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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
0:43
I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
0:45
All right guys, in this episode,
0:46
we're gonna be going into the controversy
0:48
that is currently surrounding
0:50
mega church pastor Andy Stanley.
0:51
So this is stemming from really one line
0:54
in his sermon entitled Not Difficult.
0:56
This was the sermon that he recorded
0:58
or that he presented probably about three weeks ago
1:00
from the time of this recording.
1:01
And so this was the quote that got him
1:03
in all this kind of hot water.
1:04
Here it goes.
1:06
Peter, James and Paul elected to un-hitch
1:09
the Christian faith from the Jewish scriptures.
1:12
And my friends, we must as well, okay?
1:15
So a lot of controversy has gone down.
1:17
I know a lot of you guys have followed this along,
1:19
especially if you're in any type of reform circles
1:22
or different things like that.
1:23
So we're gonna get into all the details
1:25
about the sermon, kind of where that came from
1:27
and everything, but first, I'm not gonna assume
1:29
that all of you know who Andy Stanley is.
1:31
So let's do a little background on Andy Stanley.
1:33
So he is a senior pastor of North Point Community Church,
1:36
which is a huge non-denominational church
1:38
in the Atlanta area.
1:39
So if the last name sounds familiar,
1:41
he is the son of Dr. Charles Stanley.
1:44
So Dr. Charles Stanley, it was a little bit before my time,
1:46
but he's still recognizable even to me.
1:49
He is a giant in the televangelism
1:51
and the Christian radio world, okay?
1:54
He's the current and has been for a long time.
1:56
He's the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Atlanta.
1:59
He founded in Touch Ministries.
2:01
He's a two-time president in the Southern Baptist Convention.
2:04
That's just a little bit about him,
2:05
but he's just a giant in this area.
2:07
And his son, Andy, followed in his footsteps
2:09
to go into vocational ministry.
2:11
So Andy was actually a student minister
2:14
at his dad's church for quite some time,
2:16
but he wanted to attract a little bit
2:18
of a different audience than what First Baptist
2:21
was attracting, okay?
2:23
And so really long story short,
2:24
I'm not gonna get into all the history here,
2:26
but he founded North Point Community Church in 1995,
2:30
and he wanted to have a church
2:31
that unchurched people would love to attend.
2:34
That's, if you listen to any of his sermons,
2:35
that's something that he says really often.
2:37
He wanted the unchurched in the Atlanta area
2:40
and specifically the area of their first campus
2:42
to really be just this irresistible thing to people.
2:46
And really over the years since 1995,
2:49
the church has exploded to over 30,000 weekly attendees, right?
2:53
So this church is consistently in the top three
2:56
of the biggest churches in America.
2:58
I think even as recently as 2014,
3:00
it was considered the biggest church in America.
3:03
So this guy, he's been invited
3:05
to do the National Prayer Service.
3:07
He actually did that for President Obama back in 2009.
3:10
He's been named to different lists,
3:12
like the most influential living preacher
3:15
and most effective preachers.
3:16
He's authored a ton of different books.
3:18
If you're familiar with our book list on our website,
3:21
his book Deep and Wide, it's a book about kind of
3:23
how to grow different ministries.
3:25
That's on the list.
3:26
And so you can go to the rest of that list
3:28
at www.undaunted.life/bookless.
3:32
So that is one of the 100 books.
3:33
His childhood best friend is Louis Giglio.
3:36
So if you're familiar with Passion,
3:37
a Passion Church or any of that kind of stuff,
3:39
that's Louis Giglio.
3:41
He's also got this thing called Your Move.
3:44
So if you're a podcast person,
3:46
so you have the North Point Community Church sermon series,
3:48
but then there's another podcast that he has
3:51
in addition to his leadership podcast
3:53
and this one's called Your Move.
3:54
And so Your Move,
3:56
they're basically like 30 minute versions of his sermons.
4:00
So let's say a year ago, he preached a sermon
4:02
and it was 45 minutes long.
4:04
Well, this will be like a 28, 29 minute version
4:07
of that sermon.
4:08
So it was just kind of edited down a little bit.
4:10
So I actually watched those videos for a long time
4:12
and listened to the podcast for a while,
4:14
but then it was picked up by Netflix.
4:16
So I'm pretty sure if you have the streaming version
4:18
of Netflix, you can get Your Move on there.
4:21
And then also, this is something that plays
4:24
on cable television after Saturday Night Live.
4:26
And so as recently as a few months ago,
4:29
they were talking about adding different areas.
4:31
So even my area, Oklahoma City,
4:32
that's gonna be added to after Saturday Night Live
4:35
plays on Saturday.
4:36
They're gonna play this.
4:37
So Andy Stanley literally is everywhere.
4:40
But also I gotta just be honest with you upfront,
4:42
I'm a fan of Andy Stanley.
4:44
I've been a fan for a very long time.
4:46
Back, probably, I don't know, it would have been 2008,
4:48
2009, 2010, something like that.
4:50
He came and did a sermon at my church.
4:53
And so this was where they had a bunch
4:55
of different guest speakers.
4:56
And he did a sermon.
4:57
I was like, man, I really dig this guy's style.
4:59
Like he had his energy and just, you know,
5:01
it made some different types of points
5:03
and didn't come off like super preachy one.
5:06
But at the same time, he didn't come off like super stodgy.
5:09
And he didn't also come off as like way too, like,
5:11
yeah, man, do whatever you wanna do bro.
5:13
Jesus love you.
5:14
He didn't come off like that either.
5:15
And so I just started listening to him
5:16
and I've listened to him over the years
5:18
and read his books and just kind of kept up with him.
5:19
So I've literally been listening to sermons
5:23
and been into his ministry for the better part
5:26
of a decade now.
5:27
And so one thing about Andy Stanley that I really like
5:32
is what his focus is.
5:33
He's very upfront with his focus.
5:35
He talks about this a lot
5:37
and this is gonna be very important later on in this podcast.
5:41
But he talks about Acts 15, 19.
5:43
And that's a scripture that he has framed
5:46
and it's up in his office and he has it other places.
5:48
It's just like, it's like a life verse for him.
5:50
I don't think he necessarily categorized it as that,
5:52
but it's basically a life verse.
5:54
And so it says this and this was spoken by James
5:57
at the time of the brother of Jesus.
5:58
And it's this, it is my judgment therefore
6:00
that we should not make it difficult
6:02
for the Gentiles who are turning to God.
6:04
And so there's a lot to like about Andy Stanley.
6:07
He's gotten in hot water before he's been
6:09
in some other controversies.
6:10
But I will tell you, I'm fair.
6:12
Like I'm nothing if not fair.
6:14
So every time I come on this podcast,
6:16
I like to make sure that my philosophy
6:18
on whatever it is I'm talking about
6:19
is airtight as I can possibly make it
6:22
in my fallible, sometimes ignorant brain, right?
6:25
I try to make sure that's done
6:27
in a really good way as much as possible.
6:29
So even though I'm a fan of somebody,
6:32
I wanna be fair and I wanna be balanced
6:34
about what exactly we're talking about.
6:37
So I wanna be able to call balls and stripes.
6:39
I think I've said that before here
6:40
when we're talking about different political candidates
6:43
and I know Ben Shapiro says that a lot.
6:44
But I really do try to do that in my life.
6:46
Even if I like you, even if I like everything
6:49
that you've stood for, if you've done something wrong,
6:51
we have to be able to call a spade a spade.
6:52
And so I want you to know that,
6:54
that when we're going into this podcast,
6:56
if you're expecting me to defend Andy Stanley,
6:58
if you're expecting me to destroy him,
7:00
that just go into this podcast with an open mind
7:02
because I went into this controversy with an open mind.
7:05
So to get into it a little bit,
7:07
he's been caught up in this controversy
7:09
about the sermon that he released not that long ago.
7:13
He's been caught up in controversies before.
7:15
And normally how it goes is these are single quotes
7:19
that he's spoken in these sermons.
7:22
And then they blow up in the theological communities, right?
7:26
They just kind of, they completely blow up
7:27
and like, oh, how dare he say that?
7:29
And there's just all these different things
7:31
that make it an issue for Andy Stanley
7:33
and make him have to kind of come out and defend it.
7:35
So this particular controversy,
7:37
it stems from one line in his sermon entitled not difficult.
7:41
And again, I'll read the line to you
7:42
that really became kind of an issue for everybody.
7:45
Peter, James and Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith
7:49
from their Jewish scriptures.
7:51
We must as well, okay?
7:53
So, but in order for me really to kind of get into this,
7:56
I need to kind of set the stage for why the unhitch word
8:01
was even uttered in that phrase, okay?
8:03
So again, like I said, this is a sermon entitled
8:05
not give difficult, which is part of a three part series
8:09
called Aftermath, okay?
8:10
So this was the last in a three part series called Aftermath.
8:14
The entire series is about what the foundation
8:18
of the first century church was.
8:21
That's what the entire sermon series is about.
8:23
And one thing you'll notice about Andy Stanley's style
8:26
is he'll spend two weeks on one subject
8:28
and then sometimes he'll go seven or eight weeks
8:29
or something like that.
8:30
But he does as many sermons as he needs to
8:33
to get out the philosophy in a way that is still palatable
8:35
for a large audience.
8:37
I guess would be the easiest way to say it.
8:39
So right now, I wanna go ahead and kind of summarize
8:42
the first two weeks of this,
8:44
'cause I think it's very important to give some context here.
8:47
So I wanna summarize the first two weeks
8:48
and then we'll get into the third week,
8:50
which is where all the drama came, okay?
8:52
So in the first week, there was a quote
8:54
really from the very top of this,
8:56
which kind of sets the tone for the remainder of this series.
8:59
And so here was the quote Andy Stanley had at the beginning.
9:02
If you gave up on Christianity
9:03
because of something in the Bible
9:05
or something about the Bible,
9:06
something that was actually in the Bible
9:08
or something that you heard about in the Bible,
9:10
you may have given up on Christianity unnecessarily, okay?
9:14
So he was talking a lot about even in this series
9:18
and I kind of mentioned it earlier
9:20
with North Point Community Church.
9:22
When they launched, they had this one kind of driving quote
9:26
and it was this, resisting things
9:28
that make the church unnecessarily resistible, okay?
9:33
Resisting things that make the church unnecessarily resistible.
9:37
And then he kind of goes into how North Point started
9:40
to kind of change how they talked about the Bible.
9:43
So this was according to Andy Stanley about 10 years ago.
9:46
So this would have been right around the time
9:47
when I started listening to Andy Stanley, right?
9:50
And what they wanted to do is they wanted to point
9:54
to the foundation of the faith and how they did that.
9:58
And what exactly they pointed to
10:00
was something that they were gonna be very interested in.
10:02
Okay, and this whole mindset shift for Andy Stanley said,
10:06
he came on the heels of kind of the new atheist movement.
10:10
So if you're familiar with the new atheists,
10:12
you'll be familiar with some of these people.
10:13
So it's Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens,
10:16
Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris.
10:17
Those are kind of the four horsemen of the new atheists.
10:20
These men became wildly popular in a post 9/11 world
10:24
where it looked like, you know, religion was the big evil
10:28
in the world, right?
10:29
So we had these, you know, Islamic fundamentalist terrorists
10:31
decided to fly some buildings and fly some planes
10:34
into some buildings and kill a bunch of people.
10:36
You know, there was kind of easy pickings
10:39
for these atheists to kind of look at religion as a whole
10:42
and kind of, you know, downgrade it
10:43
and say how evil it was and all these different things.
10:45
And so he talks about that a little bit in this sermon.
10:49
And then he has a quote here.
10:50
The Achilles heel of our modern version of faith
10:53
was about to be exploited in a way that threatened
10:56
the faith of the next generation, okay?
10:58
And so what he's talking about here
11:00
is he was talking about the idea of solo scriptura, okay?
11:03
So, or scripture alone and how that has hurt us
11:07
in modernity because really our parents generation,
11:11
let's just look back one generation regardless
11:13
and when you're listening to this,
11:14
the Bible was easier to defend it seemed like, you know,
11:17
in just kind of modern culture, right?
11:19
I'm not talking about theological circles.
11:21
I'm not talking about in your Sunday school
11:22
where everybody's like, you know, a lay theologian
11:25
or something like that.
11:26
You know, I'm basically just talking about
11:28
in modern society.
11:30
New atheists are pretty much militant atheists, right?
11:35
So even a generation or two ago,
11:37
even coming out into the public square as an atheist
11:40
seemed like kind of like a ridiculous thing to do.
11:42
It wasn't something that was terribly palatable
11:44
for the majority of people.
11:45
Now it's not only palatable.
11:47
If you're an atheist, you kind of have to be loud about it.
11:49
It seems like.
11:50
And so one thing that was interesting
11:52
that he points out in this first sermon is that
11:54
he had a quote that basically said,
11:55
"As the Bible goes, so goes our faith."
11:58
And this kind of leads to a house of cards,
12:01
a style of thinking in terms of the Bible.
12:03
So if somebody can tell you can prove something wrong
12:06
in the Old Testament, for instance,
12:08
or at least create a tremendous amount of doubt
12:10
in your brain about that,
12:11
that it kind of causes the entire house of cards
12:14
to crumble down, okay?
12:15
And so this series that Andy's talking about,
12:18
again, he's talking about what the foundation
12:20
of our faith is, but this series is going through
12:22
the book of Acts, which is written by Luke.
12:24
And so basically the first sermon after the resurrection
12:28
of Jesus was not about what Jesus taught.
12:30
It was about the resurrection, okay?
12:32
So kind of going back to the early parts of Acts
12:34
when we're looking at, okay,
12:35
how is the message being spread?
12:37
And so when they talk about this,
12:39
kind of the first sermon, that's in Acts two.
12:42
And then when he keeps going further,
12:43
he's going into Acts three,
12:44
which he's kind of talking about the foundation
12:46
of Peter's faith and boldness,
12:48
because this was a guy who obviously,
12:50
we all know, even a school girl got him
12:54
to deny his savior three times, right?
12:56
So this was not the big bold line of faith
12:58
that we all see in the New Testament, right?
13:01
And so the thing about Peter's faith and boldness
13:05
was that it didn't come from what Peter read, right?
13:09
It's from what Peter saw from the resurrection.
13:13
Because again, like the New Testament didn't exist
13:16
right after the resurrection, right?
13:17
I mean, the Bible, as we have it today,
13:20
it took them about 400 years to put it together
13:24
in the way that we have it,
13:25
whether it's in our smartphone or on our shelf
13:28
in our office, right?
13:29
Then he goes into talking about Acts four,
13:31
and he talks about Peter and John,
13:34
and here's this quote from Peter in Acts four, verse 20.
13:37
As for us, we cannot help speaking
13:39
about what we have seen and heard, okay?
13:41
So again, he's kind of alluding to the fact
13:43
that the foundation of our faith
13:45
is something that happened, not a book, okay?
13:49
And this seems somewhat trivial
13:51
that I would even mention that,
13:52
but it's very important
13:53
for the overall controversy that we're in.
13:55
The foundation of our faith
13:55
is something that happened, not a book.
13:57
So the thing is, is you're gonna have trouble with that
14:00
in the face of modern atheism in society, right?
14:04
Because modern atheists, they can pick things
14:06
out of the Bible, and if you don't know your Bible
14:08
really, really well, it's gonna be hard
14:09
for you to defend against it, right?
14:11
Not saying that it's right for them to do that,
14:13
not saying that they are in the right
14:15
and arguing from the right side,
14:16
but that is something that they're gonna be able to do.
14:19
And so the overall point that Andy's making
14:21
is that he likes the standalone version of Christianity,
14:24
not Christianity plus the inerrancy of the Gospels, right?
14:27
Or really the entirety of the Bible,
14:30
but that Christianity can stand
14:32
on what Andy Stanley calls its own
14:34
to nail scarred resurrection feet, okay?
14:37
So that's how he wraps up the first week of this series.
14:40
And so the second week is a sermon called mix and match, okay?
14:44
And in this one, he was talking about how the new church
14:47
after the resurrection of Christ
14:49
was kind of mixing and matching covenants, right?
14:51
And so this is the first time you start hearing him
14:53
talk about the multiple covenants,
14:55
which he kind of drives this point home,
14:57
especially in week three.
14:58
But the big thing about it was,
15:00
is they're mixing and matching these covenants
15:02
because of the sheer number of Jews
15:04
that were converting to Christianity, okay?
15:06
So there was a lot of persecution
15:08
of the followers of the way.
15:09
Again, if you're not familiar,
15:11
originally these people were not called Christians.
15:14
They were just followers of the way, right?
15:16
And so he goes into this sermon
15:18
about the story of Paul's conversion, okay?
15:21
So this is, you know, the Apostle Paul who was Saul
15:25
and kind of changing and all the things that went on there,
15:27
God communicating through Ananias.
15:29
Basically when Paul returned,
15:33
he returned with this extraordinary clarity.
15:35
So this is post-conversion, right?
15:37
He had this tremendous amount of clarity in his brain
15:39
about kind of what he was supposed to be doing,
15:41
what God was calling him to do.
15:43
And basically he makes the argument
15:45
that Paul saw the incompatibility
15:47
of the old and the new covenants.
15:49
Again, we're talking about the multiple covenants here.
15:51
So we have Paul saying here that he immediately let go
15:55
that this is Andy Stanley talking about Paul.
15:57
He said that he immediately let go
15:59
of God's temporary and conditional covenant with Israel
16:02
to embrace God's permanent and unconditional covenant
16:06
with the human race, okay?
16:08
So again, that's not a scripture
16:10
that is Andy Stanley talking about.
16:11
Basically the lifestyle change
16:14
and really the worldview change that Paul had
16:16
in this very, very important time.
16:17
So Peter, although he's still struggling at this time
16:21
with kind of the mixing and matching covenants, right?
16:24
You know, he was still holding on
16:25
to a lot of the Jewish scriptures and customs.
16:27
And then we look at in Acts 10,
16:28
Andy Stanley talks about the story of Peter's dream
16:31
about all the animals and he's not supposed to touch them
16:34
or kill them or eat them,
16:36
but in the dream God tells them to partake
16:38
in all these animals.
16:40
And so basically God didn't change his mind, right?
16:45
And I don't mean him being Peter.
16:47
I mean, God being himself.
16:48
God didn't all of a sudden change his mind
16:49
about what was proper for people to do.
16:52
God just changed covenants.
16:53
Again, this is the argument that Andy Stanley is making
16:55
is that God did not change his mind
16:57
on what Peter should touch, kill or eat or anything like that.
17:00
God just changed covenants from the old covenant
17:04
to the new covenant.
17:05
So we also have in the sermon where he talked
17:07
about the story of Peter going to a house
17:09
of a Roman centurion,
17:10
something that he would not normally have done
17:12
to go to the house of the Gentile
17:14
and how the Gentiles in attendance
17:16
were overcome by the Holy Spirit.
17:18
They started speaking in tongues.
17:19
And everyone was just like,
17:20
this is crazy.
17:21
Even the Gentiles are catching the Holy Spirit
17:23
like this is insane.
17:25
And basically, Andy goes into talking about
17:28
what makes modern churches resistible.
17:31
So what makes them resistible, right?
17:33
And he says part of the reason is
17:34
because we mix and match covenants, right?
17:37
So the thing about it is there are two covenants
17:39
talked about in the Bible.
17:40
There's a covenant with a nation
17:42
and then there's a covenant with people of all nations, right?
17:46
So Old Testament covenant with Israel,
17:48
New Testament, New Covenant is with people
17:52
of all nations, all people, right?
17:54
And so there's a quote here by Andy Stanley
17:55
which said the new covenant values and imperatives
17:58
stand in sharp contrast to the values
18:01
and imperatives of the old covenant.
18:03
And even if you just look at that statement
18:05
in just its most basic form, that seems to be true, right?
18:09
There doesn't seem to be a lot of drama there, okay?
18:11
So basically he's saying,
18:13
Andy Stanley's saying is that the old covenant
18:15
is not our covenant.
18:16
That ours is better, right?
18:18
The old covenant thinking kind of gets us into trouble
18:21
when we judge non-Christians.
18:22
Like if we're using things as the old covenant
18:24
and talks again about Paul
18:25
and this was recorded in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 12,
18:28
it says what business is it of mine
18:30
to judge those outside the church?
18:33
So if you have an old covenant thinking style,
18:36
you may be incredibly judgmental
18:37
of people that are outside the church,
18:39
whereas the new covenant is basically,
18:41
that's not the standard anymore.
18:42
You can't be judging people off of that.
18:44
It'd be like, you inviting a Muslim family
18:47
over to your house for dinner
18:48
and then them judging you
18:49
because you did not bless the food in accordance
18:52
with what they would do within Islam, something like that.
18:55
And so basically Andy sums up the second sermon
18:59
of this series by saying that our covenant
19:02
is pretty much irresistible.
19:04
Like the new covenant, the covenant that we have now
19:06
is pretty much irresistible,
19:08
but it won't seem like that
19:09
until we as the body of Christ understand that, okay?
19:13
So that's the contention that he was making
19:15
at the end of the second sermon in this series.
19:19
So then we get into week three
19:21
and this is the one where all the hubbub kind of came down.
19:24
And so this is week three of the sermon series
19:26
and this week's is called not difficult.
19:29
So he starts off by saying
19:31
that there are actually three covenants.
19:32
There's an individual covenant,
19:34
there's a nation covenant,
19:35
and then there's a nations with an S covenant, okay?
19:39
But the big thing about this particular sermon
19:42
is Andy goes into talking about the church meeting
19:45
that kind of defined our relationship to the Old Testament.
19:48
So at this time we have Paul and Barnabas,
19:51
they're up in Antioch and Antioch is where they were actually
19:53
first followers of the way
19:55
were actually first referred to as Christians.
19:57
So Christians was actually like a derogatory term.
20:00
In this time in history, like, oh, those Christians over there,
20:04
but then it was something that they just embraced
20:05
and so it just became their name.
20:07
But basically up in Antioch, Paul and Barnabas
20:10
were spreading the message of Jesus Christ
20:12
and the message they were spreading was very simple.
20:15
And it was the resurrection that you just have to accept it, right?
20:19
So that's it when it comes to Christianity.
20:22
The resurrection happened and you have to accept it
20:25
and believe in it, like that's it.
20:26
But back in Jerusalem, there were Christian leaders
20:29
that kind of heard what was being taught in Antioch,
20:31
which is several hundred miles north of Jerusalem,
20:33
and they decided to send missionaries in
20:35
to kind of fix the quote unquote bad theology
20:38
that was being spread in Antioch.
20:40
So basically it was talking about
20:42
and Andy made the statement here
20:43
that it's keeping the law of Moses
20:45
is a condition for salvation and inclusion, right?
20:48
So in order to be considered a Christian,
20:50
you had to keep the law of Moses.
20:52
So this was something that was being taught at this time
20:54
is being taught by the Judaizers,
20:55
is being taught by those people.
20:57
And kind of Peter was leaning this way a lot as well.
21:00
And then we get into Acts 15, okay?
21:02
So in Acts 15, it was teaching that men,
21:06
Gentile men had to be circumcised
21:08
in order to become Christians.
21:09
Now obviously for guys out there that are circumcised,
21:12
it happened at a time where you can't remember it.
21:14
Imagine being the age you are now
21:16
and someone saying, hey, you know,
21:18
you believe in Jesus, that's great.
21:20
But in addition to doing that,
21:21
we're gonna have to do a little snip snip, okay?
21:23
And they don't exactly have local and aesthetic
21:26
at the time that this is all going on.
21:27
So, you know, quite the undertaking for somebody
21:30
to become a Jew, become circumcised,
21:32
and just to kind of enter into the league
21:35
with the rest of the Christians, right?
21:36
So this caused a fight in the early church.
21:39
You know, Paul and Barnabas kind of had to head back
21:41
to Jerusalem and they had to have a talk.
21:43
Like they had to talk with the other apostles
21:45
about these issues because obviously you can just see
21:48
where this is going.
21:48
This is potentially very damaging to have people
21:51
in one kind of region of the world saying pretty different
21:55
things about one central issue, right?
21:58
And so the head of the church at this time in Jerusalem
22:01
is James, who's the brother of Jesus.
22:03
And so the agenda for this meeting, you know,
22:05
that James was a part of is that it was going to define
22:09
a Gentiles relationship with the law of Moses.
22:12
So how should a Gentile look at the law of Moses
22:15
or the Old Testament or the, you know,
22:18
the Jewish scriptures, that type of thing?
22:19
So the interesting thing at this time is the Pharisees,
22:23
you know, the bad guys, the Pharisees,
22:24
had become Christians during this time.
22:26
A lot of them had become Christians.
22:28
And so there was a quote here that I thought was pretty
22:31
interesting whenever Andy was talking about the Pharisees.
22:33
And so it was this question,
22:35
what do you think changed their minds?
22:38
The Sermon on the Mount, uh-uh.
22:40
Prodigal son story, nope.
22:42
Parable of the Good Samaritan, nope.
22:45
They saw him after he had been raised from the dead
22:47
and said, we were wrong.
22:50
You see, when someone predicts their own death
22:52
and resurrection and pulls it off,
22:54
you just go with whatever they say, okay?
22:57
So that's just kind of talking about the Pharisees
22:59
at this time, you know, what was going on?
23:01
What could have caused these incredibly astute men
23:05
of the Jewish scriptures to be able to convert to Christianity?
23:08
It seemed like kind of a crazy thing
23:10
to even think that would happen.
23:11
And so Peter, at this time, he was kind of talking
23:14
about how hard it would be for Gentiles
23:17
to become followers of Jesus if they also had to be Jews.
23:20
But this took years and years and years for Peter
23:23
to really even get to this point, right?
23:25
And so, because basically God did for the Gentiles
23:28
what he did for the nation of Israel, right?
23:30
So Christianity was not Judaism 2.0.
23:33
That's the big point that was,
23:35
that Andy was talking about at this time,
23:37
is that that was not what was being said,
23:39
is that Christianity is somehow a later
23:42
and better updated form of Judaism.
23:44
And so a great quote from this part of the sermon was,
23:47
"Jesus wasn't an and, Jesus was an instead of."
23:52
So Jesus wasn't an and, Jesus wasn't instead of.
23:56
And again, we go back to Acts 15, 19,
23:58
he brings it up again here.
24:00
And this is the thing that's framed on
24:01
in Andy Stanley's office, and this is James speaking.
24:04
It is my judgment, therefore,
24:06
that we should not make it difficult
24:07
for the Gentiles who are turning to God.
24:10
And so this is something that he took to mean that,
24:15
you know, in terms of whatever we're being accountable to,
24:18
like what are we being accountable to?
24:19
So Andy Stanley makes this, you know,
24:23
what some people would consider a very heretical statement
24:24
where, which said, basically said,
24:26
we are not accountable to the 10 commandments, right?
24:29
In the new covenant, it's less demanding
24:31
'cause we don't have the 10 commandments
24:33
and then the hundreds of other Jewish laws,
24:36
but it's way more difficult, you know,
24:38
to love people as Christ has loved us,
24:41
that's a very different covenant.
24:44
And so there was a drama brewing in this series, right?
24:49
And so you could kind of tell in the first two sermons
24:52
that, you know, he was kind of hinting
24:53
at some things that were gonna be coming in the third one.
24:56
And then he starts to really kind of lay it out here.
24:58
And so he has a quote here
24:59
that kind of leads into some other things.
25:00
And it's church leaders unhitched the church
25:03
from the worldview, value system,
25:05
and regulations of the Jewish scriptures.
25:08
So, okay, it's kind of like leaning in that direction.
25:11
You're kind of with them, with them.
25:13
And then he throws that out there, okay?
25:15
And then he says this,
25:16
the Jewish scriptures are the backstory
25:18
for the main story.
25:20
The Jewish scriptures are the backstory
25:22
for the main story, okay?
25:24
So he's leading us down here some more.
25:26
He's leading us some more.
25:27
And then he makes this statement
25:28
as he's kind of summing up what his series is about.
25:31
Many have lost faith because of something
25:33
about the Bible or in the Bible,
25:35
the Old Testament in particular.
25:37
Once they could no longer accept
25:39
all the historicity of the Old Testament,
25:41
once they couldn't go along with all the miracles,
25:43
once somebody poked a hole in the Genesis creation myth,
25:46
once all that went away,
25:48
suddenly their house of cards faith came tumbling down
25:51
because they weren't taught, it's all,
25:53
because they were taught, it's all true.
25:55
It's all God's word.
25:57
And if you find one part that's not true,
25:59
uh-oh, the whole thing comes tumbling down.
26:02
Not Christianity.
26:05
The Bible did not create Christianity.
26:08
It's a resurrection of Jesus created and launched Christianity.
26:13
Your whole house of Old Testament cards
26:15
can come tumbling down.
26:17
The question is, did Jesus rise from the dead?
26:20
And the eyewitnesses said he did, okay?
26:23
And then on the heels of that statement,
26:25
this is where all the drama came,
26:27
came raining town from the sermon.
26:29
And I'm gonna read to you the entire quote here
26:31
because in a lot of the articles I'm seeing
26:34
kind of criticizing Andy Stanley,
26:36
they don't really bring in the whole quote.
26:37
I'm gonna bring it all to you right here.
26:39
So it's this, "Peter, James and Paul
26:42
"elected to unhitch the Christian faith
26:44
"from the Jewish scriptures.
26:46
"And my friends, we must as well.
26:49
"And I'll tell you why.
26:50
"It's actually the same reason they did
26:53
"because we must not make it difficult
26:55
"for the Gentiles who are turning to God.
26:57
"They didn't, we shouldn't either.
27:00
"The faith of the next generation may depend
27:02
"on our willingness and our ability to get this right."
27:06
Okay?
27:07
Now, here's the thing is if you take that one statement,
27:11
right, that one singular statement,
27:13
it may seem like, man, what's this guy doing?
27:15
Where's he coming from?
27:16
Especially if you've never had any experience
27:19
or, you know, relevant understanding
27:22
of the things that Andy Stanley said before.
27:24
But this is by no means the first time
27:26
that he has talked about this, like at all.
27:29
So if you looked at the Easter sermon from this year,
27:33
you're gonna see hints of this.
27:35
If you looked at the Christmas sermon
27:37
from just the end of last year, you're gonna get this.
27:40
But even in the summer of 2016,
27:42
he did a series called Who Needs God, okay?
27:45
Now, this is one thing just as a little side note
27:47
and I'll get right back to where I was going,
27:48
so don't worry.
27:49
The series Who Needs God
27:52
is one of the most important series
27:54
that you could potentially share with an atheist.
27:57
I've shared this series, especially the first few episodes,
28:01
with several atheists.
28:03
And it has opened up a lot of doors to conversation
28:05
that otherwise would have not even been close
28:08
for me to open up, okay?
28:09
So, and you can find that.
28:11
I'm gonna include the links at the end of this.
28:12
So don't worry, I'll give you a rundown of that.
28:14
But in week three of the Who Needs God series
28:18
that he did back in the summer of 2016,
28:20
he did a sermon entitled The Bible Told Me So, okay?
28:23
And so I wanna kind of go through this quote here
28:27
that he said from this sermon
28:28
and this got him in hot water, you know,
28:30
almost two years ago and here it is.
28:32
Many of you were brought up to believe this.
28:34
Jesus loves me, this I know,
28:37
for the Bible tells me so.
28:39
This is where our trouble began.
28:42
Because the implication is, and this is important,
28:44
the implication is, the Bible is the reason we believe.
28:48
In other words, I can believe Jesus loves me
28:53
because it's in the Bible.
28:54
I grew up in a church where basically the byline,
28:57
the subtitle for everything was,
28:59
if the Bible says it, that settles it.
29:02
And so we sin kids off to college with a,
29:04
if the Bible says it, that settles it.
29:07
And all of a sudden they realize,
29:09
oh my goodness, that didn't settle it.
29:11
The problem with that is,
29:13
if the Bible is the foundation of our faith,
29:16
as the Bible goes, so goes our faith.
29:19
Christianity cannot survive if somehow
29:22
every single part of the Bible isn't absolutely true.
29:25
If the Bible is the foundation of our faith.
29:27
So doesn't that kind of sound a lot like some of the stuff
29:30
that I was talking about in this recent sermon series
29:33
that he was giving?
29:34
And again, he said himself that about 10 years ago,
29:37
he started talking about the foundations
29:39
of our faith differently, okay?
29:41
So that's something that we really have to think about
29:43
in terms of holistically,
29:45
where is Andy Stanley coming from?
29:47
So now let's look at the reactions to this message.
29:50
So, you know, really this is a three part series,
29:52
but it's that one really line or that one paragraph
29:55
in the third part that kind of made everybody kind of go crazy.
29:58
Andy Stanley is being blasted in every conceivable way, right?
30:02
For the things that he said.
30:03
So I listened to a podcast called Apologia Radio.
30:07
So they have like a once weekly podcast,
30:09
but I think it's a, maybe it's a daily radio show
30:12
or a YouTube show.
30:13
They basically spent over an hour picking this sermon apart.
30:18
I mean, line by line, they would basically play
30:21
a sentence or two and then four or five people in studio
30:24
would basically, oh my gosh, can you believe
30:26
that he said this and this is wrong because of this thing
30:28
and how dare he say, Bob?
30:30
I mean, they went line by line.
30:32
I mean, if you go to their latest podcast,
30:35
if you're listening to this podcast on time,
30:37
you'll see it and they just rip him to shreds.
30:40
He's also been kind of linked to Marcianism.
30:44
So if you're not very familiar with that, I wasn't.
30:47
This is based on Marcione.
30:48
So this was a guy who was an important person
30:50
in the early church.
30:51
He was born in 85 AD and his theology kind of distanced
30:56
the Old Testament from Christianity, okay?
30:58
So this was a guy, Marcione, who was excommunicated
31:00
from the early church.
31:01
He was branded as a heretic.
31:03
Basically, he was able to get a lot of converts
31:05
along the way, but he was considered
31:07
to be a Gnostic philosopher, especially in the fact
31:10
that he argued that Jesus was not God in a bod,
31:13
but basically he was a divine spirit
31:15
that presented itself in human form, okay, to everybody.
31:19
And so that's kind of a very Gnostic philosophy.
31:23
And then we have Wesley Hill of Trinity School
31:25
for ministry, he said this.
31:27
He said, "Alas, most of the 39 minute talk
31:29
can really only be described as an elaborate
31:32
and educated flirtation with the old Christian heresy
31:35
of Marcianism.
31:36
The belief that the Old Testament is not authoritative
31:39
in matters of Christian doctrine and morals.
31:41
Then we have Kevin DeYoung of Christ Covenant Church.
31:44
He's a reform pastor.
31:45
He says this, "The evergreen heresy that still resonates
31:48
with people today largely because it cuts out a God full
31:52
of wrath and justice and leaves a God of goodness
31:56
and nothing else."
31:57
So we had other pastors and other people coming out
31:59
basically saying Andy Stanley was opening up a gateway
32:02
to relativism.
32:04
So that was something that was really heard.
32:06
And so I'll read this quote here about this
32:09
and kind of this was Wesley Hill again,
32:10
but it says, "When Stanley references Paul's view
32:13
on sexual immorality, that we should love ourselves
32:16
like Christ loves us, Jesus and Paul both agree
32:19
that the heart of the law is love and that the whole law
32:23
can be summed up in the twofold command,
32:25
to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
32:28
But it misleads by what it leaves out.
32:31
In a following world, talk about love
32:33
can mask a kind of relativism.
32:36
This is why the catechitical tradition
32:38
of the Christian churches has been united
32:40
in its use of the 10 commandments.
32:42
Precisely because it is recognized that we Christians
32:45
so often fail to discern what real love amounts to.
32:49
And we need the Old Testament's commandments
32:51
to shine a spotlight on our slippery self-justifications.
32:55
We may intend to treat our sexual partner
32:57
as God in Christ has treated us.
33:00
We may try to act toward them out of a self-giving love,
33:03
but the distorting effects of sin
33:06
mean that we must be told what love looks like
33:10
in the action if we're not to get it wrong.
33:12
That divine telling sadly is what Andy Stanley's sermon
33:15
would keep us from hearing.
33:17
So that's pretty damning right there,
33:20
basically talking about how this is a slippery slope
33:22
to relativism.
33:24
And here's the other thing is Andy Stanley
33:25
didn't really stay silent here.
33:26
He obviously kind of came out
33:28
and wanted to clarify his position.
33:30
He did so in a follow-up interview with Relevant Magazine,
33:34
which was a little bit disappointing to me.
33:35
I'm not a big fan of that magazine.
33:38
I feel like they are way more on the gray side of things
33:42
on pretty much every issue.
33:44
And it seems like, I mean, obviously the name
33:46
of their magazine is relevant.
33:47
They're trying to be socially relevant.
33:50
And sometimes I feel like they really, really muddy
33:52
the waters, but this is not a podcast
33:53
or about relevant magazine.
33:55
But anyway, Andy Stanley did an interview with them
33:57
'cause they were obviously like,
33:58
it was basically like Barack Obama
34:00
being interviewed by MSNBC.
34:02
It was just gonna be a bunch of softball questions,
34:03
get out whatever you need to get out
34:05
and we get to pretend we're a news organization.
34:06
So that's kind of how that was going.
34:08
So he talks about his position on some of these things
34:12
and some of the outrage and the confusion
34:14
that came out of all this kind of regarding the message.
34:16
And so I'm gonna go ahead and read this.
34:18
It's a somewhat lengthy statement,
34:20
but it's gonna give you some context
34:21
as to where Andy Stanley's mindset is.
34:23
The confusion always stems from the fact
34:26
that a handful of academics hear about some outlandish
34:29
statements I've made, and for them, it's blood in the water.
34:32
None of the academic types who have criticized my preaching
34:35
have ever reached out to me before posting their critiques.
34:38
When John Piper was concerned about something
34:40
I said a year ago or so, he reached out to me
34:42
and let me read his critique before he published it.
34:45
It was fair and I told him so.
34:47
I insisted he let his readers know
34:49
he reached out to me ahead of time
34:51
and that I linked folks to his article.
34:53
So I'm not opposed to healthy dialogue around ideas.
34:56
When something I said is misconstrued
34:58
as a criticism of small churches,
35:00
I got up the following Sunday and apologized
35:02
to our entire network of churches
35:04
and everybody on the internet who was tuned in that day.
35:07
As my kid, ask my kids,
35:09
I don't have a difficult time apologizing.
35:11
The folks in our church understood the point I was making.
35:14
Anyone who listened to all three parts of the series
35:17
probably understood the point I was making.
35:19
Anyone who heard my Christmas or Easter message
35:21
understood the point I was making.
35:23
So I guess the point I'm making is that anyone who really
35:26
wanted to know what I meant by what I said
35:28
could figure it out pretty easily,
35:30
but it might require listening to more than one message.
35:34
I approach a message series like a single sermon.
35:37
I don't try to cover everything in 35 minutes.
35:39
I'm not that good.
35:40
So if you want to criticize my approach to preaching,
35:43
fine, I would love to talk about that.
35:45
But don't criticize a statement in a sermon
35:47
if you aren't willing to spend the time necessary
35:49
to appreciate the context.
35:52
All that to say, there are some folks
35:54
who did not understand the point I was making.
35:56
And for those who follow me on Twitter
35:57
and who asked for clarification, I gave it over and over,
36:02
which I actually enjoy.
36:03
I tell leaders all the time, be a student, not a critic.
36:06
Be curious.
36:07
We are working hard to engage with our post-Christian culture.
36:10
We will not get it right every time.
36:12
We will make mistakes, but we will not circle the wagons,
36:15
pray for revival, and hope Jesus comes soon to rescue us.
36:18
It's not about us.
36:20
What's at stake, what drives us,
36:22
is the faith of the next generation.
36:24
A generation that, unlike previous generations,
36:26
is just a click away from infinite misinformation
36:29
about our faith, the Bible and the church.
36:32
Years ago, I embraced a new approach to preaching,
36:35
how I talk about sin, faith, discipleship, and the Bible,
36:38
in light of my concern for what is happening in our culture.
36:41
My critics should be more curious.
36:44
And then later on in this interview,
36:45
he's asked another question, he was basically asked this.
36:48
He says, what would you say to someone who is worried
36:50
that your recent message sets believers on a slippery slope
36:54
to unhitching from whatever scriptures they don't like?
36:57
And this was his response.
36:59
Well, I never suggested we unhitch
37:02
from a passage of scripture, or a specific biblical imperative.
37:05
Again, I was teaching through Acts 15 where Peter,
37:08
James and Paul recommended the first century church,
37:10
unhitch, my word, I'm open to an alternative,
37:13
the law of Moses from the gospel being preached
37:16
to Gentiles and Antioch.
37:18
The party of the Pharisees insisted Gentiles
37:20
be circumcised and obey the law.
37:22
They were the dual covenant party, Moses and Jesus.
37:26
James said, no, we are going to disconnect or unhitch the two.
37:31
The party of the Pharisees could continue
37:33
the dual covenant approach if they chose to, and many did.
37:37
But the Gentiles would not be expected to follow suit.
37:40
So no, I'm not concerned that my teaching
37:42
would leave people with that impression,
37:45
especially if they listened to me preach
37:47
on even in a casual basis.
37:49
Us 21st century believers should embrace the decision
37:52
of the Jerusalem council, in my opinion anyway.
37:55
Meaning we should not add old covenant imperatives,
37:59
old covenant contract language or old covenant promises,
38:02
made to Israel to the new covenant God established
38:04
with us through Jesus.
38:06
So when people looked at this interview
38:09
and kind of saw some of his comments,
38:10
it kind of said that Andy Stanley
38:11
was kind of walking back his statement,
38:14
which is kind of like a modern day version of saying
38:16
that somebody's doing something,
38:17
they're like doubling down on the wrong.
38:19
So it's like, well, he said the bad thing
38:21
and then he walked back on the bad thing.
38:23
So that's a bad thing.
38:23
It's like, did anything I read just in from this article
38:28
or from this interview that he did,
38:29
it seemed like he was walking it back.
38:32
Like, did that come through at all?
38:33
I mean, I didn't get that vibe at all
38:35
that he was walking it back.
38:36
He was certainly providing more context
38:38
but walking it back, I don't think so.
38:40
Walking it back is basically an apology
38:41
without saying the words, I'm sorry, right?
38:43
So that just kind of lays the groundwork
38:47
for everything, right?
38:47
So I kind of gave you all the backstory
38:50
about Andy Stanley, about some of the things
38:52
that he's done in his ministry,
38:53
about this particular sermon series
38:55
where they're at with North Point,
38:57
kind of what the first and second weeks
39:00
of the sermon series led into the third week
39:02
and what the third week said.
39:04
And the thing is, is I obviously encourage you all,
39:06
everyone listening to this, to watch all three
39:09
and come up with your own ideas and opinions
39:12
about what's going on here.
39:13
'Cause I'm about to give you mine,
39:15
but I'm gonna definitely encourage you to do that.
39:17
So at the end of this podcast,
39:18
you'll see in the links,
39:19
I provided the links to all of these sermons
39:21
and I'm gonna give you a list of everything
39:22
that I gave later, but I've got the YouTube links
39:25
and the links to their website 'cause I love you guys
39:27
and I'm gonna be easy.
39:28
So just watch these, listen to 'em on a podcast
39:31
or do whatever you wanna do and get your own opinion,
39:34
but I wanna talk about three things
39:36
that I think are important to consider
39:39
in light of all this that's kind of going down.
39:41
So the first thing is just kind of an overarching view,
39:45
but is this, text without context is just text, okay?
39:50
Text without context is just text.
39:52
Now I'm almost positive I didn't come up with that quote.
39:55
I think it's just been clicking around in my brain
39:56
for a while, but here's the thing is,
39:59
we tend to see a headline or a tweet
40:01
or a single quote from a speech or some,
40:05
we kind of draw all these far-reaching conclusions
40:08
from just those single things
40:10
and I am completely guilty of this too.
40:12
Like I will read something and be like,
40:13
oh my gosh, I can't believe this person said that.
40:16
And then you do like four seconds of digging and you're like,
40:18
oh, well they said that,
40:20
but there's a lot of context here as well.
40:22
Again, this was part three of a three-part sermon series
40:25
on the heels of many other sermons,
40:28
including Easter and Christmas,
40:29
all the ones we've already talked about,
40:31
where he's pretty much said the same thing.
40:33
And so it was kind of interesting
40:35
that there was a leveled outrage
40:36
that came on the heels of a quotable phrase, right?
40:41
So whenever we can encapsulate his philosophy
40:44
on this one issue in a sentence or two,
40:46
then it's like, okay, now it can blow up
40:48
because we can fit it within the Twitter character limits
40:51
or something like that.
40:52
So I think it's kind of important for us to consider
40:54
even on a macro level,
40:56
that text without context is just text
40:58
and we have to guard ourselves from that, okay?
41:00
The second important thing to consider here
41:02
is that those criticizing Stanley
41:04
are arguing from a place of insulation.
41:07
Again, these are my opinions,
41:08
don't see me mean emails or if you do,
41:11
I might read them here because they always make me laugh,
41:13
but those criticizing Stanley
41:15
are arguing from a place of insulation.
41:17
So here we have all these pastors and theologians
41:20
and people that are kind of of that ilk.
41:22
They're surrounded by other reformed theologians.
41:26
They're thinking about creating a depth of knowledge
41:28
within their ministries or within the church as a whole
41:30
or even society as a whole.
41:32
These people are in the trenches of vocational ministry
41:35
or maybe they're in seminary school
41:37
or they're going through the paces there.
41:39
And here's the thing,
41:40
it's very easy to pick on a pastor with a large audience.
41:44
And the thing is is you get to kind of flex
41:46
your exegetical reform to muscles when you do this, right?
41:49
And hey guys, remember last week's episode,
41:52
like episode 22 of this podcast,
41:54
I kind of talked about Steven Furdick
41:56
who is a big pastor with a large audience
41:59
and Matt Chandler kind of basically owning him
42:02
in his own backyard, right?
42:03
So I said Chandler was right.
42:07
And I stand by that even now.
42:09
So this isn't like,
42:10
hey, I'm only gonna pick on these big time pastors.
42:12
I even mentioned Andy Stanley briefly in last week's episode,
42:15
but this kind of leads to the third point,
42:16
which I think is important for us to consider,
42:18
which is Stanley is right about his main point here.
42:23
You know, last week when I thought Matt Chandler
42:25
was so right about the point he was trying to get across
42:27
about God being for God.
42:29
Andy Stanley is right about his main point of all of this.
42:34
The beginning of Christianity is the resurrection.
42:37
Like in its most basic form, it is.
42:42
Like the Old Testament and the prophecies
42:44
kind of laid the groundwork.
42:46
You know, Jews, modern day Jews are still waiting
42:49
for the Messiah to come except he already did.
42:52
He checked all the messianic boxes.
42:55
The Jews missed it and they killed him, right?
42:58
That's what happened.
42:59
Here's the thing is if Jesus didn't come
43:02
and Jesus didn't die and if Jesus wasn't resurrected,
43:05
then we're all still looking, right?
43:09
You know, if we're not Jews and Jesus never came,
43:11
we're just kind of looking to other things.
43:13
We're looking to other religions.
43:14
We're just kind of looking all over the place, right?
43:16
I mean, how different would the world be?
43:18
And so I feel like the critics of this message
43:22
seem to be missing the larger point.
43:25
So they spend all this time nitpicking the word choice here
43:28
and you know, the music that led into the sermon
43:32
and they nitpick all these things,
43:34
but they're missing the big point.
43:36
And the point, the point is is that Christianity started
43:40
with the resurrection and I'll just be honest with you guys.
43:42
The Old Testament does trip people up.
43:45
Like that was another thing that was talked about
43:47
in this sermon series is if you try to describe,
43:50
you know, God to somebody and you start them in like Exodus
43:55
or numbers or something like that,
43:57
it's going to be like at the very least
43:59
it's going to be confusing.
44:01
Like man, what exactly are we talking about here?
44:04
And it's going to seem like it's a different person,
44:06
the Old Testament, God and the New Testament, God
44:08
and all these different things.
44:09
The Old Testament does trip people up.
44:11
So when people are like, oh, it's heretical to claim
44:14
that the Old Testament would keep someone
44:15
from coming to Christ, but is it though?
44:18
Like is it?
44:19
I mean, just think about a lot of you guys listening
44:21
to this podcast, you are Christians
44:23
and a lot of you have been Christians for a lot of years,
44:26
but if you can think back to before you were a Christian,
44:29
think about the things that you believe now that, you know,
44:31
you just believe it without even knowing why.
44:33
Now imagine that you're a 35 year old guy
44:36
and you're a smart guy college graduate
44:38
and you're a very logical dude
44:39
and someone presents to you the Bible in its entirety,
44:42
including the Old Testament, you're telling me
44:44
that there's not going to be something in there
44:45
that's at least going to trip you up?
44:47
That doesn't mean it's not true.
44:49
That doesn't mean it's not God breathed
44:50
and it's, you know, that the inherency of the gospel
44:53
of the Bible is somehow tainted.
44:55
It doesn't mean that.
44:56
We're just talking about whether or not it would trip you up.
44:59
And I would say for most of us,
45:00
and I would certainly say for myself that it would.
45:02
I mean, luckily for me, I had no understanding
45:04
of really anything in the Bible.
45:06
And then, you know, I became a Christian
45:09
and I accepted the gospel.
45:10
And then I started digging into the Old Testament
45:12
and then it was like, okay, I was kind of backing into it,
45:14
right?
45:15
But the overarching point here is completely true.
45:19
So I can understand and I'm sympathizing
45:22
with the reformed folks and, you know,
45:24
I would probably put myself in that camp most times
45:27
in terms of them not liking the style that it was presented,
45:30
them feeling like somehow it had been sullied
45:33
or weakened in some way, the message
45:35
and that, you know, we're trying to get rid
45:36
of the Old Testament.
45:37
But Andy Stanley at no point said
45:39
that the Old Testament was useless.
45:41
At no point did he say it wasn't the, you know,
45:43
inspired word of God at no point.
45:45
Like, if you listen to Andy Stanley at any point,
45:49
he does a lot of sermons about the Old Testament.
45:51
Like he does a lot of sermon series
45:53
that deal with Old Testament characters.
45:55
So if this was a guy for the last decade,
45:57
that thought that the Old Testament was completely useless
45:59
and was harmful to people that needed to come to Christ
46:02
in a church where that's all they tried to do
46:04
is make it easier for people to come to Christ.
46:06
Why in the world would he ever quote anything
46:08
from the Old Testament?
46:09
But if you don't listen to Andy Stanley
46:12
and if you haven't heard any of his other sermons before,
46:14
you're not gonna get that.
46:15
You're just gonna assume this is a guy that stays
46:17
in the love camp and stays in the grace camp
46:19
and just chills in the New Testament
46:21
and hopes nobody busts him on it in public, right?
46:23
But that's just not really the case.
46:25
So guys, in my opinion, is Andy Stanley a heretic?
46:28
No, no, I think that's an easy one.
46:32
And this is a reminder for me
46:34
and I want this to be a reminder for you as well
46:36
because we all wanna get fired up, right?
46:38
And I'm usually on the front lines
46:39
of the getting fired up camp.
46:41
When someone says something,
46:42
especially a pastor that we may not like
46:45
and you're just like, "Well, this is my time
46:48
"to really stand up for truth here."
46:50
And there's a time that you're gonna be on the right side
46:52
but you need to consider whether or not
46:54
you have the entire picture, okay?
46:56
Follow someone's ministry.
46:57
Look back at some of their old messages.
46:59
See some of the things they've written in other books.
47:00
See some of the things that they've written
47:02
in past blog posts and see what they do
47:04
whenever they go into future blog posts.
47:06
That's something that I think would just be
47:07
a good thing for all of us to do, okay?
47:09
So guys, before we leave,
47:10
we're gonna do a quick resilience boost.
47:12
And as you know, by now, we are a men's ministry
47:14
and our mission is cultivating mainly resilience.
47:16
And specifically, we do that by providing content
47:18
that for just spiritual, mental and physical toughness.
47:21
So this week, we are gonna focus on spiritual and mental.
47:23
And so everything that I'm gonna leave for you today
47:25
is gonna be about what we were talking about today.
47:27
So like I already mentioned,
47:29
I want you to watch the entire aftermath series.
47:31
So that's, each message is about 40 minutes long.
47:33
So it's not gonna take you that long.
47:34
I provided you the links to the North Point Community website,
47:37
but I also provided the YouTube links.
47:39
So 'cause I know for some of you,
47:40
you listen to it at one and a half or two times speed,
47:42
you can do that on YouTube,
47:43
but I haven't figured out a way to do that from their website.
47:46
I also included the links to his Easter sermon
47:48
from this year that's called Easter Matters.
47:51
And I also included the series that I,
47:53
or the episode that I talked about from a previous series
47:56
from 2016, The Who Needs God,
47:58
the Bible told me so, that's in there.
48:01
And again, that link will take you to basically
48:03
all the other sermons as well,
48:04
whether you get to it through the North Point website
48:07
or YouTube.
48:07
But also I put a bunch of blog posts or news posts
48:12
that were posted by all these different people.
48:15
Basically people that agreed with Andy Stanley,
48:17
people that didn't agree,
48:19
the interview that he did with Relevant Magazine,
48:22
the thing that Relevant Magazine posted a couple of years ago
48:25
when he got into some hot water with some different comments.
48:27
So I've left you some reading there
48:28
just so you can hear other people's perspectives.
48:31
'Cause you've heard mine.
48:31
I tried to encapsulate Andy Stanley's
48:34
and his critics all in the same time
48:35
while still keeping this at an acceptable length
48:37
of a podcast, but I got all that there for you.
48:40
So you got enough content there
48:41
to at least last you to our next podcast episode, okay?
48:44
All right, thank you guys for listening to this podcast.
48:46
Please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Google Play
48:49
and refer your friends to listen.
48:50
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48:52
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48:52
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48:54
If we deserve a five star review, guys,
48:56
please leave us five star reviews.
48:57
We are currently still five star reviewed and rated.
49:00
So please leave those and leave comments as well.
49:02
I'm currently booking speaking engagements for 2018.
49:05
So if you'd like me to come speak to your company
49:07
or your church or your men's group
49:08
or your outing of any kind,
49:10
hit me up at info@undaunted.life.
49:12
You can find our website at www.undaunted.life.
49:15
You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter
49:17
@undauntedlife and on facebook.com/undauntedlife.
49:22
You can also check out our free devotionals
49:23
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49:24
Just search "undaunted life" under plans.
49:27
And as always, we would like to thank
49:28
the band, August Burns Red, for allowing us
49:30
to use their music library for our content.
49:32
The intro outro track on this podcast
49:34
is their song "King of Sorrow",
49:35
which is off their latest record entitled "Phantom Anthem".
49:38
And they just released a music video for that
49:39
a couple of weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago.
49:41
So make sure you check that out on YouTube.
49:43
And the links to all of this are in the description, okay?
49:46
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
49:48
Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience,
49:51
keep forging spiritual, mental and physical toughness,
49:55
keep seeking the lion of Judah.
49:57
(upbeat rock music)
50:00
(upbeat rock music)