Is it biblical to want to create a life you love? What does the Bible say about pleasure? → A More Beautiful Life Collective

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In this episode, we are focusing on part 1 of our series, which is about creating a life we love and cultivating our hearts for God. Before we think about how to create a life we love, we have to figure out if we even should. Is it biblical to create a life we love? What does the Bible say about pleasure? We are going to be looking at some history and then turning our focus to the theology of pleasure in the Bible. Spoiler: Pleasure isn’t evil. In this show, I’ll explain why.

S2E8 – Hamartiology: What is evil and sin according to the Bible? – A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast

What is sin? What is evil? Do those things even exist? How can a good God have created a world where sin and evil exist? Who is Satan? What does he do? Hamartiology, or the doctrine of sin and evil, answers all of these questions and more. Listen in today to our next installment of Building Your Foundations: Core Doctrines for the Christian Life. https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/hamartiology-what-is-evil-and-sin-according-to-the-bible/ Get the Doctrine and Theology Cheat Sheet Here: https://a-more-beautiful-life-collective.ck.page/bd897d28d0 Get a list of the names of God here: https://a-more-beautiful-life-collective.ck.page/43d2d5cf6b Get a copy of our personal statement of faith creation guide here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/we-believe-your-personal-statement-of-faith-workbook-pdf-download/ Get “Building Our Foundations: 10 Week Study” here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/building-our-foundations-11-week-systematic-theology-book-bible-study/ Visit our Shop to get a copy of any of the resources mentioned in this episode: I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and you can learn a little bit more about me here. While you’re here, would you consider leaving a comment, rating, or review? You can find our podcast, A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube. Subscribe to the blog for access to our latest content and some freebies. I love creating and sharing resources with you. You can find all of our resources at A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop. Keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God.

Hey everyone and welcome to Episode 7 of Season 2 of A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast. I’m your host Cayce Fletcher. Today’s episode is going to be about a topic that is central to one of the purposes of this podcast. It is something that is seemingly non-controversial, but I hear conflicting answers when it comes to what we should actually believe.

Every episode, I end the podcast with the same phrase: Keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God. We’ve been alternating between our Systematic Theology Series and some more practical episodes. Over the next several episodes (with our Systematic Theology episode in between), we are going to be talking about this phrase.

What does it mean to create a life we love? What does it mean to cultivate our hearts for God?

I hope that these episodes help you to catch the vision for this podcast while encouraging you to take that tagline to heart.

Today, we are going to focus on creating a life we love. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll look more closely at what it means to cultivate our hearts for God.

First, we’ll look at some ways to approach pleasure, pain, and discomfort. Then, we’ll think about what the Bible says about creating a life you love. In the next episode, I’ll give you some practical steps to create a life you love today.

What’s the line between enjoying life and loving the world

When I was doing some research for this post, I came across a Reddit post that had the following exchange. The question that sparked the discussion was: Does the Bible endorse or prohibit enjoying things, and indulging in the goodness of life? What is the line between enjoying life and loving the world? What does the Bible say about pleasure?

One thread of responses read as follows:

Person A: “This is a good question from the OP. I was often surprised by the Christian who wants nothing to do with the world. I’m not surprised anymore, but it just seems depressing. Like they can’t find any enjoyment or they don’t have any friends that are not Christian.

It’s usually the same believers who think the world is going to end at any possible moment. Been like this for the past 20 years (maybe even longer).

I thoroughly can’t believe these believers are bringing many people to Christ. I mean enjoy life. Love & meet people, have fun. That’s how we bring people to the lord.

Person B: “But shouldn’t we live like Jesus could come back any second? Plus we don’t know our time, we could die at any second and stand before God to be accountable for our actions. Paul said we should not be yoked together with unbelievers which includes close friendships and there are dangers in having non-Christian friends. And 1 John says love not the world nor anything in the world. Jesus said deny yourself take up your cross and follow Me. The Biblical Christian life is hating the world right?”

This is a crucial, recurring tension in the Christian faith. Christianity is not a hedonic religion. When we want to understand what does the Bible say about pleasure, we only have to look at verses that say, “24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Matthew 16), to recognize that sacrifice and self-denial are part and parcel of the Christian faith.

So, if this is the case, can we have any enjoyment in life? Is all pleasure bad because experiencing pleasure means that we aren’t denying ourselves and taking up our cross?

Is it really Christlike to say that we should create a life we love? What does the Bible say about pleasure?

This is the question we will be answering today.

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A History of Views on Pleasure

First, we have to ask ourselves: What is pleasure? A simple dictionary definition states, “a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment.” There is a whole philosophy of pleasure which will be explained below. Some thinkers view pleasure as just the absence of pain. Some view certain actions as positive pleasure and negative pleasure. Some reframe certain types of pleasure as base while others are more virtuous.

Does creating a life we love mean that we work to add more pleasure to it? Well, that depends on how you view pleasure. As you’ll see, there are differing views on how we should include (or run from) pleasure in our lives.

I believe that we have a skewed view of pleasure. Yes, I think that we should have pleasure in our lives. It’s not an end goal, but it is part of the Christian life. What does this type of Christian Hedonism look like? We’ll talk more about this at the end.

Greek Views of Pleasure

We don’t just enter into Christianity in a vacuum. Though we want to understand what does the Bible say about pleasure, we often have preconceived notions based not on the Bible but on culture. We bring our own culture to the text, and often that culture becomes the lens through which we read the text. Christianity has thousands of years of history and thought that influences the current way that we speak and think. That – coupled with the thousands of years of Jewish thought before it – makes us read the Bible in a very specific way.

Often in the modern context, Christianity is viewed as a dull and boring religion. A religion full of moralistic rules that bar you from self-actualization and having fun. Why is this the case? How was this view created? I think that the best way to understand this is to look backward and trace the development of Christian thought over time.

Different cultures and movements have had competing views on pleasure in life. The ancient Greeks had a nuanced view of pleasure. Socrates argued (in Plato’s Republic), “The pleasures that result from pursuing virtue and knowledge are of a higher quality than the pleasures resulting from satisfying mere animal desires. Pleasure is not the goal of existence, however, but rather an integral aspect of the exercise of virtue in a fully human life.” The best pleasure is not made from enjoying the basic things of the world. Instead, it comes from an ‘enlightened state of mind’ when you are gazing at what is truly truly good, true, and beautiful.

Socrates’ views spawned other philosophical groups, including the Stoics and Epicureans. “Stoicism claims that living justly and virtuously is the highest good that one can experience, and that pleasure and pain are to be treated indifferently, while Epicureanism claims that we should seek to maximize our own pleasure (mainly by removing pain from our lives). Pleasure, as Epicurus regarded it, was the “beginning and end of the blessed life.”” The tension that we feel in Christianity – between enjoying life and loving the world – is felt between the Stoics and Epicureans as well. These two schools of thought varied dramatically in the answer to how you deal with pleasure, with one negating the importance of pleasure and the other elevating it to be the chief end of man.

Pleasure in the Church Age

After Jesus’ time, Christianity went through a transition period in which the Jewish Christians were transitioning their mindset from the Old Covenant to the New. During this time, the Gentile Christians began to influence much of the thought in the church. Greek ideals reigned supreme in Roman culture, and so the early church underwent a synthesis of Jewish and Greek ideas. This created the Judeo-Christian culture that still influences us today.

One way this came to fruition was in the Early Church’s ideas of Asceticism. Many of the ascetics’ ideas were not based on the Bible; they were derived from Gnostic thought and philosophy. Kyle Hughes states, “Particularly under the influence of Cynic and Gnostic ideas, some Christians in the tradition of the Gospel of Thomas believed asceticism to be not “for the sake of an extraordinary mission, but because the world itself corrupts and kills.”” Like the Greeks, the Gnostics viewed the physical body as something that was evil and corrupting. The goal of life was to escape the body. One way this could be achieved before death was to practice extreme self-denial, limiting pleasure wherever possible.

We see this most plainly in the monasteries of the Middle Ages. The Rule of St. Benedict restricted eating, sleeping, drinking, and (obviously) having sex. This was an extreme reading of self-denial that wasn’t really seen in the scriptures. What does the Bible say about pleasure? Well, sometimes pleasure was deemed as a good thing. You didn’t need to practice self-denial in the case of marriage, eating, and drinking. In fact, the ultimate reward for the Christian life is described as a marriage feast which includes all 3 of those pleasures!

Though not all people in the Middle Ages valued these practices, more did, than did not. Even pious Kings and Queens regularly practiced self-denial. Henry VIII’s first wife, Katharine of Aragon, was so devoted to fasting that she lost several children through miscarriages, stillbirths, and infant deaths. Only one child, Mary I, survived to adulthood.

Modern Views of Pleasure

So, where does that leave us in this secular age? Most of us would say that our culture does not esteem self-denial like the Greeks and the Monks of the Middle Ages. Could you even remember the last time you fasted for religious reasons?

We’ve moved from a culture that esteems the values of the Stoics to one that is more Epicurean in nature. Interestingly, Karl Marx also liked the ideas of Epicureas and wrote a doctoral thesis on this school of thought. “Ultimately, Marx wanted to shift society to create a culture where pleasure is more evenly distributed—and that means less work, more hedonism. This outlook still holds value today. Marx stressed that the lifestyle that comes from miserable workers engaging in the repetitive work of mass production is hardly geared towards happiness.”

Marx, Freud, and a host of other philosophers heralded the secular age. We don’t necessarily call ourselves Epicureans, but we now just use another term that denotes the same thing: Secular Humanists.

A post from Authentic Intimacy says, “Our culture worships the self. The idolatry of our modern age is humanism. It’s all about you. Live your best life. You do you. Secular humanism teaches that truth is found by looking inward and connecting with your authentic self. We are so accustomed to thinking like this that we don’t even recognize this as a form of idolatry.”

Secular humanism is best described as a non-religious worldview that prizes “empiricism, evidence-based decision making, and ethically-minded scientific research.” Morality is framed as that doesn’t cause unnecessary pain. As Epicureas said, for the Secular humanist, one of the chief goals of man is to alleviate pain through pleasure. Anything that brings pleasure is a moral good.

Authentic Intimacy goes on to say, “Friend, let’s not forget that the most seductive idolatry is that which maintains a thread of truth. While it may have all the trappings of what seems true, self-love theology is rooted in lies. The lie that: You are inherently good. You can save yourself through positive thinking. You are powerful and in control of your destiny. You deserve to have all of your dreams come true.”

What does the Bible say about pleasure and humans’ innate goodness? We know from our understanding of Theological Anthropology that we are actually enemies of God. None of us are good, and we cannot save ourselves apart from Christ. The humanist view that mankind is the bringer of good to the world goes directly against the Bible. We are not good in ourselves, and we only have to look at the course of human history and the failures of modern science and thought to bring good to see that secular humanism has many failings.

Christian Hedonism: What does the Bible say about pleasure?

Recognizing the complicated history concerning views of pleasure helps us to better understand how we should view it ourselves. But, recognizing this, what should our theology of pleasure be? Is pleasure a sin? Is it humanistic? Is it a worthwhile goal? What does the Bible say about pleasure?

John Piper writes about this in his book, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. Yes, we recognize that our lives in the kingdom will be better than we could ever imagine, and this world is definitely broken. But, even so, we enjoy life now.

The best summation of Christian Hedonism is “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” When we enjoy God, we enjoy life. When we find satisfaction in God, we find satisfaction in life. And, the opposite is true. When we enjoy life, we enjoy God. When we find satisfaction in life, we find satisfaction in God. What does the Bible say about pleasure? There is a symbiotic relationship between delighting in God and truly delighting in the world. When God comes first, the other things will follow.

What does the Bible say about pleasure? Relationship between delighting in God and delighting in his world

Psalm 37:4 – Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Ecclesiastes 2:24 – There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God.
Ecclesiastes 8:15 – So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.
Psalm 16:11 – You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
1 Timothy 6:17 – As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

When God first created the world, he created things very good. We have good things in the world, but often we choose to mess around with lesser things instead of finding true enjoyment in the greatness of life. What does the Bible say about pleasure? On the positive side, pleasure comes from God. He gives us every good gift. If we look to him for good things, we will be rewarded either now or in the future age.

As Piper writes, “After my dad, C. S. Lewis came into the picture with his amazing statement that our problem as human beings is not that our desires are too strong, but that our desires are too weak. I thought my desires were the problem. Lewis says, No, your desires aren’t the problem. The weakness of your desires are the problem. You are like a child fooling about in slums with your mud pies because you can’t imagine what a holiday at the sea is like. In other words, your desires for the great things that God is offering you are way too small. Your problem is not big desires, but small desires for big things.”

The first step towards creating a life we love is choosing to find our delight in God above all. In doing so, the other lesser desires of life will fall into place.

A Caution: Happiness, Gluttony, and the Dark Side of Hedonism

Most of us realize the dark side of Hedonism. Enjoyment for enjoyment’s sake can lead to a zombie-like addiction to pleasure that can drive every action of our lives. Pleasure can become an idol that leads us away from God. What does the Bible say about pleasure? There are several passages that talk about the negative outcomes of making pleasure an idol in your life.

What does the Bible say about pleasure?: The negative side

Ecclesiastes 2:1 – I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.
Proverbs 21:17 – Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man; he who loves wine and oil will not be rich.
Luke 8:14 – And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 – But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
1 Corinthians 10:23 – All things are permitted, but not all things are of benefit.

We have to be very intentional about what is truly of benefit to our lives. Certain things are obviously a detriment to our lives, and we should flee from these things. But, even good things done in excess for pleasure’s sake can be a detriment to our lives. We must eat to live, but done in excess eating becomes gluttony, a sin. It can lead to health problems and even death.

What does the Bible say about pleasure? There is a dark side to pleasure described in Proverbs and throughout the rest of the Bible. The foolish person seeks after pleasure at the detriment of their relationship with God. Pleasures for pleasures’ sake leads to a decaying in your relationship with God.

You become that which you love. We have a risk of becoming like the idols that we really should toss aside. If we are loving pleasure over God, then we have succumbed to idols. We have to order our loves rightly so that we are pursuing what is best.

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What does the Bible say about pleasure?

Pleasure can be something that leads us away from God. We can become lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God. In doing so, we set up pleasure as an idol of our lives.

At the same time, God has given us good things in life to enjoy. He created this world and he created it very good. Yes, it is fallen and not as good as the new heavens and earth will be. But, still, we can find enjoyment in the simple pleasures of the world today.

By delighting in God, we can better delight in the world. Our hearts won’t be tempted to set up idols, and we won’t be tempted to go down sinful or foolish paths.

We will continue to discuss how you can create a life you love in the upcoming weeks now that we’ve talked about what does the Bible say about pleasure.

Be sure to check out the shop for our bible studies and other resources.

Until next time, keep creating a life you love and cultivating your heart for God.

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