Purpose Driven or Scripture Driven? - Way of Life Literature

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which he or she is highly gifted and qualified. Many menhave given up such things when God called them to be apreacher or a missionary. Peter, James, and John gave upfishing. In the 1980s, I met a Chinese man in Singapore whowas a brilliant chess champion. God had saved him andcalled him to preach and he was preparing himself in a BibleCollege. He told me how that for awhile he had written acolumn on chess for a newspaper for extra income toward hisBible training, but he discovered that it was not possible tokeep the chess moves out of his mind when he was trying tostudy Scripture so he gave it up entirely, though he washighly gifted at it and enjoyed it. That is true dying to self.Note the following quotes from chapters 30 and 31 of ThePurpose Driven Life which deal with finding my place inGod’s will:“Listening to your heart. The Bible uses the term heart todescribe the bundle of desires, hopes, interests,ambitions, dreams, and affections you have. Your heartrepresents the source of all your motivations--what youlove to do and what you are about most. ... Don’t ignoreyour interests. Consider how they might be used forGod’s glory. There is a reason that you love to do thesethings. ... How do you know when you are serving Godfrom your heart? The first telltale sign is enthusiasm.When you are doing what you love to do, no one has tomotivate you or challenge you or check up on you. ...The second characteristic of serving God from your heartis effectiveness. Whenever you do what God wired youto love to do, you get good at it. ... Figure out what youlove to do--what God gave you a heart to do--and thendo it for his glory. ... What I’m able to do, God wants meto do” (pp. 237, 238, 239, 243).Note that Warren does not warn his readers that the heart isdeceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jeremiah17:9). What a gross, inexcusable omission! While it is truethat you can trust your desires to some small extent when10
you are a mature Christian and you are delighting in God andimmersed in His Word and obeying Him (Psa. 37:4), howmany of the readers of The Purpose Driven Life are in thatcondition? A great many of the millions of readers of thisbook are doubtless complete unbelievers or nominalChristians or novices or carnal, and to teach them that whatthey love to do is God’s will is frightful heresy. Many areprofessional sports fanatics, for example. Others are rock &roll fanatics. Others are fanatics about modern fashion trends.Are they fanatic about such things because that is the waythat God made them? No, they are fanatic about such thingsbecause they are conformed to the world and walk in the wayof sinners (Psalm 1:1; Romans 12:2).There are many things that professing Christians are giftedfor and effective at that are NOT God’s will!Again, we see that when Rick Warren’s theology isexamined carefully it is about self-fulfillment, but it ispresented under the guise of worshipping and serving God.Warren builds his self-esteem theology upon strangeversions of the Bible. Consider an example:“The Bible says, ‘Noah was a pleasure to the Lord.’ Godsaid, ‘This guy brings me pleasure. He makes mesmile” (The Purpose Driven Life, p. 69).Warren is quoting Genesis 6:8 in the Living Bible. In fact,this verse should say, “But Noah found grace in the eyes ofthe LORD.” It has nothing to do with God getting pleasurefrom Noah. It has everything to do with Noah getting favorfrom the Lord! The Living Bible perverts this verse, turningit upon its very head. Nonetheless, since it fits Rick Warren’stheology he grabs hold of it and pretends that it is Scripture.Consider another example of how Warren builds his selfesteemtheology upon inaccurate versions of Scripture.11
Page 4: Warren Tells Pastors to Get Rid of
Page 8 and 9: faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ
Page 12 and 13: “The Bible says, ‘Self-help is
Page 14 and 15: On page 70, Warren quotes Hebrews 1
Page 16: lyrics. It is the words that make a
Page 21: appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ
Page 25: Saddleback Church features nine dif
Page 30 and 31: the book of Acts and the Epistles I
Page 32 and 33: Paul’s gospel is clear. It says t
Page 34: Warren’s Anti-fundamentalist Tira
Page 38 and 39: atheism and calling it “one of th
Page 40 and 41: smoke screen. It is a straw man. I
Page 42 and 43: instructed to follow in the book of
Page 44 and 45: orderline as possible” (Henderson
Page 46 and 47: "ATMOSPHERES ARE GOING TO COMETHROU
Page 48 and 49: to believe it myself; and that’s
Page 50 and 51: wicked than same-sex relations? Whe
Page 52 and 53: how sick and blasphemous this thing
Page 54 and 55: Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. PlanSpeaking
Page 56 and 57: “The church is not called to tran
Page 58 and 59: Roger Oakland rightly observes:“W
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absolutely nothing about kicking pe
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It is a sad fact that Southerland h
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“Now I beseech you, brethren, mar
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Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Bahai,
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clamour for a confederacy which wou
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American Baptist ChurchesThe Baptis
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Dr. Frederick Anderson, secretary o
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“Then the third day came. A stone
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eferred to as God in the Scriptures
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100 “lesbian, bi-sexual, and tran
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“Through visualization and dreami
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Bono complains that the churches ha
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salvation is by grace, for instance
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Warren’s and the Ladies HomeJourn
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Is that not what “unconditionally
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Furthermore, if God doesn’t expec
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article; but to a Muslim, that’s
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Warren Doesn’t Mention JesusIn Ju
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Warren Predict’s A “NewReformat
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An Analysis of the “Purpose Drive
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Saddleback model? From our understa
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on Sunday to all the church body, a
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church growth. While the contempora
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program) then the resultant growth
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away from the larger issue at hand-
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unreconcilable dichotomy between fl
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giants,” accepted his methods. Fu
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children of Israel could have said
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that the local New Testament church
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etrays its weakened hold on the obj
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e turned unto fables. But watch tho
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Paul had no target group! All neede
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Judge Not?The following is from our
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ingeth forth good fruit; but a corr
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must welcome and neither judge nor
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the law, but a judge. There is one
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About Way of Life’s eBooksSince J
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ecumenical; it is charismatic; it i
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Transformational Power of CCM. V. S
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variety of situations, including ho
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“The encyclopedia is excellent. T
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