John Piper Tells Shepherds Conference Pastors: Our Love for Jesus is ‘Erotic to the Core’
During his message at the 2024 Shepherds Conference, John Piper took a garotte to the scriptures, giving it a little tug by offering an uncomfortable and strained comparison of Christ’s relationship to the Church to a man’s sexual relationship with his wife, saying:
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.
Commenting on his error, The Dissenter notes:
(Piper) appears to be attempting to reclaim the term “eros” to illustrate a deep, consuming love for Jesus that seeks pleasure in the joy of communion with Him. But that isn’t biblical, and that is the problem. Not only does the New Testament never once use the term “eros” to describe the love between Christ and the Church, but the biblical portrayal of our love for Jesus is deeply relational, characterized by agape—selfless, sacrificial love. It is not typically associated with the English term “erotic,” due to its contemporary connotations.
Piper’s allusion to the erotic love of Jesus likely stems from his distinctive view of “Christian hedonism” (“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him,”) which he has popularized and is the source of frequent error- in this case, the nature of the joy we find in Christ.
Friend of the site and long-time Grace Community Church staffer Fred Butler took exception to our critique. He offered a slight defense of Piper, rejoining that Piper quickly clarified what he meant and that it wasn’t as ‘out there’ as people were making it out to be. Still, he seemed to admit that despite the clarification, it’s still Piper being Piper.
For more on Piper:
John Piper Using Marxist Feminist Arguments to Claim that David Raped Bathsheba
John Piper Says You’re Ugly So That Others Can Be Reminded of Sin and the Devil
John Piper’s Embarrassing Vax Shaming
“Christian hedonism” is about as far out and blasphemous as you can get. Jesus didn’t promise us a good earthly life. He told us upfront how hard life would be. And heretical. But he made us to understand that we believers would see him again in heaven and there, we would never suffer again.
Veronica, Christian hedonism is not what you think (based on your comments). If you know anything about Piper’s teachings, he would be the last one to say Jesus promised us a “good earthly life.” Far from it. Christian hedonism is simply shorthand for Piper’s oft quoted phrase, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” Another definition of Christian hedonism could be summed up by the 1st of the Ten Commandments, that God would be our first and primary love, or the Great Commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.
So, God’s glory is dependant upon my reaction/emotion, got it. I have to have a certain emotional action in order for God to receive more glory. I guess I’m just not gay enough to want Jesus sexually. Piper is long past being put out to pasture.
If John Piper had not already been making doctrinally questionable comments the last few years, I would say this was baloney…a comment taken totally out of context. But he had already been moving into enough strange and I think, unbiblical, territory, such that I had already written him off as having grown old and senile or having been lured into cultural relevancy to the point of losing Scriptural high ground.
If Piper had said have a romance (or bromance) with Jesus, I could embrace that as a concept for men as well as women. But eros (sexual) was NEVER ONCE used in Scripture as the appropriate response to Jesus, and the very idea is repulsive and disrespectful, even as a woman. I don’t know what the old man meant, and I will give him grace that he has made a verbal mistake or become senile. But as it reads, Piper seems to be laying the groundwork for approving homosexuality, which affirms to me that my no longer listening to him was a good decision.
in scripture, the pagan cults (or can we say, the demon cults) are connected with graphic sexual ceremony.
The church is not.
I reject Piper’s twisting, once again. Just as i reject the feminized “boyfriend worship” coming out of Hillsong and Bethel.
And the comment on rockstar leaders is timely.
Pastors are not immune from saying things for the “wow did you hear what XYZ said.” Too many pastors want to be rock stars. Unfortunately, many believers follow these pastor rock starts like groupies. Eros is not in the Greek NT. I do understand his point – obey with joy, but don’t imitate the world with these types of attention getters. There are a million things that the Bible does teach, why don’t you stick to that.
The bigger problem is that so many church/ministry leaders give support to Piper, as they do with Tim Keller. Keller was more flagrant in his openly altering God’s Word, and to fit Woke ideology. More specifically, he changed multiple verses, with Psalm 33:5 being one, as it says:
He loves righteousness and justice;
The earth is full of the goodness of
the Lord.
Yet Keller changed it to:
The Lord loves SOCIAL JUSTICE;
the earth is full of his unfailing love.
However, very few know or care.
M, so very true about Keller & that both he & Piper are embraced by huge numbers of evangelicals & few seem to care.
Plus, his doctrine of “Final Justification” is utterly confusing as he can’t even explain it by Scripture, nor with any coherencecy to sSola Fide. It borders on being saved by works, and is oh so dangerously close to Rome’s false gospel. I do agree above with the other commenter, he should be marked and avoided by Christians just for his Scripture and WCFSC twistings. It may be more desperate groundwork laying for the Church to accept sodomites into the fold. Be watchful as the Lord said and let no man deceive us….that includes men/ministers who have credit due to their past reputations and popularity. It’s not always about how Christians start the race, but how we finish…Anyone can apostatize though we believe in the 5th point, even those who we thought were genuine in their donning of sheep’s (shepherd’s) clothing.
Piper bromance with Sam Allberry is apostasy. Mark and avoid both of these apostates.