hey guys colin here and welcome back to
the channel where the bible and critical
thinking meet to give you real christian
commentary about the things that matter
thanks so much for watching let's get
into the video so andy stanley the son
of charles stanley and the pastor of
baptist megachurch north point church he
recently had a horrible take on the
authority of scripture and i don't use
the word horrible lightly because the
errors in his recent sermon about
scripture are not just inaccurate they
are seriously concerning doctrinally
speaking this is a major reason why i do
not recommend the teaching of andy
stanley at all if you want to see 10
pastors who i do recommend listening to
go ahead and check out my video in the
description in any case in this video we
are going to analyze the comments that
andy made with regards to scripture
because they are seriously damaging to
the traditional christian understanding
of the bible watch this video but the
christian faith does not rise and fall
based on the accuracy or the inerrancy
of 66 ancient documents that we call
books
of the bible
it rises and falls on the identity of a
single
individual
jesus
of nazareth
so andy expressly says that the
christian faith does not rise or fall on
the accuracy or inerrancy of the 66
books that we call the bible that is
literally what he says but it gets even
worse he goes on saying it actually
rises and falls instead on the identity
of jesus and this all sounds very
profound and wise it always does but
there's just one problem with andy's
theory here folks and you may have
already guessed what it is literally
everything we know about the identity of
jesus christ comes from those 66 ancient
books that we call the bible to separate
your view of jesus from the scriptures
even in theory as if that's possible for
a modern christian is absolutely asinine
this is an astronomical amount of
foolishness here he is virtually
shrugging off the doctrines of accuracy
and inerrancy of the scriptures but
these doctrines are much more important
than he believes because they underpin
virtually every other christian doctrine
that we have in scripture so again the
first problem with his statement here is
that it is flat out self-contradictory
it makes no sense he says you don't need
the scriptures to be inerrant or perfect
or without mistakes to be a christian
all you actually need is the identity of
christ but the identity of christ is
only thoroughly described by the pages
of inerrant scripture it's a bit like
saying you don't need bacon lettuce or
tomato all you need is a blt sandwich
the statement defeats itself because it
fails to recognize that the ingredients
being described are essential to the end
product you can't just separate them
willy-nilly by the way the point i was
just making is an analogy i'm not
literally comparing jesus to a sandwich
so please don't get worked up it was
simply meant to illustrate the logical
flow of the argument in a different way
similarly believing that the account of
jesus given to us in scripture is
accurate is a necessary precondition for
coming to accurate conclusions about
jesus of course we do have some limited
historical documents outside of the
bible that talk about jesus we have one
from josephus for instance a jewish
historian we have a mention of jesus
written by tacitus a roman historian we
even have a mention of early christian
singing songs about jesus being god
written by roman governor pliny the
younger but without believing in the
biblical account being true we have
virtually no specific information
whatsoever about who jesus was or what
he did physically let alone the
significance of what he did spiritually
so when andy stanley flippantly says
that the christian faith does not rely
on the accuracy or inerrancy of the
scriptures he is quite simply wrong
there's another reason though that this
statement from andy is
self-contradictory and that is that he
is presenting a false dichotomy you see
there is no binary choice given in
scripture that you can either believe in
the identity of jesus over here or you
can believe in the accuracy and
inerrancy of the scriptures over there
in fact jesus himself the person whose
identity andy is referring to tells his
followers to believe in the authority
and in the inerrancy of the scriptures
in matthew 22 29 jesus says quote you
are wrong because you know neither the
scriptures nor the power of god end
quote this is not the only time though
that jesus said something of this nature
this isn't just a one-off you will find
that jesus often sarcastically asks his
opponents quote have you not read in
matthew 19 4 for instance jesus says to
the sadducees quote have you not read
that he who created them from the
beginning made them male and female end
quote over the course of jesus's
ministry you will find that he
constantly roots his arguments in the
authority and by extension the inerrancy
of the scriptures so why is it necessary
for andy to say that jesus identity is
what demonstrates the truth of
christianity at the expense of instead
of the doctrines of inerrancy and the
accuracy of the scriptures i'm not
entirely sure what his agenda is here
ultimately all i know is that his
statements are unbiblical and
particularly unhelpful and that's enough
to avoid them entirely now with that
said there is one final reason that
these statements on the part of andy
stanley are totally unbiblical again
andy says that quote the christian faith
does not rise or fall on the accuracy or
inerrancy of the 66 documents that we
call the books of the bible end quote
the reason that this is a dangerous and
unbiblical statement is that it damages
the essential doctrines that are
accuracy and inerrancy if the bible is
not accurate then our faith is based in
lies if the bible is not necessarily
inerrant then it is possible that every
single description we have of what andy
calls the identity of christ is an error
these are not doctrines that we can
simply disregard and cast out in favor
of the identity of christ rather these
doctrines provide the foundation of how
we can biblically affirm what is and is
not christ's identity in the first place
i mean think about it why would christ
the incarnate word of god need to be
accepted in lieu of the inspired word of
god the fact is there is a very grievous
categorical error being made by andy
stanley here and it is an error that
puts some of the most precious christian
doctrine we have on the chopping block
after all jesus himself says in matthew
4 4
it is written man shall not live by
bread alone but by every word that comes
from the mouth of god end quote not only
does jesus demonstrate the necessity of
the word of god for the people of god
but he actually roots his entire
argument for this in that very word as
he says it is written so in conclusion
andy stanley says that the christian
faith does not rise or fall based on the
accuracy or inerrancy of the word of god
but the teaching of jesus christ himself
clearly says otherwise after all as
romans 3 4 says quote let god be true
and every man a liar end quote the
inerrancy and accuracy of god's
scriptures are defended staunchly by
jesus and are an essential doctrine to
protect in the church unfortunately the
teaching of andy stanley has
progressively become more and more
concerning for years now and that is why
i would not recommend it so let us pray
that he would recant these dangerously
false statements and turn to the truth
of god's word
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