What does the Bible say about falling out of love?
Bible Topic · WEB
The Bible teaches that love can grow cold through sin, hurt, and unbelief, yet God calls his people to repent, forgive, and pursue faithful, self-giving love. Revelation 2:4 warns against abandoning our first love, while 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 describes love as patient, kind, enduring, and not merely a passing feeling. Marriage is a covenant in which spouses should seek reconciliation and peace, as 1 Corinthians 7:10-15 teaches, though Scripture recognizes the grievous reality of abandonment and sexual unfaithfulness. Ephesians 4:32 calls believers to forgive as God forgave them in Christ. Above all, God’s love is the foundation: “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and Christ showed love by laying down his life (John 15:13).
Top passages, ranked by readers
Rankings: OpenBible.info Topical Bible (CC BY) · Scripture: World English Bible
- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 12 votes
Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.
- 1 Corinthians 7:15 11 votes
Yet if the unbeliever departs, let there be separation. The brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us in peace.
- Revelation 2:4 11 votes
But I have this against you, that you left your first love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:8 7 votes
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.
- Ephesians 4:32 5 votes
And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God also in Christ forgave you.
- 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 5 votes
But to the married I command—not I, but the Lord—that the wife not leave her husband (but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband not leave his wife.
- 1 John 4:8 4 votes
He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.
- Matthew 19:9 4 votes
I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery.”
- John 15:13 4 votes
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
- Matthew 24:10-12 4 votes
Then many will stumble, and will deliver up one another, and will hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will lead many astray. Because iniquity will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold.
Related topics
Go deeper
Ask Explain Bible AI about falling out of love and get a fuller answer from a Reformed theological perspective.
Ask what the Bible says about falling out of love