I’ve been reading Kristen Clark and Bethany Baird’s blog, Girl Defined, for a few years now. When I heard that Kristen and Bethany were writing a new book called Love Defined, I was interested to see what they would say in it.

I often find myself agreeing with about 85% of what they post on their blog; I think they are a little bit more conservative than I am when it comes to some things. So I was curious to see what I thought about their new book on love.

So when Bethany and Kristen announced they were looking for girls to be on their launch team- I quickly applied. They chose me to be on their launch team, so I received a free copy of their book in exchange for this honest review.

The Premise of Love Defined–

The subtitle of Love Defined is “Embracing God’s Vision For Lasting Love and Satisfying Relationships.”

Sounds great, right? :)

When I received my copy of this book, I flipped open to the table of contents to see what exactly this book is about.

The book is divided into five parts:

1. Happily Ever Disaster
   (About how our culture handles love and relationships)
2. Bringing Back True Love
   (Learning about God’s design for love and relationships)
3. Single And Ready To Mingle
   (How to thrive while single)
4. Working Through The Nitty-Gritty
   (How to be friends with guys, dating, qualities to look for in a future husband, red flags to look out for, how to know if you should marry him, etc.)
5. Living Well On This Side Of The Altar
   (Marriage)

What I liked about Love Defined: 

I really liked the chapter entitled “Five Strategies For Thriving As A Single Girl.” I loved all of the tips Bethany offered in that chapter and reminded me of a post I wrote a while ago actually. :)

Additionally, I liked the chapters titled “Ten Red Flags To Look For In A Relationship” and “How Do I Know If He’s ‘The One’?”. I thought their list of red flags was very comprehensive and helpful. I also loved Kristen’s perspective of how to know he’s “the one.” Even though I had heard Kristen’s perspective elsewhere before, I loved how she explained it.

And I also liked the chapter that contained thoughts from other married women. They interviewed various married women and asked them what their first year of marriage was like and what they wish they had known/done before getting married. That chapter was very insightful.

What I didn’t like about Love Defined:

As a whole though, I don’t think I liked Love Defined very much :(

One chapter was called “God’s Timeless Method For Lasting Relationships.” In this chapter, they quoted about five verses. Five. And only one time when they quoted a verse did they explain the context around it.

It reminds me of when you write an argumentative research paper for English class and have a really good paragraph but then realize you don’t have any quotes from your sources to back you up. So, you have to look back through your sources to find a quote that supports your opinion.

That’s what this chapter seemed like to me. Instead of God’s five-step method for relationships, this was Kristen and Bethany’s five-step method with a few verses here and there to support their beliefs.

The five steps for a lasting relationship outlined in this chapter do seem very wise to me. But I wish they hadn’t presented it as “God’s Timeless Method For Lasting Relationships.”

Don’t be like how I was. If you read this book, read that chapter with the knowledge that it isn’t God’s timeless method, but rather the authors’ personal method. I think it will be more beneficial to you to take it as their wisdom than as Scriptural fact.

Another thing that frustrated me about this book is that they regularly took verses out of context.

For example, they have a chapter all about why we as Christians shouldn’t marry non-Christians.

Yes. I agree with that. It is very unwise to marry an unbeliever for many reasons.

However, in this chapter, they quoted several verses out of context to support their opinion. One of these was 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?”

I looked up this verse in my Bible and read the passages surrounding it. This verse has nothing to do with Christians marrying non-Christians! Instead, it has everything to do with Christians separating themselves from the pagan culture around them.

Go and read 2 Corinthians 5:11-7:1 to see the full context of this verse.

This passage is talking about how servants of God have to live a different lifestyle and say no to sin. It discusses Christians being set apart from the world around them to honor God- in every area of their lives, not just marriage!

There were a few other things I didn’t like about this book.

I often felt like I had to “read between the lines” to decipher what Kristen and Bethany meant because sometimes what they were saying was unclear.

Additionally, there were a few little things here and there that I disagreed with. These things are just a matter of me having a different opinion about. Things such as if only guys should initiate interest in a relationship. They say yes, it should only be the guy. Whereas I think that if the girl doesn’t show any interest, why would the guy make a move?

There were also some contradictions I found in the book. Sometimes they said that the goal of life was to bring glory to God. Other times they made it seem like marriage was the end goal in life, a destination to arrive at, the “mountain peak” of life.

Overall Thoughts-

Love Defined is definitely not one of my favorite books I’ve read about singleness and dating. I think how they pushed their opinions and beliefs as “God’s way for relationships” is harmful. Additionally, I didn’t like how they consistently took verses out of context to support their opinions. I think misquoting verses can be very harmful.

Read: Five Consequences Of Misapplying Scripture by Phylicia Masonheimer

I did like how this book challenged my beliefs. I like how it forced me to solidify what I thought about certain topics, especially when I felt like I disagreed with them but couldn’t exactly express why. Constantly, I found myself Marco Polo-ing my best friend, talking to her about these issues as I tried to put my thoughts into words.

Who Should Read Love Defined?

I’d recommend Love Defined to you if you can think critically and are willing to open your Bible and fact-check Bethany and Kristen whenever they quote Scripture.

(In fact, I think they would want to you to double check all that they’re saying against the Bible. It makes me sad that the need for that is so great since they took verses out of context so often.)

I’d recommend this book to you if you are willing to take what they say with a grain of salt instead of accepting all that they say at face value.

As far as the target demographic for this book goes… They talk a lot about dating with the intention of marriage. So if you are at a place in life where you could see yourself ready for marriage within four years or so, this book could offer you some good insights.

Where To Buy-

If you would like to purchase Love Defined, you can do so on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Christian Books.

Read more book reviews by me :) 

Posted by Kara Beth & filed under Dating. This post has 5 comments.