Purpose Driven vs Hard To Believe
Bob DeWaay has published an excellent examination of The Purpose Driven Life in his Critical Issues Commentary. The article examines The Purpose Driven Life and often compares it to John MacArthur’s “Hard to Believe – The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus.” Here are a few excerpts:
A few months ago a friend phoned to ask if I had ever heard of Rick Warren. “Yes” I replied. “Why are you asking”? He said, “I just got kicked out of a Bible Study for bringing my Bible to it.” That is how the idea for this article came to me. The Bible study my friend attended was really a Purpose Driven Life study group. The Purpose Driven Life book they were studying referenced Bible passages that sounded off base. He was told that if he was going to attend the study, he would have to leave his Bible at home, because the issues he brought up were disruptive to the group. He chose to quit instead.
Warren would have us believe that something is furry, meow’s, has four legs, and likes to chase mice, but is not a cat. He tells us that his book is not about “you” and then spends over three hundred pages making it about you, over and over. This doesn’t just look like self-help, read like self-help, sound like self-help and feel like self-help, it is self-help and it is about you. That doesn’t help me. I need the gospel to solve my sin problem. I don’t need Warren aphorisms—and certainly not thousands of them.
Warren’s terminology to describe God provides a picture of God as a kindly grandfather who gushes with warm, fuzzy feelings. For example, he has a chapter that tells us what makes God smile. He uses Noah as an example. He writes, “But there was one man who made God smile. The Bible says, ‘Noah was a pleasure to the Lord’” (Warren: 69). This is a citation of Genesis 6:8 from the Living Bible. Again the paraphrase turns a verse that is God-centered into one that is man-centered. The NASB says, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” The Bible tells what Noah received from God. The poor translation Warren uses makes Noah the agent and God the recipient. The NKJV is more pointed: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8; NKJV). In the Biblical account God gives grace to Noah, in Warren’s account Noah gives pleasure to God. Here is how Warren interprets Genesis 6:8: “God said, ‘This guy brings me pleasure. He makes me smile. I’ll start over with his family’” (Warren 69). He twists Genesis 6:8 to promote his man-centered theology and obscure the fact that it was God’s grace that made Noah who he was.
You can read the entire article here.
Comments (8) »
1. Mac Swift
March 23, 2004
9:02 PM
Fabulous link, but dooooode, you’re cramping my style here. I’m supposed to be the only dissenting Christian who is at odds with the entire Purpose Driven movement as I trek on in full “Lone Ranger” mode here. :-P
2. 517-703-0926
March 24, 2004
1:16 PM
I am not involved with this book because it is too fuzzy for me but there is Scripture that points to regenerate men finding grace in his sight and regenerate men not finding grace in His sight. “If the Lord delight in us He will bring us into the land” Notice the “if”. —Warning to Corinth (1Cor 10)—these dire consequences are written as warning to you upon the end of the ages is come for with many of them God was not well pleased and he overthrew them in the wilderness. —Harden not your hearts you regenerate as in the day of provocation in the wilderness, cited in Hebrews.— “You are become dull of hearing”(Heb) Some of you are sick, some have died.—God’s displeasure with Corinth. Repent Ephesus you have left your first love. (Rev 2) God is displeased. I will spew you out of my mouth, you are poor wretched blind and naked O Laodiceans. God’s pleasure with Phillippi. You gave beyond your power and my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Major consequences flow according to how we treat the Lord. Bill Cooper
3. William Cooper
March 24, 2004
2:31 PM
Lots of “ifs” are presented to those who have recieved grace. e.g. Joh 15:14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 2Ti 2:21 If any one purifies himself from what is ignoble, then he will be a vessel for noble use, consecrated and useful to the master of the house, ready for any good work. 2Ti 2:12 if we endure, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; (not sending the regenerate to hell but denying favour) Heb 2:3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, (this is not escaping casting into hell, this is written to regenerate people, it is the loss of inheritance —not everyone in a household is an heir. To be an heir you have to be an obedient son, obeying through the power of grace.) Bill
4. Tim
March 25, 2004
10:53 AM
Mac - Sorry, man. I’ve been railing against this book since the middle of last year! :)
5. William Cooper
March 28, 2004
11:44 AM
Are we all free of the corruptions Warren uses to pull people in? Do we enjoy the latest “hot” music energies of the world and want to put some shallow spiritual wording to those tempos. That is one way he uses to haul them in and then do we encourage people to believe Jesus receives them when they make a shallow prayer without having been proven to be vile evil God rejecting sinners to their own self consciousness, for how can there be true repentance before that takes place. The Puritans called it “law work” where the law is used by the Spirit to make people see the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Bill
6. Shelley
March 28, 2004
11:30 PM
For an evangelizing ministry devoted to ‘law work’, go to www.livingwaters.com for great material by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron.
7. Juan M. Radziwiluk
May 23, 2004
6:07 PM
The Bible says that if something is against God it comes from three sources: 1-From the flesh 2-from the world 3-from SATAN Changing the simple message of the GOSPEL it eather comes from the flesh, the world or SATAN. Mr. Warren is putting men first and then God…major mistake Mr. MacArthur has gone to the point to say that salvation is by works…GOD HAVE MERCY ON HIM!
And suddenly this gentelmen become bestseller with a message that the Christians of today are looking for, something that will make their Christian life more ease and less responsible in from of God.
Be careful, Satan is the god of the lies and also is known as the angle of light, lies like the ones written in these books are so shinny and beautiful that are not notice.
Juan
8. Tim Challies
May 23, 2004
6:37 PM
By Mr. MacArthur do you mean Mr. Warren? I certainly don’t think you could rationally charge John MacArthur with believing in a gospel of works…
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