What Does the Bible Say About Dating?

2 Timothy 2:22 ESV / 58 helpful votes

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV / 54 helpful votes

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

1 Corinthians 15:33 ESV / 45 helpful votes

Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 ESV / 35 helpful votes

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 13:4-7 ESV / 34 helpful votes

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.

2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV / 33 helpful votes

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV / 24 helpful votes

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

2 Corinthians 6:14-15 ESV / 23 helpful votes

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?

Proverbs 18:22 ESV / 20 helpful votes

He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.

1 Corinthians 7:1-25 ESV / 16 helpful votes

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. ...

Song of Solomon 2:7 ESV / 15 helpful votes

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.

James 1:5 ESV / 13 helpful votes

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV / 13 helpful votes

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 6:13 ESV / 12 helpful votes

“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

Ephesians 5:3 ESV / 10 helpful votes

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.

1 Corinthians 7:32-35 ESV / 9 helpful votes

I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

Proverbs 4:23 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Matthew 19:5 ESV / 8 helpful votes

And said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?

Ephesians 4:1-32 ESV / 7 helpful votes

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ...

1 Timothy 5:2 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

1 Corinthians 7:39 ESV / 6 helpful votes

A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

Proverbs 16:3 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.

Proverbs 15:22 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.

1 Corinthians 7:1 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”

1 Timothy 4:12 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

1 Timothy 1:1-20 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, To Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. ...

Matthew 4:4 ESV / 4 helpful votes

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Proverbs 24:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Wisdom is too high for a fool; in the gate he does not open his mouth.

Deuteronomy 7:3-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.

Ephesians 6:3 ESV / 1 helpful vote

“that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”

Romans 12:10 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Bible Verses about Dating