Warren vs Piper- how to study the Bible

On the flight to CA, my time was completely capitalized by the videos and articles from John Piper's conference where he invited Rick Warren to his national conference. This invite is a big deal because their ministerial philosophies are completely opposite. Rick Warren is the author of The Purpose Driven Life, which caused quite an uproar among true bible teaching ministers like Piper, MacArthur, RC Sproul etc because of its seemingly temporal and shallow message. The video of Warren's message is HERE. The video of the analysis of the message by the panel is HERE. In that video, Piper gives his analysis of Warrens "philosophy" of ministry.

Rick Warren

John Piper

VS.

So, what is this distinct "Warren philosophy?" Here it is in a nutshell.

Piper believes that when a pastor teaches the bible in all its depth and truth that the Word will produce a Christian that becomes strong from the feeding on the Truth from the Word. The fruits of his life the come from the nourishment of the Word, not from an application-that-changes-your-life once a week. Rick Warren on the other hand believes that to lead a congregation to "being" a Christian begins when you teach them HOW to be a Christian per each application. This process is tedious because it requires the PERSON to do the application of the word and change himself accordingly- each week. SO, Rick advocates that pastors teach LESS and apply more so that that change once a week can be good solid growth leading to another fruit. This is very ANTI Piper as you can see, and honestly is, in my opinion, not what the Word tells us to do. I believe that Piper, MacArthur etc are correct in their teaching the Word in all its depth, and allowing the Spirit to apply it as the individual grows. later in life that person is still growing in the Lord as he continues to learn about God, getting stronger and stronger spiritually, becoming sanctified, while the other Warren-ite is still once a week, learning another application-that-changes-your-life.

That is the scoop, I encourage you to watch the Warren message and discern his philosophy from it. Overall, he has a good message, but his philosophy is there, just subdued (probably because he is at JOHN PIPER's conference). The more material we know the more discerning we can be about our own lives and how we are applying the Word for our growth. Are we applying every passage to one certain activity in our lives, or are we simply basking in the majesty of God in His Word, learning about Him, growing stronger in the faith and allowing the Spirit to apply in due time the truth to our lives? Rick's approach- on steroids- would point away from theological studies like ours as a waste of time because we can't APPLY it, which is the chief goal in his philosophy. In my, hopefully our, philosophy, Theology is the key to learning about God so that we can be more and more familiar with His character, so that specific application is secondary and a result, not a goal.

How are YOU studying scripture?

Blogging for His glory, Adam Setser