FAQ #2 Isn’t Christian Hedonism just another way of saying, “God rewards good behavior”?

Copyright 2004, 2005 – All rights retained by author

Written by: Craig W. Booth

Question 2.

Isn’t Christian Hedonism just another way of saying, “God rewards good behavior”?

Answer 2.

Christian Hedonism is not only about believing that doing-the-right-thing results in greater happiness than doing the wrong thing (all Christians believe this and have always believed this down though the centuries). Christian Hedonism is about changing the focus of your life from pleasing God because of His supreme status as God to the unrelenting chase after your own pleasure, in this case through the mechanism of service to God. The change in emphasis from loving God supremely to loving rewards supremely is the key to understanding Christian Hedonism.

It must be noted here that Dr. Piper has written that Christian Hedonism is not about loving the rewards more than loving the rewarder. However, as the following quotes demonstrate, such an isolated statement is contradictory to the bulk of what he writes which demonstrates that in fact, achieving a pleasurable experience (the reward) is indeed the true goal of service and is even the goal of worship for a Christian Hedonist.

Dr. Piper himself wrote a web article in which he identifies the chase after pleasure as being of higher priority than any other motive or human endeavor. In the web article, “Brothers, Consider Christian Hedonism”, he said,

“By Christian hedonism ? I mean that pursuing the highest good will always result in our happiness. But all Christians believe this. Christian hedonism says more, namely, that we should pursue happiness with all our might. The desire to be happy is a proper motive for every good deed, and if you abandon pursuit of your own joy you cannot please God.” (quoted from www.desiringgod.org on May 29, 2003, emphasis in original)

Christian Hedonism, as defined by the one who coined the term, says that the philosophy is not about doing good so that happiness will result. It is that we “should pursue happiness with all our might.”

If that sounds vaguely familiar consider this quote: “and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and will all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Since Dr. Piper as a Bible scholar uses that phraseology he may be trying to draw a purposeful comparison by implication. What is that comparison? I do not feel the comparison is favorable to hedonism.

The highest priority for man in Scripture is to love God will all our might, because He first loved us, and as a result we will rejoice in God?s gifts. The highest priority of Christian Hedonism is to “pursue happiness with all our might”. In other words, to love pleasure and to chase after happiness is a higher priority than to love God.

You can only do one thing “with all your might”. Which pursuit is the one God sanctions? To love Him with all your might. Which pursuit does Christian Hedonism offer? The “pursuit of your own joy” “with all your might”.

Are these two “all your might” priorities at conflict? Yes, because you can only have one greatest priority that consumes all your might. If you choose to love God with all your might, how much strength do you have left over to chase your own pleasures? Logically, the answer is none because you have used it all up.

Conversely, if one uses all his strength to pursue his own joy, how much strength does he have left over to love God by “no longer living for themselves but for Him who died and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5:15)? The hedonist would have no strength left over to love God or live for Him because he consumed all his strength living for his own happiness.

We are compelled to conclude that Christian Hedonism is just exactly as Dr. Piper defines it, our highest calling to pursue our own joy and our own happiness “with all our strength”. Of course, that would explain why it is called hedonism in the first place.

The only resolution to the dilemma is to redefine the command to “love God with all your strength” to mean exactly the same thing that “pursue your own happiness with all your strength” means. If that were true, then you could say that by “loving God you are doing the highest good which will result in your greatest happiness.” May I point out that this is exactly what traditional Christianity has taught for 2000 years and this is exactly what Dr. Piper said Christian Hedonism is not.

It is not possible to have both as the highest priority. Either the pursuit of your own happiness and pleasure is a highest of all priorities that will consume all your strength, or, the pursuit of loving God with all your strength is your highest priority. This entire focus on which philosophy to make one?s highest priority is the very bedrock of imbalance and improper focus that is the hallmark of Christian Hedonism.

Which is the proper higher priority? The Bible says that love is the greatest. Nowhere does the Bible say to pursue pleasure. This should not be a difficult dilemma to resolve.

FAQ #1: How do you define “hedonism” and “pleasure”?

Copyright 2004, 2005 – All rights retained by author

Written by: Craig W. Booth

Before reading the following questions and answers about the doctrines and philosophies of Christian Hedonism, you may wish to read the article A Biblical Study of the Theological Foundation of “Christian Hedonism” . That article provides a deeper elaboration of where the philosophy of Christian Hedonism is in apparent conflict with Scripture..

Each of the questions and answers below discuss in a general way the doctrine of Christian Hedonism as defined in the books Desiring God and Dangerous Duty and compares those concepts with the Scriptures. Of a certainty no one will agree with all the opinions offered, however, it is hoped that a sincere questioning of the published philosophies will drive Christians back to the Bible to dig out the answers for themselves to resolve lingering questions or concerns.

Question 1.

How do you define “hedonism” and “pleasure”?

Answer 1.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines pleasure as:

1. The state or feeling of being pleased or gratified 2. A source of enjoyment or delight 3. Amusement, diversion, or worldly enjoyment 4. Sensual gratification or indulgence 5. One’s preference or wish

Virtually all the dictionaries I consulted define pleasure as an emotion (a feeling) that is pleasing, is gratifying, is enjoyable, and is delightful to the one experiencing the pleasure. One should not be alarmed at the use of the word “sensual” in the definition, for all that means as used here, is that pleasure always involves the senses (hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, smelling). For example, we read in the Psalms that the author felt delight at reading the Law, and this can be said to be sensual (pleasing to the sense of sight for the reading while also being a pleasant emotional experience).

The Encarta Dictionary defines it similarly, and reads in part: “a feeling of happiness, delight, or satisfaction”.

So pleasure is an emotion or a physical sensation that feels good.

Hedonism is defined by the same American Heritage Dictionary as:

1. Pursuit of or devotion to pleasure, especially to the pleasures of the senses.
2. Philosophy: The ethical doctrine holding that only what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good.
3. Psychology: The doctrine holding that behavior is motivated by the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

Hedonism is the pursuit of, or devotion to, pleasure. If we rely on our dictionary definition of pleasure, we can say that “hedonism” is “the pursuit of, or devotion to, the state or feeling of being pleased or gratified.

In other words, hedonism is devotion to (living for) a feel good emotional state or physical sensation.

That is the textbook / dictionary definition of “pleasure” and “hedonism”. In the Greek language the word for “enjoy oneself” (pleasure) is “hedone”, the root of the English word, hedonism. It is found in Luke 8:14, Titus 3:3, 2 Peter 2:13, and James 4:1, 4:3. Hedone is never used in the Bible as a positive expression of the joy or delight found in the Lord.

At its worst, hedone is the Greek root word that is joined to the primitive word “philos” (beloved) to create the concept of a “lover of pleasure” (philedonos). This word, to my knowledge, is only used in the single passage, “treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:4). When someone is called a lover of pleasure it is always set against being a lover of God. The Scriptural implication is that one cannot be a pursuer or lover of pleasure and a lover of God. Hedonism, being in love with pleasure, is a horrid and wretched state in the Scriptures.

Focusing a moment on more wholesome concepts, the positive expression for joy and delight is the Greek word “chara”. Of the 59 times chara (joy, delight) are used in the New Testament, it is never used to mean “pleasure” much less hedonism.

In fact, even passages that describe God?s actions as being according to His “good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13, Colossians 1:19) most often do not mean “according to His ?pleasurable? emotional state” but rather means “according to His ?kind intentions? or ?good thinking / good thoughts?.

Nonetheless, we do have a proposition with which to reckon. Dr. Piper has introduced a new catch phrase based on an English word, hedonism, which itself is founded on a Greek word that always means love of illicit pleasures. By adding the word “Christian” to hedonism, he wishes to sanctify the word and change it from something evil to something most sacred. However offensive, or even seemingly uninformed, this linking of the name of God?s Anointed One with “lover of illicit pleasure” might be as a catch phrase, it is the “new” meaning that must also be more fully explored.

In his book, Desiring God, Dr. Piper defines his catch phrase, “Christian Hedonism”, this way:

My old Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary of 1961? defines “hedonism” as “a living for pleasure.” That is precisely what I mean by it. If the chief end of man is to enjoy God forever, human life should be a “living for pleasure.” ?

It is a general term to cover a wide variety of teachings which have elevated pleasure very highly. ?

I would be happy with the following definition as a starting point for my own usage of the word: Hedonism is “a theory according to which a person is motivated to produce one state of affairs in preference to another if and only if he thinks it will be more pleasant, or less unpleasant for himself.”

From the start we can see that Christian Hedonism has three fundamental elements that are identical to the English and Greek word hedonism.

1) hedonism (Christian or not) is a loving of, and a living for, pleasure (pleasure being a good feeling, pleasant emotional state, or pleasant physical sensation)

2) pleasure is “elevated very highly” as a priority and a goal to be chased

3) the one to be pleased is man, “for himself”

Dr. Piper also writes:

“By Christian hedonism ? I mean that pursuing the highest good will always result in our happiness. But all Christians believe this. Christian hedonism says more, namely, that we should pursue happiness with all our might. The desire to be happy is a proper motive for every good deed, and if you abandon pursuit of your own joy you cannot please God.” (quoted from www.desiringgod.org on May 29, 2003, emphasis in original)

So what is the difference between “Christian Hedonism” and hedonism? To explain the difference, Dr. Piper also writes:

“The pleasure Christian Hedonism seeks is the pleasure which is in God himself.”

The implication is that it is acceptable, and not just acceptable, but required to pursue our pleasure in God as our highest motive for all things we do on Earth. Many self-avowed hedonists have written to me to point out that the phrase “in God himself” is the key. They assert that the desire and single-focused energy invested in attaining the pleasant emotional state for themselves is validated by the fact that the source-object of their pleasure is God.

Dr. Piper does write elsewhere that it is not really the pleasure itself that men should pursue, but that it is God Himself that men should pursue. This argument is largely without meaning because more often than not Dr. Piper himself reverts to saying it is really the pleasurable experiences that we should be seeking in such emotions as “joy”, “feelings of the heart”, “delight”; and such as those we experience when we are “transported (perhaps only for seconds) above the reasoning work of the mind and we experience feeling without reference to logical or practical implications.”

Christian Hedonism, just as does hedonism, has as its goal to experience pleasure (though more often it is an emotion of feeling good instead of a physical sensation). The primary difference between the two philosophies is whether the pleasure is derived “in God” or not.

As one final example that Dr. Piper most often genuinely means that the attainment of emotional pleasure is the end goal of Christian Hedonism, we read in Chapter 3 of Desiring God that “Christian Hedonism does not put us above God when it makes the joy of worship its goal.” Dr. Piper also wrote in the Introduction of the same book: “I came to see that it is unbiblical and arrogant to try to worship God for any other reason than the pleasure to be had in him.”

Since both hedonism and Christian Hedonism have as their goal to obtain the most pleasurable experiences possible for the individual, they differ only in that hedonism?s pleasure is obtained through actions that are purely at the moral discretion of the individual, and Christian Hedonism would argue that one?s pleasure is obtained only through those acts which God has approved in His Word as being moral.

What is left on the table is the single most important question. Does God want us to seek / pursue our own pleasures as our highest priority (our chief duty and purpose in life), or, does He want us to pursue our love for Him (pursue His righteousness and His kingdom) as our most important motivation and priority on Earth and simply accept the outcomes of that pursuit, whether or not they are immediately pleasing?

To my mind, I am fully convinced by the Word that we are to seek first to love, fear, and obey God as He reigns over His Kingdom and then to seek to imitate His righteousness and imitate His love for our neighbors. I am also fully convinced by the Word that God will grant us the ability to be grateful for all that He has given us, to grant us to delight in Him, in His Word, and in His ways only after we seek to fear and obey Him. In such an economy there is little room for living for oneself or one?s own pleasure. As for me and my household we will serve the Lord and we will strive not to live for ourselves or our own pleasures but to live for Christ.

Of course, the Christian Hedonist will reply, “but I too will live for Christ by seeking to experience pleasurable emotions through Him.” Perhaps. However, to my eye, to my ear, and to my mind, I see those not as comparable priorities, but different ones entirely that compete with each other. And to my knowledge I find no passage of Scripture which would permit the elevation of the pursuit of my pleasure so highly as to compete in priority with my love and service to God.

One of us will say, “I will glorify God by enjoying myself in Him as my highest priority,” and one of us will say, “I will love God and my neighbor as my highest priority and in so doing will glorify God.” We must each be fully convinced which of these philosophies is most highly commended to us by the Word He has uttered from His own lips.

Part 10: A Biblical Study of the Theological Foundation of “Christian Hedonism”

In a summary chart, shown below, I have summarized the various errors that Piper teaches in both of his philosophy books, Desiring God and The Dangerous Duty of Delight. Beside each error is a highlight of the biblical basis for rejecting the error. These are certainly not all the errors the books contain. I focused instead on the major foundational statements upon which the philosophy was based.

Your Responsibility

Now you have heard both sides of the discussion. What should the man of God do? How should he respond?

It is my heartfelt desire that all those teachers and parents who have taught their students and their children Piper’s philosophy of “Christian Hedonism” with its unbiblical emphasis on the command to pursue joy as the “highest calling” of man will respond in the way that Jesus taught us to respond:

• Turn to God and repent for having taught error to others
• Confess to those who were misled
• Make restitution by recanting each error that was taught, and demonstrating from the Bible why they are indeed errors
• Protect future students and children by physically removing the teachings (in book form) from future access, or, permanently placing strict warnings that identify each error within the cover or pages of the book. (In the Old Testament they used to burn books that taught men to follow false precepts, but that might be overkill in this situation.)

• Learn how to be more discerning when reading “Christian” books in the future.

For example:

• • Look up every “quoted” Bible passage to see if it is faithfully and fully quoted.
  • Verify that the passage is being used in context.
  • Test every “main point” by evaluating it against all scripture you can recall that addresses such issues.
  • Reject philosophies that are built on creeds instead of actual scripture (you will save yourself quite a lot of time with this one)
  • Reject any teaching that puts any pursuit higher than the command to “love and obey God” and “love your neighbor”.

Summary of Piper’s Foundational Errors and the Biblical Truths that Refute Them

Piper’s Erroneous Teachings Summarized		The Biblical Truth Summarized
1	The “pursuit of joy” is man’s “chief duty”, “highest calling”, and “most important commandment”.	The Bible teaches that the chief duty of man is to Love God, Fear God, and Obey God’s Commandments.The second highest duty of man is to Love His Neighbor.Joy is so far from being the chief duty of man that it is not even numbered among “Faith, Hope, and Love”
2	The chief end of God is to glorify Himself by enjoying Himself	The Bible never tells us why God exists or what His most supreme duty is
3	Piper misquotes Jeremiah 32:37-41, removing “the fear of God” from the passage	Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and the beginning of obedience (see Psalm 111:10)
4	Piper quotes Isaiah 48:11 out of context, insisting it describes the “endless joy” we have in God	That portion of Isaiah 48 is about the Jews being punished for disobeying God’s Laws (see verse 18)
5	Piper misquotes Psalm 147:11, removing “the fear of God” from the passage	God takes pleasure in those who fear Him
6	“the most straightforward biblical command for conversion is not, ‘believe in the Lord’, but … ‘unless a man be born again into a Christian Hedonist he cannot see the Kingdom of God’”	In spite of what Piper writes, the Bible still does not contain the expression “be born again into a Christian Hedonist”.Whoever believes in Jesus will have eternal life. John 3:15
7	Only the “pursuit of joy” is an acceptable “motivation for salvation”, nothing else is “saving faith”, not fear of Hell, not the fear of God.	Luke 12:5 – fear Him who after He has killed has the power and authority to cast you into hell.Psalm 25:14 – the covenant is only for those who fear God.
8	Joy is not something “a person might grow into after he comes to faith”.	I Thes. 3:12, 2 Peter 3:18, 1 Peter 2:2, Ephesians 4:15 – now that you have been regenerated by the Spirit of God, feed on the milk of the word to “grow up” in all aspects of Christ.
9	Piper says that he first learned his philosophy from C.S. Lewis, not from the Bible.	Deut. 8:3 — God might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD
10	Piper both misquotes and takes out of context Deuteronomy 28:47-48, then misinterprets the passage, claiming it says that God judged this group of people guilty simply because they did not have glad and joyful hearts.	Deut. 28:45-48 actually says the people were guilty “because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you”.No Bible passage ever states that God has ever judged men guilty just because they did not express enough joy or enough happiness.
11	“Maximizing our joy in God is what we were created for.”	Some men were created for mercy, others for destruction as vessels of wrath (Romans 9). The vessels of wrath were not created to maximize their own joy.
12	“Pride is the primal [original] evil in the universe.”	Lust, which is literally Greed, Desire, and Coveting is the original sin of man and Satan, and is the sin which gives birth to all other sins.Satan lusted for power.Eve lusted for food and wisdom.
13	Christian Hedonism is the essential motive for every good deed.	“Do nothing from selfishness” “Let each of you regard one another as more important than himself, do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” (see Philippians 2:3,4)
14	Piper defines “love for God” as: the overflow and expansion of joy, it is not duty.	“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” 1John 5:3
15	Worship is only an emotion consisting of affections in the heart.The emotion the person feels inside is the end to itself, not doing something.Any action one might take during corporate worship, such as to “teach children the way of righteousness” belittles worship causing the worship to lose authenticity.	When people assemble together for worship, everyone comes prepared with something to sing, read, teach, reveal, or pray. Whatever your spiritual labor of worship is, your true motivation must be to present or do something that edifies the fellow worshippers around you.See Romans 12 and 1 Cor. 12, 13, 14.
16	Piper misquotes and then misinterprets Matthew 15:7-9. Piper claims that this is the passage (the only one he can find in the Bible) that “proves” his philosophy that God is mostly concerned with how much “gladness” a person has in his heart when he worships.Piper then says that if you do not have a sufficient amount of gladness, your worship is “in vain”.Piper then announces this was the sin of the Pharisees: lack of gladness during worship.	The Pharisees were guilty of having turned away from the true Jewish faith and becoming unbelievers, which is what caused Jesus to call their spiritual play-acting: “worshipping in vain”.Because God does not hear the prayers of unbelievers (unbelievers are those who have never repented of the sin they cherish in their hearts) all “worship” coming from an unbeliever is “in vain”. (see Deut. 30:16-18)Piper could not be more unbiblical to say that the sin of the Pharisees was their lack of sufficient gladness during worship.There is no scripture in all the Bible that condemns a man’s worship solely on the grounds that he does not have a certain quantity of joy or gladness at the moment. This is a man-made concept, a precept of men, that mocks the nature of true biblical worship.
17	Piper states over and over that emotions “are an end to themselves”; that God does not give man emotions for any other reason than the sheer joy of experiencing the emotion.	Emotions are God’s way of enabling a human body to take quick and needful action, preferably in the service of others.Emotion Possible End PurposesAnger – physically constraining evil,physical or verbal defense of oneselfor others Fear — fleeing from danger, soul searching Guilt – repentance Joy – celebration and rejoicing, encouraging others Sorrow – outpouring of sympathy to another, preaching the gospel to the lost Love – working in the service of others, donating one’s wealth or resources, placing oneself at risk on behalf of others

“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Eccl.12:13 NIV

“And [Jesus] said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.’” Matthew 22:37-40

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me”. John 14:21a

“Do you love Me?”

Part 9: A Biblical Study of the Theological Foundation of “Christian Hedonism”

The Lesson of the Last Story of the Last Gospel–Obedience is Loving God

John 21 is the last chapter of the last book of the Gospels, and provides us with an incredible story about Jesus. Even after His own resurrection from death, Jesus, the Christ, wanted very much to teach us that “true love” for Him, is spelled “o-b-e-d-i-e-n-c-e”.

Imagine the scene back 2000 years ago: Jesus had put the apostles and at least 70 of His closest disciples through a three year hands-on intensive seminary course. During those years they learned everything required to be pastors of God’s people, missionaries, evangelists, and teachers; and most of all, to establish the foundation of the Christian movement, eventually nicknamed “the Way”.

But the leader of the movement was arrested, rushed through a mockery of a trial, and was brutally executed, dying on the Roman cross. Overcome with fear, one of their number, Peter, even used obscenities to deny he was associated with the movement’s leader and therefore avoided potentially being arrested himself. With the death of Jesus, their leader, the hopes and dreams of these would-be pastors and teachers were dashed.

To the amazement of some and the disbelief of others, Jesus returned to the world as a living person, risen from death itself. This was, it seemed, the resumption of the dream. The time to turn the world on its head, time to again teach the faithful with Jesus as the chief teacher. But it soon became clear that the Christ was not resurrected from the dead as an ordinary man, He was God and He was going to leave the disciples on Earth while He returned to His throne in Heaven.

It was in this setting, in the middle of the night, that Peter said, “I am going fishing”. Six of the disciples of Christ went with him. Peter had indeed been a commercial fisherman by trade. Did Peter go fishing out of boredom, the need for a distraction from his distressing times, an escape from the fear of the unknown, or simply a release from the dismay over the prospect of Christ leaving them alone, yet again? We cannot be absolutely certain.

Why did the other six go with Peter? Andrew was Peter’s brother and one of his original fishing partners. James and John had also been partners in Peter’s fishing business before Jesus called to them, “Follow Me”. Did James and John go thinking they were restarting the old business? Or was it that they were bored or needed a distraction? Or was it to ensure that Peter, a man of obviously strong emotional impulses, did not get himself into trouble? We cannot be certain of any of this either. Whatever the reason, they followed Peter to go fishing.

So, there they are: Peter, leading a group of Christ’s disciples on a nighttime commercial fishing expedition. Unrecognized, Jesus appears on the nearby shore. Jesus discovers they have caught no fish all night and then presumes to tell them where they can find and catch fish. The seven follow the instructions of the unrecognized man and successfully net many large fish.

This was virtually the same “miracle of the catch” that first caused Peter to turn to Christ. But it was not Peter that remembered that event from three years ago, it was John. When John realizes their benefactor is the Lord, he immediately informs Peter who then impulsively dives off the boat and swims to shore just to get near His Lord.

After a breakfast of the fish they had caught, a distressing conversation ensues. Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Each time he is asked, Peter says something like, “Yes, of course, you know I love You.”

Each time that Peter says, “Yes, you know that I love you”, Jesus replies by saying, “then tend my lambs” or “feed my sheep”. This command, repeated three times, has nothing to do with the care of livestock.

What Jesus is telling Peter is this: “If you love Me as you say you do, then do what I spent three years teaching you to do-be a pastor and a teacher to My disciples.” It appears to be the same message that Jesus intended when He first called out “Follow Me!” three years earlier: “If you love Me, then follow Me. If you love Me, then put that net down, get out of the boat, and feed my sheep.” In other words, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And My commandment to you, Peter, is to teach and pastor my people.”

Jesus always said His goal had been to turn the disciples into “fishers of men”, not fishermen of fish. Becoming a fisher of men was a lifelong commitment, a permanent pursuit, the reason He said to them, “Follow Me.”

So why then did Jesus need to use such a dramatic approach? Surely these men knew that apostleship was a lifetime calling. However, Peter’s actions indicated he lacked sufficient motivation to be obedient to all that he had heard and needed this last impressive life lesson. When Jesus was crucified, Peter returned to fishing, his old profession, instead of immediately implementing all that he had been taught. Jesus, now recently resurrected from the dead, shows incredible mercy by seeking Peter out and teaching him the same thing he had spent three prior years teaching him-if you love me as Lord, stop seeking your own self-interests and begin obeying Me. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” John 14:15

During the part of their talk that is recorded in John 21, Jesus drives the lesson home by making the message urgent and personal. He tells Peter that his life is short and like a vapor, he can do as he chooses today, but tomorrow he will be facing death and will be unable to choose to do anything for himself. In other words, if you want to be obedient, you had better be obedient now, because there might not be a tomorrow. Tomorrow may be too late to serve Christ, but today there is still time to choose to obey and serve God. So the new message for Peter, and the lesson to us all is, “If you love Me, obey Me now, while it is still today, for tomorrow you may not be able to serve Me, even if later you do decide you do want to obey.” Clearly a lesson for all, obey while you still can.

It is then that Jesus gives an old and very familiar verbal command to Peter, repeating it twice for emphasis, “Follow Me”. It was with this very instruction that Jesus brought men to Himself, calling them away from their previous lives, turning them into disciples of Himself, commissioning them into lifelong apostles, making them into obedient followers.

So here it is, all summed up by Christ Himself in the simple phrase, “Follow Me”. Christ was saying something like–The reason I came back to see you, Peter, is that you have need to be told yet once again that to love Me is to obey Me-leave behind your old life and ‘Follow Me’.

How humbling and staggering. The resurrected Christ could find no better thing to do in all the world than to go to a disciple who was having difficulty getting started on his life’s ministry and encourage him about the shortness of the time and the need for immediate obedience. To love Christ is to obey and follow Him.

Even a Seed Teaches Us the Primacy of Obedience

Perhaps the most illustrative analogy Jesus ever gave on the greatest commandment (to Love and obey God with all your being) is the one found in John 12:24-26. It reads in part, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me…”

If you love your life here on Earth and do not live a life in obedience to Christ, you will never dare to “lose your life” and will live your life chasing your own pleasures and you will never see spiritual fruit. But the one who loves Jesus gives up his personal interests and from this single seed of faithful obedience ends up seeing God grow spiritual fruit many fold as a result of his labor (which God describes as a “loss of your life” and “hating your life in this world”).

Which is better? To love your life now, leading a life of pleasing yourself, and not see spiritual results, or, hate your life in this world (die to yourself, deny yourself), live in obedience to Christ, and permit Him to grow spiritual fruit many times over?

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” John 14:15 “Do you love Me?” “Follow Me.”

All Has Been Heard, Here is the Conclusion of the Matter

It is time to sum up the foundational theology of Piper’s two books on hedonism. Piper has crafted an entire philosophy that requires joy to be elevated into the “highest calling” of mankind; the chief duty of man. This philosophy, which he readily admits was dreamed up by reading philosophy books, lacks a biblical basis. And yet, if we would not implement Piper’s philosophy he promises that God will judge us guilty of sin while cursing us, our faith is jeopardized because we may not even have “saving faith”, and all our worship is “in vain” and is not authentic.

Since Piper was unable to demonstrate any passage of scripture that refers to the “pursuit of joy” as man’s “highest calling” or even a passage calling it “the chief end of man”, we are under no obligation by God to follow Piper’s commands. Moreover, if we did follow Piper’s precepts, we really would be guilty before the Holy God who gave us such passages as Mark 7:5-9:

“And He said to them, ‘Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’

Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.’

He was also saying to them, ‘You nicely set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.’”

We know already the greatest and most important commands of God, which are therefore man’s chief duties: love God, love your neighbor, and keep His commandments. To obey Piper would be to eat the leaven of the Pharisees (Matthew 16:6-12), setting aside God’s clear commands in favor of the teachings, doctrines, and “precepts of men”.

The wise student of the Word of God will reject this extra-biblical “philosophy” of John Piper’s, and will cling instead to the Bible, the genuine scriptures. The wise student will keep joy and emotion in their proper places within his life; with each man needing to establish what that proper place is for himself, Bible in hand, without neglecting the weightier commands of God.

Finally, some will ask, “What is the correct response to the person who makes the request, ‘What is the chief end of man?’ or, ‘What is the meaning of life?’” Each man and woman will need to develop their own response with which they are comfortable. As for me, I might choose to respond with a statement such as this, “God’s two greatest commands are to love God and to love your neighbor; by obeying these two commands without neglecting His other laws, we glorify God. And some day, He will take me to Heaven to serve Him forever.”