You are right, we are mostly arguing semantics here and mostly arguing past eachother. I think what I’m seeing though is a lack of right emphasis on Claiborne’s part.

While agape love is truly the essence of God, so are terrible glory and just holiness. When I say “let’s give them the watch” I say let’s give them all of God, and not just love. I guess one could argue that all of God’s essences are one in the same, i.e. his terrible glory and just holiness are true representations of his infinite love, and vice versa. But understand that mainly when I’m talking about love I’m talking about what we as humans on earth understand love to be: i.e. sacrificial mercy, affirmation of value, etc. which only sometimes gives evidence of true agape.

The way I see true agape should be understood is this: it’s all about God. Same with true holiness and true justice and true glory. They are all about God. My point is that “God is love” or “God loves you” or “God so loved the world” can be easily misunderstood to mean “God loves something about you so much that Jesus was sent to win you back to Him.” This brings the emphasis of God and puts it on me. While that may even be part of agape, it’s not all of it. The love in John 3:16 and elsewhere is a love that has an ultimate ends of bringing glory to God. The Gospel, God’s ultimate plan for reconciliation with humans, is all about bringing glory to God, not about redeeming humans so they could escape damnation.

That’s what the true essence of Piper’s “Christian Hedonism” is, at least I think so. And that’s why when we share the Gospel we should lead people to understand that it’s all about God. God did love the world, and God is love, and God’s wonderful compassion and mercies are new every day and they are poured out on us in ways we can’t even comprehend — Hallelujah for that! — but they are poured out not so that we can feel better, or have a better life, or enjoy heaven, or even feel God’s love (in a man-understood sense). They are poured out as beautiful essences of God that come when the emphasis is put on glorifying Him forever and bringing praise to His name.

It’s not about us, it’s about God. It’s hard to explain what I’m trying to say, so I understand my points may be a little disheveled. I also understand that at times I can be a hard-hearted person. I also am not the one-stop shop for answers, nor do I claim to have this all figured out or truly understand God’s glory. I just see a terrible pitfall when we tell the lost person, who is broken and beaten and bruised, only part of the Gospel of the glory of God. We can tell them that God loves them, and that Jesus was sent for them, and they will feel better. This is all good! This really is, because a love the quickens the spirit and softens the heart is an essence of God. But we need to give them God, not a feel-good love. A God who is completely holy and who can’t even be in the presence of a human without the covering of the blood of Jesus. God is not a monster, and nor is God just an A-OK, lovey dovey dad. He’s God. That means he’s gonna blow stuff up, burn stuff up, destroy things, be wrathful and just, and at the same time scandalously redeem a lost people through his Son. All of these are love. All of these are agape. Presenting the Gospel means presenting all of God; all of his essences, and not just the ones people want to hear. If we do that, we will lead people to a false Gospel and not to God. And to my original, however lackluster and insufficient analogy, we will lead them to aspects of the watch, even whole essences of the watch, but they won’t love the Watch. They’ll just love what the watch does for them. May it not be in the true example. May we lead people to love God and to realize that their lives must be centered around glorifying God. May I realize that. May we all realize that.

I understand that “God is Love” should not be taught explicitly as the whole story, because of how people can twist that, but in some sense, it is the whole story of the Gospel. Everything we talk about when we say “Gospel” is wrapped into those three words. The depravity, the holiness, the Cross, the Resurrection, the Logos made flesh, all of it.

I think our disagreements aren’t disagreements. I think it’s about semantics at this point. This argument has just reaffirmed what I already knew: that I would make an awful pastor.

He’s just arguing from the opposite side. You’re saying it’s not about the happiness that God’s love gives us, it’s about glorifying God. He’s saying it’s not about rules and laws, it’s about understanding God’s love so that we may enter into it. And, under Piper’s concept of Christian Hedonism, doesn’t being satisfied in God’s love lead to God being most glorified in us? Which would mean you’re both saying the same thing.