Final Letter to Bruce Wilkinson Re: “You Were Born for This” – part 5 of 6
(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,
Hi again. Hope you and yours had a fine Thanksgiving. I trust that you understand that I sincerely mean that.
On Wednesday, I wrote about your concepts of “Everyday Miracle Territories” and other such make-believe attitudes, and your probable reasoning for writing as you did.
(Premise: You Were Born for This teaches that we can be used by God to “deliver miracles” in the lives of others.)
Today, we address the fourth of five questions (that, to date, have received no answer from either you, your co-author, or your publisher):
4) For support, rather than supporting your claims with biblical support, you use your previous text, The Prayer of Jabez, for support. Why not back it up with Bible verses? Which bible passages back your extraordinary claims?
Probable Reason: Because you and your co-author, David Kopp, know that no such support exists in the Bible.
During last Tuesday’s LiveStream event, I wrote the following question:
“Bruce, I was wondering if you could share with the other believers here what particular passages from the Bible you use to support the ideas in your book.”
You replied that they were passages upon passages, as though there was a mountain of biblical support for your claims. You then proceeded to share how we find biblical support for forgiveness in these books here, and biblical support for giving to others financially in those books there, and so on. That would have been good enough, except…
…that you ducked the question completely.
As you know, I was asking about the overall premise of your book, asking for biblical support for your incredible claim. Since you gave support for the details of your book, but could not give any biblical support to your overall premise, you did, in a fashion, answer the question. As they say: “Silence speaks volumes.”
Problem #1: There’s no biblical support!
Problem #2: It’s not biblical for you to use The Prayer of Jabez for support – unless you’re a secular humanist. (Then you can do whatever you like, since the ends always justify the means.)
Like the Bereans of old, we are called to “search the Scriptures” and learn for ourselves what is true, not “search the bookshelves of my local Christian bookstore” and rely on the “wisdom of modern-day sages.”
Problem #3: It’s vain.
I could write more about this, but you know as well as anybody how damaging it is to your own credibility when you have to use yourself as source material.
This would never hold water in any seminary or bible college worth its salt. Kind of pedestrian for such an accomplished Bible teacher, don’t you think?
Looking forward to Monday’s final installment of this final letter…more than you know…
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.
