Final Letter to Bruce Wilkinson Re: “You Were Born for This” – part 1 of 3
(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 Bruce,
You’ll be pleased to know that this is my final letter to you regarding your book, You Were Born for This. After a week and a half of complete silence, it’s looking like you’re not planning on responding to these important questions.
During Tuesday’s LiveStream broadcast, I asked you if you could share with us which bible passages support the premise of your book. You said that there were so many, then you went on to speak to individual keys listed in your book, and which books in the Bible addressed them.
Bruce, you may think you answered the question, but you dodged it in a way that would make former president Bill Clinton proud.
I asked you specifically about the premise (which, for readers coming in late, says that God wants to regularly use each of us to do a miracle in the life of someone else). You spoke to particular facets in the book, which are very different from the overall premise, but you know that.
I asked you why evangelism was not mentioned whatsoever in this book. You said that you and your co-author (David Kopp) talked about that at great length, and then decided that there were already many good resources out there on that topic.
Bruce, there are plenty of resources on how God wants to use me for ministry and for good works and so on. According to your logic, there wasn’t really a need for you to have written You Were Born for This.
Clearly, you didn’t really satisfy either answer I posed on Tuesday.
That about covers the extent of it, except for one very interesting remark:
About 10 minutes in to the broadcast, you shared about non-believers being used by God to do miracles in the lives of others. Have to ask you again: Where does the Bible teach this?
That still leaves questions 1, 2 and 3 from last week’s public challenge without ever being answered:
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?
Like you, I have mostly positive feedback, but I’ve had a few people write in with their concerns and disagreements, too. For the record, I have written back to everyone who has written me regarding what I’ve written on this apologetics ministry.
I wonder what it’s like to not have to answer to those who disagree with me. I’m sure it must be very…liberating.
Chris
PS Next Monday and Tuesday, I’ll break each of the my questions down, so that you (and anyone else reading) fully understand the ramifications. Should be very instructional – for both of us.
PPS 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.
