And a prerequisite is, am I ready to date? And we'll continue to go through that. So do they love the Lord? The second question I have is just a big idea is, are they a hard worker? This isn't maybe what people expect, kind of like second out of the gate, second rung of the ladder. This says in Colossians 3, whatever you do, work heartily as unto the Lord and not for men. Ecclesiastes 9.10 says, do whatever's in front of you with all of

your might. I put this as a second question because you can be a Christian and be lazy, but you cannot possibly be a mature Christian and be lazy because life is hard. Yeah. And whether you're a man leading your family or a woman at home or with a job or with kids in the home, life is hard and requires hard work. Yeah. And so maybe just expound on that. You have four sons. Why is asking the question, are they a hard worker, so critical? Well, I'll tell you this. When I sat with my father-in-law, who was a pastor for years, and I said, hey, I want to marry your daughter. One of the first questions he asked me, apart from just kind of, we had known each other for a long time, but he said, all right, you're done with college.

You've been out for a couple of years. My daughter's gonna leave college. Like, how are you going to provide for her? Right? And I think that's not just like a practical question. I think that's a spiritual question of like, you're called as a man to lead and provide for your family. So I would say prerequisite as you're thinking

about marriage is that whole idea. Are you a hard worker who, when life is going to be hard, you're not just going to roll up into a shell and give up, but you're going to be somebody who says, yeah, I'm going to pursue these things, even though it's really difficult and make it, you know, make it happen for my family and for me. And even for, for me, you know, from an inverted perspective, like I got three daughters. One of the first things I'm going to want them to think through is, is this guy disciplined, which even beyond the scope of their nine to five,

do they have spiritual disciplines? Is there a level where they take care of their body? You know, like that's not like extra biblical. I just sucked it in a little bit. Yeah. And I'll sit up here. Yeah.

You've been given, you know, even a life to steward. And so those are things that reflect maybe on other patterns of their life. This can be demonstrated, I think, in different facets. It's not saying that everyone needs to be like an entrepreneur or not everyone needs to be a doctor. Right. Or have six pack abs. Yeah. Right. But it needs to be a doctor. Right. Or have six pack abs.

Yeah. Right. But it needs to be represented in the fact that not everything in life is thrilling. Some things are just difficult. And most good things in the life are on the other side of hard and relationships are hard. And so I think that's a really important thing to ask. And even, you know, I probably just candidly, one of the things I ask guys, you know, when they're in a dating relationship is, is the, is the girl you're

dating easily overwhelmed? Yeah. I want to be fair, right? Because we're, Peter says we're to be mindful, you know? Um, but that's different than being mindful of someone being the weaker vessel from a biblical perspective. That's different than someone that's all can't work. Right. And always drained. I mean, you're married. We're both married to Kate's. Kate's a hard worker.

Yeah. Right. So even just talk about that from your marriage, like how does being married to someone that is a doer and a goer. Yeah. Obviously there's relativity there. God made people different, but that shapes everything about the life you live. Everything. I mean, so my wife is more disciplined than I am in a lot of different ways. Yeah. And we would not have known side note that we were going to have all boys when we got married. So I would say for us, like it's played a vital role. And when I think of what do I want my boys as they grow to become men, what do we

want them to be like? Obviously I want them to be lovers of Christ, top priority. Yeah. Right. Underneath that, I'd say no one wants a lazy man. You know what I mean? That looks like a man, but acts like a boy. And my wife has set a tone even for my 18, 16, 14, and 10 year old to go, hey, this is what it's going to look like to be disciplined, to do things you don't like, or that don't come easy, but are necessities. That's why they're working at Publix. That's 14 years old. That's 14 years old. You got it. But it's things like that where you're going, we want those values instilled in them. Why? It's a good thing practically, but more than that, it's a spiritual discipline of God going, Hey, like Jesus took on some hard things on our behalf. Men are called in some ways to act a very similar way. You're

going to take on some hard things and some burdens that you're going to have to carry. And it's not always going to be easy. Life's not going to be easy. Spiritual discipline is not always going to be easy with all the things that the world wants to pull you into. You're gonna have to fight a little bit. And, and so that's been a blessing for us. Cause I think some of that we've grown into, you know, um, and the Lord blessed me with a wife that, you know, brought those things into marriage that has challenged and encouraged me and pushed me in a lot of ways. Um, mutually encouraged for both of us. Yeah. And that's, I think another component of it is the synergistic nature of marriage. Like she pushes you, you push

her. It's not like we can talk about this at a later time, but when we talk about the husband being the leader of his wife and family, it's not, shouldn't always feel like dragging, right? Like it's a relationship, it's a partnership. My wife makes me better, you know? And so on Saturday nights before I'm going to preach on Sunday, she says, should you be studying? Right.

And typically I have the, my own drive to do that, but Katie wants me to do that. Yeah. So, uh, I think that's important. Third big question is, are they teachable? I'd be asking the question, is this an individual that's open to correction? Are they being sharpened by other people? Do they have people in their life? I mean, you are surrounded with a lot of young adults. I think one of the things that I'm always mindful of with that demographic is they live their life with people in the same age as them that mutually affirm their ignorance. So not only are they teachable, are they eager to learn? So what do you think that looks like for you? Like, think about what your life, you grew up in the church, you're a young adult in the church that had older men speaking in you.

But how do I know? That would be my question I get asked. Like, how do I know if they're teachable? What does that look like practically? Well, one of the first things I ask Katie is who are the women in your life? Yeah. Right?

So like, if anybody ever asked me that question, I would have been able to give five guys, right? Outside of my dad, outside of my uncle. Sure. I would have been able to give five guys, right? Outside of my dad, outside of my uncle. Sure. I would have been able to say, because it feels so obvious when you read the scripture, Titus 2, older men train the younger men, older women train the younger women. And you're blind to your own blind spots. You lack perspective. Harry often says that the only gift you can't give yourself is perspective. Meaning people lack self-awareness. I remember my dad, even when I was growing up,

used to give me like little signals when I was at the dinner table or we had guests, he would do this, when I was being too prominent in a conversation. And that was him teaching me. Like, Johnny, you do this thing and you don't know you do this thing. So I pursued that even with other men of,

how do you do this? What are your lifestyle? I've been talking to the same group of five guys for the last 15 years. And so I think it probably, if I'm a guy or I'm a girl considering that about a guy, I'm just wondering who are the main influences in your life. And if they say no one, that's concerning. Or if they have no one, that's concerning. Yeah. Or if they have no one else

that's investing in them. Yeah. Well, I'd almost say that the, not the opposite, but I further that going. Or if that answer is everybody, that's the same age as me. Yeah. You'd go, you know, there, there are times where I would look and go, the obvious is I look at my wife and I go, what's her mom like? Cause in some way, shape or form, she's going to be a version of that. I do the same thing where I'd go, Hey, who are these four or five guys that he's telling me? Or she's going to tell me impact her. And I go, how are they impacting her? Is that somebody I'm not marrying one of those two or five, but they are going to take a shaper. Yeah, for sure. And that's not that everyone has to have five people. It could be your, yeah. If you have amazing parents, then that's, that's great. It says in Proverbs 11, 14, though, in the abundance of counselors,

there's much wisdom. Yeah. You want to marry a wise individual. And it would be concerning to me if you were dating someone that's 22 and they were the most mature person in their world. Yeah. Right. And that's, I think like, even when people talk about dating, much of the dating advice received from a 24-year-old is from other 24-year-olds that aren't married, which is obviously backwards. A little bit. I think that's even why this is fun to talk through dating with you.

You know every single girl I've ever dated. I navigated every breakup or when I got ghosted with you. So I think that's a big question is, are they teachable? Now, underneath this, we have family. I would say, what's their family like? What we're not saying is you have to marry someone with the best parents ever with a house on the beach.

But it's definitely something you need to consider. The house on the beach? Not the beach not the beach house oh okay but just like hey what's their background yeah i mean we all bring different things to relationships right yeah so just expand on that yeah i mean i would say like the role of who those people are and how they've shaped them or for that matter lack thereof yeah i was gonna say lack thereof or they're not there to know that walking in um who nurtured them what what played into that i mean even basic things like,

what are their likes and dislikes? A lot of that is shaped by who your family is. When I got married, I grew up with all boys and we grew up in the Midwest. Sarcasm, really huge in our world. Still is. Still is. Yes. And we love it. And I remember one of the first times I ever visited Caitlin's family, her mom and dad pulled her aside and was like, you guys are not kind to each other because I had shaped her where she took on kind of some of that sarcasm. And when she came to visit my friends, the first thing was like, you guys are mean to each other. And I'm like, no, no, no, we're not mean at all. That's like, I always call her a

witch. Not quite that far, but yes. But you know what I mean? Like my friends mock me and that if they didn't, I would worry. Yeah. Because that was their way they showed love. And those same friends who would mock me would be the ones who'd be there anytime there's a problem, right? Well, my family was much the same way. So some of those things, you know, are shapers. Yeah. They're shapers. What is that like? Yeah. And it could be other things too. Like if you were, if you're a girl that was raised by a stay at home dad and your mom is a like? Yeah, and it could be other things too. Like if you're a girl that was raised by a stay-at-home dad and your mom is a neurosurgeon, that's going to affect your view of a dad

that's going to lead and provide and his thinking you're going to be the one that stays home. So I know some people who get married that one comes from a weaker family, meaning like dad and mom weren't around, they kind of raised themselves. And then they married somebody whose family just did everything together.

And it's perfect because they want the mom and dad. I don't know others who come from really, both families are strong, spend a lot of time together. And it actually takes a little more work because you're like, where are we going to spend the holidays? And there's a little bit more

of kind of figuring those things out. Just knowing that helps you be prepared as you walk into it. Or if regarding family, and we talked about this a little bit beforehand, if you're dating someone that's an only child and doesn't want kids or came from a big family and doesn't want children and you want children, that's not something that I would bank on them changing their mind on.

Once you say I do. Right. I've actually navigated a fair amount of difficult conversations with people that were just, well, I thought when we got married, she would all of the sudden want kids. Well, she still doesn't want kids. And I wouldn't marry someone that doesn't want kids because I want all the babies. Yeah, I'm with you. Absolutely. Okay. So, so far we've talked about character and we can talk about this, I think more in the next episode, but let's talk about chemistry for just a few minutes. Let's talk attraction. I think out of

the gates, you know, we put this at the end and we don't want to start here, but it's definitely not something to negate. Uh, you should be attracted to the person that you marry. Mal, with that being said, let's define attraction. What do we mean when we say attraction? Well, I think the obvious is you want to be physically attracted to somebody, right? I mean, it's somebody that, and we can go off the rails on it. I mean, you can go to our culture today and everything's physical and nothing else matters. We're not saying that at all, but we're saying from a base level to be attracted to someone and see them and go, I like the way they look. And that could be physical,

meaning who they are. That could be how they dress. That could be what they're into. Yeah. The whole thing like that. But yeah, you want a base level of attraction, biblical,

by the way. I mean, many men throughout the Bible who are saying their wives, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel. They're good to the eye. I mean,

all those different extra biblical. And I think that's important to get there because, you know, oftentimes people in the church have grown up and they're like, we should just line up all the single Christians in our church and marry them off. But no, that would be terrible because I don't want to marry someone that I'm not attracted to at all. And you've mentioned the ways that attraction is skewed in our culture. You know, we live in a digital world where constantly guys are producing this idea of beauty in their mind that's full of athletes and actresses

and influencers and models. Sure. And they develop in their own thinking this level 10 beauty and think that I've got to marry an eight out of 10. And that creates one, a sinful idolatry of something that's unhealthy and sinful, but there should be

from a biblical perspective where you're drawn to this individual. That's Proverbs, Song of Solomon, biblical narrative. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the reverse would be true for women too. I just listened to a guy who talked about, they did like this study and brought in like a girl, like a group of like 10 women. Yeah. And they said, how many of you want to marry somebody? And this really hit my heart that are over six feet tall. And I'm five, five and a half. So not a tall man. The half is important.

And every one of them said yes, right? And then he kind of went through these qualifications and said, do you know how the percentage of men that have just hit like your base three? And it was like height, weight, and amount of money you made. And it was by that every girl wanted those three characteristics. And he's like, that's 3% of all men in the world. And they're like, do you think you as women are part of the top 3% of women in all the world?

And all of a sudden it's like gasp from the crowd because you're looking around going, we think what's normal that we see is what's normal in the world. So it's skewed what we even believe is attractive until we kind of peel back some of those layers and go, what do I really want in someone? But yeah, no, I think, I mean, it's, it's definitely fair. And I think that there's, there's ditches on both sides. There's the people that go like, you should never consider the way they look. That's a shallow. Sure. And then there's the other side of the spectrum where it's the first thing, you know, out of the gate and the only, and the only, and I think that's really dangerous because at the end of the day, when's the last time you've

seen a beautiful 94 year old gravity wins, everyone's going to wrinkle and what lasts is character. And so obviously that's the most important thing. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain. But the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. With that being said, God- Or as Toby Mac said, the woman who fears the Lord isn't playing. Isn't playing? Playing. Like playing. Playing. Playing.

Sorry, I don't speak Toby. That's all right. I do. I grew up on that. Yeah. Okay. So other other than that under the banner of chemistry i think just an important question is yeah do you have a good time with them yeah are they fun are they fun now there's a difference between being funny and fun this is something we navigated a lot because for a while i was like convinced i needed to marry a comedian yeah um that would be hard by the way yeah i, I know. Um, especially one that's always on all the time. Yeah. Always just riffing on you. Um, there's a difference between fun and

funny, but much of marriage is just hanging out and in life you go through really difficult seasons. Um, you want to spend your life with someone categorically you enjoy. Yes. Expound. If you don't enjoy the person, life's going to be long. You know what I mean? Yeah. And like you said, life's difficult.

I mean, you've been through some difficult circumstances. And I think the beauty of relationship is the more time you spend together and the closer you are, you know how to respond. So there are times where you're going through something difficult and you want to laugh through the pain. And there's times where you're going through something difficult and you want to laugh through the pain. And there's times where you're going through something difficult and you want to sit in silence and you don't want someone making a wisecrack, but you want that out of the same person, if that makes sense. And I would say like, yeah, life, like find somebody, I hate to say this

word, but I'll define it. You want somebody easy. Yeah. Like where it doesn't require a lot of work constantly to get along. If you fight all the time when you're dating. Pulling teeth to enjoy the time. You're probably going to fight a lot after you say I do. I do doesn't fix a lot of those things, right? Enjoy each other. Like have fun together. And that could be as basic as we have some common interests and we enjoy doing the same things, watching the same things, reading the same things, whatever that might be.

And those are it. Yeah. I think that element of enjoying, you know, enjoying your spouse and enjoying the person you're dating is important. You know, I was with you the other day, we were at a lunch or a meeting or someone and someone said, Hey, so what do you do for fun? And you're like, we hang out with people, you know? And I, a lot of times people ask me like one of my hobbies and I'm like, I go golfing every four months, but like I spend my life with people. Yeah. And I do that primarily with my wife. Like last night we had people over for dinner. We're trying to get to know people. I, that's less of a chore and more of a joy because I enjoy doing with my wife and I watch how she even does that. So this even goes along with, does she love other people and

the way that you enjoy spending your time? Yeah. Um, okay. On the next episode, here's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about this is who today, someone that loves the Lord, hard worker, teachable, um, ask them questions regarding their family background. What do they hope to have in a family? Those are all big ideas. But next episode, how do we actually date? I asked on social media for people to send in questions about dating and there's hundreds of responses on the list. Should I ask someone to hang out

or is that too unintentional? Or should I ask them to go on a date? Should that be over text or should that be in person or on a phone call? Purity boundaries, but I would add to that, emotional boundaries, spiritual boundaries. One of the things that kind of like grinds my gears a little bit is this idea that like a 20 year old

needs to start leading his girlfriend spiritually. And we're gonna read the Bible from 9 to 10, 30 p.m. every night and no one, you know, Oh, and no wonder she started thinking I was her husband. Right. Then, uh, how far is too far dating online? What if there's no one at my church? How do I find a spouse? Yeah. Um, so that's what I want to talk about. Great questions. Um, all right. Well, thanks Brandon. Appreciate it. Boom.