Are The Bible Project, Andy Stanley, Francis Chan, John Piper and Steven Furtick False Teachers?

on this whiteboard is a list of six very well-known bible teachers you have john piper of desiring god you have former mega church pastor francis chan you have current mega church pastor steven furtick of elevation church you have current mega church pastor andy stanley of north point church in atlanta georgia and you also have tim mackey who is the lead narrator of the bible project with over 2 million subscribers and there's a mystery name at the bottom that may shock you because if you take any of these men's names and you go to the youtube search bar and you type in their name followed by the letter f you will undoubtedly see andy stanley false teacher francis chan false teacher steven furtick false teacher tim mackey false teacher and the list goes on because all of these men have been labeled as false teachers what i want to do in this video is i want to evaluate the claims that have been made against these men and whether they are valid enough to really label someone as a false teacher and for the record i have no bias one way or the other towards any of these six individuals and so this is going to be a very unbiased review so let's start with number one john piper john piper has been largely criticized for teaching a false gospel of salvation by works plus faith he has been criticized for the position that he takes on this idea of faith alone not being enough to accomplish someone's salvation but you actually have to add some works in there and if you combine your works with faith alone then you will be justified and you will get to heaven in his article on his website entitled does god really save us by faith alone piper writes this in final salvation at the last judgment faith is confirmed by the sanctifying fruit it has borne and we are saved through that fruit and that faith and so by using the words final salvation it is somewhat confusing as to whether he feels as though the current salvation that we have now is secure enough and it seems to be on the surface that he is teaching this idea that there is a final salvation that we have to achieve and the only way that we achieve that is by bearing some sort of fruit or adding some sort of works to faith alone which is really making it not faith alone but let's keep going later on in this article in a section entitled how are we ultimately saved piper says this these works of faith and this obedience of faith these fruits of the spirit that come by faith are necessary for our final salvation no holiness no heaven let's just stop right there it seems on the surface that piper is basically saying that faith alone will put you in the position in order to have the opportunity to be saved because you will be made right with god but in order to actually be saved and actually get to heaven you have to add to that works of faith works of obedience fruit of the spirit let's keep going so we should not speak of getting to heaven by faith alone in the same way we are justified by faith alone and then later on he says this essential to the christian life and necessary for final salvation is the killing of sin and the pursuit of holiness so on the surface it sounds like piper is basically saying hey if you want to get to heaven you got to kill your sin you have to live a holy life you have to live a perfect life an obedient life and if you do that you will go to heaven but if no holiness then no heaven so is this enough to label john piper as a false teacher okay i'm gonna reserve that until later on in this video next up on the list is former mega church pastor francis chan chan was the lead and founding pastor of cornerstone church in california which at its height had over 6 000 members but since then he has come up with a new idea of what the church should be about and therefore is focusing now on doing church in homes and basically trying to do more of a discipleship model now the controversy surrounding francis chan is that in recent years he has accepted invitations to speak at conferences where he has shared the stage with many bible teachers who many in the evangelical space would label as false teachers people like todd white or people like benny hinn or bill johnson from bethel church and while he is on stage it seems on the surface that he may be endorsing these men and their ministries here's a clip the other thought i had as i'm watching all this gosh there has been some amazing teaching today man that was first time i heard daniel i was like whoa he is bringing it that's the first time i heard todd preach live and i'm going oh my gosh these are bold bold men of god that are not backing down they're just laying it out fearlessly and i'm so grateful for that but it made me think so the question is is francis chan endorsing these men and if so does that qualify him as a false teacher well after this was done francis chan responded with an article on his website and i'm gonna read quite a bit of it but i'm gonna link the entire article in the description below so that you can read the entire thing he says i am asked to speak at approximately 500 events a year i decline approximately 90 of the requests it's a difficult thing to do oftentimes i decline because other speakers will be at the event who believe almost exactly what i believe my reasoning is that it may be a waste of kingdom resources for all of us to be there speaking largely to people who already agree with us it seems more effective to speak where there is less bible teaching it has not been my practice to ask who will share the platform with me and to research the other speakers while some may be dear friends there are many that i know little about this current experience has caused me to consider exercising more caution and to develop a team to help me research that being said i speak in many places where i am not in alignment theologically i actually believe that is where i can be most effective as long as they give me freedom to address anything i believe the lord wants me to address and then later on in the article chan says this i recognize now more than ever that sometimes my participation can give the impression that i align with every other speaker at the event i'm not sure what to do about that other than to tell you that i don't unless the elders of my church direct me differently i will continue to be found preaching in venues with those i disagree i will preach in just about any kind of setting if i'm given freedom to preach from any passage of scripture the elders and i are trying to come up with more safeguards for future events to hopefully prevent misunderstandings pray for us now there may be some other concerns with francis chan but the question is this is this enough to label francis chan as a false teacher keeping in mind that jesus often times was found hanging out with people who christians during this day would consider to be false teachers even one time jesus went over to the home of a pharisee and broke bread with them would we have excommunicated jesus and called him a false teacher if jesus took a selfie with that pharisee so is francis chan a false teacher because he associates or shares the platform with other people who we may consider to be false teachers um i'm going to preserve that to a little bit later on in this video next up on the list is well-known mega church pastor of elevation church stephen furtick now steven furtick has been largely criticized also because of some of the prosperity preachers that he aligns or associates with or looks up to namely bishop td jakes and joel osteen in addition to that ferdic has been largely criticized for some very significant theological errors in one sermon that he preached called ghosted he was criticized for teaching this heretical doctrine of modalism which is the idea that god the father doesn't really exist in three persons he just changes forms and so sometimes he's god the father and then other times he's god the son and then at other times he is god the holy spirit and he exists in these three modes but not these three modes or persons if you will at the same time and here's a clip of what furtick said now jesus is taken from their sight and hidden in a cloud but he did not leave he just changed forms he did not disappear he just was no longer visible instead he was internal now to be fair to steven furtick i think it's a stretch to automatically label him as a false teacher simply because he used the phrase jesus has changed forms right you could make an argument that jesus changed forms from being in the flesh human body to actually ascending to heaven you could make an argument for that so i don't think that this little sound bite this clip enough is really uh sufficient to basically say that steven furtick is a false teacher but there is another clip several years ago where stephen furtick basically made a bold statement and said god broke the law for love here is the clip you're probably familiar with it and what will really turn your heart to god is not when you hear his laws which were given for our good by the way but they were powerless because there wasn't enough leverage in our action to keep the law so what god did when he sent his son and this is why we get excited in church and this is why tears fill our eyes when we think about jesus and this is why the gospel is still good news in the world today because god broke the law for love i said to every sinner god broke the law for love now i'm not exactly sure what verdict is referring to here as it relates to god breaking the law for love but what i believe he's saying is that god gave us the moral law thou shalt not murder but then god put his own son on the cross and murdered him as an expression or a display of his love for us and in doing so god can be found guilty of breaking the law for love now i don't believe i would have ever painted the picture or communicated in any way that god was guilty of breaking the law because that communicates that god has a relationship with the law that he doesn't have god is not under any sort of law like we are and so therefore god can't be guilty of ever breaking the law now there are several other things that stephen furtick has been criticized for like teaching a man-centered gospel and many of his sermons being man-centered but is that enough to label steven furtick as a false teacher i'm gonna reserve my final verdict on steven furtick for a little bit later in this video number four on this list is current mega church pastor andy stanley now andy stanley is the son of the world famous baptist preacher dr charles stanley who by the way if you type his name into the youtube search bar followed by the letter f you'll also see dr charles stanley false teacher now andy stanley has also largely been criticized for some things that he has said regarding the relationship of the believer to the old testament and it seems on the surface that he is suggesting that the entire bible is no longer inspired and that christians should really only see value or have relationship with the new testament and we need to unhitch ourselves from the old testament here's a short clip on what andy stanley said about the old testament the old covenant law of moses was not the go-to source regarding sexual behavior in the church more importantly and perhaps more disturbingly that's a word or offensively the old testament or the law of the prophets as they called it was not going to be the go-to source for any behavior in the church now to make this point because this is so important i originally in my notes i was going to put a screen up here that said in other words that means thou shalt not obey the ten commandments but i knew someone would take a picture of that and it would define me for the rest of my life so i'm not going to put it up there but i want you to hear me say it here's what the jerusalem council was saying to the gentiles you are not accountable to the ten commandments you're not accountable to the jewish law we're done with that god has done something new and then later on he says this thou shalt not obey the ten commandments because those aren't your commandments yours are better and yours are far less complicated but they are far more demanding finally later on in the sermon he says this peter james paul elected to unhitch the christian faith from their jewish scriptures and my friends we must as well now i may get in trouble for this but i agree with stanley in the sense that the requirements of the new covenant are certainly less complicated but more demanding than that of the old testament let me explain in the old testament you can obey the ten commandments and at the end of the day you feel like you are a good saint but in the new testament god doesn't give us a list of do's and don'ts essentially or a whole bunch of laws he says the law is written on your heart and he says i'm going to give you two of them love god and love your neighbor and so that way even though it's less complicated it's much more demanding because it's a whole lot more difficult at the end of the day to check off those two boxes and say i've loved god with all of my heart and i've loved all of my neighbors and so i don't believe that stanley is saying that there is no value at all in the old testament i believe what he's saying is that there is a new covenant and therefore god relates to his people in a new way for instance if somebody in the church is caught in adultery we don't look to the old testament as uh it relates to what we should do or instructions on how to handle that person because if that was the case half the people in the church would have to be stoned right now we don't look to the old testament for our instructions no the church looks to the new testament in terms of how to deal with somebody who may be caught in adultery but i don't believe we can take these sound bites from andy stanley and suggest that he's a false teacher because he is saying that the old testament doesn't have any value i just don't believe that's what he was really actually trying to communicate whenever he said this so is andy stanley a false teacher i'm gonna have to say no i don't believe he's a false teacher for the reasons why people say that he is next up on the list is number five tim mackey the lead narrator at the bible project youtube channel which has over two million subscribers but don't forget we got number six and number six is going to shock you so stick around to the end of the video now over the past few years tim's views on some very significant theological topics have come into question here's a clip of him describing hell if you look at the first sentence of the bible it says in the beginning god made heavens and what does it not say it doesn't say in the beginning god made heaven and earth and hell god didn't make whatever hell is god didn't make it it's nowhere to be found on page one of your bible right what god made is heaven and earth and what does god think about it it's very good it's very good so whatever hell is it comes into the story later and if you're familiar with the story how it works hell or evil or sin the various names that it's called in the bible is something that humans have created by our decision to seize autonomy from god now i personally do not agree with tim mackey on this i don't believe that hell is just some place that we as humans have created i don't believe that hell is uh synonymous with evil or sin in the bible i don't see anywhere in the bible where uh the scriptures are equating sin with hell or evil with hell i also believe that jesus was very clear in matthew 25 41 that hell was a place that was prepared for the devil and his angels not necessarily something that we have created so i don't necessarily agree with tim mackey's position or what seems to be on the surface his position on hell tim mackey has also been largely criticized for not discussing the idea that jesus death on the cross was a propitiation for sin which is the idea that when jesus died he didn't just die to pay a debt but rather he satisfied the wrath of god by offering up his life on the cross as a payment for our sin so once again uh is this enough to label tim mackey as a false teacher um i'm going to preserve that to a little bit later on in this video and finally number six on this list a well-known bible teacher that has been criticized as being a false teacher is you guessed it yours truly alan parr because if you go over to the youtube search bar and you type in alan parr space f you will see people who have made videos about me alan parr claiming that i am a false teacher and most of the videos that they make are surrounding the idea of eternal security or once saved always saved and people will claim that i am literally leading people to hell because i'm too soft on sin and that i believe that people can just live any kind of way they want to they can sin they can be whatever they want to do and they can go to heaven and there's no accountability anybody who's watching my videos for any length of time knows that that is not my position i am really hard on sin i talk about sin all the time and i think what they are doing is they are misunderstanding the doctrine of eternal security i have several videos on my youtube channel where i talk about that but if you are going to label alan parr as a false teacher for being a proponent or a teacher of eternal security then you're going to have to go down the list and you're going to have to label dr tony evans dr charles swindoll dr david jeremiah dr charles stanley paul washer voty bockham todd friel and john mcarthur all as being false teachers because all of us teach the doctrine of eternal security and you'd also have to wipe out about probably 60 to 80 percent of the world's best bible teachers and scholars who hold to this view of eternal security now with all of that being said this is what i want to talk about in this video hopefully you're still with me are all these people false teachers listen i believe that our focus is off instead of trying to come up with a list of so many people who are false teachers and who are not false teachers we should be spending more of our time trying to gird ourselves up to figure out what is true teaching and what is false teaching that way my friend you have the freedom to be able to listen to whoever you want to because whenever you do listen to stephen ferdick whenever you do listen to tim mackey whenever you do listen to alan parr whenever you do listen to andy stanley or john piper you will be able to say okay you know what wow i agree with most of what they're saying and i got value from that but i disagree right here but the the fallacy in labeling somebody a false teacher which is the reason why we have to be very careful is that you may be blocking somebody else's blessing because in your attempt to try to keep them from consuming false teaching you may also be keeping them from consuming a lot of true teaching from that particular individual because every single piece person that i mentioned on this list they have some very very great bible teaching so by labeling somebody a false teacher what you're basically trying to tell people is there is no good there is no value that they can add to this person's life and so therefore you shouldn't listen to them at all i mean you need to throw all of stephen ferdig's sermons out you need to throw all of andy stanley's sermons up you need to unsubscribe from alan parr's channel you need to just grow everything that john piper has ever said because there is absolutely no good that can come from this person and i think that is just a fallacy instead we should be focused on building people up so that they can uh really know what a true dollar bill looks like by studying the true dollar bill instead of trying to study or figure out or discern all these different uh false counterfeit dollar bills so we can say this person's a false teacher that person's a false teacher that person's a false teacher you don't when you have discernment and you know the word of god and you have sound doctrine you don't need a list of false teachers you can be free to listen to whoever you want and while you're listening to them you eat the meat and spit out the fat because there's going to be some good things that these people teach that you're like wow praise god that blessed my life today and then there's going to be some other things where your discerning ears will be at wait a second i'm not sure if i agree with that but you know what i can get value out of this so if you don't get anything else out of this video just be careful of labeling people as false teachers instead focus your time on understanding what true doctrine really is so if you want to point out certain false teachings that people have been guilty of promoting like i do on my channel then by all means go ahead but be very very careful my friend when you take somebody who agrees with all of the major tenets of the christian faith and you label them as a false teacher because you very well may be hindering somebody else from receiving a blessing in your effort to try to block them from receiving something false so i would love to hear your thoughts i know this was controversial i know this was a long video and i know that you more than likely have some thoughts on the five even the six people that i shared in this video so let me know in the comment section and let's talk about it if you found this video helpful in any way please feel free to share with a friend also if you haven't done so already i would love it if you would subscribe check out some of the other videos on this channel thank you so much for watching i'll see you next time on the beat

Channel: THE BEAT by Allen Parr

Views: 1,446,803

Keywords: false teachers, allen parr, false teachings, how to identify a false teacher, how to know a false teacher, false teachers 2021, false teachers exposed justin peters, false teachers in the church, false teachers steven furtick, identify false teachers, who are false teachers today, How to spot a false preacher

Id: BbKc5K_tz2A

Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Fri May 21 2021