Andy Stanley’s HORRIBLE Take On The Authority Of Scripture!

Andy Stanley’s Claim That Christianity Rises and Falls on Jesus, Not Scripture

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 Christians 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.

Jesus’ Teaching on the Authority of Scripture

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' 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.

Why Denying the Bible’s Accuracy Undermines Christian Doctrine

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, quote, 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.

God’s Word, God’s Truth, and the Call to Recant

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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