Nobody Tell John Piper To Have A Good Weekend

Clipart image of a man leaving the office. Image text: "Have a great weekend. I hope your code behaves on Monday the same way it did on Friday." Image source.

I came across this video on Desiring God, by John Piper: God Demands Our Delight: Foundations of Christian Hedonism, Part 2. Actually, I found it because my twitter friends were commenting on an extremely effed-up tweet from Desiring God, which said "God cares more about your happiness than you do. He is so serious about your joy that he threatens hell if you refuse to find it in him." and linked to that post. Everyone pointed out that this tweet is describing an abusive relationship.

So I rolled my eyes and thought I might as well watch Piper's video and see if his abusive nonsense is worth responding to. Well, as it turns out, the video isn't about God threatening us with hell at all. It's not anywhere near as horrifying as the tweet made it sound. Actually, it's a video where Piper claims that we are "commanded" to "rejoice in God" and shows us a whole bunch of bible verses that say so.

And I'm watching this video, thinking, "this is just bizarre." He keeps pulling up verse after verse that says things like "Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth" and says "this is a command." Over and over, Piper tells us "this is a command."

What?

This is so strange.

What? How can you read verses saying to "rejoice" and think those are "commands"? The writers are just very happy and inviting other happy people to share in their happiness. It's not about ordering people to act happy- that doesn't make any sense. Emotions can't just be manufactured just because you think you're "supposed to" feel a certain way. Like, what on earth?

Does John Piper hear the song "celebrate good times, come on" at a wedding and think that's a command? If he tells a friend about his upcoming vacation and the friend says "have a safe trip" does he think that's a command? In first grade, when the teacher told the kids their homework over spring break was just "have a good break", did John Piper think that was an actual homework assignment and he would be in trouble if he had a crappy spring break?

Like, I don't even know what to say about this. Usually when I respond to stuff from Desiring God, it's something that's abusive and dangerous. But this is just weird. Why on earth does he think those bible verses are "commands"?

I guess it's because he views the bible as a list of commands we need to follow. And believes in a God who wants to control every little tiny detail of everyone's life. And because he follows an ideology which policies people's emotions- we're required to feel certain feelings, and we're not allowed to feel certain "sinful" feelings.

That's just ... odd.

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Related:
"The Authority of Scripture" is One Hell of a Drug
John Piper Said "There Are No Innocent Children" and I am Not the Least Bit Surprised