"For Stanley, the difficulty lay with the Old Testament and his concern that many Christians are turning away from the faith because of certain passages in the Hebrew Bible. Stanley argued that the early church showed that there was a need to move past the Old Testament for the sake of gentile believers and that the resurrection of Jesus was enough. "Jesus' new covenant, His covenant with the nations, His covenant with you, His covenant with us, can stand on its own two nail-scarred resurrection feet. It does not need propping up by the Jewish scriptures," noted Stanley." -- Christian Post
The Jewish Scriptures do not prop up the New Testament. They complement it. They provide structure and context for it. Without the Old Testament there is no sacrificial system of blood sacrifice for sin for example. There is no reason for the cross. You show me someone who actually abandons their faith because of a scripture from the Old Testament and I will show you someone who was probably never saved to begin with. This sounds like he is referring to when his students would come back and say their science teacher explained that the earth cannot be 6000 years old or that the walls of Jericho never really fell. Instead of dealing with these disputes on a faith basis and having the tough conversations, Andy wants to concede the entire Old Testament to the pagan and unbelieving world. He wants to convince people into salvation and he is a gifted enough speaker that he might be able to convince people they are saved but without the actual Gospel and drawing of the Spirit they most assuredly are not. Not to mention that when you convince someone into Christianity based upon compelling carnal wisdom all it takes to convince them out of it is a different compelling carnal wisdom argument.
"The Bible did not create Christianity. The resurrection of Jesus created and launched Christianity. Your whole house of Old Testament cards can come tumbling down. The question is did Jesus rise from the dead? And the eyewitnesses said he did." -- Christian Post
The first point here is a silly strawman argument. Of course the Bible did not create Christianity but it provides us with direct insight into who this God is that we serve and Andy wants to erase the first 4000 years of it! His myopic vision of what matters is disturbingly ignorant. It is not just a matter of did Jesus rise from the dead. The issue is why He had to! Allow me to debunk Stanley using what God has said, within the New Testament:
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. -- 1Corinthians 10: 1-6 (ESV)
Now while these verses are from the New Testament, the references are all from the Old Testament and here God is saying quite clearly that He provided them for us so that we might learn from them and not desire evil. Too bad that didn't stop Andy from teaching this evil.
'Stanley acknowledged that his comments may be considered "a little disturbing" to some, but then added that for many it is "liberating." "It's liberating for men and women who are drawn to the simple message that God loves you so much He sent His Son to pave the way to a relationship with you," Stanley said. "It's liberating for people who need and understand grace, who need and understand forgiveness. And it's liberating for people who find it virtually impossible to embrace the dynamic, the worldview, and the values system depicted in the story of Ancient Israel."' -- Christian Post
Throwing away half the Bible might be a little disturbing to some? Who knew! As for the faux liberation Stanley speaks of realize it will save no one. God did not send His only Son to pave a way for a relationship with you. That is not the Gospel beloved; it is an Oprah-ism. Note the last portion here. Andy Stanley correctly surmises that faith in many ways is a choice between the "value system" of Ancient Israel and the current carnal worldview (I don't know about dynamic). Yet as a pastor and an alleged minister of the Gospel his solution for this obvious conflict is to do away with the value system of Ancient Israel, you know, found in the Old Testament. How pathetic.
'While noting that he believed the church needed to unhitch itself from the Old Testament, Stanley still regarded the Jewish scriptures as having importance, saying they were "a means to an extraordinary end." "The Jewish scriptures are the backstory for the main story," Stanley explained. "They're an important backstory. They're divinely inspired. They are God on the move through ancient, ancient times." "It's the fabulous story of God the Founder playing by the rules of the kingdoms of this world, to establish a kingdom not of this world. To send a king who would be like no other king. A king who lay down His life for His subjects. A king who would introduce the entire world to God the Father."' -- Christian Post
