Dating and Gospel Compatibility

Lauren Chandler was just 17 years old when she met her future husband, Matt, who is older by six years. She was engaged at 18 and married at 19, when he was 25. Now they’ve been married for 17 years and have three kids, the oldest of whom just became a teenager. The dating worries and anxieties they’ve long since left behind in their own relationship have now hit home for them as parents.

While much has changed in their lives and in the dating scene for Christians in the last 20 years, much more about human relationships remains the same. Many who don’t want to be single are still single. Dating is usually confusing, potentially hurtful, and yet seemingly necessary. Marriage and childbirth may be delayed, but the nuclear family remains a goal for most young adults. How, then, can Christians walk this path with integrity, holiness, and discernment?

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Matt and Lauren joined me on The Gospel Coalition Podcast to answer some tough questions on singleness and dating. We talked about various dating scenarios, about women who hold themselves back so as not to be intimidating, and about the emphasis often placed on compatibility, and what that relationship should look like from a gospel-shaped perspective.

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.

But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.

To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.

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Collin Hansen serves as vice president for content and editor in chief of The Gospel Coalition, as well as executive director of The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He hosts the Gospelbound podcast and has written and contributed to many books, most recently Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation and Rediscover Church: Why the Body of Christ Is Essential. He has published with the New York Times and the Washington Post and offered commentary for CNN, Fox News, NPR, BBC, ABC News, and PBS NewsHour. He edited Our Secular Age: Ten Years of Reading and Applying Charles Taylor and The New City Catechism Devotional, among other books. He is an adjunct professor at Beeson Divinity School, where he also co-chairs the advisory board.

Matt Chandler is the lead pastor of teaching at The Village Church in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, and the president of Acts 29. He has authored several books, including Take Heart, Mingling of Souls, Recovering Redemption, To Live Is Christ to Die Is Gain, Creature of the Word, The Explicit Gospel, and Joy in the Sorrow. Matt and his wife, Lauren, live with their three children—Audrey, Reid, and Norah—in Highland Village, Texas.

Lauren Chandler is the wife of Matt Chandler, lead teaching pastor at The Village Church in Dallas, Texas, and president of Acts 29, a global church-planting network. They have three lovely (and lively) children. Whether writing stories, singing songs, or making her home a place to linger, Lauren enjoys creating beautiful and meaningful spaces where people may encounter the Lord of steadfast love imaged perfectly through Jesus. When she's not singing, writing, or spending time with her family, she can be found on the back of a horse.