God speaks your love language (by Gary Chapman)

(Amazon UK link)

I reread Gary Chapman’s classic book ‘The five love languages’ a couple of years ago. For some time I had been thinking I should reread another of his books, ‘God speaks your love language’. I had entirely forgotten that I last read it as recently as 2022. It didn’t really matter, as I hadn’t remembered much of what was in it anyway.

The theory of love languages is very helpful to a lot of people, although the older I get, the harder it is for me to figure out what my main ‘love language’ is. Perhaps I’ve become better at two or three others, or perhaps I appreciate different ones in different stage of my life. In a sense, it doesn’t matter: I’m aware of the five broad ways in which love can be expressed, and try, where possible and appropriate, to use them all. 

The idea behind it is that a lot of couples don’t feel love because they speak different love languages. If one partner has ‘acts of service’ as their main love language, and the other has ‘words of affirmation’, they might entirely miss that the other person is trying to express love. Trying to speak the other person’s language can revolutionise a stressful romantic relationship. It’s also important to speak our children’s love languages - or, ideally all of them - so that they know they’re loved.

But the idea of God having love languages is one that might seem a bit bizarre. God knows us perfectly, and understands all our attempts to express love to him. Still, this book is an interesting one, with different chapters explaining how people with each of the love languages tends to feel most loved, and most able to express love to God. The author encourages us to use our main love languages more, and to experiment with others as well. 

While the other books about love languages can be read by anyone, this book is intended for Christian believers who want to learn more effective ways to feel close to God and to express love and worship. As such it slightly puzzled me that it’s overtly evangelistic in a lot of respects, and has some general chapters about the importance of love in all its aspects. 

There’s plenty of scriptural backing for what the author says, and I didn’t disagree with most of it. But I’d have liked more about the love languages as such, with more examples of people speaking them, or discovering how God speak to them. There’s one rather judgemental section which some would find offensive in the ninth chapter, about love languages and God’s ‘discipline’. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of the book is wrong or unhelpful. It was first published in 2002; I suspect that section would have been removed by the editors if it were published today.

That apart, I thought it a well-written and interesting book. There are some interesting anecdotes, and some good examples of what it means to use each of the love languages with God. Some have obvious aspects: many churches have liturgies or songs which are essentially words of affirmation. The physical nature of some music, and the practice of giving hugs can relate to physical touch. Making the coffee or cleaning the church can be acts of service; giving financial or other gifts clearly relate to the language of giving, and personal Bible-reading and prayer relates to quality time. 

But the author also talks about different ‘dialects’, some of which I thought helpful, others less relevant. And we’re all encouraged to use them all, or at least to experiment with different ones from time to time.

I don’t think I learned anything new, and I’m no closer to knowing my main ‘love language’; but it was an interesting book and a useful reminder of the different ways we relate to each other as well as to God.

Recommended.

Review copyright 2026 Sue's Book Reviews