The Purpose Driven Life: Amazon.ca: Rick Warren: Books

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From Publishers Weekly

Pastor of Saddleback Church, a Southern Baptist mega-church in southern California with weekly attendance of more than 15,000, Warren now applies his highly successful "purpose-driven" framework, developed in the best-seller The Purpose-Driven Church, to individual experience. The same principles Warren has taught to thousands of pastors to help churches be healthy and effective can also drive lives, he says. The book argues that discerning and living five God-ordained purposes-worship, community, discipleship, ministry and evangelism-is key to effective living. His 40 short chapters are intended to be read over 40 days' time, giving readers small pieces of his purpose-discovering program to chew on. Warren certainly knows his Bible. Of 800-plus footnotes, only 18 don't refer to Christian Scripture. He deliberately works with 15 different Bible translations, leaning heavily on contemporary translations and paraphrases, as an interesting way of plumbing biblical text. The almost exclusively biblical frame of reference stakes out the audience niche for this manual for Christian living. It's practical yet paradoxically abstract, lacking the kind of real-life examples and stories that life-application books usually provide in abundance. The book has flaws editing might have fixed. People are quoted without being identified, and subheads simply repeat lines of text, which tends to make the prose sound too simple. This book is not for all, but for those needing a certain kind of scriptural rock, it is solid.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Book Description

Rick Warren helps readers to discover, develop, and fulfill God's purpose for their lives.

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Customer Reviews

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1.0 out of 5 stars Prooftexting and misplaced emphasis, Feb 21 2003

By

Jim Gieseke (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Purpose Driven Life (Hardcover)

The back cover of this book states that is a "groundbreaking manifesto on the meaning of life." The introduction states that "this is more than a book; it is a guide to a 40-day spiritual journey that will enable you to discover the answer to life's most important question ...." This book did not live up to such promise.

A major problem with this book is in prooftexting,selecting verses to support a given proposition. The author goes beyond prooftexting, however, by relying upon excerpts from unusual paraphrases to make his points. The back of the book contains an extensive list of scripture references, but once you start looking them up in any reliable translation will be sorely disappointed.

Another major problem is a "soft", almost "gospel-lite" emphasis. Infrequent mention is made of the holiness of God, sin, our human flesh nature, the cross, absolute truth, commands of God, His sovereignty, and other concepts which are emphasized in the Bible but which might interfere with a good self image. There is an emphasis on family, on relationships, and even a section on how to be a global Christian. This is a warm, fuzzy, feel-good message, emphasizing what God can do for you.

An entire chapter tells you why you should attend a church without once mentioning Hebrews 10:25. Another chapter discusses unity in the church as a primary goal,but there is no mention of standing for doctrinal purity or truth.

There are parts of the book which appear to contradict each other (e.g., pp. 161, 146). In other places, doctrines which
vanished from the paraphrased scripture support pop up later in the book where they are given lesser emphasis (e.g., "its all for God's glory" gets short shrift on p. 310).

The book is visually appealing, and endorsed by the right parachurch leaders, but exemplifies what is wrong with contemporary evangelicalism. The book could be used as an example of how not to use the the scriptures to support a presupposition. I could not recommend this book to any serious student of the Word.

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2.0 out of 5 stars MacTheology for a culture weaned on superficiality, Jan 19 2004

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"grotshops" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Purpose Driven Life (Hardcover)

Churches have been buying this book by the crate to hand out to their parishioners as evangelicals scramble to clamber aboard the latest bandwagon to roar through the aisles of the local church. This book isn't the worst book I've read, but it misses the top 1000 by a long shot. One of its most serious failings is the failure to adequately articulate the essence of the Christian faith - Christ's atoning sacrifice for mankind's sin. Instead, Christianity is packaged as a way to discern your "purpose". It sounds like the book was vetted in focus groups rather than built from a serious consideration of Scripture. This perception is strengthened by the book's cavalier use of Scripture, employing a dizzying array of translations and paraphrases in order to find verses that use the various buzzwords used by the author in a given chapter. Often, the Bible versions used bear only the vaguest resemblance to the actual meaning of the Scripture being paraphrased. This work is therefore a prime example of rampant proof-texting, and the author, as a graduate of a reputable seminary, should know better.

That having been said, some of the content is okay (which is why I can't give the book a 1-star rating), although it's all been said better in other, less vigorously marketed books. It's just disappointing to see the kind of massive effort that has been put forward to get people to read this when there are thousands of better books, including, of course, the Bible. If the effort that was put forth to get churches to spend 40 days reading this stuff (and watching Warren's companion video, which is often howlingly -- and unintentionally -- funny) had been spent on getting people to study and discuss the Bible, it would have been a more worthwhile project.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A Message To People Who Care, Sep 30 2003

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M. Coin (the USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Purpose Driven Life (Hardcover)

"The Purpose-Driven Life" by Rick Warren is a religious based explanation of life -- "what's it all about" -- from the perspective of belief and revelation. It's an inspirational book for people who care about teaching America's young generation the difference between right and wrong. And, I'm all for that, especially when it is made into a simple explanation, as Rick Warren makes it. I am a religious person who believes in God, faith, and revelation. But, God also gave me a fair and balanced mind with the ability to recognize the merits of reason and knowledge. I have learned, as St. Thomas Aquinas did, to reconcile reason and revelation as both driving toward the same goalpost and, together, give God's complete explanation of what life is all about and the difference between right and wrong. And, in all fairness, I feel that I should disclose here that the book which helped me to reconcile reason and revelation and simply to understand life is Norman Thomas Remick's "West Point: Character Leadership...". After you finish reading Rick Warren's "The Purpose-Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For?", I recommend that you go on to read the Remick book. The books are a contrast in style and presentation, but both have very wonderful and inspirational information.

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