Posted on 12/14/2006 7:29:27 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.
What if you were able to have a closed-door meeting with the world’s leading authority on the single-most important question humanity has ever faced? Would you walk away from him? That’s exactly what Pilate did.
Jesus told Pilate, “For this reason, I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth” (John 18:37). Mockingly, Pilate retorts, “What is truth?” and then turns his back on Jesus to hand him over to the mob.
Clearly, for Jesus, Truth—with a capital T—matters. And unlike Pilate, we had better pay attention. This is exactly the premise underlying Focus on the Family’s new Truth Project DVD curriculum, which features such notable experts as Ravi Zacharias, Os Guinness, and R. C. Sproul. I am thrilled that our friends at Focus on the Family are joining their voices in this all-important quest to understand the truth and to apply it to all of life. The Truth Project is a twelve-part in-depth worldview training series covering subjects of philosophy, ethics, anthropology, theology, science, history, and sociology.
The Truth Project is concerned, like we are here at BreakPoint, with what it means to have a biblical worldview, both intellectually and as applied to our life. A worldview is a framework through which we view life and live life. It’s like a set of spectacles through which we see our world. In the Bible, God gives us the lens from which to view all of life. As Abraham Kuyper once said, “There is not one square inch of creation over which Christ does not cry out, Mine!”
Yet still, competing worldviews of relativism, secular humanism, naturalism, materialism, and many others bombard us daily. We often don’t realize how these messages infect our own thinking. The Truth Project excels in prodding believers to really evaluate their personal worldviews, not what they say they believe, but what they live. Del Tacket, the central voice in the DVD series, poses the question this way: “Do you really believe that what you believe is really real?”
Believers can be, as the apostle Paul says in Colossians 2:8, “taken captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” When our lives are held captive by these false ideas, or worldviews, our witness may become, at best, confusing, at worst, a mockery of the truth we claim to believe.
This underscores something that we at BreakPoint believe is so important: Transformation of our communities and of our culture cannot happen unless we ourselves are first transformed by the truth of the Gospel, a transformation that begins when we first come to Jesus, but continues for the rest of our lives.
Visit our website, www.BreakPoint.org, for more information on the Truth Project, as well as our own worldview curriculum called Wide Angle, which Chuck talked about Monday.
Pilate’s rejection of the Truth is a sober warning for all of us. How do our own worldviews fair when faced with the harsh realities of life? We would all do well to examine what our actions say about what we say we believe.
There are links to further information at the source document.
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I would highly recommend the Truth Project to everyone.
Old post but bringing it up again because I wondered if anyone has been through this and what did you think? We just saw the first session tonight and though I’m usually leery of big hyped fancy projects like this, (e.g. 40 days of purpose and all that and since Rick Warren is even someone that’s quoted in it) the first lesson seemed quite good. So was I missing something? Or is there anything I should watch out for?
Saw the first lesson tonight -- just wondering if there was *anything* that would give you pause or that you would disagree with in this? It sure seemed pretty good in this first lesson.
Probably nothing seriously wrong if anything. Remember, Warren isn’t wrong on EVERYTHING. No, that would be far too obvious.
Even though you and i both have serious reservations about Warren, i’d be willing to bet that we have far more agreement than disagreement with him.
It’s the areas of disagreement that are the problem. They’re serious enough to separate from fellowship with his movement.
Funny though, Warren coupled with R.C. Sproul and Oz Guinness. They’re about as diametrically opposed as can be. The first lesson can’t be about anthropology.
Colson ain’t wrong on everything either - but he and Warren are wrong on so much that I can’t recommend anything they put their hand to. I haven’t seen the lesson ya’ll are talking about - it may be good and solid. Guiness and Sproul are basically solid. I fall back on 1 Thess 5:21 - Test ALL things, hold to that which is good (true).
I have serious doubts about Focus on the family too...
particularly because of a few stories I’ve read. They don’t allow their staff to witness to mormons, and fired a guy who counterprotested Fred Phelps’ FOF protest (because FOF has ex-gays on staff)
read here (also mentions Del Tackett)
http://www.focusonthefallacy.org/pages/1/index.htm
That brings back bad memories of being put on trial at my church. But thankfully, it didn’t cause either me or my husband to lose a job!
i never had any doubts about Focus on the Family, or anything that James Dobson controlled.
You take a PhD in Psychology, couple that with a (mostly bad) Sunday school education in Theology, and then try to integrate the two.
To which side do you such an integration is going to be skewed?
What you end up with is a skinny, shorter Dr. Phil with more hair, without the Texas accent, and without Oprah Winfrey's hippo Harpo Productions...what the hell does anybody see in that cow?... to make him famous.
Dobson is nothing but a political whore (the likes of which Jerry Fallwell's enemies wish that Jerry had been), spouting Ten-years-out-of-date Pop psychobabble bovine scatology, posing as Christian councilling. While that kind of stuff might work for Mr. and Mrs. Mayonaise Q. Whitebread and their family, it is useless for people who actually have some difficulties in their lives.
Evangelicals are so bloody gullible.
I wasn’t speaking particularly of Dobson — but Del Tackett wh is spearheading the Truth Project. Dobson readily admits he himself isn’t a theologian.
But you're right, 'doubts' was putting it lightly.
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