The value of heresy hunting

Perry Noble seconded Rick Warren’s “argument” against heresy hunters yesterday.

RT @RickWarren: Heresy-hunting lets u to ignore the mess in your own life. God is more concerned about your hypocrisy than other’s heresy.

Let’s examine that.

1. Where is the hypocrisy? Warren assumes that anyone who finds heresy is a hypocrite. Pointing out heresy is about identifying unbiblical teachings. In most cases, those heresy hunters can only make their argument by pointing to Scripture. What’s wrong with that? What’s hypocritical?
2. Are messes disqualifying? Warren’s standard is that you have to have a perfect life to start worrying about what pastors are teaching. It was my impression that pastors only talked to imperfect people, so I suppose Warren’s formulation gives every pastor a free pass on everything they teach.
3. Is God really not worried? Warren asserts that God thinks hypocrisy is worse than false teaching. James 3 tells us that God holds teachers to a higher standard. Paul and Peter contain far more numerous and serious warnings against false teachers than they do against hypocrites.
4. Aren’t we all hypocrites? Anyone who affirms a moral code, which includes all Christians, cannot keep that code in all instances. Does that mean we should all keep quiet about it? If that’s the rule, who’s going to be preaching in our churches this Sunday?
5. Who does most damage? A hypocrite affects only those people who know him or her intimately enough to see the discrepancy between words and deeds. A heretic affects the spiritual health of everyone who hears him.
6. When are we allowed to heresy hunt? The problem with heresy is that it doesn’t look like heresy. That was Peter’s point in 2 Peter 2. Heretics hide and never announce themselves. If we’re not allowed to actively look for them, how will we ever find them?

I know that Warren and his followers use the term heresy hunter as a pejorative, but it’s an activity that should be embraced by all believers. After a few months of “heresy hunting” on this blog, I’ve discovered a few things about the activity.

1. I heresy hunt my own pastor. Every time my pastor or someone else steps to the pulpit and opens the Bible, my heresy detectors are on. Is what I’m hearing consistent with Scripture? Are the verses from the reading being expounded consistent to their wider context? etc. With my pastor, the answers to those kinds of questions have consistently been in the affirmative. That’s why he’s still my pastor.
2. Heresy hunting is commended in Scripture. The Bereans heresy hunted against Paul. Paul! Here’s someone who really was preaching the directly inspired word of God, yet they wouldn’t believe it until they’d checked it against Scripture. I’m sure many of the Bereans had messes in their lives, yet they’re described as being more noble than other believers.
3. Heresy hunting isn’t just about the heretic. Think about the process of discovering heresy. To do so, you take a teaching and compare it to Scripture, usually multiple Scriptures. This is the basis of the nobility of the Bereans. Not only did they listen to Paul’s teaching, but they added to it and deepened it with their own study. The net effect is that they got a second helping of God’s word.

   NewSpring pastor, Shane Duffey, doesn’t see the connection:

   i’d love to compare the time “discerners” spend in the Word vs. on the web searching for people & reasons to hate… i’d bet the web wins

   I’ll bet, and testify from my own experience, that the Bible wins going away.

   I discovered this for myself in my posts a while back on Simeon. Perry Noble’s characterization of him as a crazy old man prompted me to examine the Scripture to see exactly who Simeon was and what role he played in the story of redemption. The discovery that he had to have been a priest was new to me, but an exciting insight into the unity of God’s redemptive plan and the perspecuity of Scripture. Regardless of what anyone thought about the original teaching or teacher, I was blessed and grew spiritually by engaging in the process of careful Bible study.

A biblical teacher will seek to develop a congregation full of heresy hunters.

A heretic will not.

What is Furtick’s view of inspiration?

I can’t imagine that he thinks very much of it, based on earlier tweets suggesting God should apologize for Leviticus. Now he’s suggesting that the prophets were depressed and emotionally unstable.

Finishing Ezekiel-wondering how the OT might have been different if the prophets had access to Lexapro

Yeah, yeah, the emoticon at the end says he’s just joking, but why? How do you, if you are a Christian pastor, mock the intentions and intelligence of the Holy Spirit? There’s nothing funny here.

Does he think the prophets were too over the top? Was God just exaggerating his warnings when he used the prophets? If they took Lexapro, would Furtick have less to read because Ezekiel just wouldn’t be there? Is that it?

Furtick is supposed to be leading his church in a rapid Bible read through. It would be helpful if he could stop denigrating the Bible as he does so.

Would it be possible, though?

Who’s the dull one?

In the last few days, we’ve been wondering why leaders like Warren, Noble and Furtick have such a dim view of Bible study. In the case of Furtick, at least, I think I’ve found an answer.

He doesn’t like the Bible.

For a bit of background, Furtick has been leading some in his church in 90-day Bible read through. From his and others’ tweets, they seem to be somewhere around Deuteronomy at the moment. Furtick’s tweeted observations from his own reading are both revealing and horrifying. Let’s start with the worst:

Holly just told me the entertaining Bible stories are God’s way of apologizing for Leviticus.

Getting past the idiocy of judging the Bible based on its entertainment value, he thinks that God should apologize for parts of the Bible?

A pastor’s primary responsibility is to faithfully preach God’s Word. If Pastor Furtick thinks he knows best which bits should be in the Bible and which bits shouldn’t, he should go work for Rob Bell. He should not be working for God.

Even some bits that he deems worthy of including in the Bible seem to bore him. Note this:

Is it bad that I’m glad that Moses is dead? Is it b/c I have a man crush on Joshua?

Yes, Pastor Steven, it is bad. It’s even worse that you have to ask in public.

We have noted on this blog how the Bible seems to be a very low priority in Furtick’s sermon planning. This may explain why. Furtick’s personal interests guide how he reads and values the Bible, not God’s.

It’s not that Furtick finds everything boring or a waste of time. Some things really get his juices flowing.

Just had a financial strategic consulting mtg loaded w/ terms like absorption rate & OCF growth. Excruciating? Not at all. LOVE that stuff.

His arrogant attitude towards God’s Word is also apparently rubbing off on his church staff. This came from his Creative Pastor:

Deuteronomy…more like repeateronomy. Forgive me God.

It’s appalling, but at least he had the sense to apologize to God, not demand an apology from him like his boss did.

I look forward to seeing how Furtick apologists defend this, but one defense that can’t be used is that we shouldn’t read so much into dumb tweets. Furtick thinks quite highly of his own Twitter content, and imagines that the world is waiting for his 140-character wisdom.

I never imagined how much inspiration I’d be able to spread to people through a simple daily encouraging thought.  I try to get these out almost every morning.  When people retweet, it multiplies this impact exponentially.  That’s very rewarding and humbling to me.  Right after I wake up, I get to begin my day by planting a seed of hope into the life of thousands-both at Elevation, and around the world.

What makes this worse is that Furtick is aware that he’s leading spiritual infants with his tweets. As Downing pointed out yesterday, if we are to believe Furtick’s numbers, most of his church are new believers who don’t know how to study or read the Bible.

Why would you want to read Leviticus if your pastor thinks it’s a mistake? Why would you want to study Moses and the law if Joshua’s the main stud? Why bother with Deuteronomy if it’s unnecessarily repetitive? Why worship God when your pastor thinks he’s embarrassed?

How can a minister of God’s Word not only think that the Bible is boring and useless, but communicate that idea to his flock?

If you think that what God said is dull, between you and God, the dullard is not God.

UPDATE: The Leviticus quote has been updated to indicate that he was repeating his wife’s comment. See the discussion for why I think he is fully accountable for the comment himself though.

When to stop eating?

Steven Furtick says that we can study the Bible so much that it can be harmful. For example, he warns people not to go to churches where they learn about things like the doctrines of grace and “stuff your face until you’re so obese spiritually that you can’t even move.”

Eating God’s Word is an interesting metaphor, given that Jeremiah also used it in Jeremiah 15:16, but in a very different way.

When your words came, I ate them;
they were my joy and my heart’s delight,
for I bear your name,
O LORD God Almighty.

Perry Noble has also told us that we need to go on a spiritual diet:

Christians DO NOT need another Bible study.

David told us when we were supposed to eat in Psalm 1:2.

His delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

Two questions for Furtick and Noble:

1. How much eating is too much?
2. When, besides night or day, are we to stop eating?