Book Review: God Speaks Your Love Language

How to Feel and Reflect God’s Love

If you’ve been blogging for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed several kinds of weblogs around the Christian blogosphere, such as:

1. Devotional encouragement that springs out of stories from real life.
(Prayers and worship music are often included.)

2. Thoughtful in-depth discussion and debate on a variety of topics such as education, Bible study, or books. Posts tend to be longer.

3. Product review blogs about anything from diapers to donuts, including discount coupons, specials, and regular Giveaways.

4. “How to” practical tips and printables on creative topics including closet organization, decorating, crafts, or knitting.

5. Family journals with lots of kid photos, family health updates, recipes, fitness tips, and active vacations.

Just as we resonate with special girlfriends in real life, it doesn’t take long to guess at the personality traits of a particular blogger. Recently,
I discovered that Dr. Gary Chapman’s message in the New York Times bestseller on marriage, The Five Love Languages can also be neatly applied to the Mommy blogosphere too!


Five Kinds of Bloggers

Reflecting on points 1 though 5 above, there seem to be five kinds of bloggers. There are those who thrive on:

1. Words of Affirmation [Feeling]
2. Quality Time [Thinking]
3. Receiving Gifts [Symbolic]
4. Acts of Service [Sensing-Logic]
5. Physical Touch [Body]

Secular psychologists have categorized the brain into four basic areas; feeling, thinking, intuiting (symbolic) and sensing. 1 and 4 are auditory modalities, 2 and 3 are visual, and 5 is kinesthetic. Apparently, God knew what he was doing when he designed the human brain and body!

God gives all of us a dominant love language in one of these five categories. Therefore, it makes sense that He would also give us the capacity to enjoy and receive from Him in the same language we favor in our human relationships.

And that’s exactly what Dr. Gary Chapman reveals in his book, God Speaks Your Love Language (2009, Northfield Publishing.) God’s love for us is evident in a myriad of ways, but when we face a spiritual dry spell, it helps to search for God’s expression of love in the form we understand best.

Listen to Chapman’s explanation in this short Facebook video.


My Reaction

This was the first of Dr. Chapman’s (many) non-fiction books that I’ve read from cover to cover. Last fall, I thoroughly enjoyed studying his concept of Five Love Languages, especially in relation to God. It’s been interesting to meditate on this information in light of other research about gifts and callings. For example, I’ve studied biblical motivational gifts in depth, and I’ve also studied secular learning style theory.

Putting it all together, my strongest of the Five Love Languages seem to be “quality time” and “receiving gifts.” As a biblical Administrator
(Rom 12:6-8) I love in-depth Bible study and feel the Spirit most active in my life when I’m teaching spiritual truth—which is usually in a rather long-winded way!

According to the same passage, my secondary motivational gift is “Giver” or “Contributor.” I love to tithe and give offerings when specifically prompted by the Spirit. I also to enjoy being on the receiving end of meaningful tokens of love. Similarly, when my physical needs are well-cared for, then I feel well-loved by God. There’s certainly a lot of truth in Dr. Chapman’s message.

What About Gender?

I must add tangentally, that I disagree with Dr. Chapman’s position on gender. His answer to the question, “Are some of the love languages found more among women and others with men?” didn’t satisfy my own conviction that men and women display unique psychological gender needs, especially in marriage. Chapman says,

“I have never done the research to discover if the love languages are gender-slanted. It may be true that more men have Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation as their love language and more women have Quality Time and Gifts. But I don’t know if that is true.

I prefer to deal with the love languages as being gender-neutral. I do know that any one of these love languages can be the primary love language of a man or the primary love language of a woman. The important thing in marriage is that you discover the primary and secondary love languages of your spouse and you speak these regularly. If you do this, you will create a healthy emotional climate for marital growth.”

Other Christian marriage counselors like Dr. Tim Clinton espouse a similar message. However, I tend to agree with Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
(Love & Respect) and Dr.Willard Harley (His Needs Her Needs) who teach that husbands and wives have unique gender-specific needs in marriage.

Overall, God Speaks Your Love Language was a thought-provoking and valuable read. I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the points mentioned above. Please do speak up!

This post will be linked to Jennifer's carnival at Five Minutes for Books next Tues. January 25, 2011. "What's on Your Nightstand" is every FOURTH Tuesday of the month.




Up Next—Arts: Parable of the Soils

Have you read any of Dr. Chapman's books? Your thoughts?