Shepherds Conference is one of the biggest pastor conferences of the year. This year’s ShepCon was already higher profile because of Alistair Begg getting canceled from the speaker lineup for advising a grandmother to attend a gay wedding. and subsequently attacking American Evangelicals over it. Yet John Piper remained on the lineup despite his woke history. And the results of this decision have gone viral as Piper made some thirsty comments about our erotic love for Jesus.
What are we after in our people’s lives? And everybody said, obedience. So did I, amen. But you had already quoted, if you love me, you will obey me. So I’m thinking, I’m after love, folks. And you are too. And because that love, that love is not equal to obedience and that love is not equal to agape, that love is erotic to the core.
That’s an overstatement. Eros means I find pleasure in you, Jesus. I find pleasure in you, Jesus. You are my preciousness. And there comes obedience.
The fuller context of this clip leads to the theology Piper is most known for: Christian Hedonism. Piper’s one-line description of Christian Hedonism is “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”
And the type of satisfaction John Piper was talking about in his sermon was of a more erotic nature. Even though Piper says that “erotic to the core” was an overstatement, he followed that comment up by effectively doubling down.
Piper appears to be arguing that pleasure precedes and drives obedience in our relationship with Christ. Yet it would be far more accurate to say that faith precedes both of these things.
Piper has a history of trying to coopt saucy terms like hedonism and his use of the word erotic is more of that, as the New Testament does not describe our love for Christ as merely erotic.
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