Welcome back to the Aspastor John podcast. We're joined again by special guest Matt Chandler,

the lead pastor at the village church in Dallas. Matt is the author of the new book The Mingling

of Souls. God's design for love, marriage, sex, and redemption. And I've got 10 questions from

singles on relationships, queued up for Matt. We're working through them on to question number six.

Matt, do you think it's wise for a boyfriend to lead his girlfriend? Should a dating

relationship reflect the complimentary structure of marriage to any degree? It seems biblically

and practically wise, but it also seems covenantally inappropriate at this stage. What would you say?

Yeah, I would, there's no doubt that a boyfriend should lead, quote unquote his girlfriend in some

ways, but definitely not to the degree that a husband leads is wise. So what I possess when

it comes to the covenant I'm in with Lauren is headship, right? I have, I've been called by God

to lead it, to cover, to provide, to protect in ways of overlord that a boyfriend is not in covenant

relationship with his girlfriend. However, he should be leading her in regards to godliness,

encouraging her in regards to her giftedness. I think he should be encouraging her in prayerfulness,

encouraging her towards an understanding and growing knowledge of the word of God. He should take

responsibility and the lead in the areas that as they get to know each other are clear that she

wants. So I think, and so I've got to be careful here, because I think I have, I can get my own

preferences mixed up in this. I want to be real careful. So let me just kind of put a little

asterisk here and go, I believe being married to Lauren. Like what Lauren wants from me is for me to

go, hey, would you like to go out Thursday? Yes. And then what she wants is for me to say, hey,

we're going to go to dinner and we're going to do this. She doesn't want me to come home Thursday

night and say, so what do you want to do? And, and so for a young, for a boyfriend to be saying,

hey, let's go have dinner. Let's sit for him to lead out in protection of their purity,

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