Truth is ancient; it's grey hairs may make it venerable;
it comes from Him who is the ancient of days. --Thomas Watson

 

9 September, 2005   comments: (0) Changed Message   Ferrari-Pulpit Preacher Says "It's All About YOU" We've been through this before with another best-seller that wasnt supposed to be about you. But the YOU-centeredness of this new Christian self-help book should be unmistakable. Why? Well, for starters - the book is called "YOU"! Need more proof? The mega-church pastor who authored the book, uses these words to describe it on his website: "This book is all about you". It even promises to give you "Three steps to rebuilding your self-esteem". But you know the drill; the book's description contains the familiar double-speak that we've seen before, claiming that it's "not self-centered" after all. The author of "YOU" is Ed Young Jr., the radio minister and trendy pastor of one of the 10 largest mega-churches in America. You might have seen Ed Young in the news. He's the preacher that arrived on stage in a Ferrari, a sermon-prop meant to illustrate "how defective daters ignore dashboard warnings". His more conservative father, has his own mega-church only a couple of hundred miles away. In addition to pastoring, Ed Young oversees a couple of website. One is all about him - that's EdYoung.com. Another of his sites is a "culturally relevant" but very pricey, shopping-site for his sermons and materials called CreativePastors.com. The website is not really about YOU however, that is - if you're a pastor on a tight budget. I had a very difficult time identifying anything there that attempts to give "free" help to pastors. The site is a creative way to pay for the Ferrari perhaps? So what's wrong with a pastor writing a book that's YOU-oriented? After all, people need guidance, and it's a pastor's job to help them, right? Lest you think Im being too critical, let's examine the problems with another book that emerged from the modern mega-churches, with an almost identical "it's not about YOU - even though it really is about YOU" theme. Here's an excerpt from pastor Bob Dewaay's article subtitled How the Purpose Driven Life Obscures the Gospel. At the end, John MacArthur tells us why all of this YOU-centeredness is contrary to the Gospel: [Rick Warren says], "It's not about you" (Warren: p.17). Yet the entire book "feels" like it is about you and reads like self-help literature. He dedicates the book to "you" on the first page after the copyright information, and uses the pronoun "you" continually throughout the book. Consider the following . . . You were planned for God's pleasure. The moment you were born into the world God was there as an unseen witness, smiling at your birth. He wanted you alive, and your arrival gave him great pleasure. God did not need to create you, but he chose to create you for his own enjoyment. . . . Bringing enjoyment to God, living for his pleasure, is the first purpose of your life. When you fully understand this truth, you will never again have a problem with feeling insignificant. It proves your worth. If you are that important to God, and he considers you valuable enough to keep with him for eternity, what greater significance could you have? (Warren: 63). (Italics in original; bold emphasis mine) His statement that this is not about "you" is disingenuous (insincere). His style, word usage, Man-centeredness, distorted Bible translations, and many overt statements show that the book *is* about you! Here is one more example of how obtrusive the personal pronoun "you" is in Warren's writing: Your unspoken life metaphor influences your life more than you realize. It determines your expectations, your values, your relationships, your goals, and your priorities. For instance, if you think life is a party, your primary value in life will be having fun. If you see life as a race, you will value speed and will probably be in a hurry much of your time. If you view life as a marathon, you will value endurance. If you see life as a battle or a game, winning will be very important to you (Warren: 42). (italics in original; bold emphasis mine) Here we have sixteen instances of "you" or "your" in one short paragraph. Notice also how Warren speaks what is no more than his own personal opinion as if it were God's truth. He claims a "life metaphor" determines much of who we are. By what authority does he make such a claim? This is nothing but human wisdom. Warren started out this section saying, "The way you see your life shapes your life. How you define life determines your destiny" (Warren 41). Why should I believe these statements? Warren speaks from his own self as if he were God's authoritative spokesperson. This is Christianized humanism. Our thoughts and metaphors have nothing to do with the Gospel. We need to deny self, not set up the right thoughts and life metaphors to assure a wonderful destiny. In researching this article, I had to read Warren for long periods of time. This was difficult for me. I found his material disturbing. To cleanse my mind from Warren's continual assaults on my thinking I took breaks to read John MacArthur's Hard To Believe. MacArthur got my mind and heart back on the gospel and away from me (where Warren keeps wanting to put it). Let me do the same for my readers. Listen to MacArthur's version of what to do with "YOU": Jesus set the standard as total self-denial. In Luke 14:26, a great multitude was following Him and He turned and spoke to them: "If anyone comes to Me" - meaning those who wanted to be His true followers - "and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." Self-hate? What a powerful truth! . . . Following Jesus is not about you and me. Being a Christian is not about us; it's not about our self-esteem. It's about our being sick of our sin and our desperation for forgiveness (MacArthur: 10). MacArthur points us to the clear teachings of Jesus, not some questionable idea that a "life metaphor" determines our destiny. We need to die to self, not discover self. 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. Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.47   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism