John Piper interviews Rick Warren

[GoldenEagle]

The claim has been made that Rick Warren is part of the Emergent Church. The claim has been made the Rick Warren is a false teacher. John Piper interviews Rick Warren and discusses the Purpose Driven Life.  I'll post the individual topics for discussion. Here is the whole interview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTCj8PG0FPc

Keep in mind that John Piper is reformed. As a Baptist Rick Warren is a mixture of Calvanism and Arminianism.

From someone who knows Rick Warren personally and has worked closely with him for nearly 3 decades (my father) "I know Rick and he would not be on the same page as Mark Driscall the guru of the Emergent Church."


The full transcript of the interview can be found here.

God bless,

GE

[GoldenEagle]

On Islam and Jesus... Starting around 11:00

 

 

Rick Warren: Now I believe, “In Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” I believe that

we are in Christ, we are hid with Christ in God and we are sealed with the Holy Spirit so,

in essence, for Satan to get at me, he’s got to go through the Trinity.

 

So I, 100 percent, agree with you that we have to be even more Christocentric because of

the influence of Islam today. You know, I frequently speak to Muslim groups. Now what

do you expect a guy who’s got the gift of evangelism? I spend most of my time speaking

to people who totally disagree with me. I speak to gays. I speak to atheists. I speak to

secularists. I speak to Muslims because I’m trying to build a bridge between my heart and

theirs so Jesus can walk across and they’ll come to know Christ.
 

I think Muslims in many ways are often like the “Corneliuses” of scripture who have a

heart for God. They want to do the right thing, but a lot times—have you heard of Jesus?

Have you heard of Jesus? And when people say, “Well, we worship the same God.” I say,

“Well, hold on just a minute. My God looks like Jesus.”
 

Okay. So if your God doesn’t look like Jesus, we don’t worship the same God. Sorry.

 

 

[GoldenEagle]

Rick Warren on Scripture...

 

John Piper asks Rick Warren about his beliefs concerning the Bible, its inerrancy, its infallibility, and its sufficiency. Rick affirms his unquestioning faith that every word of Scripture is God-breathed and without any mixture of error.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYcAPHSJ88w

Transcript...

 

[PIPER]: Rick, underneath everything we’ve been talking about as we draw towards the end is the

Bible.

 

[WARREN]: Amen.

 

[PIPER]: And here are some quotes from The Purpose Driven Life.

 

Page 90, “You can’t love God unless you know him and you can’t know him without

knowing his Word. The Bible says God revealed himself to Samuel through his word.” I

love that—1 Samuel 3:21.

 

[WARREN]: Isn’t that a great passage?

 

[PIPER]: It’s just informative of the way I think about knowing God. God still uses that method

today.

 

Page 101, “Worship must be based on the truth of the scripture.”

 

Page 186, “To be a healthy disciple of Jesus, feeding on God’s Word must be your first

priority.”

 

Page 188, “We can’t watch television for three hours and then read the Bible for three

minutes and expect to grow.”

 

Page 215, “If you don’t have any Bible verses memorized, you’ve got no bullets in your

gun.”

 

[WARREN]: Yeah.

 

[PIPER]: How do you describe your understanding of its authority and truthfulness? What words

do you like to us?

 

[WARREN]: Well, first place, it’s inerrant. I believe the scripture is without error in its original

autographs, as I Tweeted the other day. I don’t believe my interpretation’s inerrant. I

don’t believe anybody else’s interpretation is inerrant, but I do believe the scripture is

inerrant. I believe in the plenary, verbal plenary inspiration of scripture, without a doubt.

I come from classic Baptist background, which holds a high view of scripture.

 

But more than that, I have tried for 32 years to teach people to be self-feeders, not just

simply to listen to the Word of God; I don’t think that’s enough. I think many times

pastors are feeding them good word, but they’re not teaching them to be self-feeders.

It’s interesting, the very first book I wrote, I wrote in college 35 years ago, and it was a

book on 12 Bible Study Methods, on how to study scripture. One of the verses that

dominates Saddleback for 31 years is Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of

knowledge.” However, knowledge is not enough.
 

And I think I’ve shared with you before, I actually believe that there are levels of

scripture—I mean, levels of understanding the scripture. That we start with knowledge,

which is knowing the what of scripture, but then we must move to perspective, which is

knowing the why, okay.
 

The Bible says about Moses, it says in Psalms, “The people of Israel knew the acts of

God, but Moses knew the ways of God.” I differentiate between knowledge and

perspective. Knowledge is knowing the content of scripture, who is Jacob, what is the

doctrine of hell, heaven, and everything else. That’s the knowing the what.
 

Most people don’t know that Saddleback has a 72-week systematic theology course that

is required for every small group member and every staff member. And I’ve had over

15,000 people go through this 72-week systematic study. I would take doctrinal

knowledge of any 500 Saddleback members and compare it to any 500 members of any

other church and we’d beat them.
 

[PIPER]: I’ve heard you say that.
 

[WARREN]:  I have no fear on that. We’re probably one of the few churches in America that

memorizes the Bible verse every week. This week it was Lamentations 3:24.

So teaching hearing, reading, studying, memorizing and meditating. But then the

fundamental thing that we do at this church is, be doers of the Word, not hearers only.

I had a guy ask me one time, he said, “What’s the best translation?” He goes, “Do I need

a Living Bible? And I said, You ought to be a Living Bible.” I said, “You are either a

Bible or a liable.”

And so the scripture is the only authority for our lives. It’s not scripture plus anything

else. And it is—it is our guidebook for all rule and practice.
 

[PIPER]: One of the differences between—I think between you and me, although, I don’t listen to

you every Sunday and you don’t listen to me every Sunday, is that in my expositional

approach, I tend to have a passion for wanting people to see how I got what I got. I don’t

get that you are driven by that same passion.
 

[WARREN]: Not on the Sunday morning services. On mid-week that we did for many years—and of

course now. What most people don’t know is that we have more people in Bible study

than we have on the weekends. I told you this, we’ve 32,000 people in our small groups

studying scripture and we often do book-by-book studies, but 22,000 on the weekend.
 

What I’m interested in, when somebody comes on Sunday morning—see, I believe

worship can be a witness. I don’t think you have to water it down, but I do think you have

to be clear. And I see Sunday morning sometimes like an emergency room. Somebody’s

coming in and he’s bleeding to death. His wife has left him, his kids are on drugs, he’s

lost his thing.
 

And I’m going, okay. I got to first get the Word to him that relates to him at that point

and then he goes, “Wow, that helped. What else do you got in that book.”
 

[PIPER]: Okay.

 

[WARREN]: But let me just say this, I do think that God doesn’t care how you deal with the text as

long as you get to the text. And I think it is a misnomer to say exposition is only book-by book.

I think there is verse-by-verse and verse-with-verse.

 

There are some things, like if you are going to teach on abortion, you can’t just take one

text. You have to take multiple texts, but you have to expose the text while you are there.

 

[PIPER]: Totally, totally agree with that.

[GoldenEagle]

Rick Warren on Hell...

 

John Piper asks Rick Warren straightforward questions about the nature of hell. Rick responds affirming a biblical view of hell as a literal place, but points out that the ultimate punishment is eternal separation from God.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC6NbYQVhwA

Transcript...
 

[PIPER]: You’ve touched on hell already. Let me read what you said and then just get you to say

yes to it or whatever more you want to say.
 

[WARREN]: Sure.

 

[PIPER]: Page 27, “While life on earth offers many choices, eternity offers only two, heaven or

hell.”

[WARREN]: I like that. I should write that down. That’s good.
 

[PIPER]: Yeah, you should. It’s well said. You say a lot of things well.

“If you love and trust God’s son Jesus, you will be invited to spend the rest of eternity

with him. On the other hand, if you reject his love, forgiveness, and salvation, you will

spend eternity apart from God.”

 

Page 112, “Why did God allow Jesus to endure ghastly mistreatment? So you could be

spared from eternity in hell and so share glory forever.”

 

Page 232, “The Bible warns unbelievers, he will pure out his anger and wrath on those

who live for themselves,” and you put Romans 2:8.

 

And one more, page 284, “We must remember that no matter how contented or

successful people appear to be, without Christ they are hopelessly lost and headed for

eternal separation from God.”

 

So it just seems clear to me that this is a terrible thing you really do believe in because

the Bible teaches it. And I would just ask, what’s—in your mind, what’s the nature of it?

And hear—I just want people who are hearing this to know that this is one of the hardest

and most painful things. We shouldn’t fight without crying, you know. I mean, there are

people who are going to deny hell they are doing that as we speak.

 

But there is so much light-weight criticism of the argument. I just read it again yesterday

in some newspaper that we’re all over Trevin Wax because of his particular comment and

I thought.

 

So anyway, the atmosphere of this moment in this conversation—

 

[WARREN]: Well, that is a stumbling block, there’s no doubt about it.

 

[PIPER]: Yes. What is it? What is hell?

 

[WARREN]: Well, I believe that literal hell. Jesus believed in a literal hell. Jesus talked about flames

of fire. I believe in that. But to me, hell is eternal separation from God. It’s ultimate

loneliness.

 

This myth that people are going to see each other in hell. That they’re going to party in

hell, that’s just—it is unloving to not tell the people the truth when you know it’s there.

And so we cannot wage on this. And I can say with a clear conscience that in all of the

public interviews, every time I’ve been asked about hell, I shoot straight on it. Yes, it’s

real. Yes, Jesus talked about it. People will go there.

 

I was speaking at Aspen Institute one time, which is the brainiacs of the world. And a

woman gets up and she says to me, “I’m Jewish. I’m not going to accept Jesus as my

savior. Am I going to hell?”

 

Now everything in my human nature wants to back pedal and make it safe and make it

comfortable and say the politically correct thing, but I can’t do that because I fear God’s

disapproval more than I fear hers. And I also love her enough to tell her the truth. Now—

 

[PIPER]: So what did you say?

 

[WARREN]: Well, I’ll tell you, the way I said it is a way that takes it off of me because it tends—we

often, when people bring up—and I would say this to pastors. Don’t make this your

opinion versus their opinion. Lay it off on Jesus every time.

 

And so I said this, this is what I said to her, “Everybody’s betting their life on

something,” okay. Atheists are betting there is no God. Buddhists are betting on Buddha.

I’m betting my life that Jesus Christ was not a liar, that Jesus Christ was telling the truth.

Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father, but by me.” Now I didn’t say that, he said it. “I

am the way”—not a good way, not the best way, not one of the ways, not a nice way—“I

am the way, the truth and the life.” No one comes—I’m betting my life that he was

telling the truth.

 

Now see what I did? I took it off of me and making me the authority and, well, that’s

your word against mine. I said, wait a minute. I’m just saying I’m putting my trust that

Jesus, who split history into AD and BC, is not a liar.

 

[PIPER]: Yeah, that’s good. Is it conscious to torment their conscience?

 

[WARREN]: Oh, I believe it is and I believe it’s eternal.

 

[PIPER]: Can anybody get out—

 

[WARREN]: No.

 

[PIPER]: —once they are there?

 

[WARREN]: No. Of course not. No.

 

[PIPER]: So you are not a Universalist?

 

[WARREN]: Absolutely not a Universalist and I don’t believe in purgatory, which, obviously, isn’t in

scripture. No. This is—the option is not—which is what motivates me to evangelism.

 

People need to understand why do I go spend time with people I don’t agree with? Why

do I hang out with gays? Why do I hang out with atheists? Why do I hang out with

crooked politicians or, as Jesus would, with prostitutes and tax collectors?

 

I’m an evangelist, okay, and I am motivated by the fact that in the next 365 days, 136,000

Californians will die and most of them will go into an eternity without Christ. In the next

365 days, 2.4 million Americans will die; most of them will go into eternity without

Christ. In the next 365 days, 74 million people in the world will go into eternity without

Christ and without hope. I can’t live with that. I can’t—my—love compels us to care

about that.

[GoldenEagle]

Rick Warren on Salvation and holiness.
 

John Piper asks Rick Warren about the role of holiness to the Christian life. Rick affirms the biblical viewpoint that while salvation is a matter of simply asking in faith to be saved, the Scriptures also declare that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord."
 

[media=]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ho-QxG8qeI

 

[PIPER]: Implications for the world—we’re almost done.

 

[WARREN]: Okay.

 

[PIPER]: Implications for the world of your strong view on holiness, which I like.

 

Page 214, “You won’t be able to say no to the devil unless you have said yes to Christ.”

 

Now you love the world and you speak to the world as much as you speak to believers.

 

Does that imply the world, that is the nonbeliever, is always doing the bidding of the

devil?

 

[WARREN]: Of course they are. What I believe is my righteousness is as filthy rags. My goodness is

not good enough. In fact, I preached on this on Easter and I talked about—I said, you

know, here in Southern California, everybody thinks they’ve got the good life. And the

good life means looking good, feeling good, and having the goods. I said, “There is one
problem with the good life, it’s not good enough. It’s not good enough. My righteousness

are as filthy rags.”

 

And you know, yeah, if you want to judge yourself by Hitler, sure, you’re better than

Hitler. In fact, if you want to judge yourself by me, sure, you’re probably better than me.

 

But we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God, which is a perfect standard. And the issue

is not are you better than someone. I have no doubt you are probably better than me. But

it’s like we’re all swimming to Hawaii and some people swim a mile and five, but

nobody’s going to make it to Hawaii. So it isn’t going it happen.

 

[Fez]

 "I know Rick and he would not be on the same page as Mark Driscall the guru of the Emergent Church."

 

 

Mark Driscoll founded The Resurgence, a theological cooperative that works with the Acts 29 Network of churches. He also works closely with the Desiring God Ministry of John Piper.

 

Piper was interviewing Rick?

[GoldenEagle]

 

 "I know Rick and he would not be on the same page as Mark Driscall the guru of the Emergent Church."

 

 

Mark Driscoll founded The Resurgence, a theological cooperative that works with the Acts 29 Network of churches. He also works closely with the Desiring God Ministry of John Piper.

 

Piper was interviewing Rick?

 

 

Yes John Piper was interviewing Rick Warren. So are you saying allegedly Piper is part of the Emergent Church too? Right... <sigh>

 

Matt Chandler is part of the Acts 29 movement I believe. Chandler's messages are very grace-filled and Christo-centric.

My brother in law was saved through an Acts 29 church this year. Sorry I don't believe Acts 29 Network is part of the Emergent Church movement either.

[Fez]

 

 

 "I know Rick and he would not be on the same page as Mark Driscall the guru of the Emergent Church."

 

 

Mark Driscoll founded The Resurgence, a theological cooperative that works with the Acts 29 Network of churches. He also works closely with the Desiring God Ministry of John Piper.

 

Piper was interviewing Rick?

 

 

Yes John Piper was interviewing Rick Warren. So are you saying allegedly Piper is part of the Emergent Church too? Right... <sigh>

 

Matt Chandler is part of the Acts 29 movement I believe. Chandler's messages are very grace-filled and Christo-centric.

My brother in law was saved through an Acts 29 church this year. Sorry I don't believe Acts 29 Network is part of the Emergent Church movement either.

 

Mark Driscoll founded The Resurgence, a theological cooperative that works with the Acts 29 Network of churches. He also works closely with the Desiring God Ministry of John Piper.

 

 Jon, brother, take the people out of the equation. It has never been about the people with me, it has always been about the church.

 

You call Driscoll, who works with the Acts 29 network and with Piper, the "guru" of the emergent church. What does that, in your eyes say about the Acts churches, ot piper for that matter?

 

See what I mean? Take the people out of the equation. it is the first thing we are taught, don't follow the man. he will disappoint.

[GoldenEagle]

 

 

 

 "I know Rick and he would not be on the same page as Mark Driscall the guru of the Emergent Church."

 

 

Mark Driscoll founded The Resurgence, a theological cooperative that works with the Acts 29 Network of churches. He also works closely with the Desiring God Ministry of John Piper.

 

Piper was interviewing Rick?

 

 

Yes John Piper was interviewing Rick Warren. So are you saying allegedly Piper is part of the Emergent Church too? Right... <sigh>

 

Matt Chandler is part of the Acts 29 movement I believe. Chandler's messages are very grace-filled and Christo-centric.

My brother in law was saved through an Acts 29 church this year. Sorry I don't believe Acts 29 Network is part of the Emergent Church movement either.

 

Mark Driscoll founded The Resurgence, a theological cooperative that works with the Acts 29 Network of churches. He also works closely with the Desiring God Ministry of John Piper.

 

 Jon, brother, take the people out of the equation. It has never been about the people with me, it has always been about the church.

 

You call Driscoll, who works with the Acts 29 network and with Piper, the "guru" of the emergent church. What does that, in your eyes say about the Acts churches, ot piper for that matter?

 

See what I mean? Take the people out of the equation. it is the first thing we are taught, don't follow the man. he will disappoint.

 

 

I agree it's about the church and more importantly about God's glory through the Gospel. Actually my father called Driscoll the guru of the emergent church. I don't think the term was meant to be a compliment. I'd have to double check though. My father is not fond of Driscoll.

I agree people will dissapoint. I just get tired of the criticism of Christian leaders.

[Guest man]

I just get tired of the criticism of Christian leaders.

 

 

If the fruit is rotten, can they really considered a part of the vine?

 

 

I think people today put too much trust in people.