Jun 11
7
If you have an extra hour and a half I would highly recommend that that you watch John Piper’s interview with Rick Warren concerning his doctrine. It’s an interesting interview and I think it will help to shed some light on differences that led us to start a new church rather than continue at BFC.
John Piper’s ministry has been influential in my life; I appreciate his depth and his willingness to explain the scriptures thoroughly. Rick Warren, as you probably know, is leading the way in the “seeker friendly” church movement. Both men are great pastors and have been used by God mightily, but their approach to preaching and ministry are very different. I don’t know if it needs to be said, but my approach would line up more closely with Piper’s (or at least I hope it does/will).
It’s interesting that both of these men claim to adhere to basically the same doctrine. I was, in all honesty, surprised to hear Warren say that he agrees with Piper on the sovereignty of God, total depravity, unconditional election, and even to some extent, limited atonement. Listening to this interview confirmed my suspicion that oftentimes our differences are not so much theological as much as they have to do with our methodology or our understanding of the role of preaching in the life of the church.
I hope this is helpful!
Joe
Please click HERE to watch the interview.
SOOOO true! Unity is more important than methodology. Great to see this and add further clarity to what situations that to some were not so obvious. Thanks for the great insight.
I thought it was interesting that Warren learned that his own beliefs on limited atonement are very similar to Pipers after he heard exactly what Piper believes from Piper himself instead of hearsay, rumors, or the Internet. It’s a good reminder to us all to go the extra mile and discover truth from the actual source.
I too was surprised at Warren’s stance on doctrine but I wish Piper would have asked him to clarify his analogy he used in his “Christianity Today” artilce from Dec 2007. Warren made an analogy using a scale from 0 to 100, He said people end up at different places on the scale and Jesus came to make up the difference (sounds like heresy to me). He almost made the same analogy in the Piper interview when he was talking about the swim to Catalina. We should all take Piper’s advice to Warren and strive to go deeper with God and encourage others to do the same.