I Fisk That Andy Stanley Sermon

We have an extra super special treat this morning. Instead of 7 Takes, we’re going destroy all happiness by laboring through an entire 39 minute Andy Stanley sermon. You know the one. That time where he undoes the entire Christian faith by trying to save it from itself. You will probably need two devices for this. One to watch the sermon, found here, and one to read the rest of this Fisk as it is playing. Ready? Gird your loins because this is painful.

1:00 Straight away he’s going to save some by rescuing them from having to read the scriptures, which have offended and appalled the masses. Y’all wanted to be christian, but y’all couldn’t because of the horrifying things in the Bible. Andy is going to come along as the singular savior to liberate you poor person who wants so desperately to believe but can’t because of that horrible and embarrassing text wherein God took the trouble to reveal himself for literally centuries. If only Jesus could have known about this clever maneuver, maybe he wouldn’t have had to keep referring to that old irrelevant part of the Bible that the church was going to chuck over, or “unhitch” itself from, but we weren’t going to know that they did this until, well, Marcion, but now Andy. Funny how that works.

4:21 The foundation of the church isn’t the old testament? Thats an incredible claim given that if you go on reading Acts the apostles literally go around preaching from the Old Testament, using it, as it were, as the foundation for the preaching of the gospel, going to the Jewish synagogue first, always, and then to the gentile. And you might remember that funny little, I guess though, unimportant walk that Jesus takes to Emmaus, on the very day of his resurrection, where he unveils himself in the text of, what was that? Oh yeah, The Old Testament. It’s almost as if the entire Old Testament was the foundation, the bedrock of the very gospel of Jesus.

4:31 Oh look, he’s building, or trying to build, a foolish little wall between the Old Testament and the resurrection, as if the two have nothing whatever to do with one another.

5:30 Andy knows more than the Jewish apostles themselves and cannot understand the orderly way in which the Holy Spirit moved those apostles to preach the gospel first to Jerusalem (as Jesus said) then to Judea, then to Samaria. I mean, I know Jesus did say that this would be the order and that’s How the Spirit moved, but I guess that isn’t important. Really what the text is saying (even though it is literally not saying this) is that the disciples were confused and didn’t understand the implications of the resurrection, that they weren’t trusting and waiting for God to reveal to them his will. All that praying and worshiping together in early Acts was just them being super confused dummies.

7:30 Andy jumbles together the heretical Judaizer with all Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, wildly telling the story of the whole book of Acts with his own spin instead of carefully and properly looking at what is really going on, further castigating early Jerusalem believers as “mix and match” Christians who didn’t have as much special knowledge as Andy who is breezily mishandling the text almost by minute one. Wait, what is the text? Is it the entire book of Acts? Gosh I wish he would pick like a verse and a chapter so we could check him as he goes.

7:59 Ah, we get a verse. Acts 15:1

9:23 I super object to the negative tone here, the word “blending” and the idea that the church wasn’t trustfully resting on the Spirit of God to show them how he was going to be ordering the church. The two covenants are not in opposition to each other. The second is built on the first. Of course this was an incredible change for ordinary people to wrap their minds around, of course. But leave the negativity to Paul when he’s actually dealing with actual heresy.

10:24 Yes, yes it’s a big deal. But it’s not the innocent gentiles against the mean Jewish believers.

11:06 No, no no. They are not “making this up as they go along.” The fact that the NT was not compiled and circulated did not mean that they were “making it up as they went along.” Do not, and I am saying this with gritted teeth, Do Not chuck over or unhitch yourself from the OT, Moses and the Prophets. You will not be able to understand the crucifixion and resurrection without the rest of the scriptures because they are embedded therein. The OT is not a random covenant that came before this new one. Gosh, Jesus himself said (would he be ever so wise as Andy Stanley) “they have Moses and the Prophets, let them listen to them.”

12:39 Oh my gosh I’m so irritated. Don’t leap to apply this to the listener until you have literally exegeted the text. Why is this so hard?

12:50 ONE BIG STRAW HUMANOID

12:55 Bad teaching you received as a child is not a good enough excuse to mishandle the text now.

13:35 AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Some early believers were Pharisees. Did you know? Like Nicodemus, Joseph of Aramathea. And, oh my word, remember how Peter preached in Jerusalem a couple of times and thousands were cut to the heart and believed? I know, it’s like ages away from Acts 15, but what with all that preaching there were literally going to be Pharisees who turned to Jesus. More than one. And they wouldn’t have had to stop with their Pharisaical identity because what with the New Covenant Being Built Right On Top And Indeed Fulfilling The Old The Two Were Not In Contradiction To Each Other In Fact They Might Have Even (oh my word, right) Have Had A Deeper, Richer Understanding Of The Work Of Christ Because They Had A Generations Deep Visceral Knowledge Of Both, unlike us who can only look backwards but can never fully experience the two together.

14:48 Don’t call them the mix and match group. Just stop.

15:20 The Apostles, including Peter, were trusting the Spirit of God to lead them. They were not confused, although they were certainly amazed by all the Spirit did. Honestly.

15:35 It is unhelpful of you, Mr. Stanley, to cast the text in your 21st century Marcion gaze instead of trying to read the text where it is. Ugh.

17:16 That’s true. It’s a seismic shift.

18:26 Way to flatten out something rich and deep. This is already too long but you, Andy, really need to dig deeper into the Old Testament because God’s plan was always to bring the gentiles to himself through Israel, which Jesus came to perfectly embody and fulfill. I’m so mad right now.

ONLY HALF WAY DONE

18:56 New, Better, and, wait for it…Inclusive…and there we have it.

19:08 “apart” from what Moses taught? Um…no

20:02 I’m so angry and frustrated. This sermon is not about Jesus and the gospel. This sermon is about Andy and his pathetic feelings about the text. Seriously, what is the point of being a Christian? Is it not to know God on his own terms? To understand the depths and riches of his mercy and grace as revealed in the scriptures? Why would you demean and undermine the very scriptures that you are trying to use? What makes Acts so special? If you hate Leviticus, why would you even bother with Acts? What was that that Jesus said? “My word shall not pass away?” “Not one jot can be thrown away from the word of God?” Something like that.

20:08 As if it’s the church’s job to cajole people into the church, and not the work of the Spirit to draw people to the Father. Funny how the whole ministry of Andy Stanley is shaped by his efforts to cajole and maneuver people into the church, as if God can’t do it or maybe doesn’t want to. Is Peter really just a stupider version of Andy Stanley?

20:59 AGHHHHHHHHHH. Look sweetie, if you can’t see grace in the Old Testament, YOU ARE READING IT WRONG. You are be-clowning yourself, that’s what you’re doing.

21:35 I miss the old days when believers got to be called Christians rather than Jesus Followers. That’s a whole post on its own.

!!!!22:15 Peter did not say, and I am not sure how to let you in on the grinding of my teeth here, did not say to the Jewish Christians at the council of Jerusalem that they needed to “Set Aside The Scriptures.” That is not what he said. He did not say that. He said that gentiles did not need to be circumcised and that they did not need to keep kosher but that they did need to keep away from meat sacrificed to idols and from sexual immorality.

22:42 This is complete heretical garbage.

22:51 nope

24:11 nope

27:44 nope, nope, nope, nope

27:52 Read a commentary. It’s not hard. Watch some YouTube clips about the three uses of the law. My children literally can explain this without making it into a complete hash. This. Is. Not. Hard. Stop. Mishandling. The. Text.

28:03 nope

28:31 nope

29:00 this is so dumb

29:37 You would know what it even means if you hadn’t just thrown away the entire Old Testament.

29:45 nope

30:06 nope

30:14 nope

30:32 you can’t know what the temple is if you don’t read the OT.

30:48 nope

31:15 nope

31:24 nope. This is so cynical. This is grotesquely self serving and cynical.

31:32 nope