Pleasure Palace

While listening to a 24 lecture series on the history of London, I heard for the first time that I remember, the terminology, “pleasure palace.” Hampton Court was one of Henry VIII’s favorite houses. With its tennis courts, bowling alleys and lavish apartments, it was his pleasure palace, where he entertained foreign ambassadors and visiting guests. The Royal Pavillion was built in the Southern coastal city of Brighton by the fast living George Prince of Wales, later the Prince Regent and then King George IV, as a pleasure palace away from London and its prying eyes. Versailles in France was called The Place of Pleasure with its history and use. Luke 8:14 says, “And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.” The word “pleasures” translates the Greek word, haydone, which is the basis for the English term hedonism. That word is not a positive in scripture. It isn’t characteristic of a believer. Including Luke 8:14, the term is used 5 times in the New Testament (cf. Titus 3:3, James 4:1, 3, 2 Peter 2:13). The world is not intended as some kind of “pleasure palace,” where we can find use for disposable income. As Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:17, God “giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” The Greek word translated “enjoy” is found there and in Hebrews 11:25, where Moses did not “enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” It really is a matter of what we’re living for.