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12/22/03
Comments (7)

The Purpose Driven Life - Day Forty - Living With Purpose

This is the fortieth and final chapter of The Purpose Driven Life. As I expected, it wraps up with a review of the five sections and encouragement to develop a personal purpose statement. Rick Warren begins the chapter with a discussion about the importance of a personal “Life Purpose Statement.” Such a statement will keep me focused on achieving all of my purposes and help me remember what is most important in my life. He provides five questions that I should consider as I prepare this statement.

  • What will be the center of my life? This is the question of worship. Who am I going to live for and what am I going to build my life around?
  • What will be the character of my life? This is the question of discipleship. What kind of person will I be? God is more interested in what I am than what I do, so I need to concentrate on improving my character.
  • What will be the contribution of my life? This is a question of service. I need to decide what my ministry will be and how I will use my SHAPE to serve the body of Christ.
  • What will be the communication of my life? This is the question of my mission to unbelievers. It will include my commitment to share my testimony and to share the gospel.
  • What will be the community of my life? This is a question of fellowship. How am I going to demonstrate my commitment to other believers and my connection to the family of God?

Warren suggests that I spend weeks or even months thinking and praying about my mission statement and fine-tuning it to be just the way I want it. I should then form a smaller version of it that summarizes the main points.

The book closes with a short section encouraging me to believe and accept that God truly wants to use me. By living a life of purpose I can serve God to the best of my ability and look forward to an eternity of continuing to live for His purposes.

Bible Passages

Warren quotes the Bible twenty nine times using eight translations and paraphrases. I found that he used The Message far too much in this chapter, often taking wonderful passages of Scripture and assigning them a whole new meaning. Phillipians 4:7 reads, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” The Message paraphrases it “Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” I don’t see what is wrong with the more accurate translation that made Warren think The Message could improve it. Another case in point is Revelation 4:11 which Warren uses to close the book. The NASB translates it “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.” That is one of the most beautiful, awe-inspiring passages in the entire Bible. The Message reads “Worthy, O Master! Yes, our God! Take the glory! the honor! the power! You created it all; It was created because you wanted it.” The Message paraphrase sounds ridiculous and loses the grandeur and power of the original. Again, I fail to see why he thought this paraphrase was better than a more accurate one.

Point to Ponder

Today’s point to ponder is “living with purpose is the only way to really live.” At this point I am not ready to agree or disagree with that statement. I am going to take a few days to let what I have learned settle and to think about what this book has taught. At that point I am going to write a final article in this series which will summarize what I have learned and what I believe about the Purpose Driven approach. So stay tuned!

The Purpose Driven Life - Day Forty - Living With Purpose

Comments (7) »

1. Chris
January 12, 2004
2:33 PM

Well! I’m waiting to hear what you have to say!!! I searched the internet to look for a site like yours. When I first read it, I was slightly offended. As I kept reading and listened to why you were writing the way you did, it’s kind of hard to take offense with that. I’ve perused several days (as I am not that far into the book) and have loved “hearing” your insight. I am a Christian that hasn’t dug as deeply as I should have and feel compelled to take care of that. So don’t keep us waiting too long, I really want to hear how this all comes out! Chris

2. Tim
January 12, 2004
4:29 PM

Chris,

I just posted my Review of The Purpose Driven Life. Enjoy!

3. Phil
April 28, 2004
10:32 PM

In my lifetime, I have heard a number of sermons about Eve’s temptation in the Garden of Eden. I’m sure most churchgoers have heard similar messages from the pulpit. I seem to recall that the lessons learned were that God’s Word can be “twisted” in meaning by changing a few words and that Christians should be wary of such devices of Satan. Another conclusion might be that we are not “smart” enough to pit our puny defences against the cunning craftiness of Satan. Satan’s purpose is to destroy us.

So along comes Rick Warren and his book takes Christendom by storm. It’s got some good stuff in it… and maybe some questionable stuff as well. But look at all those additions, misinterpretations, and deletions from what God actually said. If you put those sermon messages about Eve, together with the words used in Rick’s book, don’t you come to similar conclusions about what the evil one is accomplishing?

Although I have a lot of comments, and our church is going through the 40 Days right now, I’ll share one other.

I think it is a wonderful thing what this book seems to be accomplishing. The program, using the book as the text, is uniting all elements of the Christian community. It is pulling together those elements which, before, were so “proud” of the fact that they were “not like those other denominations.” Indeed, we see Catholics, Methodists, American Baptists, Southern Baptists, Prebyterians, Lutherans, and on and on, even some heretofore “cultic” persuasions, coming together in common bond and common purpose, following the principles outlined in “The Purpose Driven Life.” It’s absolutely amazing that Rick Warren has accomplished in just few short years what the Bible has been unable to do since it was published. Surely there must be the hand of the Almighty involved in this great work! Praise the Lord.

Actually, I have a parting question… one which does not require an answer. Who is smiling, God or Satan, at this 40 Days of Purpose? (Please, do not presume that I know the answer… just asking… pondering.).

-phil, 4/28/2004

4. Tim
April 30, 2004
4:42 PM

Phil - to say that the Purpose Driven Life has been able to accomplish something the Bible has failed at is probably the greatest argument I could think of for proving its flaws.

Your argument is premised on an understanding that the Christian world should be striving for denominational unity, yet I believe this is a false premise. There can be no unity where there are serious doctrinal differences and the differences between true Protestantism and Catholicism are so great they can never come together.

5. Jaime H.
May 21, 2004
10:43 AM

Who is smiling? Satan is…and he’s not just smiling. He’s rolling on the floor, laughing.

There is something truly wrong with this book.

6. Joshua
January 18, 2007
10:38 PM

We no longer endure sound doctrine as our Father for told in his word. Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned:and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom 16:17-18

The word of our Father has been since before the beginning of time. For anyone to suggest that this book by a human has done more than the bible is a very slippery slope. This book and the teaching of The New Age Church is nothing more than the Great Apostacy. We are a natio nashamed of teh Gospel and now Satan has taken the lead in our education.

7. Jennifer
January 19, 2007
12:02 AM

I don’t think Rick Warren is perfect and I don’t think his book is perfect. Tim has brought out one of the things I don’t care for about the book, lots of use of The Message, which frankly I think should only be read perhaps as a tool to give us another way to think about things, with a sold literal translation in the other hand.

But I do think Rick Warren is a believer. And nobody’s written a perfect book about theology and the Christian life since…well, since the Bible. I don’t think any Christian should be so quick to throw Rick or any other believer in with Satan because he doesn’t have the perfect understanding and presentation of Christianity and theology that I so clearly do.

And on Christian unity, which is near and dear to my heart but often idealized, surely no one truly believes that denominational unity is possible on Earth. Before we shared Rick Warren (my church hasn’t gone through the book actually) we shared the Bible, and even if we enthusiastically unite around a Purpose-Driven Life, we still aren’t going to unite over infant vs. adult baptism, Arminianism vs. Calvinism, the meaning of the Lord’s Supper/Communion, etc. But I praise God for fellow believers in other denominations even though they don’t share the same views I do on the above issues. I recently attended The Falls Church (one of the churches that recently voted to withdraw from the American Episcopal church) and observed an infant baptism ceremony, the first time I’d seen that, something that I’ve never understood because I see precedent only for believers’ baptism in Scripture. I could never join that church because I disagree with them on something I consider pretty important. But I have no doubt I’m going to be praising God side by side with them in heaven — I already had a wonderful time doing so last Sunday right here in Virginia, and would have no problem working cooperatively with them in Christian service here on Earth. That, to my mind is what Christian unity is about, probably the best it can be on Earth.

And if Rick Warren’s book contributed to a few more people feeling that way, I think that can be a benefit…excluding of course whatever “cultish” groups have embraced it as well.

In any event, Bible only, right? All else is a potential tool that must be used with the exercise of judgement.