THE
PURPOSE
DRIVEN
CHURCH?
A Documentary on the
Teachings of Rick Warren
by James Sundquist
©2004 ROCK SALT PUBLISHING
PART I
Take a show of hands:
•For how many of you are your
churches presently in Purpose Driven
Campaign?
•How many have family members in
Purpose Driven Life?
The Purpose Driven Life by
Rick Warren has become a
Number 1 best-seller in both
Christian as well as secular
book stores
Has been distributed to over
180,000 pastors worldwide
30,000 churches around the
world have already conducted
the campaign
10,000 hosting it this Fall
Rick Warren and Jerry Falwell
(who affiliates both with the
Southern Baptist Convention
and the Bible Baptist Fellowship)
partnered for a
Purpose-Driven
“SuperConference”
in both 2003 and 2004
btw, for $99/person
Also promoted and/or endorsed by
James Dobson,
Focus on the Family
Hank Hanegraaff,
Christian Research Institute ~ Home of the Bible
Answer Man
Billy Graham and Franklin Graham
Bruce Wilkinson
(Prayer of Jabez)
Charles Colson
Sold 20 million copies as
of 2004
See Rick Warren’s own
website:
www.purposedriven.com
Chapter 1
•False Premise of 40 Days of Purpose
Comparing Warren’s 40-Day Examples to Scripture*
Chapter 2
Comparing Rick Warren’s Covenant to Scripture*
Chapter 3
•Inaccurate vs. Accurate Translations
Chapter 4
•False Teachings
Chapter 5
•Does Doctrine Really Matter?*
Chapter 6
•Promoting False Teachers
Chapter 7
•How to Worship
Chapter 8
•Celebrate Recovery Program
Chapter 9
•Regarding Prophecy*
* Indicates topics in book addressed in slide show
Chapter 10
•The SHAPE Program
Chapter 11
•Personality Profiling*
Chapter 12
•Judgment and Separation
Chapter 13
•Frequently Asked Questions by Pastors and Churches
Using Rick Warren’s Purpose Drive Life and SHAPE
Appendix A
•Psychology vs. The Bible Chart
Appendix B
•The Church Growth Movement and Purpose Driven
Church vs. The Bible
Appendix C
•Carl Jung, Neo-Gnosticism, and the
Myers-Briggs Temperament Indicator (MBTI)
Appendix D
•Rick Warren/Carl Jung Personality Theory Chart*
Appendix E
•Other Excellent Resources, Reviews, and Exposés
40 Days in Mythology
40 DAYS IN BUDDHISM:
He left home to follow the traditional Indian
path of the wandering holy man, a seeker after
Truth. He practiced meditation under various
teachers and then took to asceticism.
Eventually he practiced austerities so severe
that he was on the point of death - but true
understanding seemed as far away as ever. He
decided to abandon this path and to look into
his own heart and mind......
He sat down beneath the pipal tree and
vowed
that 'flesh may wither, blood may dry up,
but
I shall not rise from this spot
until Enlightenment has been won.'
After forty days, the Buddha finally
attained Enlightenment.
40 DAYS IN EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY :
The forty days of the death and absence of Osiris
is a period of fasting.
40 DAYS IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY:
• The god bade them expiate the death of
Icarus with many victims, and asked from
Jove that when Canicula rises he should
send wind for forty days to temper thee
heat of Canicula. This command
Arsitaeus carried out, and obtained from
Jove [Zeus] the favour that the Etesian
winds should blow.”
• –Hyginus Astronomica 2.4
40 DAYS OF MYTHOLOGY IN ISLAM:
Islam even has a account about 40 Days of Purpose
for Adam…Muhammad said:
“Allah caused Adam's clay to ferment. He left it lying
around for forty nights... Iblis [Satan] used to come to it
and kick it with his foot, whereupon it made sounds.
Then he said...'You are not something for making sounds.
What then were you created for? If I am given authority
over you, I shall ruin you.'” Tabari 1:261
Quoted from Greg Winn's Prophet of Doom, Cricketsong
Books, 2004. Page 17
40 DAYS IN PAGANISM:
The 40 Days of Weeping for Tammuz
Baal, Tammuz, Ashtoreth, Astarte and
Ishtar are all connected with pagan sun
worship.
Note that Lent is a moveable observance,
connected to and preceding the festival of
Easter.
Easter is celebrated on a day proclaimed
and initiated by the Roman Catholic
Church, and not the Bible, and is fixed
based on the sun and the Spring or Vernal
equinox.
Source: http://www.hope-ofisrael.org/lent.htm
So, though 40 days is found many times in the
Bible, never once is it mentioned as a time
period to be observed by Jews or Christians
for fasting and abstinence, let alone to
determine God's purpose for our life.
40 Days of Mythology
in
Purpose Driven Life
WHY YOU SHOULD REJECT
RICK WARREN'S PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE
AND CAMPAIGN
BEFORE YOU EVEN GET TO DAY ONE
OF HIS “40 DAYS OF PURPOSE”
Take a show of hands:
How many of you found God’s
purpose for your life in 40 days?
Rick Warren states:
“Whenever God wanted to prepare
someone for his purposes, he took forty
days.”
Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Life, Page 9
“Let God transform you into a new person by changing the
way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to
do.” —Romans 12:2 NLT
Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Life (Zondervan Publishing,
2003), pp. 9–10
Now let’s see what that verse really says:
“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind,
that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and
perfect, will of God.”
— Romans 12:2 (KJV)
Conformed to this world
Transformed—
continuous process
or
40 days?
(Sanctification)
BORN
BORN
AGAIN
(New Creation)
ETERNITY
GLORIFIED
Rick Warren's meaning of the term “WHENEVER” could be the
most glaring error in his entire book.
It collapses on two fronts. Biblically it is false, because Warren's
statement: "whenever God prepared someone for his purposes,
he took 40 days" would have to apply to Adam.
So did "whenever" apply to David? to Isaiah (or any prophet)?
To John the Baptist? to James? To the thief on the Cross? to
Paul?
How about the thousands of new Christians in the Book of Acts?
Talk about going beyond what is written and even getting it
wrong with all of the examples Warren does cite re 40
days. Since all Christians are subject to the same doctrine,
then, 40 days also would have to apply to you, to me, to every
Christian, to Luther, to Zwingi, Jan Hus, Richard
Wurmbrandt, Walter Martin, and the host of martyred and
persecuted Christians in the Sudan today.
And where is the documentation in his book for the 40 days of
preparation for all of the theologians Warren cites in his book
that God took to determine their purposes?
And where is the documentation of the 40 days in allegedly
took Rick Warren for God to determine his purpose?
When I was visiting my mother recently, I asked her “mom, did
God take 40 days to determine your purpose, and if so, when
were the 40 days?" Her answer: there were no 40 days. "Well,
how about dad?" "When were his 40 days?" Answer:
"NEVER!" And the answer is "NEVER" for most of the saints
in the Bible and rarely since the Bible.
Warren's principle of 40 Days to determine your purpose is based
on mythology NOT Scripture!
So Warren has already borne false witness against my
Christian parents and most of Christendom throughout the
ages.....and we are only at page 9 in his book.
Contemporary Example:
If you said to your wife "whenever I go to the store, I always
bring home milk." Now wouldn't a reasonable person conclude
that you always bring home milk when you go to the store?
Wouldn't a reasonable person conclude that there was NEVER a
time that you did not bring home milk when you went to the
store?
Now suppose out of thousands of times you went to the store and
brought home milk every time, but just once, you came home
without milk. .....
Would it not be a big surprise then, if your wife asked you
"where's the milk, honey?"
So, now let's apply Warren's axiom:
There can never be a person (Christian) when God did not take 40
days to determine his purpose! RIGHT? Because remember, you
or I might forget, but God would NEVER forget.
So with the Lord, "whenever" must mean "always"...just as it
meant when the Lord said he would be with us always...even unto
the ends of the earth.
So it has to mean there is never an exemption or a day the Lord
takes off from this promise. .....
So, just like the Lord always must be with us, then,
according to Warren, he must always take 40 days to determine
our purpose...there can be no exemptions or exceptions.
But is this true?
Of course it is not true!
So Warren's premise disintegrates and is simply false and
fraudulent and the Lord considers bearing false witness against a
brother an abomination and one of the things He hates the
most....that is unless it is Rick Warren doing it!
Rick Warren then compounds his error with
another axiom of supposed absolute truth when
he says:
“The next forty days will transform your life”
on the very next page (page 10 of his book).
Let’s Now look at
Rick Warren’s
claims of
Biblical proofs of 40
Days:
“Noah’s Life was transformed by
40 days of rain” (p. 10)
Is this true?
No!
Noah was not transformed..he had
already been transformed and had
been preaching for 120 years…the
40 days marked judgment for all of
the people on the earth OUTSIDE
of the Ark…
who drowned!
See Genesis 6-9
“Moses was transformed by 40
Days on Mount Sinai”
(p. 10)
Is this true?
NO!
Moses was given his purpose at
the burning bush BEFORE these
40 Days on Mt. Sinai
See Exodus
Chapters 3, 21-25
“The spies were transformed by
40 Days in the Promised Land”
(p. 10)
Is this true?
No!
10 Spies were not changed
2 were already faithful
but NONE were transformed
See Numbers 13:30-33
“David was transformed by
Goliath’s 40 Day challenge”
(p. 10)
Is this true?
NO!
David was already a man after
God’s own heart…and didn’t
even show up to until the END of
Goliath's 40 day challenge
See I Samuel Chapter 17
“Elijah was transformed when
God gave him 40 days of
strength from a single meal”
(p. 10)
Is this true?
NO!
It was 2 meals to simply
strengthen him…and Elijah had
already been given his
purpose….no transformation
here!
See I Kings Chapter 19
“The entire city of Nineveh was
transformed when God gave the
people forty days to change.”
(p. 10)
Is this true?
Only partly true.
The 40 days were given as a
deadline to judgment…but they
repented long before then..no
process of transformation here!
See Book of Jonah
“Jesus was empowered by 40
days in the wilderness.”
(p. 10)
Is this true?
NO!
This is completely wrong!
Jesus was tempted during the 40
days not
empowered…furthermore He
was already all powerful and his
purpose was already known by
Himself
before the
foundation
of
the
world
SEE Matthew Chapter 4
Mark Chapter 1
Luke Chapter 4
“The disciples were transformed
by 40 days with Jesus after his
resurrection.”
(Rick Warren, PDL, p. 10)
IS THIS RIGHT?
NO!
The Disciples were already not
conformed to this world and
already had their purpose…if
anything they were transformed
at Pentecost…that’s 50 days, not
40 days!
See Acts 1:3
Comparing
Rick Warren’s Covenant
to
Scripture
…. Rick Warren states:
“With God’s help, I commit
the next 40 days of my life to
discovering God’s purpose
for my life.”
Purpose Driven Life., p. 13.
Is this obedience to Scripture?
NO!
I appeal to you to consider Jesus
Christ’s own words:
“Again, ye have heard that it hath been
said by them of old time, Thou shalt not
forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto
the Lord thine oaths:
But I say unto you, Swear not at all;
neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne:
Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool:
neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of
the great King. Neither shalt thou swear
by thy head, because thou canst not
make one hair white or black. But let your
communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for
whatsoever is more than these cometh of
evil.” —Matthew 5:33–37
And let us see if the Apostle James
confirms this very warning:
“But above all things, my
brethren, swear not, neither by
heaven, neither by the earth,
neither by any other oath: but let
your yea be yea; and your nay,
nay; lest ye fall into
condemnation.”
— James 5:12
THE END
OF
PART I