Andy Stanley APOLOGIZES for THIS??

Andy Stanley’s Apology to Non-Christians

For two minutes. To those of you who are not Christians or not Jesus followers or maybe you used to be and you got away or maybe you're part of a different religion or a different faith system and I really want to apologize.

Right, so right off the bat. This is horrendous but it's in line with the trend nowadays among progressive evangelical pastors especially those who deny the Bible as the word of God to practice apologizing, not apologetics, but apologizing saying sorry to unbelievers as the most effective evangelistic method.

If one of us Christians has attempted to impose one of our Christian rules on you, I'm sorry.

No, if you have personally wronged someone, yes, go apologize but we don't evangelize unbelievers. We don't seek to win the loss by apologizing to them on behalf of the church. What Andy Stanley is doing here isn't humble.

This isn't humility. In fact, it's quite arrogant of Andy Stanley to pretend to speak on behalf of Christians everywhere as he seems to do here but he is apologizing. Let's see what he is apologizing for.

You know, anyone who said what the Bible says or Jesus said or God, you know, and they just try to impose one of their Christian rules on you, I just want you to know. I am so sorry.

How you choose... Apologizing on behalf of Christians for attempting to impose Christian rules on unbelievers. I wonder what kind of rules Andy Stanley has in mind. Should he apologize to unbelievers on behalf of the government for assuming the Christian worldview when they tell citizens of this nation that they can't murder each other, that it's illegal to do so.

That's a Christian rule. That's the sixth commandment. Is he going to apologize for that? Or maybe the Christian rule he's referring to is the divine command to repent and believe the gospel. Is he going to apologize for Jesus as well?

So he's not getting specific about which rules. He just says Christian rules. So we don't really know what he means. I guess we could conclude that generally just starting a sentence with Jesus says or the Bible says are inappropriate phrases for a Christian to say when engaging unbelievers and something for which we should apologize.

In the Bible, and I hate to admit this in front of a lot of Christians, but a lot of us have never seen or read this verse either.

I also have no doubt, Mr. Stanley, that there are a bunch of professing Christians in your church who have never read their Bibles.

1 Thessalonians, Christian Conduct, and the Misuse of Scripture

Here's what he said to them. And if we have been doing this all along, chances are you would not have been offended by one of us. So this is completely honest.

Yet God forbid that a lost unbelieving sinner be offended by the truth that we speak to them as if that is the worst possible thing that could happen. This is what he said. You're going to love this.

He said, make it your ambition. That is, you need to focus. This is a big deal front and center every single day. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and you should mind your own business. You're like, that's not in the Bible.

And he goes on to say, you should mind your own business and work with your own hands and take care of your own family. Just, you know, just do your thing.

I think Andy Stanley knows that he's twisting scripture here. I think he knows what he's doing. This text in 1 Thessalonians is dealing with certain members of the Christian community who had become idle.

For one reason or another. And they're actually a drain on resources, which were perhaps plenty because of the abundant generosity of that Christian community. And their reasoning may have been the imminent return of the Lord that resulted in their idleness.

But in their idleness, they're not working. They became busybodies. They became meddlers. And so Paul says that the cure for this is to work with your hands. Go do some work. It is not good to be idle.

In no way is this text teaching that saying things like Jesus says or the Bible says are inappropriate phrases with which Christians engage the unbelieving world.

The Moral Law and the Work of the Law Written on the Heart

Why? That your daily life may win the respect of outsiders. Where did we get the idea? Stay with me. Where did we get the idea that somehow we are to impose our rules, our family rules on people who don't even want to be in our family?

We got it all wrong.

We got it backwards. The rules are for family. No, the rules are not just for family. The moral law, for example, is universally binding upon all men in every age, in every place. Paul teaches in Romans 2, 12 -15 that even those who do not have the law, who do not have access to a Bible, who do not have a Christian culture around them, who do not have access for even someone to say to them, Jesus says or the Bible says, they are a law unto themselves.

They have the work of the law written in their hearts. And so they are without excuse. In other words, the rules apply to them.

So, Christians, let's mind our own business. And for those of you who've been offended by us because we didn't, I'm sorry, we got it wrong. But one last thing. While the rules don't apply to you, God's love definitely applies to you.

In fact, he loves you as if you were already in the family and related to him.

God’s Love, Wrath, and the Urgency of the Gospel

Nope. God loves his church in Christ because they are reconciled through the blood of Jesus. But even those for whom Jesus died have real wrath abiding upon them until the atonement that Jesus accomplished is applied to them in time by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

So the question for Andy Stanley at this point is, what if they remain unbelievers? You said that God already loves them with familial, which is covenantal love, the very same love that he has for his son, he has for those who are united to his son by faith.

But you're saying even those who don't have faith already share and experience or have this love shown towards them. So what if they continue in unbelief? Is God going to send those whom he loves this way to hell?

Well, certainly he wouldn't. God doesn't send his own children to hell and the scripture makes that distinction between those who are children of God and those who are not. Though at this point, I'm not even sure if Andy Stanley believes in hell anymore.

I would truly be unsurprised if Andy Stanley has abandoned the biblical doctrine of hell.

So his invitation to relationship is a standing invitation. An invitation accepted not through promises to do better. An invitation that's simply accepted by acknowledging what he has already done for you.

So I think this gets at the problem fundamentally. Nowhere in scripture is the work of Jesus presented as a standing invitation that's just sort of neutrally slapped on the table and put out there for anyone who happens to be walking by and is so inclined to make the most of it.

The gospel is a divine announcement of what has been accomplished in the person and work of Christ for sinners and so is necessarily obligating all men to repent and believe the gospel. Nowhere is it presented as optional and how much must Andy Stanley hate you to pretend that it is, to pretend that it isn't urgent, to pretend that people can come to Christ on their own terms and to teach people, to teach Christians, Christians who are professing, Christians who go to his church, Christians who watch him online, even those who are deceived and those who are genuine sheep who are being fed this kind of filth.

How much must he hate you to tell them, to tell you that you just should shut your mouth, that you should just mind your own business while the world around you is going to hell? Andy Stanley hates you.