Rick Warrens Purpose Drive Life

Rick Warrens Purpose Drive Life
By David Cox

The importance of this work is that Warren defines his overall ministry philosophy and outlook in this work, and it is from here that we understand what Warren is. Note that supposedly, this drastic change in his ministry outlook came about from a kind of epiphany where he came to the conclusion that “church” as it is traditionally “done” has failed, and he is remaking “doing church.” Warren takes the approach that he wants to find out what unsaved men and women are looking for in “church”, and make his church that thing. The question is, why would the unsaved have anything important on “how to do church” in the first place?

Judging others

On page 164, Warren says, “God warns us over and over not to criticize, compare, or judge each other. … Whenever I judge another believer, four things instantly happen: I lose fellowship with God, I expose my own pride, I set myself to be judged by God, and I harm the fellowship of the church.”

While Warren condemns all judging, God condemns certain kinds of judging while commanding other types. The Neo-evangelical and the ecumenist (and other false prophets out there) do not want anybody to judge them, so they condemn it as unbiblical.

But sound judging is an absolute necessity for every Christian. That is the ability to discern whether something is a sin (you should stay away from it) or it is just and you should seek and engage in the same behavior. As humans we are extremely impressionable. What we see others do affects us. Seeing others in videos, on TV, in movies, etc. Even reading about other people that do some behavior in a book affects our souls, and sometimes we imitate them. Other times we do not. We may not because we don’t have opportunity, or because we judge the thing to be inconvenient or sinful, or just doubtful.

Rick Warren’s approach is to arrest all “judging” of others, and take a toll to see what is most popular and follow that poll results. Since when has this been a biblical approach? Never.

Living by Purpose

Warren’s “purpose driven life” is also deceptive. Who sets the purpose in your life? What you think or what God demands? There is the rub. If you see no purpose in singing hymns, then you stop doing it or do it half heartedly. Yet if God sees His purpose in it, then we should do it. It is helpful to understand God’s purpose in our lives, but that is not an absolute necessity. If you just obey, over time you will probably come to understand the why behind what God commands.