How to please people without pleasing people

There’s a famous saying by the poet John Lydgate: “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” It gets to the truth that good leadership will mean having to make hard, unpopular decisions, as well as the fact that people are never satisfied. But when it comes to Christian ministry, this saying is actually quite wrong: the Bible actually calls us to please none of the people none of the time—and simultaneously please all of the people all of the time.

The idea of pleasing people is treated quite negatively in Galatians 1:10, where Paul asks, “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Pleasing people here stands in direct contrast to pleasing God and seeking his approval as a servant of Christ. Paul also reminds us that his ministry was never about pleasing people:

but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. (1 Thess 2:4-6)

But then Paul also says in Rom 15:1-3:

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbour for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself… (Rom 15:1-3a)

In addition, in 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1 he not only explains that pleasing people was, in fact, the aim of his gospel ministry, but urges us to do the same, since this is the example Christ himself gave us:

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

In all these passages, Paul uses the same word for ‘pleasing’, but in one instance, we are told to please people and in the other, we are told not to please people. How does this work?

Well, it seems from these passages that there is people-pleasing that glorifies God (1 Cor 10:31) and people-pleasing that seeks to glorify ourselves (1 Thess 2:6). There is people-pleasing that selflessly seeks to do good for others in their salvation (1 Cor 10:33) and people-pleasing that is really slavery to the sinful world (Gal 1:10). One form of people-pleasing is actually about pleasing God and bringing delight and joy to him. The other form of people-pleasing is actually about pleasing ourselves and serving our own need for approval and affirmation.

But how can we tell the difference?

When pleasing people is really pleasing myself

Attempting to please people sometimes reveals a lack of integrity and a superficiality that hides self-interest and greed. This is a challenge and rebuke to all of us: in trying to please people, are we trying to please ourselves, craving other people’s approval and desiring our own glory from them? Under the guise of giving people what they want, are we actually using them to gain for ourselves what we want? Little wonder Paul strongly rejects pleasing people in this way. Ministry like this is really motivated by self-serving greed, seeking to attain glory or even financial gain from people by giving them what they want.

This desire to please people gives rise to false teachers who present a gospel message that is less about the saving truth of Jesus Christ our Lord and more about suiting people’s desires. As we are warned in 2 Timothy 4:3, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions”. So the fault lies as much with the hearers’ unwillingness to “endure” sound teaching (as if the good news of our Lord Jesus were somehow torturous and offensive!) and their desire to have their itching ears tickled and scratched, than it does with the false teachers themselves.

The simple problem with wanting to please people in this way is that it fails to take into account the Bible’s teaching on total depravity and the sinfulness of mankind: even our desires—our pleasures, our passions—are all distorted and corrupted in our rebellious ignorance of God. So trying to meet those desires will, by definition, lead us away from God and his truth.

We do not need our churches to be more popular. In addition, we do not need thousands more likes and hearts on social media. Having a message and a ministry shaped and driven by seeking people’s approval is a guaranteed way to wander away from God’s saving word.

When pleasing people is really pleasing God

In comparison, Paul demonstrates the sort of people-pleasing that is really pleasing to God by removing his own interests, rights and comforts from the equation. In 1 Corinthians 9:19, he expresses his willingness to make himself a slave to everyone in order to win them for Christ. In 1 Corinthians 10:31, he explains that for Christians, our ultimate goal in all things is to glorify God. This is expressed in how we relate sacrificially to others, giving no offence to Jews, Greeks or the church of God (10:32). Paul’s ministry exemplifies this God-glorifying attempt to please all people in all things because it was not for his own benefit, but for the profit of many—namely, that they may be saved (10:33). People-pleasing, at this point, is synonymous with doing what is best for people—that is, their ultimate good, which is that they may be saved. Paul seeks to please people by giving up himself to save them to the glory of God.

There is an objective element to this: Paul’s actions were driven by what is actually best for the person, rather than what they perceived as pleasurable, or what would make them respond immediately with approval. We do not want our hearers to be offended by us, whether by our manner or the way we relate to them. Instead, Christians are called to strive for what is good—what is a blessing to others—by showing God’s love, compassion and forgiveness to a world that is just as undeserving of these things as we are. The problem is remaining unswayed by opinion and popular acclaim and doing this ministry not for people’s affirmation, but for the eternal glory that they will know when they put their trust in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus.

So in the end, we can please people selfishly or please people selflessly. We can please people in order to glorify God or please people in order to gain glory for ourselves. The people-pleasing that pleases me will mean compromising God’s truth and the message of the gospel for a short-term fleeting benefit. The people-pleasing that pleases God will mean the joyful and uncompromising declaration of the cross for the eternal goal of people’s salvation and the glory of Christ.

The wrong way to please people is to let them (or us) determine what is good and pleasing; the right way to please people is to let what is delightful and pleasurable be determined by God and his word. In fact, this is the only way we can truly, objectively and God-glorifyingly please people and be a real, eternal blessing to them.