Dave Ramsey Says God Wrote You A Love Letter?!

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Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where the Bible and critical thinking meet to give you Christian commentary about the things that matter.

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In today's video, we're going to analyze an admittedly short clip from Dave Ramsey's recent sermon at Elevation Church.

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Now let me be clear, this will not be an example of rank heresy or the most grievous false teaching you've ever seen, but I think it's still important to cover nonetheless because it strikes at the heart of the seeker -sensitive church worldview.

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So with all of that said, watch this clip. So here's the thing. You can decide.

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I'm gonna budget. I'm gonna get out of debt. I'm gonna change.

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I'm gonna start handling my life the way God instructs in his love letter to me, and he's crazy about me, and he's got a plan for me, and it's not to bring me harm, but to bring me hope.

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I'm gonna get better. Just to be clear, the grand majority of the things Dave Ramsey says about budgeting, staying out of debt, building a good retirement fund, all of that is great stuff.

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His financial advice most of the time is top -notch, and the world would be a better place if more people followed it.

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But that's not the topic of this video. Today, we need to talk about when Dave said, I'm going to start handling my life the way

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God instructs in his love letter to me, and he's crazy about me, and he's got a plan for me.

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There's a lot in there. First off, I don't like the God is crazy about you, Jesus wants to be your high school boyfriend type of stuff.

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I think that Christians would do very well to stay away from phrases like that. God's love for his people and his covenant with them goes far beyond being crazy about you.

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I think that's not the way we ought to describe it. Instead, we ought to use biblically -informed language to describe biblical concepts.

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Romans 5 -8 says it well, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners,

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Christ died for us. This is a much better way of putting it. God loves you in that while you were totally depraved, in an evil and sinful state, rebelling against him, he sacrificed himself for you.

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This is much more accurate and much more reverent than flippantly saying God's crazy about you.

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But in any case, today's video is going to focus on the phrase Dave says before that, when he says,

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I'm going to start handling my life the way God instructs in his love letter to me.

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End quote. Here Dave refers to the Bible, God's word, as his love letter to you.

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This is a very common phrase used in many seeker -sensitive churches, usually in an effort to get people interested in scripture.

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But should we be describing the Bible to someone as God's personal love letter to them?

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Let me make the case for you today that there are at least three biblical reasons why this is a very bad idea.

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Reason one, calling the Bible a personal love letter to someone implies that they are the individual recipient of the document, that it's exclusively meant for them.

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In other words, when we say this, it puts forth the idea that God's word is individually meant for you specifically in virtually every way.

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This sounds sweet and sentimental, but I think it falls far short of what the Bible actually says.

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You see, the truth is that the Bible was written to many people in many places over thousands of years for many different reasons.

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Just look at the immediate context of the books of the law in the Old Testament. Books like Leviticus or Deuteronomy, for example, were, among other things, written to compile the moral, ceremonial, and civil laws of Israel into one written work.

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As Moses says in Deuteronomy 4 .8, and what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?

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End quote. You see, the law of Israel was originally written practically to the people of Israel, and from it we can see the unchanging moral character of God and the moral statutes that surpass those of any other society.

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But the Israelites did not call it a love letter to them personally. Rather, they called it

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God's law, written that they might follow it and be set apart for his glory. So can a

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Christian say with any level of accuracy whatsoever that the book of Deuteronomy, for instance, was a love letter to them personally?

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Of course not. That would be silly and inaccurate. It wouldn't make any sense. But does this mean that Deuteronomy was not written to provide any benefit to modern

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Christians, then? By no means is that the case. 2 Timothy 3 .16 says that, quote,

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All Scripture, this includes Deuteronomy, is breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God, that is, any

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Christian, may be competent, equipped for every good work. End quote. So you see, the book of Deuteronomy and all other books of Holy Scripture are profitable for Christians today in some way.

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But the fact still remains, that book is fundamentally not a love letter to us. And to call it a love letter to us is more confusing than it is beneficial.

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Now the second reason we should not call the Bible God's love letter to us is that a love letter, 99 % of the time, will be strictly positive in nature.

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There are many sections of God's Word, then, which do not fit with this perspective. They're completely incompatible with the literary genre of a love letter.

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Here's one example. Exodus 21 verse 12 says this, quote, Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death.

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End quote. Now here's a question. How many love letters have you heard of that talk about the death penalty?

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That's not a very romantic idea, is it? Here's another example. Matthew 27 .5 says, quote,

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So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

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End quote. So here's another question. How many love letters have you read on any Valentine's Day that talk about someone hanging themself?

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That's a really good way to spoil the moment. And here's yet another example from Jesus himself, by the way.

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Matthew 4 .17 says, quote, From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, quote,

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So let's do one more follow -up question, shall we?

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How many love letters do you know of that command repentance from the person you're writing to? Again, this statement doesn't seem to fit the bill.

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So here's the point. When you say that the Bible boils down to simply being a love letter and you operate out of that frame of mind, when you see it from that point of view, it is most likely going to lead you to ignore certain passages of Scripture, especially those that do not appear relevant to accomplishing that end.

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In other words, you might read about sin or hell or blood sacrifices, and you may very well conclude that this is just a particularly weird and irrelevant part of God's love letter to you.

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Maybe he didn't know what he was doing when he wrote that part. And because it does not apply to you personally or make sense to you as a love letter, you may be tempted to just ignore it and miss out on a valuable principle and not respect all of Scripture.

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This is part of why we see hard concepts in God's Word being actively ignored by churches like Elevation Church, because they don't seem to fit with this way of viewing

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Scripture as a love letter. So the second issue with this is that God's Word does not collectively fit neatly into the category of a love letter.

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And that's okay, because it's not supposed to. The third and final problem then with calling the Bible God's personal love letter to you is that it goes against the biblical message.

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If you believe that it is a personal love letter to you, then when you read it, you're going to focus almost exclusively on how it applies to yourself.

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In other words, this is a man -centered way of viewing the Scriptures. That is the fundamental issue.

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Hebrews 1 .1 says this, Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

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But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. The writer of Hebrews does not say,

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Long ago, God wrote his love letter to me personally in many times and in many ways. No, he says that God spoke to our fathers, the

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Hebrew people from whom the original audience of this particular book came.

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The Word of God was written to many people, and not all of it applies directly and neatly to you.

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But that's okay, because it's not all about you. Rather, it is about the perfect Word of God accomplishing the purposes of God.

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Romans 8 .29 says this, For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his

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Son, in order that he, Jesus, might be the firstborn among many brothers.

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So you see, as Christians, we are parts of a grand community, heirs of the Lord, with all of our brothers and sisters, past, present, and future.

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The Scriptures are not an individual love letter, because God's Word is collectively edifying.

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In other words, we need to stop making it all about ourselves individually and start being grateful that God ever saw fit to include us in his predestined plan at all.

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The Bible is not fundamentally about yourself, but about God's glory being displayed. Thankfully, through saving his people,

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God sees fit to demonstrate his glory all the more, just as he does through his Word. Isaiah 40 .8

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says, When we see the

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Bible as the perfect and unchanging Word of God for all of his people, and not merely as a little love letter to us, this is when we understand it most fully.

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It's not about us, but primarily about God's grace and his glory. So let us be thankful, then, that he saw fit to include us in his glory, though he did not have to.

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You see, this framework leads to gratitude and humble worship of God and appreciation, rather than an inward focus and a determination above all else to find yourself in every passage of Scripture.

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So please, stop calling the Bible God's love letter to you and start referring to it the way

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God's Word refers to itself. And please know this, I do not offer any of this correction from some high -and -mighty position.

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I am nothing but a wretched sinner saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. So let's pray that Dave Ramsey would dispense with this kind of perspective and turn instead to the truth of God's Word.

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