He never sugarcoated anything and he certainly never failed to preach the Gospel to the Jews, like Rick Warren did.
There was also no cultural context in his message...but there was a sin context to his preaching...If one was unbelieving in Christ's resurrection and Christ as the Messiah, Paul proved these in Scripture and called for faith and repentance of sin.
If one was an idol-worshipper and/or following the philosophies of this world, Paul proved in Scripture who the true Living God really was, and what the Truth was, and called for faith and repentance.
His message was always one of Christ crucified, Christ resurrected and a call to faith and repentance of sin and he proved it with Scripture...no matter who the audience was.
His method was always preaching/reasoning from Scripture.
Show me a purpose driven pastor that would address, or does address, their Sunday morning unchurched/churched crowd in the manner that Paul addressed unbelievers...Rick Warren doesn't...My PD pastor didn't. None I know do.
Perform a comparitive analysis between Paul's methodology and message from the Book of Acts vs. the purpose driven methodology and message.
In the Book of Acts, Paul:
* Goes outside of the church and in all cases preaches/reasons from Scripture.
* Strongly confronts sin and calls for faith and repentance
* Does not seek to be culturally relevant in music, art, dance, entertainment and so forth
* Is not concerned about offending Jews/Greeks/unbelievers with the precise Gospel message of sin, the cross/Christ's death, repentance and salvation
* Does not seek to make unbelievers feel comfortable
* Does not seek to make the Gospel message relevant/appealing to unbelievers by emphasizing the "benefits" of Christianity
* Does not attempt to win the lost by preaching soft messages about family, sex, money, relationships and so forth
* Does not in any way shape the Gospel to appeal to the felt needs of the unbeliever
* Does not associate with, or cooperate with, false religions or false teachers, nor does he incorporate their religious practices in order to appeal to a wider audience
* Does not take a survey to find out what the unbelieving Jews and Greeks want out of worship, and church, and then establish a church around those desires
* Evangelism does not take place in church, nor is there evangelism worship...When Paul goes to church, he reports on what God is doing and edifies the believers
* Does not preach a purchased message formerly preached by somebody else
Clearly, the PD method and message is different than the method and message in the Book of Acts.
Again, when Paul went into a synagogue, he preached/reasoned from Scripture and called for faith in Christ and repentance of sin...When Rick Warren goes into the synagogue, he teaches them purpose driven principles that will assist them in adding to their numbers and continuing in their false teaching, sin and unbelief.
When Paul addressed unbelieving philosophies/religion, he confronted it as sin and reasoned/preached from Scripture. Whereas, Rick Warren implements unbelieving philosophies/religion and their practices.
There is no comparison between Paul's ministry and a purpose driven ministry.
"These men are advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice." and "They are all defying Ceasar's decrees, saying there is another king, one called Jesus."
And I highly doubt that today's purpose driven preaching would get the above repsonses that Paul's preaching did...it certainly wouldn't get a pastor beaten, stoned, imprisoned and/or executed.
I believe that the Greeks would especially like the current sermon series Desparate Households (a spin-off from the tv show Desperate Housewives). I know they would have preffered the tv show and the associated sermon series over Paul's fundamentalist preaching.
Sex, in sinful/unbelieving crowds, always trumps preaching on Christ crucified, Christ resurrected, sin, and judgement.
Yes, every presentation is different. But every presentation contains all the aspects of the gospel, not just the feel goody ones. Here is a portion of what he said at Mars Hill:
Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
I am curious to know how many times the words repent and judge are found in PDL and seeker service sermons, including synonyms. I don't know about the sermons, but I am willing to stick my neck out and say that it is found in PDL but a very few times. Consider that Paul said it when he was explaing what really seeking God meant. Because seeking God means also that we are willing to turn from our sins with a repentant heart in order to truly believe in Christ Jesus.
And if Paul's sermon on Mars Hill is about 1 page in our bibles, and Warren's PDL has about 5 pages per daily "sermon" x 40, then we should expect to see it, oh, about 20-40 times bare minimum which would only be once per sermon or every other sermon or daily reading. Perhaps if I have the time in the next week or so, I will check up on that, unless someone else wants to.