Reformed. Christianity. Evangelism. Modern Culture.
There’s never a dull day when Rick Warren gets to tweet ‘pearls of wisdom’. He is the Evangelical pope isn’t he? He is of course America’s pastor and what he says will trend in the high ways and byways of evangelicalism. Ever since we exchanged our bibles for that good, well written and inspired church growth purpose driven manual of his we have never looked back.
Why do many people think that Jesus was the fulfilment of the old testament prophecy and expectations? They think He is the one that the Bible is all about! And I am very happy that Rick put these people back in their place with a very well timed ‘tweet’. And that settles it. Yippee!
If only I could walk with a wise man like Rick on the road to Emmaus and he would exegete Scripture. I would ask him to begin in the Old to the New Testament and explain to me what verses like these ones by (umm Jesus) mean:
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:27)
You search Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me (John 5:39)
Oops! Those verses will make him put his foot in his mouth! It seems after all Jesus did say that all scripture points to him. Well of course He was not the stone that David used to hit Goliath nor the hair that made Samson strong but the prophets (had faith in God) and all spoke, hoped and waited for a coming messiah. They all pointed to the cross. They pointed to Jesus…and Jesus pointed to himself.
Er, is that eisegesis? I think it’s probably time to re-think our tweet and probably say we were misquoted…again. 🙂
A Twisted Crown of Thorns ® 
I think this is an example of the eisegesis he is talking about.
Do you think he is denying the examples you state or perhaps other examples? I have heard a preacher who both you and I appreciate who said a similar thing that you cannot explicitly find the cross in every single verse of the bible which is perhaps what Rick meant also. The scriptures you cited do not support the opposite of this either.
1.) “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” (Luke 24:27)
This does not mean that ‘all the scriptures’ are explicitly about the cross of Christ.
2.) You search Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me (John 5:39)
No. 1 If this means that every Scripture testifies of Christ does this mean equivalently that every Scripture testifies explicitly about the cross.
No. 2 ‘You search the Scriptures’
does not equate to ‘every Scripture’ surely? As an analogy I am sure that as you can appreciate, as the Calvinist will often say to the Arminian you cannot say the world means every last person in the world, we cannot say without thinking about it that ‘the Scriptures’ means anything more than a general view of the scriptures pointing to Christ, not necessarily EVERY verse of the pentateuch.
And as a side note, do you think he really wanted people to substitute their bibles for his book? That was an unfair shot, unless you can provide evidence of his statements which show he wanted this.
Why should one who is in a supposedly sacred office of “pastor” always be uncertain in his wordings or quotations? Why should one always be unclear? It is imperative to be clear and not ride on the coat tails of controversy. I understand your commitment to defend some people regardless of how ridiculous their assertions but a decerning listener (or believer in this matter) ought to evaluate all things in light of scripture. It’s not the first tweet in which Rick has down graded the authority of scripture. The catalogue of his errors are well chronicled else where.
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