Purpose Driven Life

[kayre]

Summary: “Spiritual growth is the process of replacing lies with truth.” This truth can be found in the Bible, God’s word. To grow, one must accept its authority; assimilate its truth; apply its principles.

My thoughts: Well, I have big problems with that definition of spiritual growth, as most of you readers can guess. Then Warren goes on to quote lots of stuff about “the Word” from the New Testament, blithely ignoring the depth of meaning encompassed in those quotes. In the NT, the Word (Logos) as often as not refers, not to Scripture, but to Jesus. This is just lousy scholarship, as well as misleading use of the Bible.

Warren comments that “many of our troubles occur because we base our choices on unreliable authorities: culture, tradition, reason, or emotion” and cites the Bible as the ONLY authority. As a Methodist-- reason, personal experience and the traditions of the Church ARE considered valid parts of any decision-making process, along with Scripture. I find “what does the Bible say” an even more frightening life principle than “what would Jesus do”-- and I wasn’t all that impressed with that fad, either. (For the record-- while I do believe the Bible is a revelation of God, I don’t believe it’s the only one. My spiritual growth owes as much to the years I spent exploring other religions as it does to Christianity; I came back to Christianity not because I think it’s the One True Way, but because it’s where I can most effectively use my gifts to help others.)

It’s interesting that Warren suggests not just reading the Bible, but researching it, questioning it. The format of his book seems to discourage actually looking up the texts to which he refers; they’re buried in end notes at the back of the book. Of course, considering the way he plays fast and loose with Scripture, that’s probably a good move on his part. He may want people to question the Bible, but I suspect he doesn’t want folk to question HIM.