11 Best Dating, Religion Books

How can you be sure you’ve found “the one”? How do you know when it’s time to leave a relationship that’s turning toxic? Godly Dating 101 answers these questions and more in a practical guide that will help young Christians develop authentic and healthy dating relationships.

With more than three million followers across Godly Dating 101’s social media accounts, Tovares and Safa Grey hear daily from hundreds of young adults looking for help in their current struggles regarding relationships and purity. Deep down, many Christian young adults are wondering if their relationships are drawing them closer to God or leading them back to the life from which Jesus freed them. 

Godly Dating 101 addresses what you hear from culture and contrasts it with Scripture. As the authors candidly cover topics like friends with benefits, pornography, masturbation, and other areas that affect future marriages, you gain an understanding that what’s considered normal or “fun” from the world’s perspective may not be God’s will for your life. Discover: 

• You are not alone in your relationship struggles
• God can extend grace and restoration to you no matter what
• Scripture that points you back to Jesus and what He says about relationships
• How to find and sustain a relationship that honors God

 

This encouraging message will empower you to rise out of confusion, toxic environments, and sin so that you can follow Jesus passionately and experience abundant life in Him as you nurture and develop healthy relationships.

For anyone who is married, preparing for marriage, or desperate to save a relationship teetering on the brink of divorce, marriage coaches Dave and Ann Wilson offer hope and strategies gleaned from personal experience and Scripture that really work. Vertical Marriage will give you the insight, applications, and inspiration to transform your marriage into everything you hoped it would be.

Honest to the core and laugh-out-loud funny, Dave and Ann Wilson share the one secret that brought them from the brink of divorce to a healthy and vibrant relationship.

If you had asked Dave how their marriage was doing on the night of their tenth wedding anniversary, Dave would have rated it a 9.8 out of 10, and he would have even guaranteed that Ann would say the same. But instead of giving him a celebratory kiss, Ann whispered, “I’ve lost my feelings for you.”

Divorce seemed inevitable for the Wilsons, but starting that night, God began to reveal to Dave and Ann the most overlooked secret of getting the marriage we are looking for: a horizontal marriage relationship just doesn’t work until your vertical relationship with Christ is first.

As founders of a multi-campus church and marriage coaches with 30 years of experience, Dave and Ann share the hard-earned but easy-to-apply biblical principles that ensure a strong marriage. Written in a highly relatable dialogue between both husband and wife, Vertical Marriage will guide you toward building a vibrant relationship at every level, giving you the tools you need to embrace:

• Effective communication
• Fair conflict
• True romance
• A deeper connection

Through their unique perspectives, Dave and Ann share an intimate, sometimes hilarious, and at times deeply poignant narrative of one couple’s journey to reconnecting with God and discovering the joy and power of a vertical marriage.

Reflection questions for couples available in the audiobook companion PDF download.

For anyone who is dating or thinking about marriage, pastor and bestselling author Andy Stanley shares practical, uncensored wisdom on avoiding mistakes in the present to help you avoid regrets in the future.

Single? Looking for the “right person”? Convinced that if you met the “right person” everything would turn out¬†”right?” Think again.

In¬†The¬†New Rules for Love, Sex,¬†and Dating,¬†Andy Stanley explores the challenges, assumptions, and pitfalls associated with dating in the twenty-first century. This guide takes a fresh approach to dating and love in the modern era by turning the search for “the one” back onto the searcher, challenging you to ask yourself tough questions like:

• Am I the person that the person I’m looking for is looking for?
• Are the Bible’s teachings about women relevant today?
• If sex is only physical, why is the pain of sexual sin so deep?

As you dig deep into Stanley’s answers, you’ll be equipped and empowered to step up and set a new standard for this generation by uncovering the things that create trouble in dating relationships and creating better habits now that will pay off later as you dive into married life.

Praise for The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating:

“No one speaks more powerfully and practically into the issues of dating and marriage in the twenty-first century than Andy Stanley. The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating is an exceptional resource for anyone seeking to navigate challenging relationship waters and survive in a culture that’s confused and complex. Straightforward. Graceful. Truthful. Needed.” —Louie Giglio, Passion City Church, Passion Conferences

“Andy’s new rules for love, sex, and dating are so wise, so compelling, so clear that I want every single friend I have to read this book, and I want to save a couple copies for my boys, so they can read it in a decade or so.” –Shauna Niequist, author of I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet

“Having experienced more than my fair share of destructive, harmful dating relationships, I can authoritatively say that Andy’s views on the matter are clear and convicting. Andy so beautifully conveys the message of the unfathomable grace of God, leaving you free to turn a leaf and begin a new dating chapter, making better decisions and living with fewer regrets.” ‚ÄîMaggie Bridges, Miss Georgia 2014

Discover a renewed biblical vision for sex, singleness, and relationships, and transform into an empowered woman of faith equipped to navigate today’s dating culture with vision, clarity, and freedom.¬†

Let’s face it: being single in today’s culture as a woman of faith can be a STRUGGLE FEST. But it doesn’t have to be. With real talk and straight wisdom, speaker, podcaster, and founder of The Refined Woman Kat Harris says it’s time for a new conversation about singleness, sex, and desire.¬†

Growing up at the height of the purity movement, Kat knew this much: good Christians don’t have sex until marriage. But approaching 30 and thrust into the New York City dating scene, she found a set of rules was not a compelling enough reason to keep her clothes on. Caught between purity culture’s rules and popular culture’s¬†do what feels good, Kat began a multi-year journey searching for answers to the biggest questions about sexuality and faith:

• What does the Bible really say about sex?
• Why does almost everyone deal with some sort of sexual shame?
• But¬†really–what’s a single girl to do with her sexual desire?¬†
• What if we never get married . . . then what?¬†

It turns out Kat was asking questions that countless women were dying to ask but didn’t know they had the permission to do so. Hungry for clarity, she researched, wrestled, and discovered a God who wasn’t afraid or ashamed of sex and desire as she thought He might be. In actuality, God created sex and desire within humanity and called it¬†very¬†good. Now she believes God desires to restore a generation disillusioned with purity culture and Christian dating, discouraged about their singleness, ashamed of their sexual desire, and uncertain how to practically walk this season out well.¬†

Join Kat on her messy, sometimes painful, and always honest journey to discovering God’s heart for sexuality, desire, singleness, and our purpose within it all.

Discussion questions and accompanying table are available in the audiobook companion PDF download.

As the founder and president of Life Partners, a renowned discipleship ministry, bestselling author Ken Nair has discipled more than five hundred men in how to become more Christlike husbands–all of whom have experienced renewal and restoration in their relationships. Now, he’s here to help you do the same.

Drawing from stories from his own marriage, as well as the journeys of countless husbands whose marriages were dissolving, Nair reveals major roadblocks in life and in marriage.

As you learn more about your spouse in Discovering the Mind of a Woman, you’ll gain the tools you need to:

• Experience God in your marriage
• Truly meet the needs of your spouse
• Become a spiritual leader within your marriage

What follows within the pages of Discovering the Mind of a Woman are life-changing concepts that won’t just revive a marriage, they’ll change your perspective forever.

Praise for Discovering the Mind of a Woman:

“I am glad for this book. After fifty-five years of Christian marriage, I find thoughts here that will help me be more thoughtful of my wife’s needs. It has helped me understand why and how she thinks differently than I do about so many things. A husband, as this book points out, is to live with and love his wife with understanding. This change in a husband and the consequent response by a wife result in life-changing home life, and together radiate to many others, for the glory of Christ.”

–Kenneth N. Taylor, translator of The Living Bible

Safe People will help you discover why good people can get tangled in bad relationships, how to avoid repeating your own mistakes, and how to pick safe, healthy people for the friends you make and the company you keep.

Too many of us have invested in relationships that have gone wrong. Maybe you’ve been judged, manipulated, or controlled. Or maybe you’ve trusted the wrong people in the past. It’s easy to make the same mistakes of judgment over and over–or, worse, to give up on trying to have great, authentic relationships again. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In Safe People, Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend teach you that being with an unsafe person can be damaging to your confidence, your trust in others, and even your health. You’ll learn that you have the power to surround yourself with accepting, honest, and safe people who draw you closer to being the person God intended you to be.

Drs. Cloud and Townsend, authors of the New York Times bestseller Boundaries, are here to share the lessons they’ve learned in their years of practicing psychology and studying the patterns and practices that support clear, biblical boundaries. In Safe People, they offer guidance for making safe choices in all of your day-to-day relationships, from family and friends to colleagues and partners.

Safe People will give you the tools you need to recognize what makes people relationally safe, form positive relationships, and even become a safe person along the way. Drs. Cloud and Townsend share expert insights that will help you ask important questions:

• How can I learn to pick better friends?
• Why do I choose people who let me down?
• How did I end up with this critical boss?
• How do I attract irresponsible people?
• Why did I invest money with that unscrupulous person?
• What is it about me that draws the wrong types of people to me?
• Why am I drawn to the wrong types of people?

It’s time to revitalize your connections and finally start enjoying the healthy, balanced relationships that you deserve.

Safe People will help you discover why good people can get tangled in bad relationships, how to avoid repeating your own mistakes, and how to pick safe, healthy people for the friends you make and the company you keep.

Too many of us have invested in relationships that have gone wrong. Maybe you’ve been judged, manipulated, or controlled. Or maybe you’ve trusted the wrong people in the past. It’s easy to make the same mistakes of judgment over and over–or, worse, to give up on trying to have great, authentic relationships again. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In Safe People, Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend teach you that being with an unsafe person can be damaging to your confidence, your trust in others, and even your health. You’ll learn that you have the power to surround yourself with accepting, honest, and safe people who draw you closer to being the person God intended you to be.

Drs. Cloud and Townsend, authors of the New York Times bestseller Boundaries, are here to share the lessons they’ve learned in their years of practicing psychology and studying the patterns and practices that support clear, biblical boundaries. In Safe People, they offer guidance for making safe choices in all of your day-to-day relationships, from family and friends to colleagues and partners.

Safe People will give you the tools you need to recognize what makes people relationally safe, form positive relationships, and even become a safe person along the way. Drs. Cloud and Townsend share expert insights that will help you ask important questions:

• How can I learn to pick better friends?
• Why do I choose people who let me down?
• How did I end up with this critical boss?
• How do I attract irresponsible people?
• Why did I invest money with that unscrupulous person?
• What is it about me that draws the wrong types of people to me?
• Why am I drawn to the wrong types of people?

It’s time to revitalize your connections and finally start enjoying the healthy, balanced relationships that you deserve.

What can the Bible teach us about unconditional, everlasting, life-changing love? Join #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Les Parrott as he shows us that we all deserve Love Like That.

In this authentic, practical book, Dr. Parrott provides a simple plan to improve all of your relationships–with spouses, family, friends, coworkers, and even strangers. Dr. Parrott takes proven findings from psychology and sociology and blends them with biblical teaching to reveal five transformative ways of relating to people demonstrated by Jesus himself.

In Love Like That, Dr. Parrott gives you the tools you need to love like Jesus, because when you do:

• you become less detached and more mindful
• you become less exclusive and more approachable
• you become less judgmental and more grace-full
• you become less fearful and more bold
• you become less self-absorbed and more self-giving

Dr. Parrott teaches us that loving like Jesus can be a daily reality for anyone who chooses it. Why? Because this love isn’t elusive. It isn’t pie-in-the-sky. It isn’t out of reach or relegated to untouchable saints. It’s real. Jesus gives us practical examples of how to love in extraordinary ways. And you’re likely closer to it than you know.

Praise for Love Like That:

“From the first vulnerable sentence, this heart-felt message from Dr. Parrott will compel you to not only be a better person, it will show you exactly how you can do just that.”

–Dave Ramsey, #1 bestselling author and radio host

“Refreshingly honest and incredibly practical. This book is for everyone who wants to love like Jesus but never thought they could. I’ve personally benefited from this helpful book, and you will too.”

–Lysa TerKeurst, president of Proverbs 31 Ministries and bestselling author of Forgiving What You Can’t Forget

“With an incredible blend of contemporary social science and a deep understanding of Scripture, Les Parrott’s writing will help you see beyond what you may be tempted to settle for. And he’ll show you the way, step-by-step, to realizing the kinds of relationships we all long for.”

–Lee Strobel, New York Times bestselling author of The Case for Christ

Did you enter adulthood thinking marriage would find you, only to end up at a second-cousin’s wedding, dodging yet another bouquet the night before you turned thirty? Maybe you’ve started wondering if this is the best the single life has to offer. Joy Beth Smith says it’s not-that single life doesn’t have to leave you constantly waiting for real life to begin. If you let go of the tired lies weighing you down, you can turn toward truth.

If you are like most dating couples, you are looking for more than just a companion–you want a soul mate! Devotions for Dating Couples will help you discover how to make your most important love relationships–with God and your potential mate–strong, lasting, and radiant.

The essence of a true soulmate relationship is that of deep spiritual connection and a shared commitment to God. Learn to enrich your inner lives while building a strong foundation for a lasting marriage as you focus on basics of love, prayer, Bible study, forgiveness, and more.

Relationship experts and authors Ben Young and Samuel Adams give user-friendly tips for nurturing your personal walk with God and enhancing your spiritual connection as a couple through in this 9-week devotional. In Devotions for Dating Couples, you will:

• Become a great lover by learning to love God first
• Develop the essential disciplines of a lasting relationship
• Focus on the important things in life
• Discover a sense of spiritual purpose and meaning
• Understand that grace is not just for “beginners”–it is for you, every day

This dynamic book includes both lessons for individuals and weekend studies for couples. Whether you are dating seriously or engaged to be married, these daily personal devotions and weekly couple’s devotions will help you discover the way to lifelong love.

Discussion questions are available in the audiobook companion PDF download.

Does the thought of joining a dating site invoke feelings of fear and anxiety–or, worse, insecurity or unworthiness? If so, then The Grown Woman’s Guide to Online Dating is the audiobook for you. With practical advice about how these sites work, what to expect, and when to join and quit, along with proven tips for making the most of them, The Grown Woman’s Guide equips listeners with all they need to take the plunge.

Four years after an unexpected divorce, bestselling writer and funny lady Margot Starbuck found herself venturing into the unknown waters of online dating. What she discovered surprised her–and changed her. With her signature sharp wit and a solid biblical foundation, Margot shares what she learned, including how to:

• determine which sites are best and what to expect;
• write a first message that is most likely to get a response;
• avoid common pitfalls in creating your profile; and
• live out the truth that you are God’s beloved.

So dive into embracing your true value and drawing closer to God even in the midst of fear and questions. Because whatever your endgame might be, richness awaits. Margot promises, “You got this, girl!”

“Gives you concrete steps for dating well, from the beginning to the end, all while reminding you just how loved you already are.”

–Chrystal Evans Hurst, bestselling author and speaker

“With humor, wisdom, and practical answers, Margot’s heart and voice shine through this book, and I can’t wait to send it to my single friends!”

–Bianca Juarez Olthoff, pastor, speaker, and author of the bestselling How to Have Your Life Not Suck