Martin Wickens

“The Ten Commandments of Dating”

Outside of marriage, one of the most important and impactful areas of a person’s life is who they marry. Who they marry is ultimately decided by who they date. So, good principles about dating are vital.

I would highly recommend this book to parents, pastors, youth leaders, young adults (I’m thinking 20’s), and possibly older teens.

I would not recommend it for younger teens, or even older teens who have not been exposed to graphic details about sex. If a teen is homeschooled, in a Christian school, or mostly in conservative circles then this book isn’t appropriate. It speaks very graphically in a few places of sex.

For the majority of the teenage population, they learn all these things at a young age, too young, because of their exposure to TV, social media/internet, and their peers. In these cases, a parent may decide this book is suitable.

With that said, I think the book is excellent in some ways but lacking in others.

The ten commandments it gives are genuinely excellent principles for young people to follow. However, the tenth felt like an add-on to bump it up to the ten.

I think it is weak in two areas: The constant references to pop culture and weak Biblical explanations.

I realize why the authors have presented the book in this way. Most readers will be all too familiar with the movie, music, and pop culture examples. The young people in my more conservative circle would not be.

I think the Scriptures they reference are often tagged onto the end of the chapters rather than deeply ingrained in the text itself. Again, I think this is their way of making the book readable to teens. Whereas I am reading as a pastor looking for more substance.

However, with all those pros and cons given, I would recommend this to pastors, parents, and teachers to use as a resource to build upon even if it’s not something I would recommend to teens themselves.