The real distinction between ungodly people-pleasing and God-honoring people-pleasing is about glory. “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do” — pleasing everyone in everything you do — “do all to the glory of God.” Is the driving burden of our love a desire to glorify God, or is it a desire to be glorified? To the degree that we are seeking our own glory, to that degree our people-pleasing is traitorous. But to the degree that we are seeking his glory, to that degree is our people-pleasing faithful, even beautiful. And freeing. 

People-pleasing is not a virtue many of us strive to cultivate. People-influencing or people-winning maybe, but not people-pleasing. The phrase itself sounds like duplicity, like pretending, like compromise — like we are acting against our will to satisfy the desires of someone else. No one wants to be a people-pleaser.

And yet the apostle Paul can say, “I try to please everyone in everything I do” (1 Corinthians 10:33). Everyone in everything. What did he mean? We should want to know because in the very next verse he writes, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Evidently, striving to please people is not as bad as we may have assumed. The apostle, imitating Christ himself, devoted himself to pleasing people. To please people, then, is to pursue holiness, to mature into Christlikeness, to be like God.

But before we completely throw ourselves into people-pleasing, the same apostle also says, “Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10). What did he mean? Isn’t this the same man who said he strives to please (same word) not just man, but every man, and in everything? Evidently, striving to please people may be even more dangerous than we suspected. In this case, to try to please people is to reject and even oppose Christ. To please people, then, is to indulge in sinfulness, to abandon obedience, to defy God.

So, according to Paul, we must persistently strive to please people, and we must passionately avoid striving to please people. As with so many issues in the Christian life, wisdom and holiness come through our seeing, by the Spirit, how a sentence like that is not a contradiction.

God-Despising People-Pleasing

The dangers of people-pleasing may be more obvious to most of us than its virtues. Without even defining the terms, our association is negative. We wish to see it less in ourselves, and grow suspicious when we see it in others. We know we are to live and work as unto the Lord, “not as people-pleasers” (Ephesians 6:6; Colossians 3:22).

Some of us are almost totally (and reluctantly) captive to the desires of others. In any situation, this sinful impulse tempts us to do or say what we think others want us to do or say. We meticulously, even if unconsciously, calculate how each person will respond to each decision, and then do what will make the most people the most happy (or at least, the least unhappy). This kind of people-pleasing becomes an exhausting treadmill of micromanaging situations, conversations, and relationships.

And because we cannot possibly make everyone happy, the treadmill only leads to relational stress, discouragement, and self-pity. “There may be no more powerful argument to persuade you to stop seeking the approval of man,” Lou Priolo writes, “than that of the profound folly, futility, and utter impossibility of trying to please all of the people some of the time” (Pleasing People, 83).

And God despises it. As Paul said, “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10; see also 1 Thessalonians 2:4). No one can serve two masters. We ultimately either live to please Christ, or we live to please someone else — and living to please anyone else leaves us at war with Christ. We cannot live peacefully with Christ while we submit first and foremost to the desires and demands of others.

God-Pleasing People-Pleasing

We also, however, cannot follow Christ and not strive to please others. As we saw above, Paul sought to please all he met, but in a very different way than we are often tempted to please one another.

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. (1 Corinthians 10:31–11:1)

In this specific context, Paul was addressing whether believers should eat meat that may or may not have been sacrificed to false gods (1 Corinthians 10:25). We do not often find ourselves in this particular situation, but these verses still give us several valuable tests to determine if our pleasing of others is Spirit-filled love along the narrow path that leads to life or self-gratifying, pride-indulging sin that blinds us to love and leads to death.

1. How concerned am I with me?

The kind of people-pleasing that pleases God is not a self-serving need for love or approval. Paul says, “I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage . . .” As he laid down his life for others, doing all he could to please them, he wasn’t subtly angling for some selfish gain. He wasn’t hungry for more approval. This striving comes from fullness, not emptiness; from love, not pride; from a desire to serve, not to be served.

As we weigh what to do or say, we should ask, How concerned am I with me?

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