Christian Dating Advice for Women

Proverbs 3:5-6

The best Christian dating advice for anyone, including women, is found by reading your Bible. There’s not actual “dating advice” per se, but as Christians it is our goal to apply biblical wisdom to all of the situations we find ourselves in. Try to honor Christ, be wise, don’t marry an unbeliever, love God and love people – all the basics for any Christian apply to Christian dating advice for women.

When you start moving beyond the actual commands in the Bible, the list could be endless for Christian dating advice for women. So I will just have to settle for these 6 pieces of advice. Lastly, I’m obviously a man, so I’m not trying to pretend to know what it’s like to be an unmarried Christian single woman. This advice is just some of the things I would tell someone who came into the counseling office. If I had a younger sister, these are some of things I would tell her.

1.Don’t Date Someone You Know You Won’t Marry

It makes sense to start a list of Christian dating advice for women by talking about who to date and who not to date. As a Christian woman, I know your first priority is to please God, which is why you have thought so much about this whole dating thing. While God doesn’t tell us everything we might want to know about relationships in a clear written format, he did make it very clear that Christians are not supposed to marry unbelievers (1 Corinthians 7:39, 2 Corinthians 6:14).

I believe the most biblically wise purpose of dating is to determine if a man and woman should be married. Therefore I also believe that if you are not prepared to get married in general, you should not date. If you feel you are too young to get married, if you feel like you are too busy to marry, or if you just don’t want that level of commitment right now in your life, then I believe dating is pointless and will only get you into trouble. You should only date if you want to see if someone is the right person to marry or not.

Therefore, if you know there is something about a guy that will hinder you from actually marrying him, I would advise you not to date him. Dating will lead to attachments. Why get attached to someone you know you will need to detach from? Why expose yourself to all that sexual temptation if you know you will not marry that man?

Some Christian women date a guy who is not a Christian thinking she will witness to him, which some refer to as missionary dating. This is another bad idea. (For more on this, read my article called “What Does the Bible Say About Missionary Dating?”)

2. Never Settle, But Make Sure Your Standards Are Realistic

I think one of the most common pieces of dating advice I hear given to Christian women is, “Never settle.” Of course I agree with this. The problem I see is that a lot of women’s’ lists are just too long. With every box you need checked, you are eliminating the likelihood of actually meeting someone like that.

It’s good to have standards. It’s good to have non-negotiables. As a Christian woman, you can’t stand for guys who have no respect for God, for you, or for themselves. All I would say is that you just need to be careful that your standards and expectations are realistic.

If you are looking to marry Jesus, stop, because you already are. You are the church and the church is the bride of Christ. While you should not compromise on certain things, you don’t need to marry a perfect man because you already married a perfect God when you put your faith in Jesus Christ. Looking for the perfect person will not only slow down finding someone, it will also ruin your relationship once you do start dating someone.

Give a guy a chance if he checks most of your boxes, especially if he checks the big ones but is missing some of the smaller ones. This doesn’t mean you settle and marry someone you don’t like. It just means you should at least explore the idea of a guy you are not initially drawn towards. Often times attraction flows out of liking someone’s personality. If you don’t get to know his personality, you might not realize how attractive he actually is.

Plus, in twenty years that hunk you married is going to look a lot different. You won’t care about his biceps if he stinks at being a good dad or husband. And if you are married to a good husband who loves your kids, even those extra 30lbs he will put on over the next few decades will not hinder your attractions towards him.

If a guy really likes you and you actually give him a chance, he’s going to do everything he can to win you over. Don’t you want to be pursued? Sometimes it won’t work and you still won’t like him. But at least let him try before you totally shut him down. You never know what could happen.

3. Don’t Trust a Guy Who Seems Too Perfect

The other danger in looking for the “perfect guy” is that there are a lot of pretenders and posers out there trying to convince women they really are the perfect guy. If you want something bad enough, you might be gullible enough to take their bait.

A guy who wants you to think he is perfect and doesn’t have any major flaws is going to really get mad at you one day when you finally point out something negative or you let him know he hurt your feelings. He’s going to be prideful and arrogant and he’s not ever going to admit he was wrong. If he started dating you because you made him feel like a god, he’s going to breakup with you once you make him feel like a human.

So another piece of Christian dating advice for women is this: The more mature you get, the more humility becomes attractive. When you are in high school, the captain of the football team, the popular guy, or the dude who spends more time on his hair than you do will probably be more attractive to you. But ask any mature Christian woman why she is still attracted to her husband ever after decades of marriage and she’s not going to tell you it’s because her husband is just so perfect and slick. She’s going to love him and be attracted to him because he’s a humble, mature follower of Christ who’s willing to admit his shortcomings and work on them with Jesus.

4. Listen to Your Friends and Family

Once you feel the thrill of someone liking you, it’s easy to get tunnel vision, which is why you need the support of others. So another really important piece of Christian dating advice for women is that you need to listen to your friends and family.

I’m not saying you should let them live your life for you. I’m not saying you need to agree with and obey everything they tell you. But you should listen and consider what they are saying. If one friend or family member has concern, that’s one thing. But if all your friends and family members have concerns about the guy you are dating, something is up.

So another piece of Christian dating advice for women is this: Don’t be that girl who ignores everyone who loves her for the guy who kind of likes her but is actually just going to use her and move on. Your friends and family are going to be there to pick up the pieces if he breaks your heart. So listen to them before it’s too late. They love you.

5. Don’t Just Think About Now. Think About Your Future

Maybe this guy you are dating is a blast, you laugh all the time, and you love all the same stuff. That’s great, but that’s not enough. If you are on the younger side, of course guys you are going to date are going to have a lot of maturing to do. When I got married at 22 I wasn’t as good of a provider as I am now at 31. I wasn’t as mature as I am now. If I would have had kids then, I would not have been as good of a dad as I am now.

But I know my wife would not have given me much of a thought if she didn’t think I would develop into this type of man in the future. So, yes, you should enjoy his company now and you should have fun together. But you have to look ahead because as a Christian woman you are not playing games. He might be a good boyfriend but will he be a good husband, a good father, a good provider, and will he be committed to you for the next 50 or 60 years?

If the guy has never had a job, what makes you think he will have a job later? If he spends his life playing video games now and eating Taco Bell every night, what makes you think he will magically start making dinner for you and the kids later in life? As Christians, we can certainly repent and not repeat the sins of our past. But on a more practical level, it’s also true that in many ways the past is the best indicator of the future.

So another piece of Christian dating advice for women is this: It’s not easy to do, but you have to not only look at the now, you have to look at what type of person he is going to be as well. You can’t do this perfectly, but you can at least try to make a wise evaluation of what type of future the two of you might have by seriously looking at his track record thus far in life.

6. Look for Character, Not Talent

Look, I know it feels like the unmarried worship leader is looking right at you every Sunday, but I hate to be the guy to tell you, most of the other Christian single girls in the congregation are thinking that too. All joking aside, it’s easy to have a crush on a guy like a worship leader because his walk with Christ is so visible.

But here’s the thing, just because someone can play a guitar, sing worship songs really well, and pray poetically doesn’t mean he will be a good husband. Anyone can look spiritually mature for an hour on stage. I’ve genuinely counseled people who have dated worship leaders of big churches before and trust me, not all of them are godly. One guy was living with his girlfriend, treating her like trash, and was the full-time worship leader.

Not every guy who loves Jesus is going to express it the way you would. Men are less expressive in general, so the worship leader and pastor type of guy is pretty rare. But there are many Christian men out there who love Christ and have great character.

They might not be able to lead a Bible study, teach a class, write a worship song, or paint a beautiful symbolic piece of art, but there are a lot of Christian guys who are faithful, respectful, and who do the right thing even when others are not watching. Trust me, you want a Christian man who has character, not just talent. Worship leading, preaching, and all these artistic types of things are very talent based. You don’t have to have a great walk with God to carry a tune or make a canvas beautiful.

So the last piece of Christian dating advice for women is this: The guy you want to live with for the rest of your life needs to be a strong man of God, not an artist. It’s great if you meet an artist with strong Christian character as well, but don’t get too blindside by those with talent and pizazz but who lack real maturity.

Christian Dating Advice for Women

So much more could be said since “Christian dating advice for women” is such a huge topic. If you obey the clear commands of Scripture, if you don’t date guys who you know you won’t marry, if you never settle, if you have balanced and realistic standards, if you listen to your friend and family, if you are not fooled by “Mr. Perfect,” and if you think about the future man he will become, I really believe you will be just fine.