Warren's influence has even been recognized by the mainstream media, primarily because of The Purpose Driven Life. See Nathan Busenitz, "A Sense of Purpose: Evaluating the Claims of The Purpose Driven Life" [ on-line];. The two series discovered through a book in the Bible are in the book of James (fifteen messages) and Ecclesiastes (eight messages).
The purpose-driven church provides a further example of the authority Warren believes the Bible has in the life and work of the church. Belief in the inspiration and power of the Bible is not a peripheral issue for Warren. Warren's constant call for the application of the Bible is directly related to his belief in the purpose of the Bible.
In his "Purpose Driven Preaching Conference" he states, based on this text, "The purpose of the Bible is to change lives. This point of the purpose of the Bible to change lives comes out in many of Warren's writings. 76 This focus on the purpose of the Bible and its relation to the task of interpretation is what inspired this writer to label Warren's hermeneutic "purpose-driven."
For him, interpretation and application cannot be separated because of the purpose of the Bible.
How envy ruins relationships
An example of this type of sermon series was the 1991 series, "Building Great Relationships." The ten messages in the series are devoted to examining Paul's teaching on love in 1 Corinthians 13. The first sermon in the series, "Life's Greatest Purpose," provides a verse-by-verse exposition of the entire chapter . An example of how Warren uses other Scriptures to interpret Scripture is the exposition of his message.
34;It is better to be content with what you have than to always want something else." Sermon. This sermon is an example of how Warren uses many different biblical texts to clarify one main text. An example of this type of series would be "The Road to Recovery" series, where Warren's final message is focused on showing how the eight Beatitudes, in Matthew 5:3-10, were the basis for the entire eight-part series.
As I've studied this series, I've been struck by the striking similarities between the steps to recovery and the Beatitudes. In fact, when you look at them, you find that the Beatitudes that Jesus gave 2,000 years ago are simply a summary of the steps to recovery, and as we close this series, I want you to see what the biblical basis has been for all that I have divided into the last 8 weeks.42. This series is also a staple in the Celebrate Recovery Program developed by John Baker and Rick Warren.
Although this author did not acquire this series due to budget constraints, sample paragraphs from the series available online have shown that this one is also based on Blagr. It's not unusual for Warren to use the last message to "draw a grid." Both discussions this author had a few years ago with a. In a series titled “Developing Faith That Works,” Warren preached through the book of James in 1986.48 A few years later, in 1992, Warren preached through Ecclesiastes in a series titled “Answering Life's Toughest Questions.49 It is worth notes that the series through Ecclesiastes was preached about thirteen years before the writing of this current study and that Warren has not preached through the Bible book in weekend services since then.50.
These types of senons use one central passage to guide the main points of the senon. An example of this phenomenon would be the first senon in "Building Great Relationships" mentioned above. An example of a Bible-by-Bible message is the seventh of eight messages in the series.
BE CONSCIOUS OF GOD'S DEPENDABILITY God promises us four things if we obey Him
A total of twenty-two of the eighty-two messages obtained for this study fall under the category of Scripture for Scripture. If the sample being used is a representative sample of Warren's sermons, then he preaches verse by verse through one main text about 27 percent of the time during weekend services at Saddleback. This percentage does not include series that focus on a single text of Scripture, as in the Bible Explains the Bible category, except when one of the sermons deals with a passage as a whole, such as the first in the series from 1 Corinthians 13.
An exception to this rule is any series through a book of the Bible, such as James and. Both the Reaching Through Faith series and the What God Can Do Through You series are full of verse-by-verse, or Scripture-by-Scripture, sermons. The last part of the two series consists only of this type of sermon.
52 More recent series such as Essentials for 21 st Century Living and The Purpose Driven Life only have a total of one sermon, out of seventeen, that is verse-by-verse. Three of the ten sermons, or thirty percent, are verse-by-verse and the rest are verse-by-verse, referred to as Scripture and Scripture for this study.53. The predominant approach to sermon development that Warren advocates in both his Purpose Driven Preaching Conference and The Purpose Driven Church is the verse-by-verse method.
If one includes the sermons where he uses a word as the guiding theme for a message, such as in the Fruit of the Spirit series called Nine Secrets of Healthy Relationships, and you include the messages based on ' a phrase or short verse, such as like in Stressbusters and The Road to Recovery, then Warren preaches verse-by-verse about 70 percent of the time. This series is the only series, outside of the rare book series like James, that this author of Warren has found that consists entirely of verse-by-verse sermons. According to pastors.com, the most purchased sermon series is the 1999 series called Essentials for 21 st Century Living.55 The first message, The Five Essentials of Life, is listed as the second most purchased of all Warren's sermons.
34;Whoever hears my words and obeys them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." Matt. 34;God gives us many kinds of special abilities, but it is the same Holy Spirit which is the source of all. There are different kinds of service to God, but it is the same God that we are serving." 1 Cor.
I Need a Purpose to Live for
An example of the character principle point is the sermon, "How to Prepare for a Miracle" in the Building a Great Life series. 101-401 will be incorporated because they share content and are part of the Purposeful Church strategy. Although dwarfed by the sales of The Purpose Driven Life, The Purpose Driven Church has sold over one million copies in twenty languages.
I searched the Word of God for answers to these questions."9 The Bible is Warren's authority in the life of the church. The fifth chapter of The Purpose Driven Church gives an example of Warren's hermeneutic at work. Warren uses the second greatest commandment as a concise reference to the fifth purpose of the church, ministry.
As with many of his sermons and other writings, Warren applies wisdom from the book of Proverbs throughout the Purpose Driven Church. The analysis of the Purpose Driven Life will be carried over to the next chapter, which deals with Warren's use of translation. One of the trends that emerges in The Purpose Driven Life is that Warren will sometimes not offer a clarifying interpretation when the Scripture used clearly calls for an honest application to his listeners.
An additional observation from The Power to Change Your Life is that Warren makes extensive use of the book of Proverbs. All of the major points Warren makes are derived from the biblical text he uses. Warren uses about eighteen different versions of the Bible in his preaching, teaching and writing.
Another place where Warren talks about translation is in Appendix 3 of The Purpose Driven Life. In the case of The Purpose Driven Life, the reference to it being "easy devotional reading" seems to contradict the fact that Warren cites. 2° The endnotes reveal that there are 657 passages quoted by means of a translation in the text of the forty chapters.
AMP seeks to give the full meaning of the original languages by including synonyms and definitions in parentheses in the text. 44 These translations, as Warren uses them, aim to give a modest interpretation of the text. Third, literal translations are used only 6.5 percent of the time, meaning that 93 percent of the citations in the Purpose Driven Church are from dynamic equivalent translations or paraphrases.
This author counted one reference, assuming that it and the version reference appear somewhere in the body of the book.
