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Not long ago, I shared a devotional with the Talbot School of Theology faculty. Here’s a summary of that devotional.

I have recently been thinking about Galatians 1:10: “For am I now trying to win the approval of people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

Paul says something similar in 1 Thessalonians 2:4: “we speak, not to please people, but rather God, who examines our hearts.”

This raises a complicated question — one a lot of us in the room, I’m sure, have wrestled with: How important is it that our students like us? Does it even matter that our students like us?

I think being driven by a desire for our students to like us is a trap. It’ll create all sorts of problems, including:

• In our own hearts: Will our hearts be in the right place as we teach if our motivation (the desire to be liked) is disordered?

• What students actually learn: Will we adjust what we teach with the result that our students end up not learning what they truly need from our classes?

• Likely outcome: Do you think that people who strive to be liked are typically liked by others, students or otherwise?

But it’s also complicated. The reason it’s complicated is because students won’t listen to us if they don’t like us at least a little bit. They’ll put up resistance to whatever we say.

Another reason it’s complicated is because Paul himself recognized the importance of pleasing others—at least at certain times and in certain ways. He writes in 1 Corinthians 10:33: “just as I also try to please everyone in everything, not seeking my own benefit, but the benefit of many, so that they may be saved.”

And in Romans 15:2: “Each one of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.”

Paul used the same Greek word (ἀρέσκω) when he described both what we should do regarding pleasing, and what we should not do.

So there are two kinds of pleasing of others in Paul — one which is decidedly bad, and one which is decidedly good. What’s the difference between the two?

I think the difference between the two is the direction of our hearts.

I discovered this personally many years ago when preparing to preach. I found that I needed to get off alone to spend time with the Lord — because I cared too much about people liking me. I had to (as older saints used to say) “pray it through” until my motivations were in the right place, otherwise my sermons lacked power. And what were the two proper motivations I learned that I had to pray toward?

• the glory of God, and

• genuine love for those to whom I was preaching.

I observed my misdirected motivations surfacing again and again when I was preparing to preach. Since preaching one-off sermons were singular moments, as opposed to whole-semester classes, I was able to isolate the temptation I was facing.

What was the temptation? I wanted my students to like me. I realized that if I was wrestling with that when preparing to preach, it was likely affecting my whole-semester classes — at least subtly. Might this be an issue for anyone else in the room, the way it has been for me?

Here is one diagnostic question that will help us figure out whether our desire to please our students is the right kind of pleasing or not: How much of what we are doing is about us instead of the glory of God and love for our students?

In the end, being a people-pleaser really isn’t about people; it’s about you.

Notice that the verses we’ve looked at explicitly move us toward the glory of God and genuine love toward those we are ministering to.

First, notice the expressions that point toward the glory of God in the same verses I read.

Galatians 1:10: “For am I now trying to win the approval of people, or God?

1 Thessalonians 2:4: “so we speak, not to please people, but rather [to please] God.”

And in 1 Corinthians 10:31, two verses before he writes about pleasing people, Paul exhorts, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.”

In addition to the glory of God, genuine love for the people to whom you are ministering also gets highlighted in these verses. Continuing in 1 Corinthians 10, notice 10:33, “just as I also try to please everyone in everything, not seeking my own benefit, but the benefit of many.”

And in Romans 15:2: “Each one of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.”

So the wrong kind of pleasing others is focused upon the self, but the right kind of pleasing others is driven by a deep love for them.

How many of you were hired when Clyde Cook was Biola’s president? And when you went through your interview with President Cook, how many of you were asked the same question I was asked: “How are your students going to know that you love them?” [Note: When I asked the faculty this question, many faculty members raised their hands.]

President Cook was on target. Along with a passion for the glory of God, genuine love for our students ought to motivate us.

Now, think with me about our learning outcomes as teachers of students who will (many of them, at least) become teachers themselves. Don’t we want these future teachers to be motivated by a desire for the glory of God and love for those to whom they minister rather than being motivated by the desire to be liked? How will they learn this? From whom will they learn it?

The main way they’ll learn it is if they see it in us.

“Father in heaven, we ask that those of us who teach will be driven first-and-foremost by a desire to glorify you, the God of all glory. We also deeply desire to communicate genuine love for the students you have placed in our care. Forgive us for being focused on being liked by those we teach. Purify our hearts, cleanse our motives, and shepherd us toward a focus on the glory of God and sincere love of the students you have entrusted to us. In the name of Jesus we pray these things. Amen.”

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Notes

March 11, 2025, Talbot Faculty Meeting.