So I took the time this morning to read and resond to his response. But I will say that I think Jared Wilson does a much better job at respond
3 Nagging Problems with Andy Stanley’s Approach to the Bible
My Response:
The world has changed.
The approach most of us inherited doesn’t work anymore. Actually, it’s never worked all that well. In a culture that had high regard for the Bible, the traditional approach held its own. Those days are over. They’ve been over for a long time. If you think I’m using culture as an excuse to maintain a flawed hermeneutical approach, consider this.
1 he never defines what the “traditional approach” is just dismisses it out of hand.
Given that he doesn’t define it I’m left in a bit of a quandry but I’m going to assume that he is talking about exegetical preaching of the word of God. But studies show the fastest growing churches are those that do just that and are conservative in their theology.
Theology Matters: Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy
The Hot ‘New’ Church Growth Method
Eight years ago I shifted my approach. I didn’t announce it. I just did it. The results have been remarkable. You may not like my approach. That’s fine. I just hope you don’t stick with an approach you inherited because it’s comfortable. As I tell leaders all the time, “Marry your mission; date your model.” Your preaching and teaching model is just that—a model.
It may be time to break up.
The mission as laid out in Scripture of a Pastor is to “Preach the Word.”
1I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:
2preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
3For the time is coming when people will not endure sound
a teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
4and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
5As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 2 Tim 2:1-5
There will always be people who won’t listen to sound teaching, but that doesn’t change a Pastors mission to Preach the Word.
Appealing to post-Christian people on the basis of the authority of Scripture has essentially the same effect as a Muslim imam appealing to you on the basis of the authority of the Quran. You may or may not already know what it says. But it doesn’t matter. The Quran doesn’t carry any weight with you. You don’t view the Quran as authoritative.
Oh this makes me see red. Equating the Bible with the Quarn. The Quran is a book written by a dead man. The Word of God is living and Active. It is the Word of God that brings Faith to people. The Word of God is sufficient, it doesn’t need help.
16All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
17that the man of God
b may be complete, equipped for every good work. 2 Tim 3:16-17
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Heb 4:12
14How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?
c And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
15And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?”
17So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:14-17
Jared Wilson over at the Gospel Coalitions says it so much better: "This is really important. Don’t miss what Stanley is unintentionally revealing here. He is saying that the Bible has the same effect on the lost as the Quran. There is zero room here for the actual reality of the Bible as God’s living Word. There is zero room here for the
supernatural reality that the Bible carries a weight with lost people they don’t often expect it to! But this inadvertent nod to materialism and pragmatism is certainly expected from those with a proven track record of treating the Bible like an instruction manual rather than as the record of the very breath of God. If we truly believed the Bible was the very word of God, inspired by the Spirit and still cutting through to the quick, dividing joint and marrow, we wouldn’t for a second save it for special occasions. And we certainly wouldn’t equate its potential effectiveness with the Quran’s."
3 Nagging Problems with Andy Stanley’s Approach to the Bible
the Bible says, the Bible teaches, God’s Word is clear or anything along those lines. If that’s the approach to preaching and teaching you grew up with and are most comfortable with, you’re no doubt having a good ol’ throw-down debate with me in your head about now—a debate I’m sure you’re winning. But before you chapter and verse me against the wall and put me in a sovereignty-of-God headlock, would you stop and ask yourself: Why does this bother me so much? Why does this bother me so much—really?
I’ll tell you why it bothers me: Because this is a blatant attack on Sola Scriptura. This is a blatant attack on the Power of the Gospel. This is a blatant attack on the Living and Active word. You are depriving a lost word of the Power of God’s word when you don’t use it. As I quoted above Faith comes by hearing the word of God.
To be continued
