I agree. I’ve said several times already that he used the wrong scripture to make his point.

One major problem with this statement, if I may so boldly nitpick. I think I can mainly agree with Noble’s notion of worship – that it takes courage, and not everyone will welcome it, but the Simeon passage is not at all related to what Noble deduced from it. It’s not even in the vicinity. So: fine point, teaching + Wrong passage = problem. He should have found a better passage.

The more curious thing is why he didn’t think it through himself. I think he started with a thought, sermon, lesson, etc and went looking for a passage. How did he ever stop with Simeon?

I agree with the spirit of what you are saying about nitpicking. However, ‘testing and trying’ is probably the more appropriate way to discern the teachings of a preacher. ‘Nitpicking’ (at least the way I’m using it) is more about finding every little mistake a man or woman makes in order to discredit their overall ministry.

I didn’t say Noble was paraphrasing. I said he misapplied a scripture passage and ‘verbalized’ the actions of Simeon. Like I said before, my Sunday school teachers must have all been heretics for putting words into the mouths of Noah, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Jonah, Jesus, Paul, and countless others. These teachers did this to help us understand the story and, more importantly, the message. Noble did the same thing. He seems to have gotten it wrong this time. Sorry, but I won’t brand him a heretic for that.

That’s the slippery slope of nitpicking that I alluded to. Notice the sentence that follows my “nitpicking” statement: “There was only one preacher who ever got it right 100% of the time.”

JD, you said:
“If coming to the right conclusions is all that counts, let’s just all start watching Oprah instead.”

The fact that you think Oprah comes to the right conclusions proves you don’t watch her show. We have that in common, at least.

You said:
“…when does this get to be too much? How much Gospel of Noble are you willing to tolerate?”

But that’s my point. This isn’t the Gospel according to Perry Noble. His statements about worship are theologically correct. There is nothing in this message that was wrong, other than the way he told the story of Simeon.

Also, I think “nitpicking” is a necessity in the modern church. Way too many one-man-show pastors going totally unchecked by their congegration. If you can’t see the danger in that, you have no sense of history whatsoever. In a perfect world, I suppose a pastor of Noble’s stature would have some type of accountability in place that would keep him from making these kind of errors, but these guys tend to fire anyone who tries to keep them accountable.

The point of the original post was to show how his lesson was completely wrong because it was built on false assumptions. My comments today were to contest what was seeming to become the consensus of commentators that the lesson he drew from it was the main problem. For me, the whole foundation is suspect, so the content of the lesson that is built upon it is rather secondary.

If coming to the right conclusions is all that counts, let’s just all start watching Oprah instead.

A teacher should show more respect for the Bible than we see here. If his listeners are as eager to let stuff like this slide, which is apparently your desire, where do you draw the line? As I asked earlier in the discussion, when does this get to be too much? How much Gospel of Noble are you willing to tolerate?

Tommy had this right. From someone who’s starting a reformation, you’d expect better.

(As for nitpicking, I don’t go looking for this stuff. This was a video highlighted by a NSer, the highlight of which was the smoking reference. How is it that it’s the smoking that gets more attention than the obvious distortion of scripture? That’s what drew my attention.

One more related question, JT: Why is nitpicking a slippery slope? What’s wrong with it?)

I agree that putting words in Simeon’s mouth was not how Noble should have made his point on this particular Sunday.

But are you saying that anytime we verbalize the actions of a person in the Bible, and it isn’t a direct quote in scripture, it’s a false teaching? Even if the point being made is otherwise supported by scripture?

I guess every flannelgraph lesson I ever heard in Sunday school was taught by a heretic.

The Bible is our authority as we sort out what deserves certainty and what deserves openness. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 defines the gospel of Christ crucified for our sins, Christ buried and Christ risen again on the third day, according to the Scriptures, as “of first importance.” Here is the center of our certainty.

From that “of first importance” theological address, we move out toward the whole range of theological and practical questions asking for our attention. The more clearly our logic connects with that center, the more certain and the less open we should be. The further our thinking extrapolates from that center, the less certain and the more open we should be.

When a question cannot be addressed by a clear appeal to the Bible, our conclusions should be all the more modest.