What’s the Difference Between Self-Love and Self-Esteem?
00:00:00.000 | Today's question from the inbox comes from Andy who asks this, "Pastor John, should
00:00:10.420 | we love ourselves?
00:00:12.220 | Soren Kierkegaard once said, 'Don't forget to love yourself.'
00:00:16.180 | And many teachers use Jesus' instruction to love our neighbors as ourselves to suggest
00:00:22.060 | we need to love ourselves first.
00:00:25.000 | But is this advice biblical?
00:00:26.340 | What do you say, Pastor John?"
00:00:29.180 | First a word about Kierkegaard, and then a word about Jesus and Paul and whether it's
00:00:33.700 | biblical.
00:00:36.040 | What Kierkegaard meant—I went and found that letter—what Kierkegaard meant, and what
00:00:41.720 | is certainly right to mean, was that we ought always, we ought always to love ourselves
00:00:50.080 | rightly.
00:00:51.080 | In other words, if someone thinks that he will find happiness in a life of self-pity,
00:00:59.340 | he should be told, "You are failing in your duty to love yourself rightly.
00:01:06.900 | You are living a lie.
00:01:08.700 | You are indeed loving yourself—everyone does—in the sense that you are pursuing
00:01:16.060 | the path that feels most gratifying to you, but you're wrong.
00:01:21.500 | This will not gratify."
00:01:22.940 | Kierkegaard's quote, "Don't forget to love yourself," comes from Letter 196 to
00:01:28.900 | his cousin Hans Peter, who was crippled from birth.
00:01:33.100 | Hans was giving in to the false view that a life without walking could not be lived
00:01:41.220 | in happiness and significance.
00:01:44.420 | He was trying to manage his sorrows by hopelessness and self-pity rather than faith in Christ
00:01:51.660 | and hope in God's grace.
00:01:55.660 | For the last 50 years, I'd say—I've been writing about this issue of self-love for
00:02:02.020 | at least 40 years—for the last 50 years, modern psychology, which is the air we breathe
00:02:10.380 | now—we've been breathing it for decades—modern psychology has produced such assumptions for
00:02:18.540 | so many people in our culture that we can't even conceive of alternative views at times
00:02:27.060 | to what it says about self-love and self-esteem.
00:02:31.620 | So the Christian version of this pop psychology is, when Jesus said, "Love your neighbor
00:02:38.820 | as yourself," it means develop first a high sense of self-esteem, and then and only
00:02:47.820 | then will you be able to be of any use to others, to be loving to others.
00:02:54.780 | Well, there are three assumptions here in this way of thinking, and I disagree with
00:02:59.620 | all of them.
00:03:00.820 | Number one, that Jesus is commanding self-love.
00:03:04.820 | Number two, that self-love means self-esteem.
00:03:08.700 | Number three, and that you have to learn to love yourself like that in order to love others.
00:03:14.180 | So now we go to Jesus and Paul.
00:03:15.820 | See why I've got a problem with that.
00:03:19.140 | Jesus is not commanding self-love.
00:03:23.060 | He's assuming self-love.
00:03:24.980 | The text says, "Love your neighbor as you," and I would add, "already do," because
00:03:31.900 | you're human, "love yourself."
00:03:33.820 | Jesus assumes that every human being by nature loves himself.
00:03:40.140 | He doesn't command it.
00:03:41.300 | He makes it the measure and the model of neighbor love.
00:03:45.580 | I'll come back to that in a minute.
00:03:47.380 | Number two.
00:03:48.700 | So first was, Jesus is not commanding self-love.
00:03:51.580 | Second, self-love in Jesus' command does not mean self-esteem.
00:03:57.300 | It means seeking your happiness.
00:04:00.300 | Everybody's wired to seek his happiness.
00:04:02.020 | We know this for several reasons.
00:04:04.980 | One is that in Luke 10, Jesus illustrates the commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself,"
00:04:10.860 | by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan.
00:04:13.260 | And the point there is that the Samaritan treated the wounded Jew the way he would want
00:04:18.900 | to be treated.
00:04:20.560 | He sought the healing.
00:04:22.480 | He sought the happiness and the well-being of the wounded man on the side of the road,
00:04:27.340 | the way he would want to be healed, the way he would want to have well-being and happiness.
00:04:32.780 | Here's another reason.
00:04:33.780 | I think this is really strong.
00:04:35.640 | Another reason why we know that Jesus didn't mean get a high sense of self-esteem when
00:04:42.260 | he said, "Love as you love yourself."
00:04:45.080 | In Ephesians 5, verse 28, Paul applies the command, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself,"
00:04:53.300 | to how a husband loves his wife.
00:04:56.300 | And he says this, "Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, for no man ever
00:05:07.060 | hates his own flesh."
00:05:09.740 | I'm paraphrasing now.
00:05:12.380 | Everybody loves himself.
00:05:13.380 | "No man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it as Christ does the church,"
00:05:20.540 | because we're members of his own body.
00:05:22.980 | So in this text, loving yourself means nourishing and cherishing.
00:05:28.880 | It doesn't mean esteeming.
00:05:30.520 | It means taking care of.
00:05:32.740 | No one ever hates himself in the sense that everybody wants to be happy.
00:05:38.660 | Everybody pursues happiness.
00:05:41.060 | All people love themselves in this sense, and we should make that the measure of how
00:05:47.140 | we love others.
00:05:48.660 | I feed myself.
00:05:50.820 | I give myself rest.
00:05:52.740 | I don't drink poison.
00:05:54.860 | I don't step in front of trucks.
00:05:57.180 | I don't seek out humiliation.
00:05:59.820 | I do a hundred things during the day to provide for my needs and my wants.
00:06:06.340 | I love John Piper.
00:06:10.140 | And this is true even if I think I'm a jerk and have no self-esteem.
00:06:18.180 | Self-esteem is not a given in humanity.
00:06:21.860 | Love is a given.
00:06:23.300 | That's why Jesus used it the way he did.
00:06:26.780 | One can be taught self-esteem.
00:06:29.380 | No one has to learn self-love, that is, to seek his own happiness.
00:06:34.420 | Even if a person drinks himself crazy, smokes three packs of cigarette a day, and finally
00:06:41.340 | commits suicide, the reason is not that he doesn't love himself, but that his notion
00:06:49.620 | of what would make him happy is so distorted.
00:06:54.300 | He doesn't love himself rightly.
00:06:57.700 | He's trying to minimize his misery with drink and with suicide, which is the flip side of
00:07:05.820 | seeking happiness.
00:07:08.060 | He wants to be happy, but the only way he can see it is to minimize his pain by taking
00:07:15.700 | his life.
00:07:17.580 | We all want to be happy and do what we think in the moment, which is often stupid, will
00:07:25.660 | make us happy or at least less miserable.
00:07:29.020 | This is the universal self-love Jesus had in mind, and there's nothing wrong with it.
00:07:35.740 | In fact, you can't live without it.
00:07:38.620 | So finally, the third assumption that I disagree with is that you don't have to learn self-love
00:07:46.900 | in order to love others.
00:07:49.060 | This whole popular notion, true or false, that building self-esteem is a means to loving
00:07:57.380 | others has no textual basis in this command, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
00:08:02.620 | So what does Jesus mean?
00:08:05.900 | Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
00:08:09.740 | And I'll tell you, there isn't any command in the Bible more damning to me, more humility
00:08:16.540 | producing and brokenness producing than this one.
00:08:19.880 | This is a very radical command.
00:08:23.420 | He means something far more than start liking yourself so you can like others.
00:08:30.620 | He means be as concerned about the happiness and the well-being of others as you are about
00:08:39.460 | your own.
00:08:41.500 | That's devastating.
00:08:43.500 | We ought to want to fill other bellies as much as we want to fill our own at breakfast
00:08:52.700 | or supper.
00:08:53.700 | Do you desire a meal?
00:08:56.820 | Want others to have meals.
00:09:00.300 | Seek to relieve others' suffering as much as you take aspirin, ibuprofen, get treatment,
00:09:08.140 | go to the doctor.
00:09:09.980 | Want that for others.
00:09:11.980 | Take the desires that you have for your own comfort and security and success and happiness,
00:09:19.580 | the measure of how intensely and creatively and consistently you desire and pursue these
00:09:25.980 | things for others.
00:09:28.100 | Now that is a radical commandment, and it's what Jesus meant.
00:09:36.300 | My goodness, that is radical.
00:09:38.380 | And it's also sobering and humbling as well.
00:09:40.420 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:09:44.340 | To find our past episodes, to see a list of our most popular episodes, to download our
00:09:49.100 | apps, or to ask a question of your own to Pastor John, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:09:57.260 | Well loving others and loving money are at direct odds, and tomorrow we will talk about
00:10:02.740 | why the love of money is suicidal.
00:10:05.580 | Jesus said it is.
00:10:07.020 | Paul said it is.
00:10:08.300 | Judas proved that it is.
00:10:10.860 | And tomorrow John Piper will explain why that's true.
00:10:12.860 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:10:14.340 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
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