What does the Bible say about dating?

The word dating is not in the Bible. The dating culture most modern readers are inside of — apps, casual pursuit, meeting people you have never been in a community with, defining and redefining what a relationship is — was largely invented in the twentieth century and has been drastically reshaped in the last twenty years.

But the underlying questions are real. Who do I pursue? How? What do I owe the person I am dating? How much of myself do I give before commitment? What is honoring the other person versus using them? Christianity has a lot to say about these questions even if the surface word dating is missing.

This page lays out what the Bible actually says. You do not have to be religious to read it.

A few terms first

For readers without the background:

• Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish religious teacher who lived in first-century Palestine. The Christian claim is that he was also God in human form.
• The Bible is the collection of Jewish and Christian sacred texts. The Old Testament is the older, longer part; the New Testament is the first-century AD writings about Jesus and his followers.
• The gospels are four short biographies of Jesus' life within the New Testament.
• Paul was one of the earliest Christian writers; his letters make up a large portion of the New Testament.
• Marriage, in the Bible's vocabulary, is a lifelong covenant union between one man and one woman.
• Covenant, in the Bible's vocabulary, is a formal, binding, whole-person promise — closer to what people mean by vow than by contract.

A short, honest answer

The Bible does not have a category called dating, but it does have clear guidance on how to treat other people, on what sex is for, on what marriage is, and on what love actually looks like in practice. Christian dating, at its healthiest, is a specific kind of intentional pursuit — with the question of marriage in view, in community with people who know both of you, with real respect for the other person's dignity and future, and without treating them as a consumer good to be tested and discarded. The Christian tradition is neither the legalistic version some people were raised with nor the permissive version much of the culture assumes.

The Bible does not have dating — but it has related categories

Worth being clear about what is and is not in the text.

The Bible talks about marriage extensively. It talks about the early stages of relationship in the language of courtship — intentional pursuit toward marriage, usually within a family and community context. It talks about sexual conduct in and out of marriage. It talks about how to treat people generally, and how to treat the opposite sex specifically.

What it does not do is give a script for a first date. That is not because the Bible thinks dating is unimportant. It is because dating as we know it did not exist. The modern shape of dating — meeting a stranger, casual pursuit, physical intimacy before commitment, defining and redefining a relationship over months — is a very recent phenomenon.

What Christianity has done, historically, is take the underlying wisdom the Bible gives about sex, love, marriage, and human dignity, and apply it to whatever the culture's shape of relationship-forming happens to be. That is the same work modern Christians are doing now.

Christian distinctives when dating

A few specific ways Christian dating tends to look different, drawn directly from what the Bible does say.

Dating with marriage in view. The Bible does not know what to do with a relationship that has no intended destination. Modern culture often frames dating as an end in itself — the experience of being in a relationship, pursued for its own sake. Christianity has historically framed relationship pursuit differently: as a real, if not yet final, moving-toward. This does not mean you have to know on the first coffee whether you want to marry them. It does mean the general direction should be toward the possibility of a covenant, not away from it. The person you are dating is a real person with a future, not a placeholder for the marriage you might have with someone else eventually.

Sexual restraint. The historic Christian position is that sex belongs in marriage. This is one of the strongest distinctives Christian dating has from most of the surrounding culture. The reasoning is not that the Bible thinks sex is dirty — it does not — but that sex, on the Bible's view, is a specific kind of covenant act with a specific meaning, and that meaning is broken when the act is detached from the covenant. (See What does the Bible say about sex and dating? for more on this.)

Paul (one of the earliest Christian writers), in a letter to Christians in Thessalonica: "It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister." The note about taking advantage is worth pausing on. Christian sexual restraint is not just about the two people's own conduct. It is about not doing something to the other person that treats them as a means.

Treating the other person as a whole person, not a consumer good. This is where modern dating culture is most vulnerable to Christian critique. Apps have shaped dating into something that looks a lot like consumer selection — swipe on the good enough, discard the not-quite-right, keep looking for a better version. The person on the other side of the screen becomes a search result to evaluate rather than a fellow human to know.

The Christian instruction cuts against this at every point. Paul, in a letter to Christians in Philippi: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others." Applied to dating: the person you are dating is not there to serve your search for the ideal partner. They are a person you are called to treat with real respect regardless of whether the relationship goes further.

Guarding the other person's future. Christian dating, at its best, includes a specific care for what happens to the other person after the relationship — whether it becomes a marriage or not. The Bible's ethic of not defrauding your brother or sister in relationships matters here. A relationship that gives someone marriage-shaped experiences (emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, shared life) without any actual movement toward marriage is, on the Bible's terms, taking something you have no covenantal right to.

Community involvement. The Bible's picture of relationship formation is never two people isolated from everyone else. Historically, family, friends, and religious community all had visibility into a forming relationship. Modern dating often happens in isolation from any of that. Christian dating, at its healthiest, brings the people who know you into the relationship early. The people who love you often see what you cannot.

Not being defined by the relationship. The Bible treats singleness as a full, dignified state — not a lesser state waiting to be resolved by marriage. (See What does the Bible say about singleness?.) This affects dating in a specific way: a Christian who is dating from a settled sense of being fine either way is much less likely to make destructive decisions than one dating from desperation to escape being alone.

Not being legalistic about it

Worth naming because Christian dating advice has often overcorrected into rules that the Bible does not actually give.

The Bible does not give a specific script. It does not require courting in the specific nineteenth-century sense. It does not require a formal chaperone. It does not require that you never be alone with the other person. It does not require that you not hold hands. It does not require that you not kiss. Different Christian communities have added rules over centuries. Some of these have been wisdom; some have been overreach. It is worth distinguishing the specific rules from the underlying principles.

The Bible does not require that you know within three dates whether you want to marry someone. Some Christian cultures have pressured people into rushed decisions. This is not wisdom. A real relationship takes time to see what the other person is actually like, and the Christian tradition has historically been fine with the time it takes.

The Bible does not require that you never break up. Many good Christian dating relationships end in breakup because it becomes clear the two people are not going to be the right match for a lifetime. This is not failure. It is often the honest outcome of taking the relationship seriously. What Christianity asks is that even the ending be done with care for the other person.

The Bible does not require you to date only within the same specific Christian tradition. But it does raise real caution about being seriously partnered with someone who does not share your ultimate loyalty. Paul, in a second letter to Christians in Corinth: "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers." The Christian tradition has read this as a specific caution about marriage across the deepest lines of what a person believes and lives by. (See Can Christians marry non-Christians?.)

Not being permissive either

Also worth naming.

The other error is treating Christian dating as culturally identical to the surrounding norm, plus a light overlay of church attendance. The Bible does not permit this either. Christian dating is meaningfully different from the modern default:

• Sex is saved for marriage.
• The relationship has direction, not just experience.
• The other person is respected as a whole person, not evaluated as a product.
• People who know you both are in the loop.
• Neither person is being used.
• Neither person is being defrauded of marriage-shaped experiences without the marriage.
• Breakup, when it happens, is done with care.

None of this is legalism. It is what taking a real person seriously actually looks like.

For readers already in a dating situation that has drifted

Worth being explicit.

If you are already sexually involved with someone you are not married to, if you are in a relationship that has become blurry, if you are dating someone you know deep down is not right for a marriage but you cannot bring yourself to end it — the Christian tradition does not treat you as beyond hope. What it asks is honesty about where you are, willingness to make different choices going forward, and grace for the fact that this is hard.

You are not damaged goods. You are also not stuck. Changes are possible from wherever the current starting point is.

What about right now

If you are inside a real dating question — evaluating a relationship, trying to figure out how to date well, or carrying something from a past relationship — our chat is free, private, and in your language. You start it; you end it whenever you want.

Where this comes from in the Bible

• 1 Corinthians 6:18–20 — the body as significant; sex as more than a physical act
• 2 Corinthians 6:14 — the caution about being yoked with someone whose ultimate loyalty is different
• 1 Thessalonians 4:3–8 — Paul on sexual conduct and not defrauding others
• Philippians 2:3–4 — treating others as more important than yourself
• Song of Songs 8:4 — "do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires"
• Proverbs 4:23 — guard your heart
• 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 — what love actually looks like in practice