"Narcigesis"

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits Podcast. The title of this episode is

Narcissus. Now for some people, this is a new word. You've never heard of Narcissus.

I mean, what's that? Others, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's when a person takes the biblical text, when a narcissist, right, takes the biblical text and they twist it to make it all about them.

The classic example is Stephen Furtick preaching on David and Goliath, and instead of going through the passage and explaining its original meaning and context, that it's actually about David and that there's application that points to Christ, no.

In that scenario, Furtick twists it and he makes him, himself

David, you know, and it's all about him. So, Jesus gets ignored, even David gets ignored, and it turns out to be

Stephen Furtick is the hero of his own sermon, basically, or he says, you're

David and you need to slay the giants in your life, or something like that. Now, the reason

I mention Stephen Furtick is because I'm pretty sure the term was coined because of him.

I know the first time I heard it, Narcissus, it was in reference to him. But of course, Stephen Furtick is by no means the only person who does this.

Just listen to any Joel Osteen sermon. Osteen might quote a verse from the Bible, but 99 % of the time it's out of context, and instead of glorifying

Christ or calling people to repentance or even stirring up the saints unto love and good works, instead,

Osteen and so many others, Joyce Meyer, they will twist the Bible and turn it into a motivational message where either the story's about them, or they talk about themselves, or they make it all about you and your finances, and of course, the implication by the end is that you should donate to their ministry.

So, basically, it's twisting the Scripture to make it all about you. How God is just there to help you fulfill your dreams, etc.

So eventually, you'll see that if you haven't noticed by now, if you listen to this podcast and you get the definition, you understand what this is, you're going to start seeing this everywhere.

Unfortunately, this has become the standard way the Bible is handled in most charismatic evangelical churches.

It's a rock band followed by a self -help motivational speaker, and if Jesus gets mentioned at all,

Jesus is reduced to a footnote. Jesus and God, they're up there just to help you accomplish the goals that you have in life, because really,

Christianity isn't about Christ. It's all about you. Now, as far as this term,

Narcissus, goes, where does it come from? Well, I want to read an article from gutquestions .org

where they give a definition of the term, but basically, it's two different words put together, narcissism and eisegesis.

But first, what does the Bible say in response to this? Psalm 115 verse 1 says,

Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name give glory.

I mean, church is not supposed to be a place where the pastor is glorified. It's not a place where you go and worship the pastor.

It's not a place where it's all about you and you're glorified. No, church is what?

Worship. It's where the Lord is to be lifted up. Now, I will say this, if a pastor preaches a sermon and he makes some application about you,

I mean, yeah, that's part of it. That's needed. We need to take something away from the message and apply it to our own lives.

So even if somebody preached a sermon about David and Goliath and they said something about you overcoming giants,

I mean, I wouldn't be too hard on people, but if that's the main thrust of the message, that's a problem.

I mean, if that's the application at the very end, but you're focusing on the actual context and then making reference to Christ, that's the way it needs to be.

But if you listen to these messages, you know, yeah, Christ isn't even in it half the time and it's versus out of context.

It's all about you. Well, here's the thing. Christianity is all about Christ and Jesus himself said in John five 39, you search the scriptures for in them.

You think you have eternal life and these are they which testify of me. So according to Jesus, the whole old

Testament, really the whole Bible is all about him. Not you, not me, and definitely not

Stephen Furtick. Okay, so here's what got questions says about this term, Narcissus, Narcissus is a word of fairly recent coinage that has not yet found its way into dictionaries.

When people use the word, they are referring to a process of interpreting the Bible in a highly personal and even selfish way.

Narcissus combines two words, narcissism and I said, Jesus, narcissism is an excessive interest in or admiration of oneself.

And I said, Jesus is an interpretation of the text. When someone interprets the

Bible by reading into it, their own ideas, I said, Jesus is the opposite of exegesis, which is critical explanation of the interpretation of a text.

So basically, Narcissus is the explanation of the

Bible in a way that shows excessive interest in oneself and prioritizes one's own ideas.

So just a stop for a moment. We have three words, exegesis, I said,

Jesus and Narcissus exegesis is good. That's when you draw the true meaning out of the biblical text.

So your pastor should be exegeting the text. That's good. I said, Jesus is bad.

That's when you're reading your own thoughts into the Bible, but Narcissus is really bad.

That's twisting the text of scripture to make it all about you. Okay. Back to the article.

I said, Jesus leads the making, or excuse me, I said, Jesus leads to making the text of scripture pretty much say whatever the interpreter wants it to say.

And thus accords well with narcissistic attitudes, a person who mishandles a passage of scripture by injecting his own opinions into it is practicing is a

Jesus going further than that. A person who interprets the passage as if it were all about him is practicing

Narcissus. The same is true for a person who views scripture as primarily applicable to his own time in his own culture.

Some people with egotistical tendencies end up being Narcissus. They view the

Bible as mainly addressing their own life experiences. The Bible is all about them.

Every promise is for them. Every story is about them or their situation. Using Narcissus to interpret the story of David and Goliath in that situation,

I become David. My self -esteem demands it. In the story of David and Bathsheba.

However, I stopped being David. And maybe I become Nathan or Uriah instead.

So, you know, that's real convenient. You're David when he's the hero, but when David is doing bad things, well, you're not

David anymore. In the battle of Jericho, for example, you would be

Joshua. You know, the Narcissus would be Joshua, but never Achan. On the

Sea of Galilee, the Narcissus would be Peter walking on the water and so on. So in Narcissus, one's own ideas, opinions, feelings, and attitudes and experiences and impressions influence the interpretation of the text.

If one has visions or dreams or some other type of personal revelation, so much the better.

Or I would add, if they say they have those, they make it up because that's what they're doing.

Those things can be given equal weight in the interpretation process as well.

Here's the thing you have to understand about the Narcissites. Stephen Furtick, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, all the people who do this,

Beth Moore, they all claim. Well, I don't know if Joel Osteen does, but I know these other people have.

They claim to receive visions and revelations from God. And actually

Joel Osteen does this. He just preached a sermon about how he hears the voice of God. So they all claim extra biblical revelation, and if you listen to their preaching, that becomes the focus, really their own thoughts and ideas.

So this is what GotQuestions .org says about Narcissus.

The article continues, The Lord Jesus, in a dispute with the Jewish leaders of his day, he said,

If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. John 5 .46.

Note of whom Moses wrote. Moses did not write about me. Moses did not write about you.

Moses did not write about the pastor on TV. Moses wrote about Jesus Christ.

Luke 24 .27 and 44 through 45. Given this truth, Narcissus can be seen for what it is, a backhanded way to replace

Jesus with oneself. Of course, proper exegesis, which is the good thing you should be doing, does not allow for the insertion of oneself into the text.

Proper exegesis looks for the plain meaning of the passage and explains what the text is actually about.

When we allow scripture to speak for itself with no narcissistic distortions, we see the

Bible's main character is Christ. He is the hero of the story.

Amen. The Bible is about Christ. So in conclusion, I hope this podcast was helpful.

Now that you know what Narcissus is, once you see it, you can't unsee it.

So be on the lookout. This is the takeaway. Be on the lookout, and if you know somebody who is listening to Osteen or Furtick or Catherine Crick or somebody who engages in Narcissus, you want to help that person.

So explain to them what's going on, take this information, share it with others. You can share this video or explain it yourself, but we want to avoid those ministries and pull people out so that they can get into and sit under a good ministry where they actually learn the

Bible for what it says and for what it means, not a twisting of scripture where you are exalted and Christianity becomes all about you.

So we want to help people to come to a full understanding of God's Word.

Be a good Berean, study the scripture, test all things, hold fast to that which is good, and remember, always test the spirits.

Why? Because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Thanks for listening, and until next time, may the