Bible Verses About Dating and Relationships.
The Bible does not mention dating as we know it, but it speaks clearly to the heart behind it. It calls for wisdom, purity, shared faith, and love that seeks the good of the other person.
These verses offer guidance for relationships before marriage. They are not a formula. They help you weigh your choices against what God values and what love requires.
Guard your heart
Wisdom pays attention to what shapes your affections.
Proverbs 4:23
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
Song of Solomon 2:7
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.
A refrain warning against stirring up romantic love before its proper time.
Proverbs 31:30
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Share a common faith
Believers are called to partnerships rooted in Christ.
2 Corinthians 6:14
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
Paul is addressing partnership with idolatry broadly; Christians have long applied it to choosing a spouse.
Amos 3:3
“Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet?
Honor God with your body
Sexual purity is part of loving God and the other person well.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;
1 Corinthians 6:18-20
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Hebrews 13:4
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.
What real love looks like
Love is defined by patience and care, not only feelings.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Philippians 2:3-4
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Romans 12:9-10
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
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Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
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Scripture quotations are from the ESV(R) Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version(R)), copyright (c) 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.