Interlude: Waiting is the Hardest Part
(Click here to download the first chapter of Bruce Wilkinson’s book, You Were Born for This.)
(Click on the following to read my earlier posts on the text: Title & Table of Contents, Table of Contents addendum, Testimonials, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, 13, the final grade for the text, and my initial public challenge to Bruce Wilkinson.)
Dear Readers,
Tom Petty was right. Waiting is the hardest part.
In the past week, I’ve issued public challenges to Bruce Wilkinson and David Kopp, authors of You Were Born for This: 7 Keys to a Life of Predictable Miracles, and just yesterday issued the same challenge to the publisher, Waterbrook Multnomah. (See the links above for more.) You should know: I also sent emails directly to Wilkinson and the publisher. (I sent Kopp’s to Wilkinson, as I didn’t have his email address, and asked Wilkinson to kindly forward it along to Kopp.)
At the time of this post, I have received absolutely nothing from either of the authors nor anyone representing the publisher.
What’s it all about? Five little questions that must be rather hard to answer. Five questions that, if left unanswered, will most likely tarnish the reputations of Wilkinson, Kopp and Waterbrook Multnomah…and rightly so. For those of you coming in late, here are those questions:
1) The authors never identify the identity of your reader. They write so generically that both the non-believer and the Christian might believe that they are writing to them. To whom are they writing, and why be so generic?
2) Their definition of a “miracle,” which is the main topic of the text, is not biblical. What they describe as miracles in your book are defined as good deeds in the Bible. (Romans 7:4b says, “And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.” NLT) Why change the terms when the Bible (and 2,000 years of Christianity) has always understood the clear difference between miracles and good deeds?
3) The authors refer to places (attitudes, really) like “Everyday Miracle Territory,” “the Land of Good Deeds,” and “The Land of Signs and Wonders,” as though they are mentioned in the Scripture, when (in reality) they never appear. Why speak so authoritatively about things that simply don’t exist?
4) For support, rather than supporting their claims with biblical support, the authors use their previous text, The Prayer of Jabez, for support. Why not back it up with Bible verses? Which bible passages back your extraordinary claims?
5) Lastly, there’s no place in the text where the authors actually talk about the one place where true believers can be used by God in a miraculous way: EVANGELISM. When a Christian shares the Gospel with an unbeliever (in obedience to the Great Commission given to all believers, and out of love for said unbeliever), God does His miraculous work of conversion in the life of that person. How could they overlook the most obvious and most important miracle of all?
Their book makes incredible claims, so incredible that they can’t begin to be supported biblically.
Do I want to see the authors and publisher tarred and feathered? Of course not.
Do I want to see them take responsibility for misrepresenting God and the Bible? Absolutely.
What If they won’t take responsibility (this side of Glory, that is)? I guess I press on. (I never said I was smart.)
Finally, here’s a special event for those of you who would like to learn more about this book. You can chat with Bruce Wilkinson online during a “Livestream” event by clicking here. It starts today at 11 am EST.
Until tomorrow,
Chris
PS For new readers, my earlier analyses of Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile (by Rob Bell and Don Golden) is available for free download. Simply click on my title, Clear as a Bell, and decide for yourself whether or not Bell’s teachings match those found in God’s Word.
