Today's question from the inbox comes from Andy who asks this, "Pastor John, should we love ourselves? Soren Kierkegaard once said, 'Don't forget to love yourself.' And many teachers use Jesus' instruction to love our neighbors as ourselves to suggest we need to love ourselves first. But is this advice biblical?

What do you say, Pastor John?" First a word about Kierkegaard, and then a word about Jesus and Paul and whether it's biblical. What Kierkegaard meant—I went and found that letter—what Kierkegaard meant, and what is certainly right to mean, was that we ought always, we ought always to love ourselves rightly.

In other words, if someone thinks that he will find happiness in a life of self-pity, he should be told, "You are failing in your duty to love yourself rightly. You are living a lie. You are indeed loving yourself—everyone does—in the sense that you are pursuing the path that feels most gratifying to you, but you're wrong.

This will not gratify." Kierkegaard's quote, "Don't forget to love yourself," comes from Letter 196 to his cousin Hans Peter, who was crippled from birth. Hans was giving in to the false view that a life without walking could not be lived in happiness and significance. He was trying to manage his sorrows by hopelessness and self-pity rather than faith in Christ and hope in God's grace.

For the last 50 years, I'd say—I've been writing about this issue of self-love for at least 40 years—for the last 50 years, modern psychology, which is the air we breathe now—we've been breathing it for decades—modern psychology has produced such assumptions for so many people in our culture that we can't even conceive of alternative views at times to what it says about self-love and self-esteem.

So the Christian version of this pop psychology is, when Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself," it means develop first a high sense of self-esteem, and then and only then will you be able to be of any use to others, to be loving to others. Well, there are three assumptions here in this way of thinking, and I disagree with all of them.

Number one, that Jesus is commanding self-love. Number two, that self-love means self-esteem. Number three, and that you have to learn to love yourself like that in order to love others. So now we go to Jesus and Paul. See why I've got a problem with that. Jesus is not commanding self-love.

He's assuming self-love. The text says, "Love your neighbor as you," and I would add, "already do," because you're human, "love yourself." Jesus assumes that every human being by nature loves himself. He doesn't command it. He makes it the measure and the model of neighbor love. I'll come back to that in a minute.

Number two. So first was, Jesus is not commanding self-love. Second, self-love in Jesus' command does not mean self-esteem. It means seeking your happiness. Everybody's wired to seek his happiness. We know this for several reasons. One is that in Luke 10, Jesus illustrates the commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself," by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan.

And the point there is that the Samaritan treated the wounded Jew the way he would want to be treated. He sought the healing. He sought the happiness and the well-being of the wounded man on the side of the road, the way he would want to be healed, the way he would want to have well-being and happiness.

Here's another reason. I think this is really strong. Another reason why we know that Jesus didn't mean get a high sense of self-esteem when he said, "Love as you love yourself." In Ephesians 5, verse 28, Paul applies the command, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself," to how a husband loves his wife.

And he says this, "Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, for no man ever hates his own flesh." I'm paraphrasing now. Everybody loves himself. "No man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it as Christ does the church," because we're members of his own body.

So in this text, loving yourself means nourishing and cherishing. It doesn't mean esteeming. It means taking care of. No one ever hates himself in the sense that everybody wants to be happy. Everybody pursues happiness. All people love themselves in this sense, and we should make that the measure of how we love others.

I feed myself. I give myself rest. I don't drink poison. I don't step in front of trucks. I don't seek out humiliation. I do a hundred things during the day to provide for my needs and my wants. I love John Piper. And this is true even if I think I'm a jerk and have no self-esteem.

Self-esteem is not a given in humanity. Love is a given. That's why Jesus used it the way he did. One can be taught self-esteem. No one has to learn self-love, that is, to seek his own happiness. Even if a person drinks himself crazy, smokes three packs of cigarette a day, and finally commits suicide, the reason is not that he doesn't love himself, but that his notion of what would make him happy is so distorted.

He doesn't love himself rightly. He's trying to minimize his misery with drink and with suicide, which is the flip side of seeking happiness. He wants to be happy, but the only way he can see it is to minimize his pain by taking his life. We all want to be happy and do what we think in the moment, which is often stupid, will make us happy or at least less miserable.

This is the universal self-love Jesus had in mind, and there's nothing wrong with it. In fact, you can't live without it. So finally, the third assumption that I disagree with is that you don't have to learn self-love in order to love others. This whole popular notion, true or false, that building self-esteem is a means to loving others has no textual basis in this command, "Love your neighbor as yourself." So what does Jesus mean?

Love your neighbor as you love yourself. And I'll tell you, there isn't any command in the Bible more damning to me, more humility producing and brokenness producing than this one. This is a very radical command. He means something far more than start liking yourself so you can like others.

He means be as concerned about the happiness and the well-being of others as you are about your own. That's devastating. We ought to want to fill other bellies as much as we want to fill our own at breakfast or supper. Do you desire a meal? Want others to have meals.

Seek to relieve others' suffering as much as you take aspirin, ibuprofen, get treatment, go to the doctor. Want that for others. Take the desires that you have for your own comfort and security and success and happiness, the measure of how intensely and creatively and consistently you desire and pursue these things for others.

Now that is a radical commandment, and it's what Jesus meant. My goodness, that is radical. And it's also sobering and humbling as well. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast. To find our past episodes, to see a list of our most popular episodes, to download our apps, or to ask a question of your own to Pastor John, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

Well loving others and loving money are at direct odds, and tomorrow we will talk about why the love of money is suicidal. Jesus said it is. Paul said it is. Judas proved that it is. And tomorrow John Piper will explain why that's true. I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.