Andy Stanley’s Sermon Claim: The Bible is Not Equally Inspired or Equally Important
As North Point Community Church and pastor Andy Stanley continue to be embroiled in a series of controversies featuring the revelation of widespread LGBTQ-affirming pastors, church leaders, and sentiment within their churches (see endnotes), Stanley claimed in yesterday’s sermon that Christians need to stop treating the rest of the Bible as inspired or as important as the gospels and to stop treating the gospels like the rest of the ‘bible stories.’
Speaking in the context of trying to determine what are the bare minimum things Christians need to believe to be saved, he says Christians can disagree on things like bible translations or the literalness of the Genesis account, but they can’t disagree on fundamental, primary beliefs like and “Jesus is God’s Son and our King” and “Jesus came to illustrate what God is like.”
Stanley argues that the rest of the Bible is insufficient for determining God’s nature and character, and so if we want to know what God is like, it can only be done through examining Jesus in the gospels.
…And the problem is not the Bible. The problem is the way the Bible is traditionally talked about when people talk about the Bible, and how the Bible is taught. And the tendency- and I understand this, because I was raised, like many of you in church, the tendency is to equalize the importance of everything in the Bible, or to equate the importance of everything in the Bible. So if it’s in the Bible, everything is equally inspired and consequently, it is equally important.
But that is not the case.
And that’s what we’re going to discover today. In fact, that’s what we’re going to discover for the rest of this series. The events, and this is so important, especially if you’re raising kids in church. The events recorded by the Gospels, we’re talking about the life of Jesus, as recorded by Matthew, the life of Jesus as recorded by Mark, the life of Jesus as recorded by Luke, the life of Jesus as recorded by John, did you ever wonder why do we four versions of the same story, we only have one version of the parting of the Red Sea, one version of David and Goliath, one version of Noah, but we get to Jesus, why do we have four versions of the same life?
Because the events recorded in the gospels are not Bible stories. But, the events recorded in the gospels are oftentimes reduced to simply Bible stories, which equates Jesus story with all the other stories in the Bible.
He continues:
But Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are not Bible stories about Jesus. The Gospels document Jesus’ explanation of what God is like. And as obvious as that should be, it is not obvious for many of us, and it is not obvious to many in the church. …The problem is the way that pastors use and refer to the Bible, the problem is not the Bible. The problem is the way that the Bible is often positioned and taught.
Because when we equate, when we equate the importance of everything in the Bible, when we say ‘since it’s all inspired, it is all equally important,’ we unintentionally’ and I think it’s always unintentional, we always. we unintentionally negate or minimize the unique purpose of Jesus. Not the purpose of his death, the purpose of his life.
As John would say opening his gospel, that the Logos, the word, God, came and dwelled with us. He camped out with us. He pitched his tent with us. He came to live among us so that we could know. Not Bible stories, we get to know what the Father is like.
But this is some of the mistakes that we make; we equalize, we equate everything. Jesus was like, no, no, and I’ll tell you who didn’t make that mistake….And this is why we should take this seriously. The person who didn’t make this mistake is actually a Pharisee, who was absolutely 100% committed to Torah, who grew up under the Old Covenant, and then abandoned the old covenant for the new covenant that Jesus established. He lived under both covenants. The apostle Paul begs first century Christians: ‘don’t make the mistake of equating everything in our scriptures with what has just happened among us.’
…But anyway, he claimed to be not just a Pharisee, but a well trained, educated Pharisee. And he’s like, “Look, if anybody knows Torah, I know Torah. If anybody has a vision of God, as described in Torah, and through the prophets, it’s me, but I’m telling you, something new has happened. Someone new has come. God has revealed himself as he’s never revealed himself before. If we want to know what God is like, we don’t have to look back that far because he showed up among us. And everything that came before, everything that came before” he’d say, “those were, those were just shadows of the things to come.”
He concludes:
We don’t have an account of (Jesus’) life, we have four. Because the life of Jesus is by far, by far, by far the most important literature in the Bible. It’s all inspired. It’s not all equally important and everybody who lived in the first century who met Jesus understood that.
Not because what came before was innaccurate, it just wasn’t complete. You won’t know, as smart as you are and as insightful as you and as as much life experience as you’ve had, you won’t know what the Father is like until you take the time to discover what Jesus is like. And you’ll get the clearest picture of Jesus by following Jesus through the Gospels.
