"Dream Theology" - Rick Warren's Sermon At Desiring God (Part 14)

The following commentary corresponds to the following video from 45:46 to 54:13



This section includes the standard fare of man centered moralisms, absence of God's Sovereignty, self promotion, self serving use of bad Bible translations, and your stock standard Rick Warren Scripture twisting. Most of these things have been covered ad infinitum in this series but I thought Daniel Neades had some helpful insights into Rick Warren's "dream theology". How ironic that Warren would choose to close out this nightmare of a message with his self-invented dream theology.

This aricle courtesy of Daniel Neades from the Apprising Ministries website.

Much of modern evangelicalism seems to be fixated upon the idea that we can only progress as individual Christians and the church if we are pursing a dream or vision. This tendency is epitomized in these two claims by Rick Warren:

Nothing happens till somebody starts dreaming. What we need today are great dreamers.

Now, where exactly does the Bible teach any of this? Ah, I see we are helpfully given two Scriptures. Let’s look at those.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. (Proverbs 29:8)

Actually, that’s Proverbs 29:18, not 29:8. But, no matter. It’s easy to make a harmless mistake like that. But there’s another, more serious, problem. Proverbs 29:18 does not teach that ‘what we need today are great dreamers’. Here’s a more accurate translation, with the second half of the verse included:

Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.’ (Proverbs 29:18, NKJV)

That’s better. It is now plain that this verse talks neither about our dreams and hopes for the future, nor of some leader’s ‘vision’ for a better tomorrow. No. Rather, it refers to prophetic revelation from God. And specifically, as is made clear by the second half of the verse, it is referring to the revelation of God’s Law (torah), which of course we have in the Scriptures by the prophets. Here’s a tiny snippet about this verse from a reputable commentary:

[Janzen] adds: “The conviction in Prov. 29:18a semantically and syntactically parallels that in Prov. 11:14a, ‘Where there is no guidance (tahbūlôt), a people falls.’ There can be no doubt that tahbūlôt refers to the guiding power of wisdom received from God (cp. Prov. 1:1–7), and as such is generically synonymous with tôrâ (“teaching”). Anyone capable of holding the conviction expressed in xi 14a is capable of holding that ‘where there is no vision the people fall into anarchy.’ ” In sum, hāzôn [‘revelation’] refers here to the sage’s inspired revelation of wisdom. (Waltke, B. K. (2005). The Book of Proverbs. Chapters 15-31. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament p. 446).

What Proverbs 29:18 says about this revealed Law is that, without it, people will ‘run wild’ (as HALOT succinctly puts it). In other words, this verse teaches us that God’s Law acts as a curb on the base instincts and desires of our sinful nature. This understanding is exactly in keeping with orthodox Christian doctrine, and is what Lutherans call the ‘first use of the Law’:

…the Law was given to men for three reasons:

First, that thereby outward discipline might be maintained against wild, disobedient men [and that wild and intractable men might be restrained, as though by certain bars]; secondly, that men thereby may be led to the knowledge of their sins;
thirdly, that after they are regenerate and [much of] the flesh notwithstanding cleaves to them, they might on this account have a fixed rule according to which they are to regulate and direct their whole life… (Epitome of the Formula of Concord, Article VI

Proverbs 29:18 thus has nothing to do with letting ‘God stretch your imagination’, or our need for ‘great dreamers’, but rather with one beneficial use of the revelation given by God through His prophets.

Thanks for that Daniel. Tim Challies says that Rick Warren is an abuser of Scripture and here is one classic example out of a very long and growing list.

More to come . . .

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